A slow death for No Child Left Behind?

The Department of Education announced Friday that two more states - Washington and Wisconsin - have been granted waivers from the No Child Left Behind education law. That brings the total number of states that have been granted waivers from the program to 26, which means more than half of states have now been freed from having to meet the law's requirements.

Ten other states and the District of Columbia have also requested waivers; their applications are currently under review. Just 14 states have not sought waivers from the law, and they are eligible to do so in the future.

In a press release announcing the latest waivers, the Department of Education made clear the Obama administration's dim view of the law. The Department said that NCLB's "rigid, top-down prescriptions for reform, while well-intentioned, proved burdensome for many states."

No Child Left Behind, which was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush, was designed to provide greater accountability in schools when it comes to student achievement. Its most controversial provision was requirements for annual testing of elementary, middle, and high school students in reading, math and science. States were required to make every student "proficient" in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year. The law also mandated that schools get annual "report cards" of their progress.

Critics said the law led to a misguided focus on "teaching to the test" and deemed the requirement that all students be proficient by the 2013-2014 school year unrealistic. The also noted that nearly half of schools in the country were being branded as failures under the law for not meeting targets for achievement on standardized tests.

In exchange for the waivers, states must put in place new plans to prepare students for college and their careers and focus on progress for low-income students, among other requirements.

President Obama announced last September that Washington would begin granting the waivers, the first of which were granted in February. The Obama administration has portrayed its decision to grant the waivers as a reaction to a lack of action by Congress, which has failed to reauthorize the law despite its coming up for reauthorization in 2007. While Democrats and Republicans largely agree the law needs to be changed, they differ on how to do so. Republicans have criticized the administration for using the waivers to push its education agenda.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the administration's action was a necessary stopgap measure until the law is reauthorized.

"It is a remarkable milestone that in only five months, more than half of the states in the country have adopted state-developed, next-generation education reforms to improve student learning and classroom instruction, while ensuring that resources are targeted to the students that need them most," he said. "A strong, bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act remains the best path forward in education reform, but as 26 states have now demonstrated, our kids can't wait any longer for Congress to act."

As the New York Times points out, states that have been granted waivers are still required to tie evaluations of teachers and schools in part to student performance on standardized tests. Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, told the Times that the administration's action thus ultimately amounts to "moving around the chairs on the Titanic." Starr said he would prefer a focus on helping students learn in ways that can't be measured on standardized tests.

[NinthSt78]

Fast, shallow, and face-value isn't a substitute for slow, well, and thorough.

[Undomesticfire236]

As an ex-special needs teacher, I pray that all the states get away from NCLB. It has been so molested that we are giving the grades away. My last 2 years teaching I was a Co-teacher and the schoold wouldn't even allow me to enter the kids grades. This lead to the subject matter teacher entering the grades and because he or she didn't want to look bad they would give my students passing grades even after I called home, sent copies of unfinished work home, had numerous parent contacts letting them know that the child's apathetic attitude is leading to their falling grade. So I document that they failed with unfinished work samples, all of which were signed by the students saying they didn't want to do it, and then the teacher of record passes them. The students have learned that they have no consequences because the school administration will not allow themselves to look bad. Some students need to be left behind

[Squire_James]

I think the general idea of the bill is a good one. What it did not do was properly estimate what the teachers would do in response. You see, there are two ways to get students to pass a standardized test. You can "teach to the test", or actually teach critical thinking so the students can pass the test regardless of the specific questions. Guess which one is easier? Guess which one got done?

That being said, some students are never going to be skilled critical thinkers regardless of school (and in some cases, parental) teaching, and schools should not be penalized for being unlucky enough to have a lot of this sort of student. Like most laws, most of its problems lies in its rigidity.

[ObamasGuppies]

No Liberal child left behind. That train done left the station since 88% of all high school drop outs are Liberals. Case and point....Dumbas* Muslim Obama thinks that we have 57 states and that Hawaii is part of Asia and you wonder why Liberal children don't graduate.

[realist2010]

Thanks for that episode of "Making Up Facts With Fox." People like you are why Republicans will lose in November.

[Gregu710]

what the heck are you babbling on about. Funny, you talk about Obama being an idiot, and your entire post is ample evidence of 17 years of wasted educational effort. Might as well have been teaching Latin to a chunk of dirt. By the way Dopey, Liberal kids often attain much higher educational achievements than the vast majority of GOP supporters like you, why do you clowns think that you call them "Liberal Elites"? Eighth grade was tough wasn't it sugar cookie?

