SPOTLIGHT: FEATURE

The grumbles of dissatisfaction over No Child Left Behind (NCLB) grow louder.  Lawmakers in Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, Utah, and other states are threatening to turn their back on the law and leave the federal dollars behind.  Leading Democrats in Washington are also withdrawing their support. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) is suggesting that he will change the law’s funding and implementation.  Representative George Miller (D-California), whose support has been critical to NCLB, also expresses concern with the funding and implementation of the law, but has yet to support a makeover.

The grumbling is not surprising because the difficulty of the task offers political opportunity.  It is the election season and President Bush claimed to be the education President, but he is working to change how schools operate and that is not winning him popularity.  The law attempts to put teeth in the 1994 ESEA reauthorization by requiring standards, accountability, disaggregated student data, and teacher-quality (among other things). The 1994 law only suggested that such things happen. NCLB ties consequences to student achievement. It requires that parents have more information about their schools.   It demands that state agencies detail the measurements of progress, such as defining adequate yearly progress (AYP) and highly qualified teachers.  And all this was to be done yesterday.   Indeed, the strain of swift change implies that the education President may not be the educator’s president.  (Schools, after all, still operate from an agricultural-cycle calendar with summers off).  Add to this a poor economy, and you’ll find a political dog that barks.

But does that dog hunt? The prominent critiques are that NCLB is under funded and that the federal government is being too prescriptive. The complaints have merit, but the arguments are nuanced and often exaggerated. 

The most level approach to the funding matter (that I have seen) comes from James Peyser, the chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and Robert Costrell, a professor of economics at the