School Standards ~ March 26, 2010

I chose to write on the opinion editorial entitled “Enforcing School Standards, at Last”. This article was published in the New York Times on March 2010. In this article, the reporter states that the age of schools actually reforming their education for their students in exchange for money. This idea came from and was enforced by Obama’s administration who just granted Delaware and Tennessee financial aid. In this government aid, Obama promises to distribute 4.3 million dollars across the entire nation. The amount of money each state receives is based upon how well the state is educating the children living in their state. To get as much money as they need, each state can maximize the number of points their state earns to get more funding. Ways to build these points include: building a clear understanding between teacher unions and school districts for programs that would build the training of teachers, turn around failing schools, encourage the creation of high-performing charter schools, creating data- driven instructional systems, and finally promoting quality science instruction. The plan also states that it will favor states that made the proposition that they should be taking student achievement into account when evaluating the overall success in teaching evaluations. Delaware, the first state to receive funding, promised to enforce a way for teachers and principals to show the growth of student’s achievements to prevent the state from receiving an unfavorable rating. Also they promised to use this information to remove these ineffective teachers from classrooms in their state. Tennessee already passed a strong law mandating that at least 50 percent of teachers or principal’s evaluations should be based on the achievement of the students in their classrooms. In implementing these new laws, these state proved to the leaders of this country that they intend to improve the education system as a whole in the United States.

That's all for now!
~Ali