The tenets of No Child Left Behind were reasonable enough, to be sure: Create standards for students. Hold schools accountable if students aren’t learning and progressing. Put qualified teachers in every classroom. And erase the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” as President Bush called them, for minority children.
It was a rare piece of bipartisan legislation and passed Congress overwhelmingly in December 2001 in the short-lived days of harmony that fell in the shadow of Sept. 11.
But in practice, No Child Left Behind has been one disappointment after another.
Congress should rewrite the law and free the nation’s schools from the unfunded mandates, unnecessary entanglements and impossible edicts that have resulted from the federal government’s meddling in what is traditionally a state and local matter.
Not one state out of 50 has met the deadline for having “qualified teachers” in each classroom, and only 10 states have been given full approval of their testing systems.
Colorado officials believe the state’s standards and tests are up to federal code, but they’re scrambling to provide Washington with minutiae and paperwork seemingly unrelated to student achievement.
No one has been completely happy with the law. In fact, there have been efforts in all 50 states to fix it, ranging from legislatures demanding money to cover costs to requests for exemptions from certain elements, according to the Communities for Quality Education. Connecticut last year became the first state to sue over the unfunded mandates, and others have threatened. The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, and school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont have sued on the same grounds.
Some states are now faced with losing federal money. Draining schools of resources isn’t the best way to bring them up to speed.
The law is up for reauthorization in 2007, and states are trying to wait out the November elections.
The law’s future will “have lots to do with the outcome of the national elections,” said Colorado Education Commissioner Bill Moloney. “I’d like to see that the moral high ground at the core of No Child Left Behind is preserved forever and the bureaucratic nightmares are stripped away,” he said.
He credits NCLB for recent gains made by minority groups in Colorado because the law leads schools to focus on achievement.
Most public school advocates agree with the law’s basic premise, that all students can and should learn, but the Bush administration has provided no real flexibility in how school districts can move forward.
Many of the law’s unrealistic demands, including the requirement that every student must be proficient in key subjects by 2014, will not be met.
Had the administration been more flexible and willing to work with states and schools, a workable compromise on the law could have been reached. But the administration has refused, leaving thousands of children behind and alienating many educators. Congress – regardless of which party wins control for next year – should dismantle what’s become a massive federal intrusion and give state and local officials the running room to focus on student achievement.
