Changes in Education

READ ME! ---> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_education

Finally some changes to the No Child Left Behind Act!

A few things that I am excited to see...

*I LOVE the fact that the new plan is proposing to move away from punishing schools that don't meet "benchmarks" and is instead focusing on rewarding for overall progress, especially with minority students. I think the best of intentions were there when they put the original plan into action, but unfortunately, schools that weren't meeting the benchmarks often couldn't afford the penalties posed by the NCLB act and many of them had to close....which caused even more problems :(

*The idea of allowing schools to use subjects other than reading and math to access their students ability to meet federal standards. This will hopefully put more value on subjects like history (YAY!), science, art, etc. In my opinion, with the current system, students are not prepared for college when their sole focus for 12 years has been on reading and math. Don't get me wrong, those subjects are extremely important, but these subjects are limiting students to certain careers. What about the science majors? Art majors? How are students getting a well-rounded education when they aren't exposed to these things in the classroom?

*Say "adios" to the name "No Child Left Behind!" I think this is a great idea! It may be just a minor detail in comparison to other changes, but the name has such a stigma attached to it and I think most educators would like to just completely erase it from meomory ;)

Something that I am still a little skeptical about and would like to research more...

*Aggressivly punishing the 5% lowest performing schools...define "aggressivly" please! And while your at it...define "lowest performing"... Are we talking lowest test scores? Lowest attendance rates? I have seen some high academically performing schools recieve low ratings just because they didn't meet the required attendance rate. I would like some clarification on this one :)

Overall, I am excited to see what these changes will bring! NCLB has been a problem for a while now and a part of me is giving a sigh of relief over the possibility that I won't have to deal with it in all of it's crazy-ness when I graduate ;)

Note: President Obama plans to send the rewrite to Congress next week.