Obama Proposes Dismantling No Child Left Behind
The Obama administration wants to completely change the No Child Left Behind Act. Officials are sending Congress a plan Monday that they say will give states and local school districts more flexibility to revitalize primary and secondary schools. A draft released over the weekend would eliminate many of the law's most controversial features, including its name.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
President Obama wants to make a big change in a longstanding American policy, the No Child Left Behind law. A draft blueprint, released over the weekend, would eliminate many of the education law's most controversial features, including its name. NPR's Larry Abramson reports that some of No Child Left Behind's biggest critics, teacher's unions, are surprisingly hostile to the new plan.
LARRY ABRAMSON: The proposal is essentially a 45-page obituary for No Child Left Behind. The new version that the president likes - name to be determined -would drop the much-hated deadline of 2014. That's when all schoolchildren were supposed to be proficient in math and English. Thousands of schools were on their way to missing that deadline.
In his weekend radio address, President Obama described the new approach.
President BARACK OBAMA: Under these guidelines, schools that achieve excellence or show real progress will be rewarded, and local districts will be encouraged to commit to change in schools that are clearly letting their students down.
ABRAMSON: Their proposal would focus on the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools. All the rest would escape the dreaded label of failing school, that many have complained about. You might think that teachers would cheer, since they've complained the loudest about that deadline. But Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, says the document places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers, and gives them zero percent authority.
Ms. RANDI WEINGARTEN (American Federation of Teachers): What we're seeing here is a tremendous inflexibility and still - and sanctioning of individual teachers.
ABRAMSON: Under the new proposal, states will have to put in place rigorous evaluation systems that rely, in part, on student achievement. And states will have to publish detailed report cards showing where the most effective teachers are placed.
Randi Weingarten recently said that she was ready to support some sort of evaluation based on achievement. That's a big step for her group. But she says the focus should not be on simply evaluating and sanctioning teachers.
Ms. WEINGARTEN: But it should be about how to give to teachers the time and the supports they need to help kids.
ABRAMSON: The document widens a growing rift between the White House and teachers, one that was deepened when the administration recently supported a failing Rhode Island high school that decided to fire most of its staff.
The grousing doesn't end there. The National School Boards Association basically supports the plan, but is upset about how the administration wants to turn around those lowest-performing schools. Anne Bryant, the association's executive director, says the four models in the document require districts to replace teachers and principals.
Ms. ANNE BRYANT (Executive Director, National School Boards Association): We really do know how to turn around schools. It's hard, it's complex, and it has a lot do to with professional development and changing strategies of teaching. But there just is no evidence that changing the staffing, necessarily, leads to greater student achievement.
ABRAMSON: These attacks may simply be bids by interest groups to influence what will likely be a months-long process of hammering out a new law. Mike Petrilli is with the conservative Fordham Foundation. He says he's a little surprised to see so much hostility, since this proposal basically removes the long arm of the federal government for most American schools.
Mr. MIKE PETRILLI (Fordham Foundation): No longer are you subject to top-down accountability. This basically means that for the vast majority of American schools, they would be able to breathe easier than they do right now under the No Child Left Behind Act.
ABRAMSON: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will defend the proposal before Congress on Wednesday.
Larry Abramson, NPR News, Washington.
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WERTHEIMER: This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
