[Mpls] NCLB is anti-civil rights wine in civil rights wineskins

[David Brauer]

On Sep 8, 2004, at 12:37 PM, Socialist2001 at cs.com wrote:

> What's new about NCLB is that it has a mechanism for imposing changes 
> in
> school governance and ultimately closing down schools that fail to 
> make "adequate
> yearly progress."

FYI: NCLB's consequences only accrue to schools that receive federal 
Title I money - those with more students in poverty. (The feds can only 
control their own money.) For schools with wealthier student bodies and 
no Title I support, there are NO consequences, no matter how often they 
fail to make Average Yearly Progress.

So in Southwest, schools such as Windom and Whittier could conceivably 
face the federal penalties after several years of "failure." (Whittier, 
by the way, met its NCLB goals this year but must stay off the list two 
years in a row to get off the "bad" list.) Meanwhile, "richer" schools 
such as Lake Harriet, Barton and Burroughs - who failed to perform for 
the first time - would never be forced to reconstituted because they 
don't receive federal Title I funds.

For the "richer" schools, then, the AYP/NCLB list is more a marketing 
stigma than a financial one. "Poorer" schools face tougher penalties.

David Brauer
Kingfield