AP writes-up the regulatory fix tucked into spending bill passed by the last Congress on their way out of town. To believe the claims now being made by proponents of the California lawsuit you have believe that Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Education and Labor Committee, its former chair, and a guy who has spent more than a decade trying to use federal policy to improve the quality of the teachers in front of low-income students has suddenly turned his back on all that and now wants low-income kids to have unqualified teachers or at a minimum doesn’t care if they do.
Alternatively, you can believe that the lawsuit in California was a thinly veiled attack on organizations like Teach For America and that the new fix, while imperfect, was a sensible response by Congress given all the problems with the “highly qualified teacher” language in federal law in the first place and the fact that TFA teachers are hardly doing harm in the communities they’re serving in.
Update: More from Chad Aldeman.
no one’s saying george miller is evil — that’s just a straw man you’re inventing to defend TFA etc.
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2011/01/teachers-broken-certification-system-overuse-of-trainees.html
From AP:
“With this amendment, Congress is really turning its back on low-income, minority students,” said Tara Kini, a staff attorney with Public Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit law firm that filed the lawsuit.”
Turning “its back on low-income minority students?” Not “evil” but certainly a slam on Congressman Miller.
Who referred to him as “evil”? Misleading quotes much?
^ addressed to alex. And Quotes should read reply.
a guy who has spent more than a decade trying to use federal policy to improve the quality of the teachers in front of low-income students has suddenly turned his back on all that and now wants low-income kids to have unqualified teachers or at a minimum doesn’t care if they do.
That’s sounds rather evil.
If you read the article, you’ll notice your block quote is exactly what is being argued by the advocates behind the lawsuit. Andy is criticizing this notion that congress is doing this to wrong low-income kids. Alex was the one to incorrectly attribute the evil argument as Andy’s (and by doing so ironically arguing his own straw man).
Thank you Christopher.
Unfortunately, I missed the hearings Rep George Miller held in wake of the court decision where the ACLU and the plaintiffs got to present their case to Congress.
Given what I am specifically referring to here, it doesn’t matter what else you’d like to see; the plaintiffs claimed congress passed this legislation because they don’t care about low-income students.
It’s really unfair to turn your backs on Miller now, just because of this little thing. If NCLB was good enough for low income kids, then TFA ought work wonders.