Duncan’s Dilemma
July 20, 2011, 8:27 amIn yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, education writer Stephanie Banchero highlighted the increasing impatience among state leaders over Congress’s inability to “fix” No Child Left Behind. Reauthorization of the law, which was enacted during the George W. Bush administration and technically expired in 2007, has been one of President Obama’s top priorities. “I’m calling on Congress to send me an education reform bill I can sign into law before the next school year begins,” he said back in March.
Currently, NCLB requires that individual schools and districts show certain levels of student proficiency on statewide language arts and math tests. Schools must not only have a satisfactory school-wide average, but must also demonstrate proficiency among subgroups of the student population, such as special education and African American students. If schools or districts fail to demonstrate “adequate yearly progress,” then a “remedy cascade” kicks in, which include replacing staff or leadership, reopening the school as a charter school, or placing the district under state control.
State officials argue that flagging huge swaths of their schools as “failing” will be deeply destructive–infuriating parents and forcing schools of all sorts to adopt a series of crudely designed federal interventions. To make matters worse for states, the law calls for all schools to demonstrate 100 percent proficiency by 2014–or else face federally