Ed Secretary: States ‘Dummied Down’ Standards Because It ‘Was Good For Politicians’ Seeking Re-election

When speaking before Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan charged politicians with “dummy-ing down” state education standards under the No Child Left Behind Act to increase their chances of being re-elected.

“Historically in our country, I think particularly under the current law, No Child Left Behind, lots of states dummied down standards,” said Duncan at the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King, Jr. day prayer breakfast on Monday.  “They reduced standards. Why? Wasn’t good for children; wasn’t good for education; wasn’t good for the country -- was good for politicians.”

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Obama to Seek Broad Changes to "No Child Left Behind"

The following story indicates that the U. S. Department of Education spokesman is declining to describe specific changes the Obama Administration will be seeking to the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, No Child Left Behind.

We'll go out on a limb and predict those "reforms" -- more money for and less accountability demanded of teachers and administrators. After all, they are the only people who matter to big-government statists. Children don't vote or pay union dues.

From The New York Times
By Sam Dillon

The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.

Educators who have been briefed by administration officials said the proposals for changes in the main law governing the federal role in public schools would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, associations of principals, school boards and other groups have found most objectionable.

Yet the administration is not planning to abandon the law’s commitments to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and to encouraging teacher quality.

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