Thread: NH-Testing immigrants: NCLB and Manchester

Testing immigrants: NCLB and Manchester

10 hours, 48 minutes ago

MANCHESTER'S PUBLIC school system is a "district in need of improvement" under federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) rules. One reason -- but not the only one -- is that the city has a lot of immigrant children who don't speak English as their first language.

Mayor Ted Gatsas and Superintendent Tom Brennan wrote to the state Education Department last week asking that the "English as a Second Language" (ESL) students be exempted from state testing for two years, and unschooled ones be exempted for five years.


Click for Editorials & Op-Eds"We believe the requirement to include immigrant/refugee students in the NECAP testing process as it is currently designed to be an unrealistic expectation," they wrote.

NCLB is full of unrealistic expectations, and the idea that ESL kids will quickly become proficient is one of them. However, the kids still must be tested. NCLB mandates testing for ESL and special-needs kids because districts used to pad test scores by excluding them. They would get left behind and never catch up (hence the name of the program: No Child Left Behind).

It might make sense to give these students a year or two before testing them, but only if the district uses that time to bring them up to speed. That would be the school system's duty even without NCLB. Educating all kids, not just the advanced ones, is the whole point of a public school system. NCLB certainly is flawed, but in the end the city still has to figure out how to educate these children.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx ... Manchester

Who is checking the legal status of these children and their guardians?

We have to provide education until age 18 but there is no requirement in International Law that OK's undocumented people in a country.

Related post
(Please read part concerning GPA of High School Students.)
Groups Plan NC Protest Against College Access for Illegal Immigrants -
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-170964.html

No child left behind should be called keep your kids down there with the illegal aleins.

Dixie

Originally Posted by Dixie

No child left behind should be called keep your kids down there with the illegal aleins.

Dixie

Or, make your kids stupid so that we can educate, Refugee that hate us, and illegals that we owe NOTHING.
It's not worth the dumbing down of our children!