Don’t Believe the Hype: Obama’s NCLB Waiver More of the Same
Education, MediaSep 23, 2011If you’re a casual observer of the education debate, today might seem monumental: George W. Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which created a system of extensive high-stakes testing for students and schools nearly a decade ago, is finally being “revamped” by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, according to a report in the Washington Post, and across the national press. Obama and Duncan’s move to waive the “cornerstone requirements” of NCLB, most notably ending the impossible “2014 deadline that all students be proficient in math and language arts (Education Week Blog)”, might just feel like the end of an era: finally, the failed experiment in draconian testing and scripted classrooms, which bored students and stifled teachers, has come to an end.
Yet, NCLB has not been revamped, but rather, rebranded.
In trade for letting individual states opt out of NCLB, they must submit