Education Week 11/17/2010 issue

New Tack on NCLB: Regulatory Relief, p. 1

School districts struggling under the mandatory provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act are hoping for a reprieve from the Department of Education.  They argue that financially-strapped school districts should not spend money to meet the requirements of a law that may be re-written by a new Congress.  The DOE is pushing for renewal of the law, while saying that it is taking these concerns “into consideration.”  Looming on the horizon is the 2013-2014 deadline for bringing all students up to proficiency in reading and math.  Schools will be hit by sanctions for not meeting these targets, which will impact school district and state finances.

The school districts are calling for “regulatory relief” in this matter, which may resonate with the incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives, many of whom ran on a platform of “slimmed-down” government.  Civil rights groups who are focused on improving education for disadvantaged students are leery of watering down the law’s core principles, however.  They do not want to abandon accountability goals at the heart of NCLB.  And the Obama administration may conclude that it too wants to avoid the prospect of Republican criticism that it has caved in on accountability.

Education groups (the AASA and the NSBA, for example) are pushing for concessions, such as suspending sanctions for schools that do not meet NCLB achievement targets until a new law is in place.  Some have proposed two-year testing of students as opposed to annual testing.  Others point out that we need annual testing to track students’ progress, and giving flexibility to the states will only allow them to “game” the system one more time.  Those wanting changes hope that this will come in a reauthorization of the bill in 2011.  The Obama administration is hoping for a renewal, but the Republican House may want to look at it all over again.  There could be a full-blown renewal, or a targeted “patch,” which might make targeted changes but without changing the basic structure of NCLB.

[My thoughts: “Regulatory relief” is the perfect term to present to a Republican House of Representatives if you want to circumvent government mandates, in education or any other area.  The question should be whether or not it is in the students’ best interests that schools be held to these standards.  Are these NCLB standards appropriate and meaningful, or are they arbitrary and possibly counterproductive?  These are the questions we ought to be debating.  There should be no Republican view of education vs. a Democratic view of education.  Yes, teachers typically support Democrats, who typically are willing to spend more money on education.  Political coalitions aside, we should all want what is best for our kids and we should be willing to pay for it.]