Thompson Criticizes No Child Left Behind


Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:41 PM


Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Thursday that President Bush's signature education program isn't working and that he would provide federal education money with fewer strings attached.

"We've been spending increasing amounts of federal money for decades, with increasing rules, increasing mandates, increasing regulations," Thompson said. "It's not working."

He added that there are problems with Bush's No Child Left Behind program, which requires annual testing and punishes schools that don't make progress.

"No Child Left Behind -- good concept, I'm all for testing -- but it seems like now some of these states are teaching to the test and kind of making it so that everybody does well on the test -- you can't really tell that everybody's doing that well. And it's not objective," Thompson said.

Instead, he said the federal government should be providing block grants as long as states set up objective testing programs.

He said his message to states would be, "We expect you to get objective testing done and publicize those tests for the local parents and for the local citizens and suffer the political ramifications locally if things don't work out right."

The former Tennessee senator and star of NBC's "Law & Order" was responding to a question as he began a three-day bus tour of Florida, his first visit to the state since announced his candidacy last week. A woman asked what he would do for education. He told her decisions on how schools are run should be made by local and state decisions, not dictated out of Washington.

"It's your responsibility," he said. "If you don't like what's going on, don't get in your car and drive by your school board and maybe drive by the capitol and get on an airplane and fly to Washington and say, 'I don't like the way the school down the street is being run.'"




© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

As he should. The fact is that this legislation further removes from local control the administration of schools and puts it in the hands of the federal government.

A not-very-conservative idea.

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GOD BLESS AMERICA

agreed and also wasn't funded properly either.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

It has become so that these school districts are so concerned with passing the tests that they have forgotten how to actually educate students....

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"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

Sure, I agree with him but being in teaching I knew it was terrible from the start...but it was you guys on the right who voted this policy in anyway.

I utilize my free speech zone rights to make my point...

Sorry gents but I find it unmotherf*cking believable that you would make this comment about this program when teacher after teacher and school district after school district has said this is wrong from the start AND NO ONE listened!!!!!! And we teachers TOLD YOU SO, you hire US as the EXPERTS!!!! And then...you guys on the right blame the schools for not teaching the kids. I just have to stop here...you guys are just killing me...

And what if this little nugget came form a leftie candidate and not Thompson? Try that hat on for size...

I have always wondered if that wasn't deliberate.

You know Bush violates the conservative ideals on one hand but then repairs it by not funding it?

Genius?

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GOD BLESS AMERICA

That is really a red herring put out by the education lobby and unions.

The fact is that, in large part they weren't educating the kids prior to NCLB Act.

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GOD BLESS AMERICA

Can you say Ted Kennedy and Rep. Miller of California?


Huh?

Guess your bullshit unions didn't have all that much of common sense when they were working so hard here in California to defeat parental notification for abortion, meanwhile those crafty Republicans were outsmarting you once again?

Why do teachers think that they shouldn't have to meet objective standards?

Regardless of this bill, YOUR argument is against meeting these standards.

come on shelley. don't bullshit a bullshittor. I would agree with that person.

The problem is that a leftie candidate would throw in so much other communist crap that it would make it IMPOSSIBLE for me to agree with him/her.

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GOD BLESS AMERICA

There were TONS AND TONS of objective standards already in place, that is not EVEN within LIGHT YEARS of the real problems pal. Dude, you are not just off base, you are not even in that stadium or in that town.

You are trully misinformed on this one FF, I have to get serious for minute here because I know you are not (it is so sad it is almost offensive). And the fact that you would vote in a policy that negatively effects a whole generation of young people is quite telling to me. First, Bill Clinton would have NEVER in a million years gone for this and he WAS THE ONE TO GET WELFARE REFORM on the books. It will be renewed also...by the people you seem to think are the true Americans. Yeah...hmmm...Bill Clinton the pinko commie...you are living in real time warp pal.

First, almost the entire South has no unions for teachers (right to work states) and those are the lowest rated schools in the country. You can stop about teachers unions now. I have way more but that ends that little argument very quickly.

Please tell us all about standards and how that comes about? And, how do they come up with them? Have you actually taught in a classroom or been employed as a REAL teacher? Have you gone through teacher training at an accredited university and been given a state teaching certification?

Standards are not set by the teacher but by the school board and the people doing the hiring at the district office (they get payed to do this BTW). Now, what even makes this go further is if you DO NOT pay a high enough salary to those teachers WHO CAN teach at a high level, those who do hold HIGH STANDARDS leave because they can get a better paying job where they feel like they are not having to babysit kids. More districts are being forced to hire uncertified teachers who have not even finished their primary college degrees. Bet you knew nothing about that.

Now this changes drastically when you get to college and that is why colleges compete well on the open market and we get the best grad students in the world to come to this country and we also pay the most in demand people to teach. No, I do not get as much $ as the law professors (only the FB or BB coaches make more) here but I do fine and I do get a better package and shake than a HS teacher...and I am WAY MORE in control of my destiny...Mr. Bush does NOT cont4ol my classroom but I seem to do very well and my students do get hired in the private public sector (I am not in a union either). I get to select and be on the hiring committee of who will be next on the faculty, HS teachers donnt' (that is a BIG problem). And who sets the standards(?)...ah yes, me and the other teachers (professors) do all that. So George Bush (et al) thought they were smarter than the K-12 teachers and gave them LESS control/more work/less money over thier own classrooms, just brilliant.

So, who is to blame? For sure the 'no child...' total BS packge sure did not help at all but made these problems worse. With the way the 'standards' were set in the legislation more teachers have left the field or left urban schools because the job became unmanagable.

Do you really have ANY idea what is in the 'No child...' BS? You really don't do you...

So seriously, can one of you answer why colleges in this country are rated so high and K-12 rate low (the problems start at roughly 4th grade though, to be exact)? And the Bush adminstration made the problems worse, not better with 'no child...'.

Riddle me that...try to fix it, load your silver bullet and fire.