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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Where on earth are you getting all that? There's *NO* fed takeover of schools, they aren't forcing closures or privatization, nor are they forcing firings of teachers of busing of kids, et cetera. Holy shit.[/quote]

NCLB included "sanctions" for schools that were underperforming.  There were not federal takeovers, but schools were forced to give kids "choice" to move to a different school and schools were forced to hire tutors.  This all cost money at the local level.  There were districts where boundaries were changed and schools were closed in order to increase scores (so that the punitive rules of NCLB could be avoided).  The federal government did influence those things even if they were not the ones actually "on the ground".  The fed's fingerprints are there.  I have no idea why the feds would want to put themselves "out there" again.  I did notice that NCLB was never mentioned in the last two elections (and Obama sure as heck wasn't going to bring it up in the SOTU).  There is nothing positive to say about this stuff.  It is totally divisive and nobody wants to touch it.  They'd rather talk about immigration (and that tells you a lot).

Teachers definitely feel threatened by the requirement that their evaluations be linked to "standardized tests".  
This country has done better than other countries precisely because we have not been "standardized" or "centralized".  We have been free to pursue different ideas that work for different parts of the country.  As much as the pro CC people will say that this is all not a big deal (the CC), it is definitely an area that the feds were not involved in before and any effort like this is going to be viewed as an intrusion.  Nobody wants to cede control to a far away federal government agency (look at Washington state).  Maybe it's not good to try to tame the "wild west".  Don't kill the frontier spirit.  That is a pretty strong current in parts of America and many people believe that America is being killed by the quashing of its individualism.  This is a deep sentiment for many and will be hard to assuage with saying "take off your tinfoil hat".  Of course this is an emotional issue.  You are challenging what people believe it means to be American.    [/quote]

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