The National Education Association held its annual convention this week and the main topic was the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law - and how to change it...
Funding for the law has been a major focus of lobbying since it was enacted. In a press released, NEA President Reg Weaver said that teachers are "tired of excuses for lawmakers not backing up the so-called No Child Left Behind Act with adequate resources to get the job done." Funding is far from being the only issue, though.
One of the goals of the NEA is to see the accountability provisions of the law changed. Currently, NCLB measures accountability (whether or not a school is doing its job) with an annual, high-stakes test. The NEA would like to see the law changed so that accountability was monitored by relying on a variety of measures of success instead of just one.
Special education students have taken over the central stage in much of the accountability debate because the NCLB law will eventually require all students to perform at grade level on whatever test is used in a state to determine how well a school is doing its job. At the moment improved test scores can serve to grant a school a passing accountability grade under a provision of the law called safe harbor. But eventually NCLB expects schools to have all their students master grade level skills - including students who have learning disabilities, are mentally impaired, or have emotional disturbances. And if every other community of students in a school achieves that goal but the special education students don't, the school (in essence) fails the test.
USA Today published an article this week on that subject, testing. The Department of Education says that only four states currently have testing procedures in place that comply fully with NCLB. Those states are Oklahoma, Maryland, Tennessee, and West Virginia (the state where I teach)...
No Child Left Behind became law in 2001 and has to be reauthorized by Congress next year - after the midterm Congressional elections. If President Bush's Republican Party loses control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections the law could see major revision.
The American Federation of Teachers holds its annual convention later this month and is expected to voice many of the same views on the future of NCLB.
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