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FOCUS POINT: NCLB Public School Choice Requirements

COMMENT: accountability is about fulfilling obligations to children


Submitted by Paul Hill Active Panelist  on 10/12/04 3:04 PM

When it comes to educating children, schools are means not ends. The state (and school districts as its agents) has an obligation to educate children, and this implies not keeping them in schools that consistently fail to teach them. Fulfilling that obligation requires shifting funds from ineffective uses to more promising ones. As I have argued elsewhere (in ECS' recent accountability study, on their website) a state or locality has an obligation to continually develop new options, so that if a school fails the state has another way to serve its pupils.

The only defensible calculation for the state to make here is whether one use of money is more likely than another to benefit children. This has implications for adults, but they are simply logical consequences of the state's obligation, not rewards and punishments doled out on the basis of who is naughty or nice.


COMMENT THREAD

NCLB Public School Choice Requirements

Submitted by Todd Ziebarth on 10/12/04 05:37 AM



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