Defeatist Spirit guide, guru and concrete slab installation expert par excellence, Crispin "counter-intuitive" Sartwell , has been ranting about the inherent evil and stupidity of No Child Left Behind since they first came up with it in a twisted menage a trois of Cthulhu, Ted Kennedy and Dipshit dela Dweeb. Well, in answer to Twitshit's poignant question that sums up the whole thing, "Is our children learning?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No. Not really. But, we're meeting the locally mandated standards to fuck the 14th Amendment."
"Despite abysmal test scores, Como earned a passing grade under No Child Left Behind, largely because the standards of student proficiency, which are determined individually by the states, have been set so low in Mississippi. Its small size also exempts it from some standards. The resulting passing grade -- it makes "adequate yearly progress" -- has exempted Como Elementary from any of the corrective actions dictated by the law." Now, I'll pass over the oddity of naming a burg in the Mississippi Delta after an Italian crooner or a New York mayor -- I guess it could be the lake in Italy except, well, probably no damn lake and that would require whomever named the damn place being conscious of Italy...which, given the geography scores, I gotta say is probably not going to happen. Untrained teachers, poor facilities, lowest test scores in the lowest rated state -- truly a success story. Of course, in Spanish it means "like" which makes some sense existentially -- "Como, like Mississippi?" "Not really..."
You know, Wes Clark talked about how the current gang has absolutely squandered 8 years geopolitically. I agreed. It also squandered 8 years educationally. I am sure there are a lot of well-meaning, well-scrubbed right wing religious nuts in DOE who see absolutely nothing wrong in Como. After all, Mississippi has gone Republican for decades. The kids in Como as in the Delta as a whole are black. There's really no reason for graduates of Liberty, Regent, Bob Jones, Ave Maria and the rest to even register their existence...So, a kid entering Como's elementary school in 2001 is now what...getting ready to leave and go to the local junior high? Or, entering third grade? Lots of hope there.
Education is an expensive, serious matter. Good teachers cost money; adequate teachers cost money. Good facilities cost money; adequate facilities cost money. Money that is largely raised locally. In districts with no money, hope for change is really left up to what? The local tribal casino? So, I think Crispin can rest easy on this one; the dickheads have lost another one, and NCLB is another example of the problems of the modern Ozymandias, when he outsources the work to private contractors...the dela Dweeb team has not built its house's foundation on sand--they didn't bother to build one.
Como, Mississippi was actually named for the lake in Italy. Como actually has some of the richest people in the state that live there. The town is not totally black, but the majority of white kids attend local private schools because of the North Panola School District and the low performance of the district for decades now. As far as Mississippi goes, the state legislature is mostly democrat and has been forever. The democrat state senator for Panola County was just re-elected despite having done nothing for the county in years. The problems in this district are many. There are problems in the community and the district's administration that have existed for decades. Believe it or not, South Panola School District does not have any of the problems as North Panola.
As someone who has worked at North Panola for a few years now, I've seen the problems first hand. These problems were here long before NCLB and will remain until some sort of all encompassing community plan with strong leadership is implemented. Even then it will most likely take years.
Posted by: anonymous | 01 November 2007 at 06:14 PM
Thanks, and you are absolutely right about the problems predating NCLB. The issue that Sensei Sartwell and some of the rest of us have with the stupid thing is that it focused on basically one thing -- test scores -- to the exclusion of everything else. And, without a national standard, what the hell does any standard mean? It's ok for kids in Como to be less well educated than kids in Rochester, Minnesota? It may be a reality, but saying that they both meet their goals in tests is really silly.
Surprised, given the governor, congressional delegation and senate members that the majority of the Mississippi Legislature are Democrats, by the way --
Posted by: Crusader AXE | 01 November 2007 at 10:28 PM