Posted on by arotherham

A Contest! Name That Law!

United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has not surprisingly said that he’s open to renaming the “No Child Left Behind Act” something else.   Before President Bush, for instance, the Clinton version of the law was called the “Improving America’s Schools Act.”  The underlying law is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it’s not going anywhere but a new name is likely in the offing.

Howie Schaffer suggested that the time is now to start naming names.  So let’s have a contest.  The person who offers the best name, decided via a highly arbitrary process involving me and a few friends, wins a signed copy of this picture of DCPS official Justin Cohen in a really tacky frame.  Runners-up get books.

785 Replies to “A Contest! Name That Law!”

  6. HELP A CHILD TO THEIR BEST POTENTIAL

    We can’t help all to the highest level, but we can help each to their own best potential, in a reasonable manner. but not at all costs.

  10. Got it! Here ya go:

    The ‘Kill All Desire For Genuine Learning While Prepping Kids For the Last Good Job–(Whoops) Just Shipped to Mexico–Act’.

    They used to make schools like factories and prep kids for the drudgery that awaited in them; today it’ll be about insuring they grow up unwitting enough not to revolt–or will it insure that? I’m not so sure. Humans aren’t really cut out for such horseshit, whatever you call it.

    P.S. Is K. Bachman a f’real person, or someone’s hologram of the perfect. . . person to administer the program?

  15. TARP: Troubled Adolescents Recovery Program

    FPERA: For-Profit Education Relief Act

    The Four Modernizations (in honor of our new Chinese overlords)

    Omnibus Brain Improvement Act (as amended)

  16. No Child’s Behind is Left. My wife is a high school teacher and says the whole thing sucks and should be ditched!!!

  19. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE ACT

    When children are taught their correct social heritage they will become learners in their own right. Children who don’t know who they are in essence, don’t know the origin of their species and don’t know the history of their evolution as natural gathers of information, knowledge and understanding, they become sponges and memory victims instead of conscious, passionate participants in the learning process. The correct answer to the WHO AM I IN ESSENCE question should lay the foundation of education in America and, in the world. There is no real value in mastering numbers, words or colors if you can’t count yourself correctly, not by skin, gender or social data but in essence.

  21. The “George Bush screwed the Children Act”
    The “Underfunded Mandate Act”
    The “Let’s Assume Our Teachers Are Morons Who Can’t Teach Children So We’ll Make Them Teach to Tests Act”

  22. How about just the “Big Brother Act.” Most of W’s descriptions fit, but the idea of programming young minds to take these tests is one of the better examples.

  30. The Fast-Track To American Idiocracy Program

    The Math Is Hard Barbie Program For Kids

    Science Schmience Program For The Biblically Illiterate

  33. There’s an entry above from one Leland Witter at February 23rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm, suggesting:

    On Bettering America’s Minds Act (OBAMA)

    ………………………………………………………….

    I believe that he must have meant to suggest:

    On Battering America’s Minds Act (OBAMA)

    ==============================

  37. I really like this one from Ella:
    Equal Opportunity Education EOE
    Depending on who you are, there’s a lot of baggage here, but this appellation says it all: whatever a kid needs, he or she gets. Shouldn’t that be the goal of our education system?

  38. Pull as Much Funding as we Can Act, Take huge amounts of time from the school year to teach test taking instead of real curriculum, Gut Urban Schools Act, Fund Fundamentalist Schools Act, Enrich Private Crony Corporations that run Charter Schools Act, Devalue Education Act

  41. The Let’s Pretend You’re Getting an Education Act.

    Because, face it. 100 years ago, kids knew more by 8th grade graduation than you will with a Bachelor’s. We made it easy for you so you wouldn’t fail. Quit whining, you lazy sots.

  42. No Money, But High Expectations (NMBHE)
    Politicians Feeling Better and Fixing Nothing (PFBFN)
    Critical-Thinking Aborted for Politicians (CRAP)

    Or, for truth in advetising…
    Stupid Tests so Children Can’t No Longer Think Themselves Out of a Paper Bag (STCCNLTTOPB)

    Unless the Federal Government suddenly has money to permanently fund any law, they should just kill this stupid thing. It doesn’t work. As is, the teachers spend 1/4 of the year teaching to a test that will do them no good in life. So with that in mind, here’s my last suggestion…

    Legislated Attempt to Modernize Education (LAME)

  43. the “Failed Policy that Still Somehow Limps Along Like a Zombie Act” (FPSSLZA or effpusslizza, catchy, no?)

  45. As a teacher of the gifted, I often wonder why we can’t spend money on the kids who are going to make a positive difference if supported properly.

    How about “No Child left behind, but waste no time, money or energy on those that are ahead”

  46. Every Child’s A Special Snowflake Act

    Or, how’s about Setting Our Expectations Low So Everyone Can Meet Them Act?

    Or, how’s this for a radical idea?

    We Screwed Up, Sorry, This Thing Is Going The Way of the Dodo Act?

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