A Looming Showdown over No Child Left Behind

[BridgeTheGap]

Is it finally the beginning of the end for No Child Left Behind?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced late last week that if Congress does not overhaul the ten-year old federal education law known as No Child Left Behind in the next few months, he will do it himself. His plan? To give states waivers from some of the law's provisions in exchange for a commitment to undertake a currently unspecified set of reforms. Immediately dubbed "Plan B" by the Secretary and others, the announcement was not a surprise. Using regulations to amend the law, which is years overdue to be revised, has been under consideration for months. Still, the reaction to Duncan's announcement highlighted why Congress is having such a hard time fixing the law in the first place.

Let's take the objections in order:

Not surprisingly, leaders in Congress were not pleased. Even though Duncan has the legal authority to waive a variety of provisions in the law — essentially those not dealing with money or civil rights — Congress understandably sees making laws as their turf. The secretary is betting that the threat of being preempted will be enough to prod action on Capitol Hill.Perhaps he's right. The Republican Chairman of the House education committee and his Democratic counterpart in the Senate both agreed that Duncan's proposal was a bad idea.That was the first glimmer of education bipartisanship in a long while.

The chattering class was even sourer. American Enterprise Institute scholar and pundit Rick Hess accused Duncan of trammeling on the Constitution. Education reform critic Diane Ravitch rushed to agree, and those two agree on little these days, so again, Duncan succeeded in bridging differences.But while Hess and Ravitch called on Duncan to read the Constitution, they might want to read the No Child Law itself. The waiver authority is long standing and clearly spelled out. Secretary of Education Margaret SpellingsDuncan's predecessor in the Bush Administration used it several times to launch pilot projects for various reform ideas. And waivers and regulations are a common tool for policymaking on a range of issues besides education.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077898,00.html#ixzz1PS7hul5w

[femmocrat]

1. We shouldn't celebrate yet.

I read that the waivers depend on swallowing education "reforms," i.e., tying evaluations to test scores, etc. Sounds like he is more interested in pushing RTTT than actually helping districts to meet the impossible benchmarks of NCLB.

Here is a link:

"Duncan offered few details about how the waivers would work, but he said they would be granted to states that commit to adopting certain administration-approved reforms. These would likely be similar to the reforms promoted by Race to the Top, the Obama administration's competitive grant program.

Under that program, funded by the federal stimulus, states were encouraged to use test scores to drive instruction, to evaluate teachers and principals based on student achievement, and to use those evaluations to make decisions about pay, promotions and tenure."

Read more: Obama administration intends to revamp school mandates - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_741951.html#ixzz1PSAQhJSY

[iemitsu]

2. NCLB needs to be thrown out entirely.

if followed every public school in america will eventually be labeled a failure.
and RTTT is just as bad.