Exploring the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation

We've spent the last several weeks talking about various issues related to teaching, learning, and successful schooling. As you know, school reform is all over the news and on everybodys' minds. Clearly, there are multiple challenges and multiple paths to reform and we have explored several groups and organizations interested in just this. Your federal government has also offered their solution path - it comes in the form of the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education act and is, colloquially referred to as, the No Child Left Behind legislation. At one level, who can argue with a slogan like that? Of course nobody wants to leave children behind. Some have argued that the feds overstepped their bounds trampling all over the constituional provision that education is the province of the state - local control, and all that. So... in recognition of this, the feds put together the NCLB legislation with a great deal of wiggle room - telling states, if you want our money, here's the standards and kinds of policies you need to put into place. We won't tell you how to do it - just do it if you want our money. The result has been a flurry of activity across the last ten years trying to respond in an effort to improve our nation's schools.

We're going to spend a little time gathering information about NCLB and making up our own minds as to its value. In many education circles, the legislation is looked upon with great suspicion but... keep an open mind and look for both good things and bad things in the pressures it has provided.

Reading assignment:

Several things will serve as our reading assignments for this week. There's a ton of good stuff out there right now about NCLB but I've suggested only a few below. I suggest you visit each - take from them what is worthwhile and then follow associated links to anything else that looks interesting. Good luck and enjoy!

Here's the links that I suggest but please don't feel restricted to these alone:

We will first read some things related to NCLB from the US Department of Education website - stuff in support of NCLB that gives lots of details, a kind of overview that is important. To get started... read each of these pages and focus on the various components of the legislation and what it is designed to do. Keep in mind, this is all from the US Dept. of Ed... might they have an interest in portraying NCLB positively?

facts and key terms related to the legislation
executive summary of the legislation itself
fact sheet on some of the successes of NCLB
what's NCLB done in Oregon? - download the Oregon fact sheet

Poke around a little more on this website so you feel like you have a good understanding of the major components of the legislation and what it is designed to solve in education in America.

Once you've read the stuff above... how about a little conversation from folks who don't think so highly of NCLB... or who at least think it needs some modification.

Exacerbating inequality: The failed promise of the No Child Left Behind Act
The seven deadly sins of No Child Left Behind
Educators must rally for reform
And from a book Mark read... - this is a PowerPoint presentation that will download to your desktop when you click the link

So... come to class prepared to discuss what's good and what's bad about NCLB. Think from multiple perspectives - teachers, students, administrators, parents, community members, society as a whole... Is this good legislation? I'm leaving this almost completely wide open as this is a big, big topic - with lots of room for debate. One caution - try to leave your own political perspectives out of this. In other words, don't argue about people or ideology, argue about the merits of the legislation and how it is affecting what is happening in the schools. Alright... go get 'em!

Mark