EDUCATION REPORT - Three States, Teachers Union Act Against

EDUCATION REPORT - Three States, Teachers Union Act Against Federal¹ Education Law
By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Thursday, June 09, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English EDUCATION REPORT.

School governing organizations in three states and the nation's largest teachers' union recently brought legal action against the federal government. Nine school districts and the National Education Association² criticize³ a federal education reform law.

 
President Bush speaks about his No Child Left Behind education program
They say the Department of Education has failed to provide enough money for schools to carry out the law called No Child Left Behind. They accuse the Department of Education of violating⁴ a part of the law that says states cannot be forced to spend their own money to meet the federal requirements. They say fully⁵ obeying the law would cost the states thousands of millions of dollars to test students.

The state of Utah also criticized⁶ the law. State lawmakers voted to place top importance on Utah's own school performance system when it conflicts with the federal government. Utah and several other states say they want to use their own educational reform plans.

The No Child Left Behind law forms the main part of the Bush Administration's education policy. It calls for every student in every school to meet reading and mathematics requirements by two thousand fourteen.

United States Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says the law's main goal is to improve education for minority students. She says No Child Left Behind does not harm states financially. Secretary Spellings notes that the federal government has increased educational spending by forty percent over the past three years. She says this pays for testing and other expenses under the law.

Miz Spellings has promised to work with states to carry out the law. She says schools must show progress in tests by special groups including low-income and minority students. The idea of reporting their test scores is to keep schools from hiding the scores of poorly performing students. That can happen when schools average low test scores with those of students with higher scores.

Under No Child Left Behind, a school can receive a poor rating⁷ and be punished if some groups of students score poorly. If bad performance continues, struggling students get free after-school help. And, parents can send their children to a better school.

This VOA Special English EDUCATION REPORT was written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Gwen Outen.

1 federal   

adj.联盟的；联邦的；(美国)联邦政府的

参考例句：

• Switzerland is a federal republic.瑞士是一个联邦共和国。
• The schools are screaming for federal aid.那些学校强烈要求联邦政府的援助。

2 association   

n.联盟，协会，社团；交往，联合；联想

参考例句：

• Our long association with your company has brought great benefits.我方和贵公司的长期合作带来了巨大的利益。
• I broke away from the association ten years ago.我10年前就脱离了那个团体。

3 criticize   

vt.批评；批判，指责；评论，评价

参考例句：

• Whenever you criticize him,he always has an excuse.你批评他，他总有说头儿。
• You are free to criticize my work.你可以随意批评我的工作。

4 violating   

亵渎( violate的现在分词 )； 违反； 侵犯； 强奸

参考例句：

• Ignorance of a law does not excuse a man for violating it. 一个人不懂法律不构成犯法的理由。
• It was sued by the U.S. federal government for violating antitrust law. 它被美国联邦政府指控违反了反托拉斯法。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 criticized   

vt.批评(criticize的过去式)v.评论，批评( criticize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The decision was criticized by environmental groups. 这个决定受到了环保团体的批评。
• The movie has been criticized for apparently legitimizing violence. 这部电影因明显地美化暴力而受到了指责。

7 rating   

n.级别，等级，额定值，责骂，收视率

参考例句：

• It is a ship with a rating of 500,000 tons.这是一艘五十万吨级的船。
• The opinion polls gave the president a high rating.民意测验显示人民对总统的支持率很高。