Chairman of the House education committee calls for “serious changes” to NCLB
U.S. Representative George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House education committee, is calling for "serious changes" to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), including new ways to measure school progress, a proposal some Republicans fear could jeopardize efforts to renew the law this year. Rep. Miller says the five-year-old law places too much emphasis on standardized testing. "The American people have a very strong sense that No Child Left Behind is not fair, it is not flexible, and it is not funded," he said in a speech at the National Press Club. "And they are not wrong. I can also tell you that there are no votes in the House of Representatives for continuing the No Child Left Behind Act without making serious changes to it." He expects that the House will vote in September on legislation to renew the law and says schools should be able to include measures besides reading and math tests in determining progress, such as graduation rates or the number of students passing advanced placement exams. "Many Americans do not believe that the success of our students or of our schools can be measured by one test administered on one day, and I agree with them," he said. Some civil rights groups have expressed concern that such changes could weaken the law. "In our experience, institutions that are held accountable for too many things are, in the end, accountable for nothing," several groups that back the law, such as the Citizens' Commission for Civil Rights and the Education Trust, wrote in a recent letter to Mr. Miller. Ross Wiener, vice president for program and policy at Education Trust, applauds a reference in Mr. Miller's speech to the importance of making sure every student is proficient in reading and math. But he says many supporters of the law are concerned about using new criteria to measure progress. Teacher unions, a powerful force in Democratic politics, strongly support the use of so-called multiple measures, but they are expected to oppose another Miller proposal: paying teachers based in part on how their students perform. NCLB has come under attack from conservatives, who see the law as a federal intrusion into public schools, and from liberals, who believe it focuses too much on standardized tests. So far, the law has kept the support of leading Democrats and Republicans in Congress. But Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the House education committee, says that some of Rep. Miller's proposals could "be a fatal blow to the reauthorization process." He is particularly troubled by multiple measures and is pushing for more options for taxpayer-financed private tutoring.
Washington Post
By Amit R. Paley
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: Rep. Miller’s prepared remarks and the letter from the civil rights groups are provided below. The Education Trust also just released a report calling for the reauthorized NCLB to hold high schools more accountable for graduation rates. For details, see the BoardBuzz item. More on the prospects for NCLB’s reauthorization is available starting from the last link.]
[Rep. Miller press release]
["This Week in Education" blog on letter to Rep. Miller]
[BoardBuzz on accountability for graduation rates]
[NSBA School Law pages on NCLB’s future]