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He claims
to want "no child left behind." But President Bush is touting
a school "reform" plan that would leave more children than
ever in schools that don't provide the high-quality education that all
children deserve.
Bush's plan is based on a number of bad ideas. Conspicuous among them
are his embrace of school vouchers and his insistence that schools should
be forced to give even more standardized tests.
Rethinking Schools offers:
- Houston's "Zero Dropout" Miracle
By Michael Winerip. Texas schools are under pressure to calculate their dropout numbers Enron-style. New York Times education columnist Michael Winerip takes a closer look.
- NCLB: Don't Mourn, Organize
By Monty Neill. No Child Left Behind is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of many. However, there are ways to make lemonade from NCLB lemons.
- Three articles by Rethinking Schools editor Stan Karp: one
which looks at the fallacies of the new Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, one which dissects
Bush's "No Child Left Behind" plan point-by point, and one which shines
a light on the dubious team of education advisors Bush has collected.
- E.S.E.A. Watch (Vol 17 Issue 3)
By Stan
Karp Equity. Claims for NCLB don't pass the test.
- E.S.E.A. Watch (Vol 17 Issue 2)
By Bob
Peterson. Testing reigns in Britain - but resistance is growing.
- E.S.E.A. Watch (Vol. 17 Issue 1)
By
Bob Peterson. The federal education law is leaving English-language
learners behind.
- A critique of Bush's plan by Barbara
Miner, managing editor of Rethinking Schools, which was
published recently in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- A collection
of articles and resources on the pitfalls of school vouchers.
- Excerpts from "Failing
Our Kids," a Rethinking Schools book that explains how an
over-reliance on standardized testing dumbs down our schools and shortchanges
students, particularly students of color and those from low-income
families.
- "Learning
to Read Scientifically," by Gerald Coles. Bush has called
for "scientifically based" reading instruction, but what
does he really mean by that? A close-up look at the commander in chief's
"fuzzy science" when it comes to teaching kids to read.
(Originally published in the Summer 2001 issue of the journal.)
- "Bush's
Bad Idea for Bilingual Education," by Stephen Krashen. The
president wants a three-year limit for non-English speakers to attain
"English fluency." Here's why that's a big mistake. (Originally
published in the Summer 2001 issue of the journal.)
- "Vouchers,
Accountability, and Money -- A Rethinking Schools Editorial."
Voucher backers are ignoring key lessons from Milwaukee's voucher
experience, including higher tax burdens and less accountability for
academic achievement. (Originally published in the Summer 2001 issue
of the journal.)
 You
can also download the Bush plan in
PDF format and read it for yourself. The file is 1.8 megabytes.
If you need the Acrobat Reader, click
here.
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