It also doesn’t help that our School Board and BOCS have buried their heads behind the standing funding agreement when it comes to schools. What a stupid concept. Let’s fund our schools based on a decade-old standing formula rather than on the actual budgetary needs. Sure, it means less contention between the School Board and BOCS, but at what cost? PWCS’s per pupil expenditure is the lowest in the metro Washington region. This year, the spending per pupil *decreased*. Let’s say 10% of the students in PWC schools are illegal or the children of illegals. Taking them out of the mix still leaves us with a per pupil expenditure lower than any other jurisdiction in Northern Virginia, so getting rid of all the illegals (as unrealistic as that may be) is not the only answer. While simply throwing more money at the schools is not a cure all, there needs to be a rational examination of what it takes to teach our children and prepare them for the future. We have overcrowded schools because no one planned for or funded a realistic capital improvements program. We are losing some of best teachers to surrounding jurisdictions because the pay is better in Fairfax or the cost of living is lower in Fauquier. We are letting our best and brightest slip into mediocrity while making unrealistic demands on lower performing students to miraculously cross some line. This isn’t anything altruistic. Today’s children are tomorrows doctors, scientists, teachers, leaders, and soldiers. Shortchanging them now shortchanges the future of the country we love.

I totally agree with you. It is one of the most horrible pieces of legislation ever passed.

Thank you. I barely scraped the surface.

I love your last sentence. I think that just about says it all!!!

I recall someone on the Hill commenting on NCLB that “It was a damn shame nobody bothered to read it before signing it into law.”

To me, it is like setting up unatainable goals for a game while ruling that failing to make said goals will result in severe penelties. In a word, torture.

Your last paragraph speaks volumes. If the Feds are enforcing the law on others….then the boot heel comes out. If the Feds are asked to enforce their own laws…well….you know what happens. Seems as though it is a ‘do as I say not do as I do’ situation.

Is education a right under our Constitution? No - yet that is what the Plyler legislation claimed.

Plyler vs. Doe can never stand as settled law as it has no sound basis in the 14th Amendement.

Plyler is way overdue for reversal.

The “Dream” act amnesty is nothing more than the natural and predictable extention of Plyler … giving foreign nationals the right to masquerade as citizens.

Every attempt at “Immigration Reform” i.e. amnesty for illegal aliens is driven by the fear factor fact that someone will wake up and notice that we have current immigration laws that are being ignored.

Funny how that works … while it is hard to imagine any school or school district choosing to ignore the current on-the-books law of Plyer without severe penalty, equaly on-the-books immigration laws are treated as if they don’t exist.

When I was in school there was no special ed, esol, no special classes of any sort that I was ever aware of. But that was back when dirt was forming on the earth.

Seriously, as to NCLB, it is so comprehensive, so complex, so government regulated, I cannot educate you on it. I would simply have no idea where to begin. I also do not know probably 1/10th of its implications.

Basically it is federal legislation that hi-jacked education standards from the state and local governments of this country. There are some 29 subgroups who must make annual yearly progress (AYP). The ‘big 4′ groups that seem to affect our area are: special ed, ethnicity, poverty and LEP.

Each year schools must demonstrate that x % of their students in the subgroups have passed the sol tests in reading and math. Each year that number rises. If the school doesn’t meet the standard, it doesn’t make AYP. If the school doesn’t make AYP for a certain number of years (3 I think) then the school is basically labeled a failure. It doesn’t matter how well the kids do who aren’t ‘members’ of the 4 sub-groups.

This is a gross over-simplification of what NCLB is all about but this is what is driving the entire educational system these days. Fear of not making AYP. The school systems put the heat on the principals and the principals put the heat on the teachers who are tap dancing a mile a minute to attempt to make sure all the kids labeled in these sub-groups pass the sol tests as well as the non special group kids.

I hope this helped answer your questions. I don’t think I did a very good job. When something is written in both government-ese and educational-ese, it becomes unreadable so I will not give you a website. Volumes have been written on this subject and very little of it makes sense to anyone.

I just know parents are angry. When you know there are limited resources and bigger slices of the pie go to ESOL, that can create anger with parents.

Please educate me on NCLB.

By the way, back in “the day” when my husband and I went to school, there were no ESOL classes. My husband learned English through school and home. I guess you could say “the old fashioned way”. My friend’s family also had to learn English this way. I will say they speak English better than the ones taking ESOL. Just something to add to the conversation. I’m also curious if other countries provide special language classes for people who speak English but need to learn the native tongue.

Why would you want to validate their comments and accusations by using language that reinforces exactly what they are complaining about?

I have no clue who you are but surely you grasp the concept that when you use derrogatory language to describe an entire class of people (or students, in this case) , there is going to be some fallout.

Monticup,

I do try to show by example when I post here. I do not care how whoever it was thinks…but since this is a public blog, I will ask people not to use inflammatory language about others. If they chose not to comply with my request, there is certainly nothing I can do about it. However, one should also not be surprised with undesirable outcomes from reckless speech.

Please read the statement in its entirety: UNDER THE CURRENT LAW….Ricardo is just as entitled to be in school as Jane. Ricardo’s status is irrelevant.

I am not stating my opinion here. I am telling you the way things are.

You make valid points about multiple families living in single family homes. I do not disagree with you. However it has nothing to do with the above statement that I made.