Keeping Classroom Creativity Alive in the NCLB Era

By Alain Jehlen January marked the dubious 10-year anniversary of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation signed into law by former President George W. Bush. NCLB changed the focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act from emphasizing equal access and closing achievement gaps in education to focusing on high-stakes testing, labeling, and sanctions. [...]

Parents Agree – Better Assessments, Less High-Stakes Testing

By Tim Walker Educators aren’t alone in being fed up with narrow, punitive student accountability measures. Parents also want well-designed, timely assessments that monitor individual student performance and progress across a range of subjects and skills. That’s one of the key findings in a new study by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). NWEA, a non-profit educational [...]

NEA Gives Kline ESEA Bills a Failing Grade

By Tim Walker The National Education Association spoke out on Tuesday against two amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization effort for walking away from the federal government’s commitment to ensuring equity for students in need. The two bills, the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act, were [...]

Ten States to Receive NCLB Waivers

By Sara Robertson President Barack Obama and Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced today the approval of ten states’ plans to make substantial school reforms in return for temporary regulatory relief from some of No Child Left Behind’s mandates. The administration endorsed plans by Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma [...]

NCLB’s 10th Anniversary No Cause For Celebration

By Sara Robertson No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was signed into law by former President George W. Bush 10 years ago this Sunday. NCLB changed the focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), from emphasizing equal access and closing achievement gaps in education, to focusing on high stakes testing, labeling, and sanctions. NEA [...]

NEA State Leaders Lobby Senators on NCLB Changes

By Alain Jehlen With letters and phone calls pouring in from educators around the country and visits from 15 NEA state affiliate leaders, a key Senate committee this week began consideration of a bipartisan bill to change No Child Left Behind (NCLB). However, the debate stalled after less than two hours on Tuesday when Sen. Rand [...]

Congress Makes Progress on NCLB Overhaul

By Tim Walker After countless delays, the effort to revise the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) is gaining traction on Capitol Hill this week as a key Senate committee begins markup of a bipartisan bill. The bill, introduced last week by Senators Tom Harkin  (D-Iowa) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) of the Senate Health, Education, [...]

NCLB Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

By Alain Jehlen Eighty-nine percent of Florida’s schools are subpar according to No Child Left Behind. But there’s a way thousands of Florida students can quickly become “proficient”: move to another state. These are just a few of the recent signs that Alice in Wonderland has come to America’s public schools as the 2014 deadline [...]

National Research Council Gives High-Stakes Testing an F

By Alain Jehlen The long experiment with incentives and test-based accountability has so far failed to boost student achievement. That’s the conclusion of a comprehensive examination of education research by the National Research Council , an arm of the National Academies of Science. “The available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based [...]

Education Groups Call for Relief from NCLB Mandates

By Alain Jehlen Three national education organizations, including the National Education Association (NEA), petitioned the Department of Education this week to use its regulatory powers to stop further harm to the nation’s public schools due to the so-called “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law. The law is overdue for revision and there is a growing [...]

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