Officials examine No Child Left Behind revisions

By: Keith Walker | Inside NoVA
Published: September 29, 2011

MANASSAS, Va. --

It’s no secret that school officials and educators generally consider the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to be onerous.

President Barack Obama appears to agree with that take.

Under a plan Obama announced last week, states will now have the chance to get waivers from some provisions of the law that, among other things, requires students have 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014.

Manassas City Schools School Board Member Tim Demeria said lifting NCLB is a good thing because it was a “onesize- fit-all” program that measures end results rather than progress.

For instance, if a child starts grade five reading at a second-grade level, and by the end of the year the teacher has him reading at a fourth-grade level, NCLB does not give credit for any teaching and learning advancements and the child will fail, Demeria said.

“It’s not going to raise our scores, but it’s going to keep us from being penalized for things we shouldn’t be penalized for,” Demeria said of the law put in place by President George W. Bush. “The fact that a kid right now can make two years’ progress in one year and still be considered failing is just not acceptable.”

Under Virginia law, schools must show a certain Annual Yearly Progress, or AYP.

Under NCLB, schools would have to show that their students meet the standards that were going up every year.

Demeria said the goal would be impossible to achieve.

“Nobody’s going to make AYP eventually,” Demeria said.

School Board member Sanford S. Williams agreed with Demeria and also said freeing teachers from NCLB would allow for better teaching.

“I think it will allow schools to be a little more creative. I’ve had a number of teachers tell me that they’ve had to teach to the test. Being out from underneath that paradigm will now allow teachers to be more creative and engage students in other areas that were left out when they had to focus so much in teaching to the test,” Williams said. “It’s not working for everyone.”

At its Sept. 22 meeting, the Virginia Board of Education endorsed superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright’s recommendation to apply to the U.S. Department of Education for waivers from specific requirements of NCLB, according to a department statement.

Senior reporter Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.

Officials examine No Child Left Behind revisions

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