Peters raises doubts about Nat’l Standards
August 18, 2010 – 9:05 amBetty Peters speaks to Senator Jeff Sessions about federal interference in educational matters. [click title for video]
Betty Peters speaks to Senator Jeff Sessions about federal interference in educational matters. [click title for video]
Peters says Race to the Top federal power grab
July 31, 2010 – 1:23 amAlabama has failed so far in its attempts to get federal Race To The Top program funds, and that’s a good thing, according to Alabama State Board of Education member Betty Peters. The state recently learned that it won’t be among states receiving $4.2 billion in federal aid. Reasons given for the state missing out on being among Race to the Top funds winners were a lack of charter schools, missing a deadline to agree to common standards and a reluctance by the Alabama Education Association to agree to evaluating educators based on their students’ test scores. Peters said the Race to the Top program was a power grab by the federal government that would infringe upon states’ rights guaranteed by the 10th Amendment. Peters said adopting common standards would take away too much local power to determine what children are taught. “Education has always been a state, local and family matter,” she ...
AL State School Board Member on National Standards
July 17, 2010 – 10:02 pmDear Editor, The American public is alarmed over the federal takeover of so many facets of our economy including the auto industry, financial institutions, and healthcare. Strangely, one of the largest sectors of our economy– public education–is being taken over with almost no public awareness. Congress and the state legislatures have been left out of the loop as have parents, educators and other taxpayers. However, the significance of this total federalization of our schools will be felt by parents as soon as they have a problem with school curricula or testing and can no longer appeal to locally accessible authorities, but instead they will have to look to faraway Washington for assistance from a faceless bureaucrat. Americans have always considered education to be under state and local authority by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.. Even the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law acknowledged state authority by prohibiting “national standards” ...
State education officials discuss core standards
June 25, 2010 – 6:42 pmAlabama educational officials started the ball rolling on what education might look like if the state Board of Education decides to join other states in adopting nationwide standards for core courses in English and math. But at least one board member was concerned at a Thursday meeting that the process of developing recommendations presupposes that the board wants the state to follow the same standards as other states. The Alabama Department of Education is putting together a task force to review the standards, which have been developed by the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers over the last two years with the input of Alabama and 47 other states. Read more...
University Had Short Attention Span for Superteaching
May 28, 2010 – 1:45 pmUSA TODAY The University of Alabama in Huntsville recently dissolved a contract with a self-styled business guru — who had a history of fraudulent business practices — to help develop a piece of teaching technology aimed primarily at K-12 students. But some observers are wondering why it took the university six months to terminate the relationship after unsavory details of the entrepreneur's past came to light — and why due diligence did not stop the university from signing the contract in the first place. The university went into business in 2007 with Bernard Dohrmann — an entrepreneur who has a long history of run-ins with federal watchdogs, including two convictions — to help monetize a tool called Super Teaching. It entered into a contract in December of that year with a company called Life Success Academy, headed by Dohrmann and his wife, as well as another company called Monte Sano Associates, to ...