[nicholasglenabcde]

It has been and will always be that parents who are involved in their children's education succeed. It may have a little to do with Government policy, but when you conceive a child you must also take the responsibility of being actively engaged in their upbringing. School is not daycare, nor are they expected to teach a child everything they need to know. 50% of kids entering kindergarten can't write their own name and do basic math or science (1 apple + 1 apple = how many apples and understanding the basics of the water cycle and what plants need to grow, etc.) We have more of a cultural issue than an educational issue. Parents need to be the #1 person responsible for education in partnership with teachers.

[taxed01]

What? Are they supposed to teach in school? I thought modern schooling was all about:
- transporting kids
- feeding kids
- making sure kids feel good about themselves (everything has to be politically correct and all kids have to win everything)
- keeping the kids out of the parent's hair for a few hours a day (or as one commenter on another site said - "breeding couples")
- writing a different curriculum for every student because they are all "special" now (no such thing as a "normal" kid anymore)
- social engineering, nobody is different - this seems to conflict with all the kids being special
- constantly increasing taxes and less educated kids

[sidney18511]

Don't forget that George bushes brother Neil was involved in a company that benefited greatly from NCLB, because he owned the company that produced and sold the tests to public schools , racking in money from our taxpayer dollars. This was also a Trojan horse to destroy the unions, because they support the dems. The republicans can not win based on the merits of their platform. They must cheat.

[Navaglo]

20 years of teaching HS and all I can say is NCLB made things worse. Forget what party you support, things were dumbed down tremendously so that schools would meet the requirements. In doing so, things like auto shop, wood shop, art, etc., were cut in order to make a one year algebra class into 2 years so kids would pass. Everyone being "college ready" just diluted what it meant to go to college, and in turn many of the kids that were not "college material" ended up dropping out because of those college prep classes that were shoved down their throats. Yes folks, not everybody is college material, and THAT"S OK! Kids need to find their niche and strengths, and NCLB left no room for that. The result: we may have kids that have memorized the quadratic equation but they can't tell time on an analog clock, or form a complete sentence without some sort of texting abbreviation. NCLB, amongst other things in the last couple of generations, equals No Child Gets Ahead! PS - To the author: Check your grammar! First paragraph, second sentence I would like to see "half of THE states" instead of "half of states", as well as 5th paragraph, second sentence "They" instead of "The" would be a little more appropriate! I am a teacher, I'm just sayin' .... :)

[pwgrant]

Amen. Poor performing graduate students that couldn't make it as teachers, ended up writing tests or going into education politics to make policy. THAT'S who gave us NCLB; **INCLUDING** our "C" president.

[HMWalsh]

I see a lot of complaining from teachers but no solutions provided. How would you improve our miserable schools? I have spent an equal amount of time (actually over 20 years) teaching students without getting paid for it because of incompetent teachers. In college I had to teach my fellow students algebra and trig because the person who had the job had no idea how to teach. They knew the material but did not know how to explain it to the students. When I got older I had to teach my own child math and science from grade school though high school because again the teacher had no concept of how to teach math and the science teachers even taught things that were disproven years ago. I ended up with about 8 give or take students I would tutor on and off for 12 years in math and science after my 5 years of helping my college mates. I even witnessed one HS trig teacher doing an equation on the board and when students asked questions he would just point at what he did and shout SEE! SEE! This was in one of the "top school districts" in California.

In my opinion the schools are as bad as they are because of teachers. Yes, there are some good ones but they bear equal responsibility because they ignore the fact that most of their counter parts range from just average to terrible.

[mosieb]

Schools here have taken the "No Child left Behind" program to the max, by leaving no child left back, regardless of grades. Teachers actually explained the program as such to students. No one will be left back because of the No Child Left Behind program. My granddaughter should in no way be going forward to the next grade, but she is, because of the very loose translation of the program and the fear that the school will, for the 4th year receive a failing report card.

[sjc_1]

It started out as good policy, then Bush and GOP made it into a union busting tactic. If they could show that teachers are not doing a good job, then they could get more vouchers and undermine public education.

It became a "teaching for the test" exercise rather than bringing up the education system to a consistently high level.

This shows what happens when a good idea gets high jacked for political gain. Privatizing public education would be a gold mine for the greed mongers, but it would take us to a fast food level of education.

[pwgrant]

"hen Bush and GOP made it into a union busting tactic"?! **NO** That was their plan all along. If they want to rate the "system" with it; FINE. They put in place untested (or improperly tested) methods, that have NOT lived up to what it was sold as.

[sjc_1]

Yes, that was their plan all along, but in their deceptive ways they listened to the program and pretended to like it for the intended purpose, all the while having their agenda in place and ready to go. Republicans are evil.