The announcement that Illinois will be taking part in a pilot program that eases the restrictions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was greeted with cautious cheers from educators yesterday. Complaints about NCLB have been widespread since the law went into effect in 2002, with many saying that the "one size fits all" model of regulating schools doesn't take into account the variety of challenges facing public schools. This new program aims to answer some of those concerns:
The Illinois plan would differentiate for the first time between schools that fail because the entire student body lags in math or reading and those that fail because a small group of students misses the mark.
The federal accountability law breaks students into groups based on race, ethnicity, language and special learning needs. If one group fails, the entire school fails, and consecutive years of failure can lead to harsh sanctions.
But under the new Illinois plan, sanctions would be targeted to help lagging groups. Schools, for example, that fail because English learners do not pass the test might have to upgrade their bilingual coursework, but wouldn't be forced to overhaul their entire curriculum.
While the program gives Illinois educators more flexibility, the Sun-Times editorial board argues today that reforms can only go so far inside the NCLB framework. They suggest these last-minute concessions by the Bush administration may simply amount to a desperate attempt to maintain other failed aspects of the policy:
[U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret] Spellings appears motivated by a desire to respond to complaints; this may also be a last-ditch effort to make the No Child law more acceptable so that it won't die after President Bush leaves office. She wants the law to stick around, pretty much as is, after she's gone. On that, she's wrong.
Still, the editorial board concludes that even minor reforms of the policy should be viewed in a positive light:
Some tinkering and a few pilot programs don't amount to the fundamental change needed to make this law work.
But the results of Spellings' experiments will, we hope, show us a better way.
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