No Child Left Behind

There is a fundamental problem of school funding in California. We do not fund our schools well. We rank between 37th and 47th. out of the 50 states in school funding. That is a decision which is re made each year in the California Legislature.

At the national level, the central issue is the No Child Left Behind Act.

The Bush Administration and Congress passed the ESEA Re-authorization known as No Child Left Behind in 2001. ( P.L. 107-110) This law provides a formula for school improvement that calls for more testing and sanctions. The law was never adequately funded. The original research supporting these policies in Texas and elsewhere have proven to be replete with politically motivated errors and distortions. (Valenzuela, 2004) And the law punishes the teachers who choose to work in the nation’s most under resourced schools rather than assisting them.

The "No Child Left Behind" law relies heavily on standardized test scores to measure schools. It errors because it focuses on
• punishments rather than assistance
• testing and mandates rather than support for effective programs
• privatization rather than teacher-led, family-oriented solutions

The Federal Law must be amended to:
• Increase support for teacher quality programs to recruit, train, and retain highly qualified educators for U.S. classrooms.
• Make sure students, teachers, and schools are evaluated by more than just test scores . (see www.fairtest.org)
• Fully fund successful elementary and secondary education programs such as Title I to help children with math and reading.
• Pursue flexibility and professional development rather than testing to support student learning.

• Make struggling students and schools a priority.

Teacher Professionalism
The classroom teacher is the most critical and determinative factor in the successful education of a student.
A qualified, experienced teacher, expert in pedagogy and subject material, has more of a positive effect on a student’s learning than any other factor, including class size, quality of the academic program and curriculum, and school mission and size. Conversely, unprepared and inexperienced teachers lacking the fundamental tools of teaching have a negative effect on a student’s learning, and a student rarely recovers from having a number of such teachers in a row. Excellent teachers are particularly important in the education of struggling students, and in erasing the achievement gap for African-American and Latino/a students. Whatever other criticisms we would make of the No Child Left Behind legislation, its requirement that every U.S. classroom be staffed with a “highly qualified” teacher is exactly on point. The question is how we reach that essential goal. The current NCLB legislation does not move us in that direction.