Local educators unhappy with portions of the No Child Left Behind Act may get some relief as the Obama administration considers sweeping changes to the 8-year-old law, officials announced Monday.
Administration officials have said the proposed changes would eliminate the 2014 deadline for all students to be considered proficient in reading and math, as well as change the way schools are judged to be either failing or succeeding, The New York Times reported Monday.
“I think it’s very important that they update it and make it something that’s achievable,” said Nolan Elementary School principal Ken Barker. “If you set a goal so high that no one can achieve it, that’s really going to have an adverse affect.”
Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Jim Scales said he doubts officials will do away completely with a deadline for 100 percent student proficiency, but he believes they will push it back several years.
“I think we’ve reached a point in American public education where we are going to have some criteria that schools and students will be held accountable for meeting,” he said.
Cleveland, Tenn., School Board Chairwoman Peggy Pesterfield said Monday officials have always known there would have to be adjustments.
“I’m glad to see those changes are being recommended,” she said.
Dr. Rick Denning, Cleveland’s director of schools, said, “It looks like there will be a more reasonable approach coming.”
Put in place by former President George W. Bush, No Child Left Behind has put a strong emphasis on analyzing test score data to help close the achievement gap between various groups of students.
The proposed changes were announced Monday as President Barack Obama unveiled his $49.7 billion 2011 education budget, which includes an increase of $3.5 billion over fiscal year 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Although teachers, principals and union officials have complained for years about many aspects of the education law, Mr. Barker said No Child Left Behind has transformed public education in some positive ways.
“There are some good ideas in there, like the way that we now use data, which this law really stresses,” he said.
East Side Elementary School principal Emily Baker is eager to hear details about the way schools will be judged as successful or failing. East Side came off the state’s high-priority list this school year.
Individual states set goals each year for the percentage of students in a school or district who must score on grade level on standardized tests. That goal increases every year, leading up to the act’s current goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014. Schools or districts that do not meet the goals are labeled as failing.
But because Tennessee used new, more-rigorous tests this year, the state’s benchmark has not yet been set, Ms. Baker said.
“Right now, we don’t even know what the goal is for Tennessee because we have a new test, so that’s been difficult,” she said.
Because there are many details yet to be determined, some educators have dreamed up a wish-list for No Child Left Behind upgrades.
Ms. Baker, whose school has the largest population of English-Language learners in Hamilton County, hopes officials look at how those students are tested. Now, after they’ve been in the country for one year, they must take the same tests as native English speakers, she said.
“You are basically expected to learn and master the language in one year,” she said. “I have a real problem with that.”
She’d also like teachers to be held more responsible for student performance, rather a principal being held solely responsible for a school’s success.
But not all educators are as excited about the No Child Left Behind facelift.
Marion County Schools Superintendent Mark Griffith said he worries that changes to the act might take away some of the district’s power to govern itself.
“There’s still a concern there that any changes would mean the local (school district) would be giving up some sense of control and the federal government would have more control,” he said.
Tom Appelman, math teacher at Southeast High School in Whitfield County, Ga., said he hesitates to jump on board with No Child Left Behind revisions until he sees more details.
He said teachers’ long-standing complaint about the act is that it measures the achievement of different groups of students from one year to the next based only on one day’s standardized testing results.
Jamie Bloodworth, a math teacher at LaFayette Middle School in Walker County, Ga., said she was concerned that, despite the proposed changes, the law still will overemphasize test scores, one of educators’ continuing complaints about it.
“It’s just some of the same stuff we keep hearing,” Mrs. Bloodworth said. “I think they need to be very cautious in how they use students’ achievement to judge teachers.”
Staff writers Ben Benton and contributed to this story.
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