History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Obama ed "blueprint" will widen achievement gaps
- 04-08-2010
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Gues blog by Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill/Washington Post
At a time when the gaps between educational haves and have-nots are as stark as at any time in our nation’s history, President Obama's and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s blueprint for intervening in our most troubled schools promises to widen these gaps. The Blueprint fueled hopes for real change by eliminating NCLB’s disastrous adequate yearly progress mechanism. It’s too bad AYP wasn’t killed while the law was being written, when it was first noticed that it would paint nearly all schools as failures. (See FairTest’s 2004 NCLB report on why.) But scrapping it now is better than never. Duncan aims to correct AYP’s absurdly broad-brush approach by focusing on the 5%-10% of schools doing worst on state tests. This has both common sense and political appeal. (more...)
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