Sunday, September 4, 2011

On Assignment: No Child Left Behind, the education reform act everyone loves to hate - ContraCostaTimes.com

On Assignment: No Child Left Behind, the education reform act everyone loves to hate - ContraCostaTimes.com:

On Assignment: No Child Left Behind, the education reform act everyone loves to hate

By Theresa Harrington
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 09/04/2011 12:00:00 AM PDT

This is an excerpt of On Assignment, education writer Theresa Harrington's blog on Contra Costa County schools. Read more and post comments at IBABuzz.com/onassignment. Follow her atTwitter.com/tunedtotheresa.

Sept. 1

Educators across the state and country are struggling with what many view as an impossible task: bringing all students to proficiency in math and English in the next three years.

The taskmaster is the federal government, which has mandated success in every school that receives federal funding for its low-income students, under the No Child Left Behind law.

But the mandate, established under President George W. Bush, has proved so difficult to achieve that it has become known among public relations and marketing professionals as "the most negative brand in the United States," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, during an education town hall meeting last month in Pleasant Hill.

"We're trying to rewrite the Elementary Secondary Education Act," said Miller, who is the ranking Democrat on the Education and Workforce Committee and who helped write the law 10 years ago. "You can't say, 'No Child Left Behind.' It's really negative."

The rewrite is four years overdue, causing Miller to refer to it as static and outdated. Yet, he defended its goals.