Sen Edward Kennedy in an opinion article printed in The Washington Post argues that the No Child Left Behind Law needs revision and better funding but that it should not be abandoned. This is the sixth anniversary of the singing of the NCLB law. Kennedy was a lead author of the bill and attended the signing in Hamilton along with John Boehner and President Bush. Excerpts:
- On the plus side, the law demands that all children must benefit — black or white, immigrant or native-born, rich or poor, disabled or not. Before its enactment, only a handful of states monitored the achievement of every group of students in their schools. Today, all 50 states must do that. Across the country, schools are poring over student data to identify weaknesses in instruction and to improve teaching and learning. All schools now measure performance based not on the achievement of their average and above-average students but on their progress in helping below-average students reach high standards as well.
- The positive changes are evident in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” The improvements are still modest, but they’re noticeable, particularly among students who formerly were low achievers. We’re beginning to see a narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and other students.
- All of this is good news. But the law still needs major changes to bring out the best in all children. The process for rating troubled schools fails to reward incremental progress made by schools struggling to catch up. Its one-size-fits-all approach encourages “teaching to the test” and discourages innovation in the classroom. We need to encourage local decision makers to use a broader array of information, beyond test scores, to determine which schools need small adjustments and which need extensive reforms.
- The act doesn’t do enough to support teachers as the professionals they are by training and mentoring them and by placing good teachers in the schools that need them most. It fails to deal with the dropout crisis, which puts large numbers of young students beyond the reach of the American dream. It doesn’t involve parents enough in helping their children succeed. It falls short in achieving smaller classes so that teachers can give children the one-on-one attention they need.
- Most of all, the law fails to supply the essential resources that schools desperately need to improve their performance. We can’t achieve progress for all students on the cheap.
- As Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees in our democratic process, and as President Bush prepares to deliver his last State of the Union address, let us all remember that we owe it to our children and our children’s children to put progress ahead of politics and support what is working in school reform, and to work together to fix what is not.
From the Washington Post, “How to Fix ‘No Child’, “ written by Sen. Edward Kennedy
