Student Blog: Thoughts On The Law And The Legal Field
“NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”: DOES IT NEED TO BE CHANGED?
“No Child Left Behind” was last updated in 2002, and many people think that it is time for a slight change, but will the revisions pass with flying colors come the midterm elections?
Under the current 2002 law, which was initiated by George W. Bush, all public schools have a rating system in which they are graded out of a possible 100 percent proficiency, and the goal is to reach this in reading and math by 2014 for all schools. The schools are compared to the “Adequate Yearly Progress,” and those that do not meet the numbers for two years have certain consequences. Two of the important consequences are a mandate to offer transfers to a better school, and a mandate to offer tutoring. For the 2008-2009 school year, about one-third of the schools nationwide did not meet this “Adequate Yearly Progress” standard.
Under Obama’s proposal for a change, these two mandates would become options, and “failing to make adequate yearly progress” would no longer be the label that would be placed on the schools that did not meet the prior standards. In some schools, the failure to make the adequate yearly progress is attributed to some of the special-ed students or English as a Second Language students who could not pass the test.
So the next question is: what, effectively, will happen to the schools under the proposal? Education Department officials say that the lowest-performing schools would undergo many changes, including and among other things, replacement of the principals. The next level would undergo less changes than the lowest schools, the next lowest level would face even less changes, and so on. The highest schools, however, would be rewarded, whether it be through funding, more flexibility in policy, or the like.
This proposal for a change ties in nicely with the percentage of current schoolteachers demanding school reform over larger paychecks. Many teachers are begging for reform within the school system, and are willing to place a higher paycheck on the backburner for their school’s well-being. For these teachers pushing for reform, there is no clear answer as to whether they will be supportive of the new proposal.
But, there is no real certainty that Congress will act soon enough, in time for the midterm elections. Only time will tell.
Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031502118.html http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2010/03/esea-proposala-blind-mans-elephant-the-gop-should-embrace/
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