Bob Wise endorses Obama education initiative
March 17, 2010 ·
Former Gov. Bob Wise supports the Obama administration’s plan to fix problems with the No Child Left Behind education initiative.
Congress passed No Child
Left Behind in 2001 in an effort to address problems in public education.
The bill was proposed by
former President George Bush and has been criticized for its emphasis on
standardized testing and for being punitive toward schools that don’t meet set
standards.
Wise, president of the
Alliance for Excellent Education, said the Obama plan addresses weaknesses in
No Child Left Behind.
“I want to stress, an
important thing about No Child Left Behind is it required us to measure how
each school was doing and It required us to separate it out by student group,
by ethnic origin, by economic, by special needs and by English language
ability,” Wise said. “That doesn’t
change.”
Wise said the new proposal
gives states more flexibility in how to deal with problems and puts more
emphasis on increasing graduation rates.
Wise said No Child Left
Behind placed an emphasis on children in each grade meeting certain standards
while the administration would switch the emphasis to preparing students for
college and careers.
“It’s a big difference and
it’s a difference between kicking a field goal and going for the touchdown and
I’m glad to see somebody’s going for the touchdown,” Wise said.