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SPELLINGS ROLE Margaret Spellings is now the Secretary of Education. She helped create the crappy No Child Left Behind bill and is going to continue to defend it. It will be a tough next few years for her in her new role. She is coming into her new job with many people and groups who have problems with the NCLB legislation. Spellings is going to have to listen to all the complaints and make many changes in order for the bill to survive imo. We can both agree that annual testing of students is very important. I just don’t want the annual tests to be the only thing that says a school is crappy or not. “Highly Qualified Teacher” status rules I think should be junked. At major political speeches HQT status talk is 100% missing. It was missing at the RNC convention this year; it was missing in the 2005 State Of The Union speech, and other speeches as well. I guess they are not saying anything about it because the president and the former Secretary Of Education Rod Paige know this part of the bill is not working at all. Almost all of the states are having a tough time trying to meet this part of the NCLB bill. The NCLB law does not force schools to cut classes like art and gym to meet “Annual Yearly Progress” rules and regulation. They are getting cut because of budget problems or the schools feel they need more time to teach math and reading. I do like these classes getting cut at all. I would like to see Margaret Spellings try to get passed a national set standard for all students, we really do need a massive curriculum change in the USA and it is something the NCLB bill is lacking. Another major thing I would like to see her tackle is school district debt. School districts like Detroit, Cleveland, and Oakland come to mind really quickly. Baltimore Maryland is getting some control over the massive school district debt they have, but they are not out of the woods yet. This is also another topic that seems to get missed in major speeches on the educational system. A final thing I think needs more attention by the Secretary of Education are vocational education classes. The president of the USA talks up too much about going to college and getting that college degree he forgets about all the jobs we need that do not need the college degree. Jobs including woodwork, electrical, plumbing, car repair, etc… easily come to mind. A mail carrier job has to be done and does not need a college degree to start work as one and some cop work depending on where you live does not even need a college degree as well to start work as one as well. I do hope in the end that Margaret Spellings turns out to
be a great Secretary of Education. To comment on my commentary: RichardGinn@myeducationalplan.com SOURCES "Spellings: Testing to remain at core of school
reform" CNN.com & AP (2005) n. pag. Online.
Internet. February 2, 2005 |
