In 1996, Al Pope from the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturers announced "Our goal is to change the way schooling is done." And, with the School-to-Work program, corporate and educational interests became further intwined, a trend that now reaches every level and comes in many guises. The ever-present crisis of American education continues, but few ask: does it have to be this way, and just who benefits? [mostly via]
posted by absalom on Jul 31, 2007 - 45 comments

Ethicsgate continues: Today, the bipartisan Government Accountability Office declared that the Bush administration broke the law by paying Armstrong Williams to write favorable columns about the No Child Left Behind Act, funneling public funds to a PR firm to sift through news stories and gauge media perception of Bush policies, and financing phony TV news reports giving the President's education policies "an A-plus," creating what the GAO called "covert propaganda." [Williams et. al. previously discussed here.]
posted by digaman on Sep 30, 2005 - 59 comments

Administration Paid Commentator (WashPost membership rqd) The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part. I'm sure y'all check the Washington Post regularly, but isn't this simply bribing a journalist?
posted by punkbitch on Jan 8, 2005 - 44 comments

What "No Child Left Behind" Really Means
"There, buried deep within the law's 670 pages, is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student -- or face a cutoff of all federal aid."

Read that again slowly, No Child Left Behind is actually a military recruitment program. Backed up with an inverse extortion threat.
via.
posted by fenriq on Dec 1, 2004 - 72 comments

"Mostly, we've been watching the president's rhetoric spring leaks in Iraq and Afghanistan. So perhaps we haven't paid enough attention to how many holes have popped open in his domestic socks. Joblessness that was supposed to be stanched by the Bush tax cuts. Urban food kitchens overwhelmed by the demand from people who are working but underemployed and end up out of money three weeks into the month. A domestic Peace Corps program (AmeriCorps) that is praised publicly by the president as admirable volunteerism but is being starved of money by the White House and congressional Republicans. But, still, you wouldn't think he would stiff children and their schooling. That's maybe the most disappointing thing this president has done here at home."

Looks like the "No Child Left Behind/'accountability is the true foundation of education reform'/Texas education miracle" is just another Texas tall tale.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Sep 17, 2003 - 62 comments

No Child Left Behind? States dumb down tests to avoid losing federal education funding.
posted by dogmatic on May 22, 2003 - 8 comments

The US Department of Education - Or Not?
A link or two for those who don't own a television. Or a Michael Jackson CD.
Reaction to federal initiatives like No Child Left Behind (which is directed purely at education, and has been discussed here before ) and Head Start (which has a social component, and has not (I think)) is starting to filter in.
Should the Federal Government worry about disparities in educational expenditures? Should it worry about how services are delivered?
posted by 314/ on Feb 7, 2003 - 4 comments

No Child Unrecruited Under the "No Child Left Behind Act" passed earlier this year, secondary schools must provide military recruiters with the names, addresses and phone numbers of their students or risk losing federal aid. [More Inside]
posted by EmergencyPenguin on Nov 8, 2002 - 47 comments

Bush wanted to be the Education President, not the Terrorism President. An older piece from The Nation on Bush's high stakes standardized testing from No Child Left Behind. It's not just oil companies that have the ear of the Chief, but the textbook industry, too.
posted by ahughey on Mar 6, 2002 - 14 comments

The No Child Left Behind Act is probably the most sweeping educational reform to pass in a long time and it seems to be pretty bipartisan in its content, it passed the Senate today and Bush will be signing it into law. Holy cow, have the politicians done something right for a change?
posted by owillis on Dec 18, 2001 - 30 comments