Education

Education is the cornerstone of life. Today's children must possess the knowledge and the common sense to make important decisions, not only in their life, but for the future of our country. Among our children today are the leaders of tomorrow. We must give them every tool and every opportunity to be successful.

Today our government is not doing enough to provide educators with the tools they need to perform their jobs. While the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act has shown to have flaws and must be fixed, we must not repeal it. Underlying the NCLB Act are basic and needed services that would be at risk if NCLB were repealed. These services include Title 1, after school programs, the rights of homeless children's and many others.

The basic premise behind NCLB is to provide an education for all students and to ensure that our children are taught by the most qualified instructors. These are goals that everyone can agree with, however, in practice under the NCLB Act, it is not working.

According to the US Dept. of Education, it will take 6.5 million hours per year (@ $136 million dollars) to complete the paperwork required by law. Our educators need to spend their time interacting with their students, not filling out forms.

NCLB eliminated the class size reduction program which would have hired more qualified teachers and given our students the best chance at getting a quality personal education.

As part of the AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) schools are measured based on snapshots of two "fill-in-the-bubble" tests. This is not an adequate measuring tool and must be replaced with a model that allows flexibility and multiple measures to determine educational progress.

The government promised $500 million dollars to help schools in need of improvement. To date no funding has been provided for school improvement state grants. When we make a promise to our children, we need to keep it. We must find the funds and make them available to right this wrong.

As technology and the world changes, so should we change the way we educate our young. We are the greatest country in the world, and our educational system should reflect that as well. Reforming NCLB is a great way to start.