Princess' Blog

With Labor Day just around the corner, another summer vacation comes to closure.  Some have already started back to school and some won’t return until after Labor Day.  As the old year fades away and the new  year dances in, we have much to celebrate.  Getting the Jobs Bill passed in Congress was a major feat.  You should be proud.  Your hard work will ensure that thousands of educators will be able to return to work and students will have access to a quality education.  On the heels of our jobs bill celebration, however,  is the reality that we must busy ourselves with the business of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) aka NCLB.

I wonder if President Lyndon Johnson, in 1965 when he signed ESEA into law, had any inkling of the controversy that would come years later.  ESEA is supposed to be reauthorized every 5 years.  Its most current reauthorization is No Child Left Behind.  The original intent of this act was to address President Johnson’s War on Poverty. Johnson was a former teacher who had witnessed poverty’s impact on his students, and he believed that equal access to education was vital to a child’s ability to lead a productive life.  Some would argue that the current version of the bill is far from the original intent of 1965.  Some would argue that it’s merely an extension.  However, today we have AYP.  We have school improvement activities.  We have sanctions.  We have highly qualified requirements . . . and we still have testing. 

Testing.  We know that a child is more than a test score.  But unfortunately, that’s the measurement standard that has been placed on our public schools.  This dismays me.

However, what I am excited about is you.  Your energy and ideas are what will ensure that our education system is set up to give every student the preparation needed to be successful in the 21^st century.   You make a difference. 

Years from now when you are asked “What did you do for America’s children?,” you should be prepared to respond with pride:  you did your best, you did your part to make sure that every student had access to a great public school and a quality education.   You made a difference.

Thank you for all that you’ve done and continue to do to make a difference.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 12:28 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.