Web Site Reveals What Armstrong Williams and George Bush Don't Want You to Know: NCLB Isn't Working

NCLBgrassroots.
Civil Society Institute President Pam Solo said: "With the third
anniversary of NCLB unfolding amidst a scandal about Bush Administration
payola to conservative columnist Armstrong Williams and a dangerously unsound
proposal by President Bush to expand to the high school level the damage done
by 'No Child Left Behind,' our Web site is needed more today than ever. Yet the
current board of trustees is violating the long standing tradition that SSA
remain neutral in political debates.

As time goes on, new issues come and go, but all would be considered 'education reform.

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"
Results for America supports investing in public schools, making sure parents
have more of a say in their schools and creating conditions that will lead to
learning and success for every child.

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The impetus for http://www .

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Featuring current local newspaper articles that can be sorted by state and
eight key NCLB topic areas, the ambitious Web site was launched in September
2004 by Results for America (http: //www."

ABOUT RESULTS FOR AMERICA
Results for America is a project of the Civil Society Institute, which is
based in Newton, Massachusetts.

The American Federation of Government Employees is the largest federal
employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the
government of the District of Columbia. AFGE's National Social Security
Council, officially known as the National Council of SSA Field Operations
Locals (Council 220), represents the 28,000 employees of the Social Security
Administration who work in field offices and teleservice (1-800 ) centers.

ratepayers standardized

NCLBgrassroots. Now, it's time to make sure that
NCLB's real-world impact also is understood by national lawmakers and
journalists who tend to think and write about this issue in terms that have
little to do with what is actually going on in America's classrooms.

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American taxpayers should not tolerate information
that is misrepresented and the ethically questionable.

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It seems as
though the trustees did not bother to look over the latest projections, which
show the outlook for Social Security holding more or less steady following the
strong gains made in recent reports.

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org), a project of
the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute.

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nclbgrassroots.org --
continues to zero in exclusively on documenting the failure of the Bush
education reform campaign.
In January , members of the Council made public information demonstrating a
concerted effort to enroll career employees of SSA in a public relations
campaign to hype concerns about solvency and promote the idea that private
accounts must be a part of reform.

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Amid Armstrong Scandal and Bush Push for NCLB in High Schools,
http://www."
The Web site -- http://www.

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org Finds Growing Evidence of
Failure of 'Reform' Scheme

WASHINGTON, NCLB isn't working in communities
across America and only one Web site -- http:///www. As a result, there is a big and growing
'disconnect' right now between the abstract national discussion of NCLB and
how it actually plays out locally in concrete terms.

This may include changing teaching methods, administration , textbooks, schedules, curriculum, and grouping and promotion practices, for example.

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Articles collected in
the Web site can be sorted by such issues as: federal intrusion in education
policy; narrowing of curriculum; teacher flexibility; class size; funding
burden; unintended negative consequences of NCLB; adequate yearly progress
(AYP) reporting; and standardized testing.
Solo said: "The national debate about NCLB is taking place in a way that
is almost completely divorced from what is actually going on out there at the
grassroots in the schools where NCLB is not working and is creating huge
headaches and disparities. Our new Web site gives
voice to the mounting evidence that NCLB has a noble name, but that its merits
as social policy begin and end there.nclbgrassroots . Because of this conflict of interest, AFGE has called
upon Savings to resign.

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S. Parents and local
educators already understand all of this.org.

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org does is strip away the glittering generalities
and overheated hype that is used to sell NCLB.nclbgrassroots.

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The four-month-old Web site now contains more than
1,200 news stories from nearly every corner of the U.
As a former SSA employee who worked for the agency for nearly 30 years, I
understand the harm that could be done by playing politics . It is the job of
SSA to provide service to the millions of Americans who depend on Social
Security for their retirement, disability and survivor benefits.

Education reform is mainly about changing 'traditional ' educational practices or policies, presumably for the better.

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The CSI President added: "This vast social experiment has neither helped
with student drop-out rates nor has it done much to advance the real learning
curve of the vast majority of the nation's students.

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What
http://www. Visit Civil Society Institute on the Web at
http://www.

AFGE Calls Social Security Trustees Irresponsible

Says Latest Trustees' Statements Are Misleading Rhetoric

WASHINGTON, John Gage, national president of the
American Federation of Government Employees -- which represents about 50,000
employees of the Social Security Administration -- issued the following
statement in reaction to the 2005 Social Security Trustees' Report:

Today's news conference continues the disturbing trend within the Social
Security Administration (SSA) to employ the use of irresponsible rhetoric to
scare the American public about the future of Social Security.

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and is reaching an
ever-widening audience of parents, grandparents, taxpayers and other concerned
Americans.

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civilsocietyinstitute .

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When you look at how NCLB is
working in the real world, you find a dismal failure.

ResultsForAmerica.

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The RFA initiative
for schools is entitled "Great Kids, Great Schools, Great Communities .
No one should be surprised by what we are hearing from the trustees
considering the administration 's 60/60 tour, the involvement of SSA Deputy
Commissioner James Lockhart in the town hall meeting road show, and the
alignment of public trustee Thomas Savings with the pro-privatization group
Progress for America.

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org first arose during the
course of Results For America's February 2004 survey that parental support for
NCLB is thin and does not hold up when parents are given the alternative of
considering other common-sense changes for schools. The mission of the Institute is to serve as a
catalyst for change by creating problem-solving interactions among people, and
between communities , government and business, that can help to improve
society.

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RFA seeks to shape and tap the tremendous amount of community-level
knowledge, experience and innovative action that could solve America's
problems in four key areas, including education reform.

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org -- is intended to help
national policymakers, the news media and parents understand that the
controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school reforms are not working as
intended and, in fact, have sparked widespread local opposition . The trustees speak of certain doom even
though their own report shows three divergent scenarios and despite the fact
that, obviously, the future cannot be known.