Mental Health Plans for No Child Left Behind By Julie M. Quist

Congress has begun hearings to reauthorize No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and the national Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA began circulating a draft of the changes they think would improve education.
School Mental Health Project/Center for Mental Health in Schools . . Promoting a Systematic Focus on Learning Supports to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching

Anticipating Congressional hearings related to reauthorizing NCLB, this policy analysis brief focuses on how learning supports can be enhanced in the reauthorized law.

The intent is to enhance effectiveness in addressing the factors that interfere with a great many students succeeding at school.

The emphasis is on fully integrating the development of a comprehensive system of learning supports as an essential component in school improvement efforts.

Failure to develop such a system is seen as contributing to the perpetuation of achievement gaps and dropout rates and as playing a major role in the plateauing of achievement gains.
This first draft suggesting additions for enhancing how the law addresses barriers to learning is being circulated for widespread feedback.  We will incorporate appropriate changes into the brief based on input and then send the final document to the House and Senate Education Committee members and circulate it widely.

Feel free to share this draft with anyone who might be interested in providing feedback.
The national Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA is a policy and program analysis center
co-directed by Howard Adelman and Linda Taylor; it operates
under the auspices of the School Mental Health Project, Dept. of Psychology, UCLA,

Support comes in part from the Office of Adolescent Health, Maternal and Child Health Bureau
(Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration
(Project #U45 MC 00175) with co-funding from the Center for Mental Health Services,
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Both are agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Confronting International Baccalaureate
By Julie M. Quist

International Baccalaureate (IB) has been hyped as tops in academically challenging curriculum for our best and brightest, and it is organized to cheer lead its way into our schools. We can feel downright overpowered in the information wars, the other side having heavily funded lobbyists, most U.S. Governors, and the media on its side (which promotes, rather than reports). So what to do?

For starters, did you know that IB commits to “promote” the UN through the Earth Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it only commits to teach “appreciation for” America’s founding documents? How outrageous it that? Most people, most members of Congress, and most Governors don’t know that.

Most interesting in this controversy is that, despite the indoctrination effect, the ranks of the IB critics are growing as people gain more real data on IB. And with knowledge comes courage to stand up to the name-callers who populate the cadre of IB advocates.

An example of the power of real information is the evolution of the President’s “American Competitiveness Initiative.” First rolled out in January, he recommended $122 million for Advanced Placement and IB programs, especially in math and science. Since then, IB disappeared from his State of the Union address and his administration’s promotional material. Some individuals found avenues to give the White House the rest of the IB story.

In Minnesota, the GOP adopted a new plank into its 2006 state platform at its state convention this month opposing state and federal IB funding. This action followed the distribution of an informational handout to convention delegates. It passed with over 60% of the vote.

We live in a time when the American public isn’t looking kindly on the United Nations and the policies it is attempting to impose on our laws. Don’t fear to speak up: IB equals UN.

No Child Left Behind
getting a facelift
By Julie M. Quist

With Congress beginning to “re-authorize” President Bush’s intensely controversial 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, we should remember its first appearance in 1989. That’s when the National Governor’s Association (NGA) Education Summit, convened by President George Bush, Sr. and under the leadership of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, adopted six National Education Goals. That was the origin of(NCLB).

The 1989 Goals were a national education plan called America 2000. Hillary Clinton along with Ira Magaziner, Robert Reich, and Marc Tucker were responsible for developing them. All were later to become players in the Bill Clinton presidency.

Then-Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander fashioned the NGA education plan into federal legislation. Suddenly, the Washington insiders’ vision for education change morphed into legislation. When proposals become statutes, government enforcement kicks in.

The Education Goals included a major federal role in areas always known to be constitutionally off-limits, including with children before kindergarten, with curriculum, and with adult education. Notice that includes everybody. The immediate effect was that parents, school boards, and state legislatures, who would never have put such a system in place, were side-lined. This was not bottom-up – this was the ultimate top-down.

It was 1994 under President Clinton when this became Goals 2000 and passed in Congress, tied to compliance to federal ‘War on Poverty” money states received.

The stage was now set for NCLB. States had to adopt state outcomes (standards) based on the federal curriculum (standards) and measure those outcomes. For seven years this federal system was constructed, state by state. In 2001, NCLB added sharp enforcement mechanisms. Success was now defined as all children passing low-level tests, not higher achievement for all. NCLB became the “dumbing-down” of America.