TIME mentions North Carolina twice in its new cover story on the federal No Child Left Behind law.
In the first instance, the writers point out that the Tar Heel State is a pilot site for a new means of assessing NCLB success:
[U.S. Education Secretary Margaret] Spellings says she appreciates the need for “a more nuanced accountability system,” and her department is testing the growth model in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas and Delaware. The main sticking point, she says, is having a data-management system that can accurately track the performance of individual students statewide. Another sticking point, she says, is ensuring that growth doesn’t replace the goal of moving kids up to grade level.
I’m guessing Terry Stoops has some ideas about the worth of the “growth model.”
The second reference is one the Tar Heel State will not like:
No wonder so many states have watered down their expectations. An analysis by researchers at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit, found that the quality of educational standards–which are detailed, grade-by-grade, subject-by-subject learning goals–declined in 30 states from 2000 to 2006. That includes the four states–Delaware, Kansas, North Carolina and Oklahoma–said to be on track for 2014. Overall, only three states earned an A from Fordham on curriculum standards–which are also the basis for state tests; 37 rated C– or below.
