You Decide

… that there is a mismatch between NCLB national policy and state standards, so “proficiency” means vastly different things in different places?

Standards can vary dramatically from state to state to the extent that a fourth-grader found to be proficient in reading in Mississippi might fail in Massachusetts. That sounds an awful lot like an achievement gap — one that the law was supposed to close.

“Even if students are making progress on state tests, if tests are incredibly easy, that doesn’t mean much,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and a former Department of Education official, in The New York Times.

Although a move to national standards is being explored as one way to revamp No Child Left Behind, so far the federal government has hesitated. Why? It’s one of the few areas of NCLB that states can control, and it’s an area in which the federal government would rather not get involved, as Education Secretary Margaret Spelling said during a conference call to reporters in 2007. Yet this slippery slope creates a big loophole in NCLB. Who wouldn’t be tempted to move the finish line a little closer to your runner if you could?

At the same time, other countries are actually ramping up their education standards on a national level, including Finland, the United Kingdom and Iceland. In many cases they're even reaching for higher goals than those set by the European Union for 2010 — which in some cases already exceed our own. Do we want America’s children to be behind their European counterparts?

… that for the first time, NCLB makes our educational system somewhat transparent?

A student’s report card shares little detailed information: Letter grades don’t really explain how adept children are at multiplication tables or if they understand Shakespeare’s sonnets.

But now, thanks to NCLB, parents and the nation have a way to crack open the classroom door and collect sounder, more detailed data on how children are truly performing. More important, say advocates, schools are now publicly accountable for their time in a very measured way. Before the law was passed, we simply didn’t know how well students were doing in each grade because there was no process in place for common standards and assessments.

Now all 50 states report their findings to the Nation’s Report Card, a basic information infrastructure, with more than just letter grades. States provide rich reports that detail specific skill sets and trends over time. Educators and the community can pull from these reports to make decisions to help students succeed.

With information so readily available, schools can adjust how much class time is spent on which subjects. Parents can decide if they need to volunteer their time for after-school tutoring. At the district level, funds can be reallocated to specific areas and schools on an as-needed basis. And those students and teachers who continue to lack improvement can be identified. “The better we understand our schools, the better we are able to improve them,” said Kevin Carey, policy manager of the nonpartisan think tank Education Sector, in 2007 to Congress.