NCLB Sixth anniversary Bush Chicago trip -- FairTest news release

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

FairTest                                            
National Center for Fair & Open Testing
                                                                                                 for further information:
                                                                                                 Dr. Monty Neill  (617) 864-4810   
                                                                                                 or Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773 
 for immediate release,  Friday, January 5, 2008 
BUSH "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND"ANNIVERSARY TRIP HIGHLIGHTS 
FEDERAL EDUCATION LAW'S FAILURE IN CHICAGO AND NATIONALLY

       President Bush's upcoming trip to Chicago to mark the sixth anniversary of signing "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) into law will actually underscore the failure of the controversial mandate, according to education reformers.
      "The federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) contradicts Bush Administration statements about NCLB's impact in Chicago and across the country," said Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). "Recently released NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) data show that Chicago has made slower test score progress than the average large city. Nationally, NAEP reading scores have stagnated since the passage of NCLB, and the rate of improvement in math has slowed."
      "In fact, Chicago is an example of NCLB's lack of effectiveness," Dr. Neill continued. "The law has failed to raise academic achievement significantly in that city, in other major urban areas or in the nation as a whole. A comprehensive overhaul of the law is necessary to improve educational quality for all students, particularly those in low-income urban areas."
      A detailed report co-authored by FairTest and local education reform groups Parents United for Responsible Education and Designs for Change concludes that Chicago embraced NCLB-style "reforms," including a heavy reliance on sanctions attached to standardized exams, even before the federal law was enacted. But, overall, city public schools have not made promised academic gains: some improved, others stagnated. The greatest improvements in performance took place in schools that most strongly resisted the NCLB 'test-and-punish' approach.
       FairTest also initiated the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, a set of principles for overhauling the federal law which has been signed by 142 national education, civil rights, religious, parent, disability, civic and labor groups. FairTest facilitates the Forum on Educational Assessment, which works to implement the joint statement. 
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The report Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation, coauthored by FairTest is online at http://www.fairtest.org/ChicagoReportExecSum2007.html