Sen. Kennedy on NCLB Anniversary

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

HOW TO FIX "NO CHILD"
Washington Post Op. Ed -- January 7, 2007
by Edward M. Kennedy

With renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda for the 
new session of Congress, it's no surprise that the 2002 law -- the Bush 
administration's signature domestic initiative -- has become a political 
football in this intense campaign season. The administration continues 
to speak glowingly of the law while Democratic candidates blast it. But 
simplistic campaign rhetoric hardly reflects what's actually happening 
on school reform.

Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the law's enactment. It's a good 
time to take realistic stock of things. Obviously, the results are 
mixed. Many elements of the reforms have produced encouraging progress 
for young children in public schools across the nation, and they deserve 
to be supported. Other aspects of the law have not been satisfactory, 
and some have been failures. These must be changed.

The stakes are high. At issue is a goal that Democrats have long 
embraced as a fundamental principle of our party -- opportunity for all 
Americans. Strengthening the nation's schools is essential for preparing 
our citizens to compete and win in the global economy. We in Congress 
have an obligation to parents, to teachers and, most of all, to 
schoolchildren across America to draw the right lessons from these past 
six years with the No Child Left Behind Act and put school reform on a 
stronger path for the future.

On the plus side, the law demands that all children must benefit -- 
black or white, immigrant or native-born, rich or poor, disabled or not. 
Before its enactment, only a handful of states monitored the achievement 
of every group of students in their schools. Today, all 50 states must 
do that. Across the country, schools are poring over student data to 
identify weaknesses in instruction and to improve teaching and learning. 
All schools now measure performance based not on the achievement of 
their average and above-average students but on their progress in 
helping below-average students reach high standards as well.

The positive changes are evident in the National Assessment of 
Educational Progress, better known as "The Nation's Report Card." The 
improvements are still modest, but they're noticeable, particularly 
among students who formerly were low achievers. We're beginning to see a 
narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and other students.

All of this is good news. But the law still needs major changes to bring 
out the best in all children. The process for rating troubled schools 
fails to reward incremental progress made by schools struggling to catch 
up. Its one-size-fits-all approach encourages "teaching to the test" and 
discourages innovation in the classroom. We need to encourage local 
decision makers to use a broader array of information, beyond test 
scores, to determine which schools need small adjustments and which need 
extensive reforms.

The act doesn't do enough to support teachers as the professionals they 
are by training and mentoring them and by placing good teachers in the 
schools that need them most. It fails to deal with the dropout crisis, 
which puts large numbers of young students beyond the reach of the 
American dream. It doesn't involve parents enough in helping their 
children succeed. It falls short in achieving smaller classes so that 
teachers can give children the one-on-one attention they need.

Most of all, the law fails to supply the essential resources that 
schools desperately need to improve their performance. We can't achieve 
progress for all students on the cheap. No child should have to attend 
crumbling schools or learn from an outdated textbook, regardless of 
where he or she lives. It's disgraceful that President Bush has failed 
to include adequate funding for school reform in his education budgets. 
Struggling schools can do only so much on a tin-cup budget.

Four decades ago, my brother Robert Kennedy asked at a Senate hearing on 
education: "What happened to the children?" That question is as 
appropriate today as it was in 1966. We're still not doing enough for 
the nation's schools and children.

As Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees in our democratic 
process, and as President Bush prepares to deliver his last State of the 
Union address, let us all remember that we owe it to our children and 
our children's children to put progress ahead of politics and support 
what is working in school reform, and to work together to fix what is not.

The writer, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was a lead author 
of the No Child Left Behind Act.

   
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/06/AR2008010601828.html