NCLB: feds crack the door: the U.S. Department of Education has started to respond to state concerns over the No Child Left Behind law.

• Author: Young, Scott
• Position: No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

When it was introduced in 2001, few people complained about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Who could? The law was met with strong bipartisan support. It brought a new national visibility to education and made education reform a priority. It promised to have all children performing at their grade level by 2014. It would help schools identify kids who need help by reporting test results separately for certain subgroups--minority, low-income, English language learners and special education students. It recognized the importance of having qualified teachers. And it increased federal money for K-12 education.

As time has passed, however, there has been increasing concern about the law's premise, requirements, implementation and funding. On the one band, schools are reporting improvements in student performance. On the other, states, districts, principals, teachers, students and parents are encountering obstacles to fully implementing the law.

For example, school performance is being judged not by individual student improvement, but by the improvement of cohorts of students--this year's 4th graders are being compared to last year's 4th graders. Special education students are expected to perform at grade level without consideration of their disabilities. Teachers are worrying that they must focus more time on math and reading, to the detriment of other subjects. Parents are concerned about the amount of testing. States are concerned that the costs of meeting the law's expectation may be more than the federal government has provided. And children are feeling the stress.

Under former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, the department held steadfast to the details and requirements of the law. But now there is some recognition that changes in regulations--and perhaps even the law itself--may be necessary for states and schools to achieve NCLB's important goals.

In April 2005, the U.S. Department of Education, under the leadership of a brand new secretary, announced for the first time its willingness to consider more flexibility for states. "We have learned much over the last three years, and now we need to use this new information to improve the way we do our work," said Secretary Margaret Spellings.

"We have all worked on major pieces of legislation and just about every one of them had a few errors," says Patty Sullivan, director of the Center on Education Policy, a national, independent advocate for public schools, based in Washington, D.C. "It is hard not to make some mistakes when you are working quickly on a law that is a thousand pages long. That is why we have the ability to amend the law, either through technical amendments or the reauthorization process. Imagine where Bill Gates would be if he had stuck with Word 1.0?"

While everyone supports the goals of NCLB, applying it at the state and local level has been a challenge. "It's not the goals of the law in question, it's the mechanics," says Senator Stephen Saland, former NCSL president and current chair of the New York Senate Education Committee. "The devil is always in the details and we have become more aware of what the details mean for states."

STATE CONCERNS

Last year more than 30 state legislatures considered measures that urged Congress to increase its funding or suggested making fixes to the law. A handful of states even proposed not participating in the law and forgoing federal funding.

So far this year, about 20 states have introduced legislation dealing with such general concerns. And more legislation is being considered that deals with specific requests--such as using state accountability systems that were in place before...