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Congress' Inaction Extends NCLB Failure

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2008

The No Child Left Behind Act has never been a friend to Florida, though the state was a leader in adopting the accountability standards the act supposedly promotes.

The situation shows that one-size-fits-all requirements for public schools imposed by the federal government are unworkable, confusing and overreaching.

Congress was supposed to reform the law, President Bush's most prominent domestic achievement, in 2007, but the effort stalled. Now it's uncertain whether reauthorization is possible in a politically charged 2008.

If Congress does not act on the five-year-old law, NCLB stays as is. And that would be shameful.

Florida is unfairly penalized by this loopy law because it established rigorous education standards. This makes it more difficult for schools to meet the "adequate yearly progress" demanded by the federal government.

A school that repeatedly fails to make adequate yearly progress can suffer sanctions, like forcing districts to change the schools' leadership or redirect money toward tutoring programs that aren't necessarily needed.

Meanwhile, states that purposely set low standards are rewarded for producing poorly educated students. Because these states can meet their own paltry benchmarks, the federal government gives them a pat on the back.
NCLB always has been an unreasonable federal intrusion into local control of schools. And as long as it allows some states to manipulate standards it remains meaningless. Take for example Alabama, which was identified in a recent study as having made its achievement tests so easy it went from having half its public schools meeting adequate yearly progress to almost 90 percent passing in a single year.

But Congress has failed to confront the problem.

The administration and Congress are fooling themselves if they think this flawed law is going to result in every child being able to read and compute at their grade level in six years - a noble but hollow goal as long as some states are able to low-ball standards.

Congress needs to put election year politics aside and fix NCLB. To maintain this travesty is an affront to those who truly believe in accountability.

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