The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess and our own Checker Finn have three new and overlapping analyses of the No Child Left Behind Act, with particular reference to that law's accountability and choice provisions. The book version, which was edited by Hess and Finn and contains contributions from fifteen other authors, is Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools. If you haven't got time for the full volume, you can read its major conclusions in the September edition of Phi Delta Kappan (click here for more). And, if you've not yet gotten your fill, check out the fall 2004 edition of The Public Interest, where they examine NCLB in broader perspective in "On Leaving No Child Behind." The bottom line: this historic law can work and must work, but there's no point in stubbornly insisting that it will work perfectly as first enacted (or that more money is the answer). Big, complex laws and programs normally need calibrating. In this case, some NCLB provisions should be tightened, others made more flexible. These studies are by no means the last word; they are, in fact, primarily glimpses of and reflections on the law's early implementation.
Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools, Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn, Jr., Palgrave MacMillan, ISBN: 1403965889
"Inflating life rafts of NCLB," Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn, Jr., Phi Delta Kappan, September 2004 (subscription required)
"On Leaving No Child Behind," Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Frederick M. Hess, The Public Interest, Fall 2004 (The Fall 2004 edition is not yet available online.)