Education Week has a collection of articles this week called "No Child Left Behind Taking Root." Taken together, they provide a basic understanding of where states are in compliance with NCLB's testing, accountability, and teacher quality requirements, and of reaching the goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading, math, and (soon) science. Bess Keller questions whether the teacher corps will look much different at the end of 2005-6 (the deadline for having a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom) than it did three years ago when NCLB was enacted. (For more on states skirting that requirement, click here and here.) Erin Fox discusses the variation among "report cards" by which states tell parents how their child's school is doing. According to Fox, "Nineteen states have more than one [report card] per school," making it hard for parents trying to parse the data. Finally, Lynn Olson's piece gives a general overview of how NCLB "has become implanted in the culture of America's public education system." Among other things, she sounds the alarm for schools that have yet to meet AYP, despite increased flexibility from the feds and revisions to state accountability plans that made it easier for schools to meet their targets. "The number of schools that do not make adequate yearly progress could jump significantly next year," Olson explains, "when the performance targets rise substantially in most states for the first time since the law was enacted." Also troubling: as we pointed out nearly two years ago (click here), the number of schools not reaching AYP each year will likely continue to increase over time, since many states have backloaded their achievement gain expectations into the last few years of NCLB implementation.
"Taking root," by Lynn Olson, Education Week, December 8, 2004
"'Qualified' teachers: A victory on paper?" by Bess Keller, Education Week, December 8, 2004
"Report cards provide more, or less, data," by Erin Fox, Education Week, December 8, 2004