Occupy Education, NCLB and Community Colleges
The Occupy Education
movement is calling for a national day of action today, aimed at
“turning back the tide of austerity” through coordinated
large-scale public action.
“We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and
universities, while the banks and corporations make record
profits,” according to a statement on the organization’s Web
site. “We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive
tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing
privatization and corporatization.“
San Francisco students and educators are planning to mark the
occasion
with walkouts and teach-ins at the area’s public colleges and
universities.The walkout will be followed Friday by a rally at
the state’s Capitol in Sacramento.
“The 99% have already paid a high price as a result of the global
financial crisis. Now we are demanding that those who caused the
crisis through their greed and recklessness pay,” Terence Yancey,
a student at SF State and active occupier, wrote to SF
Weekly.
**
Twenty-six states are seeking waivers to escape the most
onerous elements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Any
relief would be a temporary measure until Congress acts on
reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which
has been up for renewal since 2007. So far 11 states have already
received waivers from the U.S. Department of Education. Lawmakers
this week
are wrangling over the scope and reach of federal authority
in public schools.
In her “Answer Sheet” column, the Washington Post’s
Valerie Strauss argues that “Obama’s NCLB are waivers aren’t
what he says they are.” Instead of freeing states from the yoke
of unreasonable expectations — such as having 100 percent of
students proficient in reading math by the 2013-14 academic year
— the waivers will make things worse, Strauss says.
States are only eligible for waivers if they implement the
administration’s preferred school reforms, Strauss says, adding
that “the Education Department’s reforms have done nothing to
limit damaging high-stakes standardized testing, but instead
exacerbated the problem by encouraging states to evaluate
teachers in part by student test scores, a scheme assessment
experts say is invalid.”
**
More than one in four community college students who might have
been able to handle entry level coursework were instead placed in
remedial classes that cost them money but earned them no credit
toward a degree, according to two new studies by the Community College Research Center
at Columbia University.
As Inside Higher Ed reports, students were placed in the
remedial classes on the basis of their college entrance exams,
but the study found that using their high school grade-point
averages would have been just as accurate.
“Information on a student’s high school transcript could
complement or substitute for that student’s placement test
scores,” according to the report. “This would lead to a faster
and more successful progression through college.”
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