NCLB Hits the 'Terrible Twos'
Spellings On PBS NewsHour: "It's un-American, I would call it, for us to take the attitude that African American children in Connecticut are not going to be able to compete."
Education makes strange bedfellows: Despite the bitterest divisions between Republicans and Democrats in recent memory, two top congressional liberals, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, and Rep. George Miller, D-CA, continue to support President George W. Bush's embattled school reform law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). They see this as a civil rights issue that affects how poor and minority students get educated in this country—or, all too often, don't.
Before her recent appointment as secretary of education, Margaret Spellings was an author of the law and longtime Bush advisor. In April, on the eve of a major speech to school systems administrators summoned to Mt. Vernon, VA, from all over the country, Secretary Spellings told NRTA Live & Learn, "In the past, the performance of subgroups, like minority, low-income and special-needs students, would often get buried under misleading averages. No Child Left Behind forced us to confront this achievement gap." She later compared this confrontation to "the terrible twos" of child-raising.
Achievement Gaps
Under NCLB, states must get every child to meet state reading and math standards by 2014, not just the cream of the crop. States are required to test students each year, to dissect achievement scores by racial and ethnic groups—and to make the data public, which has caused the uproar. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently said 100 percent proficiency might not be achievable, in view of students with disabilities and those just learning English.
Spellings reiterated to NRTA Live & Learn that 100 percent proficiency is the goal. "If we aim for anything less, we will leave children behind." Still, Spellings's Mt. Vernon speech upped the permissible rate of special-needs students' exemption from states' standard tests from 1 percent of all students to 3 percent—which in most states means that about 30 percent of special-needs children may get special testing.
"Terrible Twos"
Solidly Republican Utah set up a confrontation with Spellings by passing a law ordering state officials to defy NCLB in cases of conflict. Connecticut hopes other disaffected states will join its lawsuit that claims the Bush administration has imposed unfunded mandates. Backlash is brewing at the school district level in at least 3 more states, and in late April the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union in the country, joined with districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont to sue the Department of Education. Spellings's next move was to fine Texas more than $444 thousand for late notification to schools on student achievement tests. Texas authorities shrugged off the fine, but the fracas may not be over. Texas gave 9 percent of its disabled students the easier, alternative test, rather than the 1 percent in federal standards, clouding the issue of achievement. Pointedly, at Mt. Vernon, Spellings said that states that show results and willingness to work with her "will be gratified." She promised that others "looking for loopholes to simply take the federal funds, ignore the intent of the law, and have minimal results" would be "disappointed." In her interview with Live & Learn, Spellings affirmed: "Who gets to decide which children don't count? That's not the American way—all of our children deserve the chance to live a life of opportunity."
This article first appeared in NRTA Live & Learn, Spring 2005.
