Speaking Out! The new No Child Left Behind
This week the Senate begins work to rewrite the controversial education law No Child Left Behind, and a draft of the new legislation shows what could change.
The measure the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee will begin considering this week would continue the frequent testing that has become the hallmark of No Child Left Behind, but without the federal penalties that threatened many schools if students didn’t make adequate progress. Instead, much of the responsibility to hold schools accountable for student performance would return to states.
Easily the most talked-about and controversial part of the legislation, No Child Left Behind’s emphasis on testing performance and penalties has labeled tens of thousands of schools nationwide as failing. The Obama administration announced last month that states could apply for waivers from provisions of No Child Left Behind that would have hit schools with severe and escalating penalties in exchange for agreeing to strengthen and expand school accountability at the state and local levels. Forty-three states have announced plans to seek waivers.
Child advocates are divided on how schools should be accountable for test scores. Many, including Voices, believe No Child Left Behind’s emphasis on performance encourages “teaching to the test.” And facing huge pressure to show improvement, states have a strong incentive to simply lower standards (learn more about this topic in the Voices report “Are All America’s Children Really Above Average?”). However, by reporting test data by race, income and other important categories, these tests at least ensured that information about some vulnerable groups did not get lost in aggregate scores.
The highest performing schools tend to be characterized by principals, teachers, parents and staff working together. Creating adversarial relationships may drive up scores for a few years, but there is little evidence of long term success in placing accountability largely on the backs of educators. Ineffective teachers, like ineffective principals and low-functioning support staffs, must be dealt with for the sake of children, but the evidence from the decade of No Child Left Behind finds little to support the widespread continuation of “teaching to the test” and “blame teachers first” policies.
Among the proposed changes to No Child Left Behind is explicit attention to early learning. This represents a big win for child advocates, who have been arguing for years for more federal support for programs that help prepare children for school.
The new bill would consider early care and education as an avenue for school improvement. It would also attempt to align instruction between early care programs and school curriculum so students begin school better prepared. And it would try to increase access to high-quality, affordable early care and education programs, especially for disadvantaged children (check out our recent infographic on how waiting lists for child care are growing nationwide).
The bill is the product of 10 months of negotiation between Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY). Harkin hopes to get the bill to the Senate floor by Thanksgiving, but that schedule may be pushed back.
The House so far has shown no interest in Harkin’s comprehensive bill approach, instead choosing to enact reforms piecemeal through smaller bills. And President Obama’s waivers last month show that the White House may be happy to let this kind of authority move policy in the short term. But advocates for children prefer a comprehensive renewal to piecemeal or regulatory controls. Congress should act.
No Child Left Behind is long overdue for renewal, and the Senate hearings this week should reignite the national debate on federal education policy. You can get live updates from Voices as we monitor the debate! Follow @VoicesAC on Twitter to get the latest information about education and other child issues.
