(ThyBlackMan.com) President Barack Obama will call for an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law on Monday because of features the administration says actually lower educational standards.
The speech is part of a push by Obama to encourage a bipartisan revision of the law that was a hallmark of the administration of President George W. Bush. Obama has said he wants to return the United States to the position it previously held as the world’s top producer of college graduates.
The law, the Obama administration says, has “one-size-fits-all mandates” that four out of five schools in the country will not meet. These mandates have also caused states to lower their standards to satisfy the law. Particularly problematic is the law’s pass/fail approach. Under Obama’s proposed changes, progress would be measured.
For example, even though a school has not reached certain hallmarks, such as the number of students reading at grade level, but has shown 
considerable progress toward that goal, the school would not be given a failing grade but receive credit for the progress it has made.
“In the State of the Union address and 2012 budget, President Obama called for key investments in education because he believes in order to win the future for this generation and the next, we must dramatically accelerate learning for all children. In order to do that we must fix [No Child Left Behind] this year. It has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed or to recognize success,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during a conference call Sunday.
“We need to fix this law now, so we can close achievement gaps in the future. We want to create a new law that is fair, flexible and focused on the schools and students most at risk. A fair accountability system shares responsibility for improvements and rewards excellence and is based on high standards as informed by sophisticated assessments that measures individual student growth,” Duncan added.
In addition to a new accountability system, Obama’s overhaul would also increase funding to schools by 16 percent to $29 billion but give more money to schools based on performance through competitive grants.
“We need to do away with unnecessary federal mandates and increase local control that produces solutions focused on results. Under the current law, we don’t encourage or reward innovation in schools and we don’t shine a spotlight on excellence,” said Duncan.
“We support competitive grant programs that reward states and districts and schools for changing and challenging the system. Right now we rely on unsophisticated bubble tests to grade students and schools. We support better evaluations that help teachers, parents and students themselves all work together on behalf of the students,” he added.
The ultimate goal, said White House Domestic Policy Advisor Melody Barnes, is to “out educate and out compete the world.”
“We’ve got to prepare each of our young people to graduate having mastered the knowledge and the skills that he or she is going to need to succeed in college or a 21st century career,” said Barnes.
“In some instances, that just means getting out of the way so that state and local school leaders can do what works to improve results for kids. That also means focusing on reform efforts for the lowest performing schools. We need a system of incentives, rewards and recognitions for schools making significant strides to succeed,” Barnes added.
The Obama administration says it wants to retain the best teachers, support innovation and target the lowest-performing schools. That was also Bush’s rationale for No Child Left Behind.
For African Americans, that promise is key. Unfortunately, many of the lowest-performing schools are in economically disadvantaged and minority communities. The big question is how well will the plan meet its goal of rewarding competitive grants while focusing on the lowest performing schools?
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the plan places too heavy a burden on teachers.
“It appears from our first review that despite some promising rhetoric, this blueprint places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them 0 percent authority. For a law affecting millions of schoolchildren and their teachers, it just doesn’t make sense to have teachers – and teachers alone – bear the responsibility for school and student success,” Weingarten said in a statement.
Weingarten said that any bill should also include a focus on wraparound services that affect every aspect of a child’s life, including the social issues they are dealing with at home. I’m not sure anyone can argue with the reality that a child’s home life will affect how well they perform in school.
The methods to make sure that the lowest-performing schools get the resources they need and get the credit they deserve for making progress will be the trickiest part of this legislation.
“We can disagree on a lot of things but no one disagrees on the importance of education,” said Duncan.
Let’s hope he’s right.
Written By Jeff Mays
