(The federal government) is giving states the duty to monitor it, but the states are saying, 'We don't have the manpower. We don't have the resources'.... And the school districts are being told they can't regulate this — that it's up to the states. |
[In Michigan, Maryland and California, according to the Washington-based Center On Education Policy, most school districts have chosen to replace teaching and administrative staffs - one of the options outlined by the law.] Right now, you're not seeing radical restructuring, ... States are being very cautious. |
Both the President and Congress moved in exactly the wrong direction last year by approving a cut in education, and this year aggravated the situation by approving another cut just as the demands of the law were becoming greater. |
But that didn't hold up over time. |
Currently the country is putting high hopes on reforming education through testing. One result is that it's putting enormous strain on the testing industry. There are only six major (testing) companies, and they can only expand so fast. That's why you're seeing all these mistakes. |
Despite what the (Bush) administration was claiming, this is an indication that No Child Left Behind may not have made much of a difference because these are the same results we saw before the law was in effect. |
He's very receptive to changing the rules in favor of profit-making institutions. Boehner has run a large number of fund-raisers, and a considerable amount of money has come from profit-making institutions. In the current age in Washington, we're seeing whoever is spending more money has greater entrée with lawmakers. |
If the home is not reinforcing reading, it is much more difficult to learn it in school, ... Reading scores don't just measure schools. They're also a reflection of the values societies or families put on reading. |
In the abstract, it's a good idea that students know more about the Constitution. Civics has been squeezed out of the curriculum. |
It is an interesting case. It's interesting because a judge has to consider the fact that this is a state that's suing. It's not a school district. It's not a teacher's union. It's the state of Connecticut. So that adds a lot more gravity to the lawsuit. |
It's a race against time over whether the Bush administration will be able to administer the act more sensibly so that people do not get so angry that the act will be overthrown by court or rewritten or substantially amended by Congress. |
Math achievement is going up in the United States in the long term, ... It is not, however, where kids in the United States ought to be. |
Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern. |
One benefit of the law is that it gives schools the authority to do things they've wanted to do for a long time but couldn't. |
Right now, you're not seeing radical restructuring. States are being very cautious. |