Monday, January 31, 2005

NCLB v. Spelling Bee

[via Education News]
NCLB is turning into a Harrison Bergeron juggernaut: Spelling Bees are violation of the "raising all students" ethic because there's only one winner. Excellence is not to be rewarded; students who can do better are going to be encouraged to do just a bit better, so as to not endanger the preferred gradually rising test scores. How about this: any student who drops out in the first two rounds gets extra help? How about spelling bees with teams instead of individuals? There's lots of ways to make these more NCLB-friendly. But imagination is not, I'm afraid, the first trait of educational administrators.

UPDATE: The Bee is back on [registration required]. Apparently the decision to cancel was made last year: several of the principals involved have since retired and there was "Thoughtful consideration, and lots of input...."

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