the amount of money the government is making. They don’t want to spend too much extra money helping schools. Whether the results were good or bad, the people of California had the right to vote on the topic of education. California is not the only state that can vote for propositions dealing with education. All states have their own propositions on education that fit their economy.
Since it is such an important topic for people around the nation, politicians have used education as their political platform. In 2008 Obama campaigned to free the states of the No Child Left behind Law. This was a law created by President George W. Bush. People were not given the option to vote on this law. President Bush signed and passed the bill himself. In the
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This was an educational law that, “…required standardized testing of students and a system of penalties for schools whose students scored below benchmarks chosen to demonstrate proficiency.” (Resmovits 1). In this law, the federal government was placing all responsibility on states and schools for the performance of students on standardized test. This put much more pressure on the teachers of the school. Teachers had to make sure that their students were meeting the benchmark that was set. If students were not meeting the benchmarked scores set up by the law, then consequences would follow. A possible consequence of failing to meet the benchmark would be hiring in a full new staff to take over. This particular law extended the authority of the federal government over the state and local schools. Many states were against this new law though. Many people, especially teachers believed that standardized testing could not measure someone’s full intellectual capability. President Obama knew many of the states did not agree with the No Child Left Behind Law. Obama agreed that the goal of the NCLB law was correct, however it needed to be thoroughly reformed. There …show more content…
They are the ones being blamed for the low test results. As a result, very harsh evaluations were placed on teachers. These evaluations were based on students standardized test results. If the test results were low, then the evaluations would be low as well. However, many of the teachers disagree with the government’s form of standardized testing. Many believe that these test are pointless and should not be what measures a student’s intelligence. One teacher such as Jesse Hagopian stated that standardized tests don’t “…cultivate the type of thinking we need, and it doesn’t bring in the resources that we need to make students successful.” (Rich 1). It was later found that there was a connection between teacher pay and student standardized test results. Many of the teachers were not receiving an efficient amount of pay for the work that they were doing. However, when teachers’ pay was increased, there was a higher result in standardized tests. Senator Alexander, governor of Tennessee, pushed for better pay for teachers. He stated that, “There’s this view that somehow you become smarter and more compassionate about children and education if you buy an airplane ticket to Washington,” (Rich 1). He is saying that when you pay teachers more money, then there is a better outcome in student education. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa believes that the federal government should continue to hold evaluations, and student surveys. Harkins