Carnival of Education is up
School Me! Adventures in Education:
Jukebox Carnival
Summer school’s in session and School Me’s got songs to soothe the savage beast.
July 12, 2006
The SAT and NCLB
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, a state may theoretically select any test it chooses as long as that test measures the specific learning standards set forth by that state. However, Maine now has 20 days to rebut the claims that Maine’s assessment system, particularly its use of the SAT for eleventh graders, does not measure student achievement of the Maine Learning Results.
You mean the SAT doesn’t measure student achievement? It’s amazing what control you get for paying for ten percent of the budget.
The benefits of zero tolerance
In addition to expulsions, lawmakers must also address the excessive number of removals to Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs), which now have over 100,000 students. Remarkably, these programs must provide only two hours of daily instruction, compared to the standard seven hour school day. Because school districts receive full state funding for these students, there is no excuse for providing them with only a half day or less of instruction.
Wow! Why should school districts blame homeschoolers for funding loses when they can just move kids into the DAEPs where they only have to provide minimum instruction and not have them counted as part of their campus rating system? Maybe that’s why school lobbyists were against the changes?
legislators in 2005 passed House Bill 603 clarifying that, before expelling a student, schools may consider “self-defense; intent or lack of intent at the time the student engaged in the conduct; a student’s disciplinary history; a disability that substantially impairs the student’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the student’s conduct.” However, at the behest of school lobbyists, the legislation was watered down from its original wording, which would have required these factors to be considered.
Geeze, they only said schools had to “consider” the circumstances–they could have gone ahead and ignored them once they were considered. But I guess that would make it look like they want to implement draconian zero-tolerance measures against a boy scout forgetting and bringing his pocket knife to school.
