My State is better than your state! (Or Province or District.)
The No Child Left Behind Law, for better or worse, is a Federal program to make states to a better job in education. It is a fairly specific plan. But many states came up with their own plans which are different, yet in some cases, still considered effective. A state can apply for a waiver of the NCLB regulations if they have come up with an alternative that is as good or better.
The Federal government is reported to be prepared to grant waivers to ten states and they are, alphabetically: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. New Mexico also applied for a waiver but will not receive one, but may manage to do so with a few changes that are currently in negotiation. A majority of other states, DC, and Puerto Rico plan to seek waivers as well.
Republicans seem ready to fight this granting of waivers to states, which is interesting (but unsurprising) because Republicans are all about States Rights. I assume that the Republican resistance to this has to do with their dislike of anything Obama does, and I attribute this to a combination of Partisan politics and racism.
It will be interesting to see how the Republican governors of Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee, react to their compatriot’s lack of support for their state’s waivers.
For the NEA’s take on this, click here.
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As a Tennessean, I donâ??t believe we should be excused from the national standards of No Child Left Behind. It is simply embarrassing that our new maverick Governor has gained this exemption because our state has failed to raise the bar on education to be one of the 80% of state which lived up the national bar. Bill Haslam is passing a slew of laws in our state to infringe on Civil Liberties and First Amendment Rights with the Donâ??t Say Gay bill affecting schools and making it Illegal to post offensive images to the internet. As an artist, I was compelled to react to Billâ??s railroading of the Constitution and ignorance of standards set forth by our Government. You can see my portrait of our Governor which shows another side of his politics at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/07/potentially-offensive-portrait-governor.html
How do we know that an alternative is “as good or better”? This stinks of typical political newspeak – and yet it is probably inevitable. On the other hand the “No Child’s Behind Left” is just so ghastly it takes some imagination to make things worse.