---

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_go_ot/no_child_loophole
States Omit Minorities' School Scores
Excerpt; States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.
With the federal government's permission, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found...

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/revi193.shtml
BOOK REVIEWS
Messing With Texas, Leaving Children Behind:
How "Texas-style" Accountability Fails Latino Youth
... in San Antonio estimated a 40 percent high school dropout rate, which in real numbers, translates into Texas high schools "losing" better than 90,000 students per year. A disproportionate number of these students are black and Latino....
....What is happening is the state is massaging statistics to make it seem as though education is improving instead of getting worse. ...Second, the state has been hiding its dropouts and essentially disappearing them from their rosters,... ...home of the "Houston Miracle" where principals made their dropouts mysteriously disappear in order to boost their schools' ratings and their own paychecks... ...It tells a frightening tale of increased dropout rates of blacks and Latinos; increased alienation of teachers, students, and administrators; further attacks on bilingual education; and the overall malaise and inequality associated with market-driven education reforms.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/test192.shtml
Testing Companies Mine for Gold
Here's an excerpt: ...Thanks to the testing mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, private companies are mining the testing field with all the power their accountants, test-makers, and marketers can muster. ... States are likely to spend $1.9 billion to $5.3 billion between 2002 and 2008 to implement NCLB-mandated tests,... ..."The amount of money spent on standardized testing is not the real problem," notes Monty Neill,..."The real problem is how it distorts teaching and learning." ...And of course, there are the personal connections between the Bush Administration and the testing industry. A January 2002 article in The Nation points out that the Bush administration has a particularly "cozy relationship" with the testing company run by McGraw-Hill. The heart of this relationship, the article notes, "lies the three-generation social mingling between the McGraw and Bush families. The McGraws are old Bush friends, dating back to the 1930s."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/21/18198/8087
Here's an excerpt:
"The brief's author, Gerald Bracey, finds that the money schools and districts spend on implementing NCLB requirements and on sanctions for failing to meet NCLB achievement goals are funneled mostly to private companies in the testing, curriculum, and Supplemental Education Services (SES) industries. Some of these companies have close ties to President George W. Bush and his family. In addition, Bracey says testing companies and SES providers are rarely held to the same level of accountability that NCLB demands of public schools."

---

December 7, 2004 Tuesday • Forum. The Realities of "No Child Left Behind" and what YOU can do about it!
Have you heard of the "No Child Left Behind" act, called by some the "No Child Left Untested" act? Do you wonder just how *many* children this law is leaving behind? Schools across the country are being outsourced to for-profit corporations like Edison Schools. Ten schools in West Contra Costa (Richmond and Kennedy High, Adams Middle, Chavez, King, Nystrom, Peres, Riverside, Stege, and Verde Elementary) are in danger of takeover if they don't reach unreasonable testing requirements by the end of *this* school year. Come to a forum to learn more and to organize to save public education. Easter Hill Methodist Church 3911 Cutting Blvd., Richmond. For more info call 510 501-7347or visit the websites: www.march4education.org  www.r-f-t.org

---

What's up with the "No Child Left Behind" act ? 10 WCCUSD schools in danger of being "reconstituted", taken over by the state or "outsourced" - next year!
http://march4education.org/nclb.html

---

Under No Child Left Behind, schools are being set up to fail By 2014, nearly all of California's K-12 schools are likely to be labeled as "failing" under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
http://www.cta.org/CaliforniaEducator/v9i1/Feature_1.htm

---

November 1, 2004
Suits may target No Child Left Behind Act, By Andrea Almond, Associated Press Writer(Excerpt from article:)...Parents of children in some failing schools can demand transfers to better campuses. Over the next four years, schools must offer tutoring services, administrators and teachers can be fired, states can take over districts, and federal funds can be withheld. ...
boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/11/01/suits_to_target_no_child_left_behind_act

---

September 24, 2004
BROKEN PROMISES: How Underfunding of No Child Left Behind Affects Schools and Communities
A State-by-State Analysis. Prepared by: Democratic Staff, Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. House of Representatives
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/brokenpromisesreport.html

August 2003 Special Report, BROKEN PROMISES
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/brokenpromises.pdf

---

January 18, 2004
The No Child Left Behind Hoax, Rethinking Schools, by Stan Karp
Editorial article on why Stan Karp thinks NCLB is a hoax and gives 10 (11) top reasons
Excerpt: Here's why I think NCLB is hoax: #8. The supplemental tutorial provisions of NCLB will channel public funds to private companies for ideological and political reasons, not sound educational ones.
Excerpt: ...In Texas, the supposed model for the Bush education plan, the Texas State Board was so horrified at the poor performance on the new third grade reading test, they voted to reduce the number of correct answers students needed so fewer schools would miss their AYP targets...
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/hoax.shtml http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=37&ItemID=4851

---

Title I, Part A School Choice
Students enrolled in Program Improvement (PI) schools have the option to transfer to schools in the local education agencies(LEA) that are not PI, with paid transportation. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ti/schoolchoice.asp

---

Letter at WCCUSDtalk on Transfers http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wccusdtalk/message/4124

---

November 2003
No Child Left Behind? How the Federal No Child Left Behind Act Impacts Local Schools and Children
Report from the Hearing of the Select Committee on Bridging the Education Gap, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, Chair
http://www.utrichmond.org/pages/nclb_final_report.pdf

2004-05 Title I Program Improvement Status Report • Updated 10/13/04
West Conra Costa Unified School
22 Schools reported by the California Department of Education. title1_04.html