By Denise Jennex
With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first implemented in 1965
and renamed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) by President Bush in 2001, scheduled to take place in the coming
months, CTA and the Burbank Teachers Association have a chance to persuade Congress to erase, rewrite
and reauthorize! We need to erase the punitive and onerous provisions of the law so that it improves student
learning and helps schools rather than punishes them.
We’ve seen our students and schools struggle under No Child Left Behind for the past few years, so we are
aware how much the law needs to be changed. Now is the time to write our congressional representatives and
let them know exactly what we want to see in the new bill.
Specifically, CTA wants to change ESEA/NCLB to provide:
- Multiple measures of student learning rather than test scores alone
- Growth models that recognize school progress and student needs
- Assistance and resources to schools rather than sanctions
- Proven reforms, like reduced class sizes, and quality training for teachers.
The one-day snapshot approach based solely on standardized test scores is an unfair, inaccurate and
misleading measure of student achievement. We could be using additional measures such as attendance
rates, graduation rates, our rigorous curriculum, and the number of our students taking advanced courses.
No Child Left Behind sets up schools to fail. In fact, this year NCLB labeled one out of every five public schools
as failing. Instead of punishing schools, we need a system that provides assistance and resources to help all
students and schools succeed.
The current one-size-fits-all approach hurts all children and pushes struggling students even further behind.
According to a study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, NCLB has not helped narrow the achievement gap
and has shortchanged schools that serve predominantly disadvantaged, minority students by
overemphasizing sanctions rather than assistance. We need a system that provides assistance and resources
to help all our students and schools.
The president and Congress have broken their promise of funding and support, making NCLB a federally
mandated burden on local school districts. The shortfall in promised federal support since 2001 now exceeds
$55 billion! Yet Congress continues to make additional demands of our schools without providing the
resources.
We need to tell our congressional representatives that NCLB must focus on reforms that work. How about
restoring the federal class size reduction program, or providing financial incentives to attract and retain
teachers in hard to staff schools? Or encouraging and providing resources to increase parental and family
involvement in our schools?