President Obama announced plans to overhaul No Child Left Behind. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, remarked, ?We are disappointed.” That is a promising start.
It is an interesting proposal but includes a few flaws. For example, the program would use attendance and “learning climate” as performance indicators, but these are not sound measures. DPI lists North Carolina’s pupil attendance rate as 95+ percent, an impressive rate that does not appear to translate into higher graduation rates or test scores.
In addition, President Obama wants “all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career.” It will be interesting to see how “prepared” is defined by the program. Right now, it sounds a bit mushy.
Of course, there are many questions to be answered. Representative John Kline of Minnesota observes that the devil is in the details. He said, ?From 30,000 feet, the blueprint seems to set a lot of right goals. Yet when we drill down to the details, we are looking at a heavier federal hand than many of us wish to see.?
Almost a decade after the launch of No Child Left Behind, most parents, teachers, and school administrators do not believe that a “heavier federal hand” is a desirable thing.
