GodSaveAmerica
Member
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by George Bush in 2002 with one primary goal in mind: eliminate the educational achievement gap between blacks and whites. The program tried to achieve its goal by forcing schools to render ALL students, without regard to race, capable of passing standardized competency tests in math and reading by 2014. Schools with high rates of students unable to pass the tests faced teacher layoffs and closure.
Ten years later it is abundantly clear the program is a failure. Obama has exempted 26 states from NCLB requirements and is adding to the list.
The problem is largely with the black student population. No matter how much time teachers spend trying to prepare black children for the tests, their scores are on average two grade levels behind whites. The choice that confronts the government is to make the passing scores ridiculously low so that most blacks can be considered competent, or to maintain reasonable standards of competency in accordance with the white norm that turn out to be just too challenging for most blacks.
Because so many schools are on track to fail to meet the 2014 deadline, Obama has thrown in the towel on NCLB.
Question: what has caused a program, specifically designed to force states to educate blacks well enough to compete equally with whites, to fail? Was it:
A) Our misguided welfare system that encourages single-mom families that fail to fully nurture black childrens innate intellectual abilities.
B) Racist school systems with too many white teachers who subconsciously discriminate against black children and fail to help them to develop their inherent potential for academic success.
C) Racist public officials who refuse to adequately fund schools that have a high percentage of black pupils, thus giving black children insufficient resources to obtain a good education.
D) Blacks inherit genes that give them lower average IQ than whites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/e...whittled-down-under-obama.html?pagewanted=all
Ten years later it is abundantly clear the program is a failure. Obama has exempted 26 states from NCLB requirements and is adding to the list.
The problem is largely with the black student population. No matter how much time teachers spend trying to prepare black children for the tests, their scores are on average two grade levels behind whites. The choice that confronts the government is to make the passing scores ridiculously low so that most blacks can be considered competent, or to maintain reasonable standards of competency in accordance with the white norm that turn out to be just too challenging for most blacks.
Because so many schools are on track to fail to meet the 2014 deadline, Obama has thrown in the towel on NCLB.
Question: what has caused a program, specifically designed to force states to educate blacks well enough to compete equally with whites, to fail? Was it:
A) Our misguided welfare system that encourages single-mom families that fail to fully nurture black childrens innate intellectual abilities.
B) Racist school systems with too many white teachers who subconsciously discriminate against black children and fail to help them to develop their inherent potential for academic success.
C) Racist public officials who refuse to adequately fund schools that have a high percentage of black pupils, thus giving black children insufficient resources to obtain a good education.
D) Blacks inherit genes that give them lower average IQ than whites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/e...whittled-down-under-obama.html?pagewanted=all