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!”

  1. Excuse me: Bill handed down by us Omniscient Adults to reinvent childhood – or simply the BOA (constrictor) act – how many of you preferred the drone of a math teacher when you were ten years old?

  2. Since I am a public high school teacher let me give this a whirl :
    “The Guaranteed Employment For Nameless Faceless Bureaucrats Who Are Getting Money That Should Be Going To Our Kids in Our Classrooms” Bill . Or how about this? ” The Get Off Our Backs And Let Us Teach” Bill.

  4. “All Independent Thought Left Behind” Act

    due to the fact that this law’s main goal seems to be adding more standardized testing and less education to our nation’s schools. We need money for truly innovative ideas, like the Denver school district’s experiment with ditching grade levels in favor of letting kids progress according to their ability and mastery of subjects. When I was teaching, I was regularly given memos that read, “Teach to the Test”. I met teachers who didn’t care that their fifth graders couldn’t read; they taught fifth grade material and let the kids fail. We need larger facilities with more teachers, and less students per class. We need to integrate school children with real-life and not institutionalize them away from the world, otherwise, they graduate unable to function as productive citizens…

  6. How about:
    Why Do Government Officials Send Their Children to Private Schools? Think. Act.

  7. All Children Are Simply Entitled To Pass Everything So That We Don’t Hurt Their Self-Esteem Act

  8. The concept behind NCLB is to raise the United State’s standing in global math and science rankings. That’s it, we’re just falling beind in the “mine is larger than yours” race. However, that’s where the falacy begins. The countries that best us all have tracking throughout their educational systems. And I’m not just talking about A, B and/or C classes, I’m talking about MAJOR TRACKING, where students need to take periodic entrance exams to qualify for tracked schools. If you don’t pass the exams with a high enough grade, you don’t get into the academically tracked school, it’s on to vocational school with you. So, who are we comparing ourselves to? We’re comparing OUR ENTIRE SCHOOL POPULACE (from special ed, ELL, on up) with their most elite students (the only ones who actually take their exams). I’ll wager my entire career that if put on equal footing, our top 10% would cream their top 10% anyday! In other words, theres nothing wrong with our educational system, let’s just start comparing apples with apples.

    That being said, let’s call the new educational act:

    Scientifically Proven Educational Principles Applied By REAL Educators While Allowing Students to Succeed to their Individualized Maximum Ability Levels with Full Federal Funding (SPEPABREWASSIMAL3F)

    Hey, if we’re going to dream, we might as well dream big!

  9. How bout the People are Gonna be Pissed when Change doesn’t Come act.

    But more seriously the Educational Standards Act (ESA) would probably better off.

  16. How about: The Real American Education Act: Get Off Your Ass And Learn, AKA, Swim or Sink (you will be doing one or the other anyway, whether you realize it or not).

  17. How about the: It’s All Right, It’s OK, They’ll Be Working For Us Some Day Act. (IARIOTBWFUSDA for short)

  18. Eternal optimist that I am…

    “Reclaiming Our Public Schools Act.” It would remove unfunded Federal mandates and put the power back where it belongs: with local communities and citizens engaging in dialogue about what student success should realisticallly look like in the 21st century and why it matters to our democracy and their hometown.

  20. How about, “Rote Math and Paragraph Summary Act (RuMPuS)”, since poorly-performing schools drop everything (science, PE, music, art) to focus only on math and reading TAKS-taking skills.

    Or, how about, the “No Child Left Behind Because We Can Skew the Test to Pass Everybody” Act, because that is pretty much what’s happening in states like Texas.

    For those not aware, that’s what George Bush did in Texas. The so-called “Texas Miracle” is what got him running and winning the White House, even though the huge boost in student achievement was based on making the state testing MUCH EASIER.

  21. Ever since the law was passed, my husband and I have called it
    No Child Gets Ahead
    because if any child gets ahead, the rest are, by definition, left behind. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in Texas. It’s a catastrophe here, folks, not a miracle!

