NEA to Challenge 'No Child Left Behind'

As you know, I am a conservative teacher....yes, I am a mutant...
This "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law is very complicated to talk about...
You have the hard core Lefties that hyperventilate and just scream that Bush is an idiot on EVERYTHING so this is crap too....
There are those who just say its awesome because they are like most conservatives and have no clue what happens in school besides the fact they went to school at some point...
Then there are those like me (and I hope Jay) that understand it is not that simple.

The NCLB first off is good. It forces school districts to come up with plans to help kids achieve. There is NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that more kids are reading at a higher level than they were before the law. In the past, when a school district thought maybe the excellence of the school was going down...they would just shrug their shoulders and ask for more money, get the money, spend the money, and not know if it helped...
Now they are forced to for committees, come up with plans, have more tutors, more programs, more help....and the success is well documented with testing...

Now to the issue of money. In general, I think teacher complain too much about money, especially in the suburbs. You could take half the money these districts get per student and still do fine...and the problem of money has nothing to do with NCLB...it has to do with all the special ed kids in the inner city...

Due to poor pre and post natal care, more and more kids have a harder and harder time learning....and then they are labeled special ed....my school was 25% special ed last year...and another 50% were damn close....what would you call it when many of your students were in 9th grade (for the first, second, third or fourth time) and read at a 3rd or 4th grade level?
These kids cost WAY more to teach....they are mandated many, many more "rights"...more people teaching them, more money for those people...social workers, ect...

There is your problem folks....along with the fact that there is probably a bit too much testing...but not too much...not as bad as the lazy NEA members think....many of them have been teaching a lot time, and never were accountable for what they did...now they are and they don't like it...

The NCLB makes teachers and schools work harder....it does poorly in the special ed area...because many of the kids in special ed count toward the final numbers. So in MPS, where almost every school is 20% special ed or more, and the rest of the kids are close....their numbers look like crap, so the teachers look like crap (even though they work just as hard or harder than the suburban teachers)... Also, if you look at the way the law is set up, eventually 100% of kids have to be proficient in all subjects...and that is a flat out joke...it will never happen, EVER, no matter what you do...
And that is all I have to say about that....