No Child Left Behind: News, Comments and Documents
Week of December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Five years after President Bush's signature education program became law, No Child Left Behind is at a crossroads [McClatchy Washington Bureau]
NCLB's staunchest supporters will argue that NCLB opponents and ignorant media types are pushing the notion that NCLB is leaving gifted students behind [AFT: Let's Get It Right]
Who or what is to blame for lagging performance by minority students? Richard Rothstein and Russlynn Ali continue their weeklong debate on the achievement gap. [Los Angeles Times]
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) today released the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). [Department of Education]
More than four out of every 10 public high schools in Michigan -- including some of the highest-performing schools in the state -- fail to meet the goals of NCLB. [Detroit Free Press]
Paterson is one of a half-dozen school districts around the country that have embraced this confrontational approach, known here as SchoolStat... [New York Times]
Some scholars are joining parent advocates in questioning whether the education law No Child Left Behind, with its goal of universal academic proficiency, has had the unintended consequence of diverting resources and attention from the gifted [The Seattle Times]
and the Digital Divide with Barack Obama and John Edwards [PBS]
Test results released Wednesday showed U.S. students, who took the test last year, scored about the same as they did in 2001, the last time the test was given - despite an increased emphasis on reading under the No Child Left Behind law. [US News & World Report]
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Editor's Comments
There was a lot more activity from Department of Education after Thanksgiving. Perhaps the most important document that ED released on November 19, 2007 was a letter to Chief State School Officers outlining amendments to Accountability Workbooks for School Year 2007-2008 in light of NCLB Reauthorization. The letter discusses how States should propose amendments in their accountability workbooks, implement regulations on Modified Academic Achievement Standards, as well as Eligibility for Transition Flexibility in the 2007-08 School Year.

On November 30, ED released Title II (Part A) Monitoring Reports for 2007-2010 for North Dakota, Rhode Island and Tennessee. ED approved Montana's standards and assessments system, while assigned Washington DC's assessment system as Approval Expected.

There were new letters and documents regarding Growth Models released last week, as well. Although these letters appeared on ED's website last week, they were actually released some months ago. These include ED's decision letter to Ohio (August 15, 2007) accepting its growth model proposal to be part of the ED's pilot growth model project,		   as well as an addendum to it's proposal. ED's letter to Pennsylvania rejected their growth model proposal in this April 5, 2007 letter.

On November 15, 2007, Secretary Spellings sent a letter to Rep. George Miller highlighting the Final Report on National Assessment of Title I released last week. As part of NCLB (Section 1501), the Congress mandated a National Assessment of Title I to evaluate the implementation and impact of the Title I program. This mandate also required the establishment of an Independent Review Panel (IRP) to advise the Secretary on methodological and other issues that arise in carrying out the National Assessment and the studies that contribute to this assessment. In addition, the law specifically requires a longitudinal study of Title I schools to examine the implementation and impact of the Title I program.

On November 15, 2007, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the 2007 Trial Urban District Assessment Results for Math and Reading. The eleven districts that participated include Atlanta City School District, Austin Independent School District, Boston School District,		   Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, City of Chicago School District 299, Cleveland Municipal School District, The District of Columbia, Houston Independent School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, New York City Public Schools, and San Diego Unified School District.

Education Sector released "The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act." Primarily using Birmingham, Alabama schools, this study examines how state accountability plans under No Child Left Behind allow some to appear much more successful than they are, and reap the benefits of appearing successful.

The Turnaround Challenge: This report from Mass Insight Education and Research Institute proposes a model for turning around failing schools facing NCLB sanctions. The proposed model includes employing locally-based "turnaround specialists," better partnerships between schools, states, and districts, and more flexibility for schools to address local conditions. Its concrete recommendations for school changes are based on practices found in schools that do well and have high poverty.

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New Documents


88 tracked this year
Policy Guidance
State By State
Popular Web Links
2007-11-27: State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, Volume II-Teacher Quality under NCLB: Interim Report (2007) draws on data from the 2004-05 data collection cycles of two federally funded studies -- the Study of State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Under NCLB (SSI-NCLB) and the National   Longitudinal Study of NCLB (NLS-NCLB) -- to describe patterns in state, district, and school implementation of Title I and Title II provisions concerning teacher quality, professional development, and paraprofessionals.
Executive Summary
Complete Report

2007-11-28: "English Language Proficiency Assessment		   in the Nation: Current Status and Future Practice,": This 197 page report released by U.C. Davis School of Education is a collaboration by 32 experts on testing and ELLs to provide an overview of testing for English proficiency under NCLB. Jamal Abedi, a professor of education at the University of California, Davis, is the editor of the report.