Some weeks ago, we noted that Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews was seeking "true life stories" of how NCLB is affecting classrooms, good and bad (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=133#1658). He specifically declined to accept comments from researchers and advocates in favor of dispatches from parents, teachers, and students. Now come his findings. With due respect to a fine journalist, the comments he gathered don't add a heckuva lot to the NCLB mid-course appraisal. It's not just that they are necessarily impressionistic - no classroom will ever encompass the range of NCLB effects, positive or negative - but rather that they track rather closely what researchers and advocates (on all sides of the debate over NCLB) have been saying for two years. On one side are those praising the law for empowering parents of poor students and getting schools back to basics. On the other are parents and teachers complaining about nonstop testing and the perverse effects of some accountability measures. Is it possible that Mathews's process was gamed by researchers and advocates (not us, we swear!) posing as "real people?"
"Examining No Child Left Behind," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, March 9, 2004,