NCLB slips away, along with billions of tax dollars

Schools to catch a break on No Child standards
Strict 'No Child' rules may soften for some failures
By Stephanie Banchero | Tribune reporter
March 19, 2008

The Bush administration said Tuesday that it is willing to soften its long-held stance that every failing school, whether it fails marginally or miserably, be treated the same.

Under a plan unveiled by U.S. Sec. of Education Margaret Spellings, states would be allowed to differentiate how they label—and punish—schools, based on the degree to which a given school fails to meet No Child Left Behind standards.

A school that missed only one achievement target, for example, could get a more favorable label and less severe sanctions than a school that missed several achievement goals.

This sounds like trouble. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), states are allowed to set their own definitions of "Adequate Yearly Progress." If they choose to scam the system by setting extremely modest yearly goals, they can meet the technical requirements of NCLB, while not delivering any real improvement in student achievement. If this new plan is adopted, states will not only be able to set their own goals, they will be able to decide on the consequences for failure to meet these goals.

Allowing states to police and regulate themselves severely undermines the whole point of NCLB, which increased federal education funding by 50% in exchange for schools being accountable to external standards. Returning that accountability to the states allows them to continue to receive all those extra funds while making a mockery of meaningful accountability. I recently posted about the perils of self-monitoring in education, and this is more of the same: a giant leap backward, toward the failed policies NCLB was drafted to remedy.

Spellings plans to grant the leeway to up to 10 states that submit pilot projects this spring. The programs would not require a change in law.

In exchange, chosen states would agree to target their efforts and resources toward helping the most chronically failing schools, which nationally, have shown minimal progress.

More backtracking. The additional funds distributed by NCLB were to be reserved for functional schools. No longer would we reward incompetence by funneling valuable resources to schools that utterly failed our children. Schools that showed improvement were to be supported, while bad schools were to be identified and restructured for success.

Why resume pouring money into "chronically failing schools" after we've spent billions of dollars over the past four decades proving that it doesn't make them better?

I always assumed that NCLB, despite any demonstrated progress, would be watered down until all accountability was washed away and nothing was left but the hemorrhaging of billions of taxpayer dollars. This is the government after all. I just didn't think it would happen this quickly.