It is not only the foundations that Ms. Ravitch blames for the current crisis: government has also failed in the attempt to reform the schools from above, lacking a clear perspective of how schools work on a day-to-day basis. Thus, the major federal initiative, No Child Left Behind, well intentioned as it may have been, ended up damaging the quality of education, not improving it.
While the federal government declares schools as “failing” and prescribes sanctions for schools not meeting its goal of “annual yearly progress,” it is the states that are allowed to write and administer the tests. This has led to a culture of ever easier tests and more test preparation rather than real instruction. More ominously, it led to such scandals as the New York State Education Department lowering the “cut scores” that define the line between passing and failing.
Ms. Ravitch suggests that the proper roles of the states and federal government have been reversed under NCLB. Maybe the standards for achievement should be set in Washington, which, after all, administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress , and the solutions found at the local level, using the accurate data provided by Washington. Instead of moving in a different direction from the failed NCLB model of the Bush Administration, the Obama administration has adopted and expanded on them.
Muslim Academy on 30 Dec 12In the midst of fast-moving events in Syria and in the shadows of tyranny, oppression, lethality and massacres practiced by the Syrian regime, the Nation of Islam has been stabbed once again. Another waterfall of Muslim blood has been shed without any humanity. These stabs have been hurting the Muslim nation often and raise many questions about our disbanding and enemy's plots and plans from all sides. In the past weeks, Muslim advocates have been exposed to a gruesome massacre after being attacked by a Buddhist group that killed many Muslims. The media have posted terrible images of the victims of this massacre. The Myanmar government turned a blind eye, and it seems that they agree with the criminal killers. Things did not stop at this massacre but transcended to burn homes and farms of a large number of Muslims and killed dozens by fire. All this happened with the help of police junta Buddhism. On July 10, 2012 a curfew was imposed on villages that was inhabited by the Muslim minority, then the Buddhist groups covered by the Myanmar government started a campaign of ethnic cleansing and religious preference that killed 100 Muslims and injured about 300 people and burned nearly a thousand homes. Also, in this awful campaign they have been targeting scientists, doctors and intellectuals. Away from these events and tension, the main thing that everyone knows is that the Muslims there have been suffering for decades from the oppression and persecution of Buddhists via systematic violations. The group of Buddhists are committed against the Muslims there at different intervals, and force displacement, removal of citizenship, and the sophistication in the torture and "ethnic cleansing." Unjust arrests and the demolition of mosques and Islamic schools have deprived Muslims from the lowest human rights.
