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Guest
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Xiaochin
Yan
Xiaochin
Claire Yan is a Policy Fellow in Education Studies at the
Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.[Yan index]
 Report
Card
Progress for No Child Left Behind Act...
[Xiaochin
Yan] 11/19/04
With a clear victory Tuesday,
President Bush now has the opportunity to enact significant
education reform
in a second term.
In his first term, the president won bipartisan
support for No Child Left Behind, which calls for all students
to reach state
standards in reading and math by 2014. In the second term, this
legislation will remain a cornerstone in the president’s
domestic agenda and continue to be hotly contested. The president
should start with a report card and make an honest assessment
of NCLB’s costs and benefits, along with its implementation
so far. There are already several flaws that await the president’s
attention.
NCLB gives parents whose children are in failing
schools the option of private tutors and the right to transfer
to a better
public school. But studies in major cities have shown that few
parents with children in under-performing schools know the status
of their children’s schools or are aware of the right to
transfer. Many districts do not inform parents of their choices
or deny transfer requests outright.
Federal funding does not follow the disadvantaged student from
school to school, so better performing schools have little incentive
to admit low-performing students. The districts, which have the
least to gain from granting transfers and tutoring, control both
information and options. The result? Tutors and transfers are
often phantom comforts to the very students they are designed
to help.
NCLB is also wrong to ignore “value-added” approaches
that gauge achievement by measuring the progress of each child
from year to year. In his second term, President Bush should
not be satisfied with rewarding schools for moving students to
the proficiency level. He should push for schools to move students
from any level to a higher one — as from proficient to
advanced.
The good news is that the public favors many aspects of NCLB.
For example, over half of those surveyed in a national poll favored
having more qualified teachers in every classroom. During his
second term, President Bush will oversee the requirement that
all teachers of core subjects be fully certified to teach the
subject by 2005-2006. The public also agrees with the president
on the need for testing. More than 60 percent say either there
is too little or about the right amount of emphasis on standardized
tests. The president fought hard for the preservation of testing
and accountability in his education bill.
A great strength of NCLB is that it puts information
such as test scores in the hands of teachers, parents, and
the public,
enabling them to make changes. Yet 68 percent surveyed said they
know little or nothing about NCLB. That must change if, as the
president said, “your school will be the path to the promise
of America.”
In 2000, George Bush made education a successful central theme
of his campaign. The actions the president takes in the next
four years will determine whether his much trumpeted education
reform will go down as the same old stuff with a few more tests,
or if it will offer a real opportunity for students to escape
failing and dangerous schools. CRO
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