The Legacy of NCLB: Can We Force Schools to Improve?
When I was in Washington, DC, last July, I participated in a press conference prior to the Save Our Schools March, which I had helped organize. A gentleman who had asked several critical questions spoke with me afterwards. He tried to help me understand why tough federal mandates were needed to improve schools. He told me "You know there are school districts all over the country that have been stuck for decades, where there is corruption. We have got to have some way to force them to improve."
This is the mentality that brought us No Child Left Behind. This is why some liberals, like the late Ted Kennedy and California Congressman George Miller, bought into the law. They abhor the inferior education many of our students have received, and they are determined to use the powers they have to make a difference.
Unfortunately, there is a fundamental problem with the levers of power they have chosen to use. They have decided that test scores will be the measure of success, and demanded that schools improve or lose federal funding. After a decade of applying this pressure at the District and school-wide level, we are seeing it pushed