Education law faces renewal amid reform calls
By David Alexander Wed Mar 14, 9:39 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A far-reaching education law
President George W. Bush hails as one of his signature achievements is being reviewed by Congress this year amid widespread demands for it to be reformed.
Critics of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act, complain it puts too much emphasis on testing, fails to hold states to the same educational standards and is a huge federal intrusion into matters traditionally left to state and local government.
"NCLB in its current form is burdensome and demoralizing to teachers," Edward McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told a congressional hearing this week.
Many question whether the law is working. The aim is to achieve universal proficiency in reading and math for all students by 2014, a goal few people believe is achievable.
The most recent national test results -- from 2005 -- showed minimal progress since 2002. The number of fourth graders performing proficiently in reading improved slightly to 31 percent, but eighth and 12th graders showed little change, at 31 percent and 35 percent.
"Unacceptable achievement levels continue to plague our schools," the independent Commission on No Child Left Behind, headed by former Bush Cabinet secretary Tommy Thompson and former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, said in a report last year.
For all its flaws, there are strong incentives for Congress to reach an agreement to reauthorize the law, which would continue in its current form unless a deal is reached. That has Bush, a self-confessed C student, visiting schoolrooms in a bid to gain political headway on the law he has made the domestic cornerstone of his presidency.
With test results showing American students lagging their counterparts from Finland to Slovakia to Hong Kong, the president sees education as key to future national prosperity.
"Our students are going to have to compete for jobs with students in China or India or elsewhere," he told educators in Indiana.
WAR ON POVERTY
The No Child Left Behind Act was the 2002 version of an education law first passed in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty that has been extended ever since. It channels some $12 billion annually to help disadvantaged children, a fraction of the cost of meeting its requirements.
The current law capped a 20-year effort to bring accountability and testing to schools nationwide after a warning that mediocre education was jeopardizing America's economic future.
It for the first time required states to set standards for reading and math and conduct tests annually in certain grades. It also established penalties for schools where students failed to learn.
That has been its primary accomplishment.
It has met opposition in Utah and Connecticut and a spate of other jurisdictions and produced distorted outcomes.
Many teachers feel pressed to stop teaching the broader curriculum in order to help students learn to take the reading and math tests.
"Educators tell us they are required to administer test upon test upon test, including school, district and state tests," McElroy said.
And while states were required to set standards, they were allowed to decide the level at which students could be considered proficient.
As a result, in 2003, state exams found 87 percent of Mississippi fourth graders were proficient, whereas national tests found only 18 percent at that level. Other states had similar disparities.
Calls for change are coming from all sides.
Dan Lips, an education analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, favors letting states opt out of the law without losing funding. A group of three Republican lawmakers will introduce a similar measure this week, he said.
"States would have the freedom to take their share of federal funding free from the existing rules and regulations and spend it on state-level initiatives," Lips said.
The Commission on No Child Left Behind proposed more than 50 changes. Educators and business groups have offered suggestions, as has Bush, who wants to use scientists and engineers in the classroom, even if they're not teachers.
"It's not cool, but it's important to emphasize math and science," Bush said.