The report card is being issued Tuesday by the Network for Public Education (NPE), a nonprofit group co-founded several years ago by education historian and activist Diane Ravitch to advocate for America’s public school system. The authors evaluated states on criteria they see as promoting a professional teaching force, equitable and sufficient funding and equal opportunities for all students to succeed — all critical to the health of public schools.
Specifically, the reports looks at how states approach high-stakes standardized testing and school finance as well as how much they promote teachers as professionals and resist privatizing public education. How states spend taxpayer money is another criterion, as is whether states promote policies that affect the income, living conditions and governmental support for students to give them all a chance to succeed in school. Some states earned A’s in a category or two but none earned higher than an overall C.
I am both pleased to see that my state of Alaska is one of only thirteen states to achieve a grade of C, while also being horrified that C is the highest grade ANY state had achieved.
Public education is one of my sore points, and in my opinion NO state should feel satisfied with any ranking below an A, or an A- with extenuating circumstances.
However these days public education, and our teachers, are undermined, underfunded, and under empowered, and the result is dumber children, moronic adults, and voters who cannot find their asses with both hands and a road map.
Which by the way is really the driving force behind the conservative attacks on public education.
I mean come on, would an intelligent, well educated person vote for a Ted Cruz or Donald Trump?
Source http://ift.tt/1Sxehld
