Education Sector: Analysis and Perspectives: A Law Worth Keeping

Stay Connected

Subscribe to our Biweekly Digest, event invitations, and more.

Sector Spotlight

Report Release: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force

New Education Sector report examines teacher pensions and details the problems facing current state pension programs.

Senior Policy Analyst Elena Silva interviewed by the New York Times on Title IX.

Brad Jupp, an architect of Denver's landmark performance-based teacher pay system, ProComp, is an outspoken advocate of both labor organizing and quality education for disadvantaged kids. In this interview, Jupp talks about ProComp, his views on teacher unionism, and the future of the teaching profession.

Education Sector Welcomes Three New Board Members

Education Sector's board of directors names three prominent leaders in the fields of education and journalism to the board: David W. Breneman, Richard Lee Colvin, and Peter McWalters.

For-profit colleges: Do they shortchange students?

Policy Director Kevin Carey comments on a recent Senate HELP Committee hearing on for-profit colleges.

Analysis and Perspectives » Op-Eds » A Law Worth Keeping

Analysis and Perspectives

Op-Eds

A Law Worth Keeping

This editorial was originally broadcast on National Public Radio.

Author:: Andrew J. Rotherham
Web Address:: http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
Publication Date:: September 10, 2007
Read more about: K-12 Accountability Systems/NCLB

As a rule, industries don't reform themselves. It's why we have a Securities and Exchange Commission and a Federal Aviation Administration. When it comes to schools, the problem is not that educators do not have good intentions, on the contrary, they overwhelmingly do. But good intentions are not enough; any successful industry needs to organize itself around performance.

No Child Left Behind attempts to do that. It requires states to set specific targets for school performance and deal with low-performers. Despite the rhetoric from the law's critics that it is too tough, the performance goals are not all that unreasonable. Today, in most states, only about seven in 10 students, at most, need to pass their state's tests in order for a school to meet the targets. And in some states it's less than half of students. And many state tests are not all that challenging to begin with.

Some criticisms of the law are valid, and the problems can be fixed. No Child Left Behind does force schools to focus too much on reading and math when most Americans want the public schools to do more than just teach those subjects. And states have been slow to really intervene in struggling schools so many educators are understandably frustrated that demands to improve have not been accompanied by more help to do so. …

Listen to the entire commentary on National Public Radio.