NCLB Doesn't Measure Up

Educational researchers are beginning to accumulate empirical data and evidence for what most teachers and administrators already know: NCLB is not working and, in fact, is undermining the very goals that it set out to accomplish.

It is ironic, indeed, that those who believe in numbers and measurements when it comes to education, would ignore the findings of well-respected quantitative research. Eventually, the truth about this legislation, like the truth about WMD's and Iraq will come out and the American people will finally understand the true motives behind NCLB and the destruction it is causing in public education.

Teachers College at Columbia University held a symposium this week to present data and information.

"NCLB was created ostensibly to build on the Title I legislation enacted in the 1960s that sought to safeguard the equity vision of Brown versus Board of Education," Michael A. Rebell, executive director of The Campaign for Educational Equity, said in a news release.

"In fact, though its aims are good ones, aspects of the law are undermining that vision. It's clear from these new findings that we need to shift NCLB's focus from unrealistic and ill-defined goals such as 'one hundred percent proficiency' to issues of how to provide all students with meaningful educational opportunities, so that we can ground the law in what kids really need to learn."

Is anybody listening?