With No Child Left Behind up for a re-hash this year, dissident voices are gaining traction and even supporters are acknowledging that its language needs some tweaking.
The nonprofit Educator Roundtable, a division of the Vermont Society for the Study of Education, has collected nearly 30,000 signatures for a petition asking to completely dismantle NCLB. One blogger is inviting educators to picket the annual national school board conference on Saturday in San Francisco. An Education Week blogger was dumbfounded that only 20 states have tried to roll back all or parts of the law.
California Congressman George Miller, the Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee who helped author NCLB, told Tavis Smiley that after five years, the law is only in its “infancy” in terms of meeting the needs of poor and minority students.
According to reports, there have been successes. Total federal funding for No Child Left Behind rose 34% between 2001 and 2006. Funding for schools serving low-income students rose 45%. States and school districts also allegedly have unprecedented flexibility in how they use federal funds, in exchange for greater accountability for results.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has a plan. She says we’ve learned some things “organically” over the years, and that now is the time for a growth model that charts progress over time with annual assessment systems. She also says it’s time to turn attention to high schools, which are becoming increasingly “critical.”
At this point what isn’t critical when it comes to education reform?
—Gary Moskowitz
