Education

1. That doesn't mean that you have to create charter schools. It means you can't prohibit them.

Who is this "you"? If charters are legal in a state, people/companies can open charter schools, do, & will. I don't understand the distinction you're making.

2. (Charter schools don't have to take state/federal mandated tests).

Wrong. Charter schools have to take the same tests, e.g.:

Do charter schools take the state mandated ABCs tests?

Yes. All charter schools are required to take the state mandated tests. For charter schools test results please visit http://abcs.ncpublicschools.org/abcs.

http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/charterschools/faqs

That's how the feds & states get the nifty statistics that will go into their giant centralized database.

Only private schools are exempt from testing requirements.

3. States no longer are beholden to NCLB criteria and can opt out and create their own set of standards.

No. You're confusing several things.

1. RTTT didn't exempt states from NCLB. And far from allowing them to 'create their own set of standards,' you were, let's say, 'strongly encouraged' to adopt Common Core standards, a creation of the Gates Foundation:

Race to the Top prompted 48 states to adopt common standards for K-12.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top

2) The waivers from NCLB you're hearing about are separate from RTTT, & they're yet another Trojan Horse. Because in order to get the waiver, you have to adopt -- wait for it -- THE SAME LOAD OF EDUCATION DEFORM CRAP AS WITH RTTT. The waivers are designed to rope the last few holdouts into the education deform corral.

The states of Washington and Wisconsin will be allowed to wiggle out of No Child Left Behind's rigorous test requirements, joining two dozen other U.S. states that have already agreed to waivers that require them to adopt the Obama administration's education agenda instead, the U.S. Education Department will announce today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/no-child-left-behind-waivers_n_1652574.html

See how the media phrases it? "Wiggle out," like they were getting away with something.

It's so diabolical, you'd almost think it was planned. NCLB was designed to systematically turn all schools into 'failing schools' (by its formula, which declares a certain percent of schools 'failing' every year, allowing them to be closed, turned into charters, or reorganized -- & UPS THE ANTE EVERY YEAR EVEN FOR THOSE THAT IMPROVE) and destroy them -- so for basic survival states sign onto something that does the same thing, just quicker.


If your feelings about education are as stated, I would encourage you to look a little more deeply into what's actually happening, because you, like most of the public, have been misinformed.

Obama's education policy is very, very bad. Worse than NCLB because it does the same thing, only quicker.