Arne Duncan's NCLB "flexiblity" strategy is risky
Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters on a conference call this week that the administration will start giving states more flexibility to administer the rules of No Child Left Behind, if Congress does not soon overhaul the federal law.
As I interpreted his remarks, he wanted to do this because he thought NCLB was about to "mislabel" an overwhelming number of schools as failing. Duncan did not think we have a large number of underperformers partly because the law does not sufficiently consider the growth that some schools are making.
By all means, let's measure growth. Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings encouraged states to do so when she administered the law.
But let us also be clear: NCLB set the goal of having all students learning at grade level by 2014. And NCLB set out to measure schools to determine whether they are on track to meet that goal.
If it is true that a large number of campuses are falling behind, let's not attack the law, as the administration is