February 17, 2005
VOUCHERS FOR EVERYONE:
U.S. May Force California to Call More School Districts Failures (Duke Helfand, February 17, 2005, LA Times)
The Bush administration is pressing California to toughen its rules for identifying failing school districts — a change that could add 310 school systems to a watch list this year and eventually threaten the jobs of superintendents and school board members throughout the state.The U.S. Department of Education warned that it could cut off money to the state if California did not change the way it classified struggling districts under the No Child Left Behind Act. [...]
Only 14 of California's 1,000 school districts were placed on the state's watch list this year.
But hundreds of districts could be considered failures within two years if California yielded to Washington's demands, according to state education officials.
The expanded list would feature some of California's highest-performing school districts, including Santa Monica-Malibu Unified and Cupertino Union near San Jose. Even though these districts are well regarded, they could still find themselves publicly labeled as troubled if certain groups of their students — those in special education, for example — were not making enough progress.
At the extreme, these school systems and the others could be abolished or restructured, or their superintendents and school board members could be replaced by state-appointed trustees.
They miss the point: the beauty of the law is they're all failing. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 17, 2005 7:18 AM
As usual, Bush finishes he marathon before everyone else knows there's a race.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at February 17, 2005 9:57 AMThe law defines failure and forces publication of performance. That alone is worth any other down side in the law.
Posted by: Luciferous at February 17, 2005 1:25 PMOrrin comes around to my side. It's a fraud.
Always has been a fraud.
If Bush were honest and said what Orrin says, he'd be run out of every village and town in the country on a rail.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 17, 2005 8:18 PMHarry;
Comes around? I explained it to you three years ago: it's a universal voucher program.
Posted by: oj at February 18, 2005 12:27 AMWhy does California need 1000 school districts? Aren't there 26 letters in the English alphabet in Cupertino and Redding, in Coronado and Eureka? Doesn't 2+2=4 in both San Francisco and Fresno?
Fold it all up into one district, with one set of contracts, with one purchasing authority and watch the costs plummet. They might even be able to reduce class size, build new schools, produce better textbooks, expand afterschool activities, and even(gasp!)reduce school taxes.
Posted by: Bart at February 18, 2005 11:20 AMbart, i would prefer to see districts done away with altogether, they just add a huge administrative load to the process.
Posted by: cjm at February 18, 2005 6:15 PM