10 Trillion dolars of NCLB/RTTT reforms..anyone feel it was money well spent

"Parents say Loudoun officials reaching too far to stop school tardies" 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/parents-say-loudoun-officials-reaching-too-far-to-stop-school-tardies/2012/02/03/gIQAMUUmpQ_story.html

So it's lets all start blaming the parents again. Next week it will be let's blame the teachers week, and let's not forget the children.
Have you noticed it's never look in the mirror at a decade of NCLB Status Quo  reform policies that have spent a trillion dollars in DC?  They love that "Smoke and Mirror" song of keep blaming everyone, but the DOE.
Since NCLB only accounts for around 10% of school funding nationally that means our nation has spent nearly 10 trillion dollars on NCLB/RTTT when you add in state and local funding.
We could have reduce class sizes,
We could have hired a 100,000 more teachers,
We could have hired a million tutors,
We could have offered every college students free tuition for 20 hours of tutoring a week for 4 years?
We could have funded summer school programs in every community in the USA,
But instead our United States Department of Education decided testing children more is the way to go!
Do any of you feel like America got it's money worth from DC school reforms?
Don't you think it's time to take back our schools from these policy making failures?
I am going to occupy the DOE in DC this 3/30, 3/31, 4/1 & 4/2!
If you are in DC this spring as put the public back in public education?
Jesse
If you are wondering what the Walking man is listening today on his walk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmckWVPRaI
That's right a Little Twisted Sister "We're not gonna take it anymore"

There go I before the grace of god!

http://www.epi.org/blog/snap-food-stamps-economy-poverty/

My Thoughts about politicians calling us a Food Stamp nation:

Once we had a war on poverty in America. 
Once we were the envy of the world.
We were far from perfect, but we were trying.
Then we stop trying. 
Our leaders ended the war on poverty, and began a war on the poor.
A people became apathetic.
The people remained silent during this war.
Being poor became something to ridicule.
Poverty became an excuse.
People no longer said "there go I, but by the grace of god"..
People began instead to point fingers at the poor.
Our nation lost it's way. 


We were warned:


Matthew 25:41-45 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.’”



When that final day comes when all nations, and all people are called to judgement what reply shall we give to our lord?
Shall we say we favored the 1%, we gave them tax breaks, and privileges, and everyday we dreamed of being one of them? We worshiped them, we spent endless hours watching reality shows about them. 
We envied them. 
We are not a food stamp nation, but we are a nation in denial of our responsibility to the our poor, elderly, and our most needy.


Still walking,


Jesse

If you are wondering what I am listening and singing along to on my walk today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug7IgB8MfWE

I hear the crying of the hungry in the deserts where they're wandering.
Hear them crying out for heaven's own benevolence upon them.
Hear destructive power prevailing, I hear fools falsely hailing.
To the crooked wits of tyrants when they call.

I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear them all, and I'm still marching,
Jesse


PS here is a link to how we help the 1% keep wages low; 
http://front.moveon.org/the-secret-that-job-creators-like-walmart-wont-tell-you/#.Ty2SxzeBq5U.facebook

The DOE's organ grinder and school reformer dancing monkeys

Richard Rothstein research associate of the Economic Policy Institute expresses his concerns about NCLB stating:

 “Assuming systemic failure to justify a frenzy of ill-considered reforms, we've spent almost no time investigating what caused these trends. We can only speculate. Rather than spending such energy imagining how schools have failed, so we can fix them, we might devote attention to investigating what schools have done well, so we can do more of it. Rothstein is not generalizing he is using decades of NEAP data to share that the achievement gap was closing faster pre-NCLB than post. Check it out for yourself:

http://www.epi.org/blog/reformers-playbook-failing-schools-facts/

One wonders when the DOE in DC might begin to look at the data as well rather than repeating the unproven mantras of the so-call school choice movement. Isn’t it time we grade the DOE in Washington? Three Secretaries of Education, a decade of failure, and nearly a trillion dollars spent for closing a achievement gap that was closing faster before they arrived.

Let me start with L for lies, P Ponzi schemes, and F for failure.

What is your grade for the DOE?   

Wondering what the Walkingman was listening today on his walk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCj_QEcuhNQ

"When I was a young man  Just gotten out  I didn't know  What this world was all about  I was lied to, I was cheated  I played all kinds of fools  It didn't take me long  To learn the rules"  
Fool me once, shame on you  Fool me twice, shame on me"

New verse people

Fool us once Pageshame on youFool us twice SpellingShame on usFool us three times Duncan

    Get ready for a fight