Comments

1
That... was brilliant.
2
Stated first and foremost (and with the caveat that I was a teacher before and after NCLB came into play) NCLB is not just a bad law, it actively made my job worse in virtually every way.

That said, why not just tell the Feds to take their money and shove it? (I mean, other than the fact that WA seems to otherwise not give a flying fuck about education and the funding of it.) Touting "State's Rights" and whatever sounds fine, but no one is forcing us to take the money. (Other than the voters who refuse to enact a progressive tax policy that could adequately fund education in keeping with the Washington Constitution.)

NCLB is, absolutely, failed and bad policy. I will not disagree with that. But rather than whining about not being able to spend other people's (the Fed's) money the way we want to, it would be better to come up with the money ourselves.
(Like not giving away a fuckton of money to aerospace companies who are relocating to CA.)
3
@Xizar: Word.
4
States' Rights Forever!!
5
As a person who went to public shool in Tumwater I don't believe anyone there has any idea how education works. Do not listen to this guy.
6
I think their choice of our state as the first is intentional. They know we'll just say "screw you", and that will give the rest of the states some cover to more politely say " screw you" to the DOE. I for one will proudly wear my "My school failed under NCLB" T-shirt.
7
@5, the 22nd district represents Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey & north Thurston county. The fact that you went to school in a small part of the same district doesn't really give you much in the way of insight on this matter.

I thought it was an excellent statement. Dems are usually criticized for being spineless. This is one example to the contrary.
8
The Obama administration inherited NCLB from the Bush administration. Possibly the current administration could have issued an executive order bypassing Congress to get rid of it -- I don't know. But don't blame Obama for this piece of shit which was aimed at breaking the teachers' unions.
9
@8 He doesn't have to enforce it. He makes those kind of calls often enough.
10
"Washington State has one of the leading K-12 systems in the United States." -- Democrat Chris Reykdal

"Bullshit" -- The Washington State Supreme Court

11
That said... Isn't this the same state government that has yet to figure out how to adequately fund the education system, despite the state supreme court ruling that the government is in violation of its constitutional duty to do so?
12
I think this is an excellent response. I have only 2 quibbles that I think are worth highlighting:

1. "Washington State is committed to education reform that is collaborative, bipartisan, and focused on student success and teacher growth." - uh... McLeary? Anyone?

2. "The bipartisan rejection of this federal government demand during the 2014 legislative session is a strong and unifying message that our state fully embraces our constitutional 10th Amendment guarantee to develop, fund, and administer our state’s education system " - So, the best our reps have to say about the 2014 legislative session regarding education is that they did LITERALLY nothing... all they could muster the political will to do is REJECT bad federal policy... to send some hypthetical message to the feds that says what? "We can fail to meet our paramount duty of educating Washington students on our own, thank you very much!"
13
@9, ditto for immigration and drug laws - Obama has just continued enforcement, he's increased deportations with worse methods and increased arrests. But he's only had 5 years.
14
@8 - NCLB - aka ESEA - has been up for reauthorization since about 2007. Congress has not done so; they just keep passing the buck.
Duncan has the power to waive aspects of NCLB. He's choosing to be an asswipe because he didn't get what he wanted.

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