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Nebraska beats California?



I pray this is appropriate:


LOCAL HEROES
NEBRASKA STANDS UP TO NO CHILD LAW
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2001901192_nebraska12.html

TRACY DELL'ANGELA CHICAGO TRIBUNE, LA VISTA, NE ­ Instead of filling in
bubbles on a multiple-choice exam, 10th-grader Monica Miller scribbles a
quick paragraph to show her teacher she understands the symbolism in a
short
story she just read. Macy Morrison, 8, opens an online portfolio to review
her scores on math problems that test her reasoning skills. Kyle Dunbar
reads to a fifth-grade classmate, who will offer suggestions about how to
improve his fluency.

In schools on the outskirts of Omaha, this is how teachers decide whether
their students have mastered reading and math under the federal No Child
Left Behind Act.

Here, students aren't pushed to do well on 50-minute tests that will
determine whether their teachers and their schools are considered
successful
­ the kind of pressure faced across the nation as children take their
states' standardized achievement tests. . . The state has persuaded federal
education officials to approve the nation's most unorthodox assessment
system, which allows school districts to use portfolios to measure student
progress.

For this, Nebraska Education Commissioner Douglas Christensen has been
hailed as a visionary and derided as an obstructionist. "I don't give a
damn
what No Child Left Behind says," Christensen said. "I think education is
far
too complex to be reduced to a single score. We decided we were going to
take No Child Left Behind and integrate it into our plan, not the other way
around. If it's bad for kids, we're not going to do it."

.............

Christensen said Nebraska's system is unusual because it rests on a
revolutionary concept: that teachers know better than tests whether
students are learning, and that they can be trusted to make that happen.

"Educators have never been in control of their craft," he said. "What
makes our system work is it speaks to the heart of teachers."