    Now, how can we get that carpetbagger outta Dallas, outta Texas, and all the way back north, the hell away from here?

  23. We Are all Rocket Scientists (WARS) or History and Economics: Who Needs That Crap? (HEWNTC) or Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) or People Loving All – Science My Ass (PLASMA) or Invert and Multiply That Fraction After 12 Years (IMTFAY) or …

  27. I think we should rename the law with the following initials:

    PAIN standing for Passing Assessments Indicates Nothing.
    Pain for teachers and real pain for kids who are tested ad nauseum….
    Really……or else DBA Death By Assessment

  29. The Trail of Breadcrumbs Act? Somehow that Light in the Forest thing has me thinking of Hansel, Gretel, and an oven.

    Or… No Test Left Behind.

  31. All inspired by Bush…

    The “more literate [and] hopefuller country” Act (January 2001)

    The “Is our Children Learning” Act

    The “teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test” Act

  33. A couple more, for those who like acronyms:

    WIA — Workforce Indoctrination Act

    Self Esteem/Social Promotion/Outcome Over Learning Act, or

    SESPOOL Act.

  37. President Obama? Are you listening? There’s a lot of good stuff here. I teach in a high school that is on the ‘list’. We have experts now who have been hired to come into our district to tell us how to teach. We are constantly being observed and told how to be more effective by these ‘experts’ who have never EVER been in a classroom!!!!

    All that money would have been better spent in the classrooms. If somebody…anybody….would just listen to us teachers, we could tell them how to more productively spend that money!!!

  39. No No.2 Pencils Left Behind,

    or

    America for Straight A’s for All
    — part of the Grades Redistribution and Recovery (GRR) Act.

  45. In honor of the Bush administration’s plan to do away with public education, call it the No Child Left In Schools act, or maybe No Public Schools Left. That’s for the original plan.

    If the new one is an improvement, and how could it not be, it could have a nice name. If it is actually funded, it could have a nice, accurate name. That would be an improvement

  46. ACT for Superior Students (ASS)

    Law for Advancing Mathematics and English (LAME)

    Helping America’s Superior Students Learn Everything (HASSLE)

    Justifying Uniformly Substandard Teaching By Enforcing ACTS Universally Thought Idiotic, Fanciful, Unproductive, and Legalistic (JUST BEAUTIFUL)

    Hapless Educrats Leaking Pedagogically Misinformed Epistemology and Negating Our Wondrous and Massively Advanced Methods ACT (HELP ME NOW, MAMA)

    Helping America’s Individual Learners Conquer Higher Intellectual Needs ACT (HAIL CHINA)*

    Designing Routinely Improved Newfangled Keynesian Theories and Helping Education Keep Our Obtuse Lawmakers Always Imbibing Drinks and Making ACTS Counterproductively (DRINK THE KOOL-AID, MAC!)

    Wise Educational Researchers Eventually Growing Onanistic with Never-Needed Assessments and Strangling Teachers Attempting Rudimentary or Visionary Education, Making Action Necessary!

    (WE’RE GONNA STARVE, MAN!)**

    or

    Wise Educational Researchers Eventually Growing Onanistic with Never-Needed Assessments and Strangling Teachers’ Attempts at Rudimentary or Visionary Education and Deniably Uglifying Decent Education

    (WE’RE GONNA STARVE, DUDE!)**

    *I don’t offer this as a slight against China or anyone of Asian extraction. Rather, I suggest it as a respectful tip of the hat to China’s rapidly improving educational system.

    **Alarmist? Depends on who you ask.

  49. Name it
    (Children should Know better act)..or
    (Yes We Can Act) or (My child not yours act) or (Bless the children act)
    or ( I want an education too act) or (our future act) or ( Learn from our mistakes act) or the best for last ( Remember who is going to take care of you when your older act)……

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