I guess there's lots to comment on this week, so I better get to it 
1. The High School Rankings
The BC High School scores came out last week, and the regular arguing has ensued as expected. Despite the public outcry year after year, they still publish these things, and they never try to increase the accountability of the scores the schools get. There are so many different variables that can affect the scores, so I don't even bother thinking about them. After all, student make up, teacher focus and teaching style, school programs, extracurricular activities for the students, focus on "language" and just random variables on the testing days can skew the results in any direction. The private schools do tend to do better- but not always, so no one should assume that private schools will automatically do well!- but they also have lower levels of ESL students who may or may not do better or worse on the exams depending on what they are prepped for. I'm so annoyed with the idea of ranking schools just by test scores, that I'm stopping my comments here
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2. Omaha schools split along race lines
They've been arguing on CNN lately [my brother loves to watch the news] about the decision in Omaha (Nebraska, USA) to create thre separate school boards, each in charge of certain schools. The schools are however, predominately one culture: 1 set is all caucasian, 1 is all African American and the other is Latino. According to the statistics in the article:
The 45,000-student Omaha school system is 46 percent white, 31 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian or American Indian.
First off, many people are saying this is segregation all over again and do not agree with the state that this will allow the school boards to look out for their students needs. The State thinks that with the current one school board, the minority students will be short shifted as the "white" students will get all the priority funding and new programs right off the bat.
While the idea is noble there are some flaws/questions I have:
a) If you do the math, there is 46% caucasian students to 54% "minority" students. Who is the minority, really?
b) Should we be thinking of any culture as a minority these days? We should be looking at all students as students and all teachers and administrators should be doing the best for all the students, not just a select few.
c) All the scenarios depend on education funding from the government. IF the funding is not there, no one will get any programs at all. Also if the new school boards aren't given equal amounts to divy out to schools, this whole system is moot.
d) Also in effect: if certain schools under any school board are not performing up to par, they get NCLB fines. So any money they get from a school board is gone anyways.
e) How is funding per student ensured? Flat rate per number of student(s)? What happens when students switch schools?
f) We can't forget that the city is also probably racially divided with certain neighbourhoods prodominately one culture or another. Historically caucasian families live in more affluent neighbourhoods, and their economic status usually leans towards better educational achievement. They do well in state testing, so they pass NCLB rules and get proper or more funding. "Minority" families may be living in less affluent neighbourhoods, and with their economic status fluctuating, students may or may not be able or expected to do as well. How can this be addressed? And will the new school boards change anything?
g) What about the teachers? As a teacher myself, I'm always wondering about what my counterparts are feeling and doing. If the three school board system is set up, who will the teachers be working for? Will they be able to move from one district to another? Will they be trying to move toward the "white" district as it will appear more "favourable"?.... grr... I'm mad again
3. States Omitting Minorities' Test Scores
All I can say about this one is I saw this coming when NCLB was conceived. In order to keep as much funding as possible (and not getting fined), some state schools will unfortunately have to resort to interesting methods. I don't think this is new in fact, several schools have probably tried to do this- and I hope they have succeeded. Fining a school for not making educational expectations may sound like a good punishment to encourage them to work harder the next time, but if you're taking away money that could help them improve, you are actually making it harder for them to actually improve at all. I can see schools quickly spiraling downwards as more and more fines are lumped on them. It's not fair and I don't think it will work in the long run. NCLB is a noble concept, but I wonder if it's going to work at all at the rate it is going. Something else just has to be done.
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