Chicago’s public education system is in shambles. It’s handler” Arne Duncan. Now this d ingleberry is given far more reaching power?

I’d make this stuff up if it wasn’t so frighteningly true..

The $4 billion ‘Race to the Top’ and its pushers, Arne Duncan, Obama and the Fed is teasing the public education sector with this nonsense. It’ll prove to be as ‘successful’ as the ‘stimulus’.

With this, the emphasis has, continue to be teaching TESTS, not educating to obtain the mullah. Nothing more. Children being used as guinea pigs.

‘Fiscal Federalism’ at its greatest.

Ruben, if you really believe Obama will go after the very unions he props/ protects – as Rob Halford sings, ‘You’ve got another thing coming’.

As I see it, parents who receive government assistance to help raise their child in the form of food stamps, section 8 housing, medicaid, etc. should be considered on the public payroll as well.
I have taught in a high poverty school for 8+ years, and teachers are not the only ones who need to be held accountable. I believe parents should be scrutinized as much, if not more than educators. Do teachers need to be held accountable for student learning? Absolutely! Are we the deciding factor in student success? Far from it!
The lack of accountability expected of parents on the public payroll is the true problem of education. Are there exceptions to this? Yes. There are parents who receive government assistance whose children are high achievers and hard workers. These parents promote the importance of doing well in school, however it seems like these parents are in the minority.
I have students as young as kindergarten who believe that school is like a daycare and behave in a way that prevents TRUE EFFECTIVE learning for all students. Children can tell what is important to the adults in their life and parents with that kind of belief system are ROBBING not just their child but everyone else’s child of a decent education.
My son attends the school where I teach because I believe in and trust the professionals that I work with. We all understand what our task is and work tirelessly to help our students achieve success. My son’s teacher is dealing with a student with behavior and academic issues. This one student requires a huge chunk of her time just to keep him seated! If this child’s parents (or more than likely, parent) put in half of the effort the teacher does to teach this child the importance and necessity of education (as well as the proper way to behave in school), it would sure be beneficial to all involved, from the stressed out teacher and teacher’s aide to the frustrated students who realize exactly what is going on.

If welfare and public assistance payouts were tied to school success, you can be sure of one of two things happening.
1. The number of welfare recipients would drop because parents could not meet the higher standards being set before them and their benefits would be cut off
OR
2. Student achievement would skyrocket and schools would be rid of a majority of the situations that cause them to be mediocre because parents would actually have an interest and a stake in their child’s education. This second option would possibly also decrease the number of welfare recipients because children would be helping to break the cycle of poverty so many of them are hindered by.
Please do not get me wrong. There are bad teachers that have no real interest in education. Should they be responsible for the education of tomorrow’s leaders? No way! But you get that sort of person in every field of work. And yes, as I said before, teachers should be held accountable for student success or failure, BUT WE ARE NOT THE DECIDING FACTOR FOR STUDENT SUCCESS OR FAILURE AND WE SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY ONES HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR IT.

And now a note on unions. I don’t know of one teacher in my school who places union interests before the needs of their students and I take offense to that picture being painted of my colleagues. For what it is worth, I am no longer a member of the NEA for a number of reasons, the biggest being my union dues being used to support a presidential candidate I did not agree with on most political, social, moral and fiscal issues.

Thanks for the added info. According to the link, many parts of “Race to the Top” are being watered down so as to be more palatable to the teachers’ unions.

Of course, Arne Duncan disagrees that it’s being watered down, but he doesn’t counter those criticisms with anything specific.

And we still don’t know who those “peers” are who will be reviewing the applications for funds (apparently from an executive-branch slush fund created by the stimulus) or whether those peers will follow the plan’s stated criteria.

Call me suspicious, but this just does not look like a “bold reform” to me. It looks like more of the same: An initiative tailored to suit an interest group, and unelected, unaccountable and unnamed executive appointees making decisions based on politics rather than policy.

They are big government schools and big union schools. There is nothing local about most anymore. The states have allow the federal government to bribe and lull them — one size fits all and ultimately none.

I’d like to think vouchers would help, but that, again, they would be used as a tool, letting the barn door wide open — good private schools would be ruined. The only solution is for families to educate their own. Remove all influence of the state and government in your child’s education. There are tons of resources and opportunities to work with other home schoolers.

Vouchers will only make an unrecoverable mess of good private schools.