Time to Leave No Child Left Behind Behind

Here is a good article that outlines some of the reasons why No Child Left Behind is not working and will never work.

You can have 100 percent proficiency or you can have a meaningful definition of proficient. You cannot have both. Think about it. Whatever variable you choose to measure about us--height, weight, distance between pupils, time needed to run a mile--we vary. Ditto for proficiency, however defined. We usually vary in a regular way, lining up in the oft maligned bell-shaped curve. The shape of the curve isn't important, but the fact that we vary is. We could pass a law saying that all six graders must be X inches tall, but given the large differences among kids, not to mention differences in the onset of adolescent growth spurts, X would have to be a very small number.

The law effectively guarantees that we cannot obtain 100 percent proficiency because it requires that the tests that measure whether or not we are proficient be keyed to "challenging" standards. But challenging standards are those that, by definition, not everyone can meet. If everyone could, they wouldn't be challenging.

There's another problem: By defining achievement in terms of the percent attaining some level labeled "proficient," we're not actually measuring--we're counting. We're just setting up a barrier for people to jump over. We know how many got over it, but we have no idea how high the barrier really is or how high the kids actually jump.

The No Child Left Behind act is up for renewal this year and I think it will hard for it to get passed without at least some changes to the law. The question is if they are going to make changes or just scrap the thing altogether.