White Houses to Change No Child Left Behind
On Thursday, February 17, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that President Obama will push the legislature to revamp the No Child Left Behind law before the start of the next school year. A renewal of the 2002 law is several years overdue. White House spokesman Jay Carney said “The President discussed his desire to find common ground on the need to re-define the federal role in education, so that it is more flexible and better focused on responsibility, reform, and results.”
Last year, the Obama administration produced a framework that would ease many testing requirements, put a new focus on teacher performance and the lowest-performing schools, and replace proficiency requirements with loftier goals of boosting college graduation rates. The blueprint stalled amid election-year maneuvering.
Many lawmakers from both parties say No Child Left Behind relies too much on test results and arbitrary measurements, and doesn’t meet the overall objective of raising student achievement. The democratic controlled Senate is already working on the law’s revisions. However, the Republican controlled House has many members who believe a series of small measures would be more effective than a broad rewrite of the federal law.
US Supreme Court Rejects No Child Left Behind Case
In 2002, the State of Connecticut filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the No Child Left Behind testing mandates. They asked that either the federal government change the testing guidelines or cover the millions of dollars of testing costs. Connecticut argued that there was a provision barring the feds from issuing unfunded mandates on the states.
The case has been in litigation for six years, and was sent to the Supreme Court. However, on Tuesday, February 22, the US Supreme Court announced it refused the case. Says Andrew Fleischmann, Connecticut state Representative, “While I find it unfortunate that the Supreme Court decided not to take up this case, I find some solace in the fact that we have a new administration that is going to rewrite the law and make it far more effective and sensible.”
image credit: White House and Supreme Court
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Written by Christi Grab, Parentella’s Editorial Director and author of The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People Part 1 – San Diego to Australia.
