Re: Do We Need National Standards with Teeth?

[aburke5054@aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: monty@fairtest.org
To: ARN-L <arn-l@interversity.org>; ARN-state 
<ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>; arn2-strategy 
<arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>; NDSG <ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:56 am
Subject: [arn-l] Do We Need National Standards with Teeth?


Kudos to Zalman Usiskin for pointing out that national standards with 
teeth might exacerbate rather than solve the problem. Haven't we 
learned anything from NCLB?
 
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We've learned a lot

When policymakers in the White House and Congress wrote the
No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, they undoubtedly had places like
Birmingham, Alabama, in mind. Nearly half a century after the bombings
and protests that helped launch the civil rights movement, Birmingham
City Schools was a textbook case of urban education in decline. The
district was hemorrhaging students and funding, forcing painful layoffs
and the closure of often-crumbling schools. Test scores were among the
lowest in the state, particularly for poor black children.

Sadly, not much has changed in the last six years. Less than 40 percent 
of Birmingham students graduate from high school on time … Test scores 
still lag the rest of the state; there are still large achievement gaps 
between black and white children; and the student body and budget 
continue to shrink every year.

But you wouldn’t know it by asking the Alabama
Department of Education. It says everything is fine,
that Birmingham City Schools made “adequate yearly
progress” last year under the federal No Child Left Behind
Act (NCLB). And only five of the district’s 65 schools are
“in need of improvement.” The serious consequences and
strong interventions that NCLB’s authors envisioned for
chronically underperforming districts like Birmingham are
nowhere to be found.

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