The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is expected to soon begin debate on the No Child Left Behind Act, which comes up for renewal this year. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, is a member of the Committee.

Although Sen. Brown supported NCLB while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, he has been critical of Republican leaders for failing to fully fund the reforms. Among his main complaints: No Child Left Behind is $14 billion under funded.

Criticism of the Act goes beyond just funding.

The National Council of Churches recently joined 105 organizations that signed a statement demanding changes in the NCLB, including a call to decrease the testing burden on states and ease up on sanctions against struggling schools. While President Bush views passage of the Act as a major domestic policy success, a recent Gallup Poll showed that 60 percent of those surveyed believe the law is either hurting public schools or making no difference at all.

The goal of No Child Left Behind was to improve student performance by requiring higher accountability from failing schools while the federal government provided resources to improve student performance.

In a recently released report by the Aspen Institute, a bipartisan commission evaluated the No Child Left Behind Act. Its 200-page product details recommendations for improvement. This review offers the most specific set of recommendations Congress has received on the 2002 law.

Despite dissent from the teachers’ unions, the recommendations received praise from Republicans and Democrats in Congress and from the U.S. Department of Education.

Among the report’s key recommendations:

•Make teachers’ employment dependent upon their students’ test scores.
•Build science tests into the accountability structure.
•Draw up a set of voluntary national standards.

For the full report, go here: Aspen Institute Commission on NCLB Report

No Child Left Behind, an Overview

The President signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in January 2002. This law, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, is one of the primary laws governing federal involvement in elementary and secondary education. Proponents of this law argue that it imposes tough new accountability standards on public schools, including a new annual testing program for students in grades 3-8, in exchange for providing additional federal resources for education programs.
NCLB mandates that every state creates annual tests to align with standards and students would have to score “proficiently” by 2014. Each state complied, but each wrote very different tests with very different definitions of “proficient.” Many of those definitions of “proficient,” the commission suggests, are not high enough.
The law calls for progressively severe sanctions for schools that do not show Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP. Districts that fail to achieve AYP in successive years face tough consequences such as staff replacement and state takeover.

Criticism of the Act:

Since its passage, a string of studies has concluded that the Act is flawed. Some of the criticism centers on the following:

•The NCLB Act fails to do what it promised.

A recent study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University concluded that the act has not had a significant impact on improving reading and math or closing the achievement gap across the nation.

•The NCLB Act is too restrictive and stifles innovation.

A 2005 study by the National Conference of State Legislatures made 43 specific recommendations on ways the law can be revised to improve the quality of education for all students and close the gaps in achievement that exist in schools today. NCSL concluded that the Act undermined some state programs that were proving to be successful before passage of the NCLB. It also criticized the one-size-fits-all method that measures student performance.

•Proposed changes to the NCLB Act would discourage the best teachers from remaining in the most challenging schools.

The National Education Association is asking its members to oppose the Commission’s plan for “highly qualified effective teachers.” Under the plan, teachers would be evaluated, in large part, on student achievement on standardized tests. They would have a finite amount of time to become highly qualified and effective. When the time expires, parents would be told that the teacher was not effective and the teacher could be banned from the school.

To see the NEA’s explanation for opposing the plan for highly qualified effective teachers, visit here.

•The NCLB Act is underfunded – and expensive.

A 2003 study by the National Access Network determined that NCLB would cost Ohio $1.45 billion to implement – an 11 percent annual spending increase. The same study showed that the anticipated federal funds to cover these costs would be $44 million for 2004.

The bulk of the spending increase would go toward student intervention costs, in order to bring 100% of the children up to proficiency levels. These intervention service costs include, among others, salaries of teachers and instructional assistants, transportation costs, summer school costs, extended day costs and intensive in-school academic intervention.

The study assumes that 75% of Ohio’s children currently perform at proficiency levels. Administrative, teacher and paraprofessional costs account for only 7% of the cost. This cost includes testing, meeting the “highly qualified” teacher and paraprofessional requirements and professional training.

•The NCLB Act raises moral concerns.

The National Council of Churches (NCC) Committee on Public Education and Literacy argues that the Act raises a number of strong moral concerns and has published “Ten Moral Concerns in the Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act,” a list of criticisms about the justice and morality of the law. NCLB, according to the list, holds students to impossibly high standards, thereby undermining support for public education and threatening our democracy.

The group also argues that the method of labeling schools and subgroups within schools as “needing improvement” – or, as the media more commonly reports, “failing” – could lead to an increase in the dropout rate among students so labeled.

LIBRARY:
For additional research:
The ABCs of “AYP’’ Raising Achievement for All Students, Click Here

Public Education Network: No Child Left Behind on Ohio But Communities are Feeling Left Out

Congressional Research Service Reports

National Center For Education Statistics