Educators strive to make No Child program meet ind

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Educators strive to make No Child program meet individual needs

July 13, 2008 Beacon
By ELISABETH KILPATRICK [e-mail]

Since it began in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind program has had plenty of criticism hurled its way: it's too rigid; it's one-size-fits-all; it doesn't meet individual needs.

So Fox Valley school administrators are cautiously optimistic about a new program in Illinois that will customize plans for individual districts to help them meet NCLB requirements.

"(It) sends the message to people doing the heavy lifting, the teachers in the schools every day, that people are listening," West Aurora School Superintendent Jim Rydland said.

Illinois is one of six states chosen by the U.S. Department of Education this month to participate in its "differentiated accountability" pilot program.

Starting in the 2008-2009 school year, the state will now be able to distinguish between schools close to meeting NCLB requirements and schools in worse shape -- and target resources accordingly. Of the 14 public school districts in the Aurora area, six missed adequate yearly progress requirements in 2007, according to the Illinois School Report Card, a Web site that tracks school data.

Critics have long complained that the old NCLB guidelines treated schools the same whether they missed goals by a little or a lot.

"It's much more of an 'I gotcha' approach, more than feeling like a helpful approach," Rydland said.

The main features of Illinois' pilot program include offering tutoring a year earlier to low-performing schools; dividing schools into "focused" and "comprehensive" categories based on whether all students or just certain groups of students fail to meet yearly testing goals; and giving schools three years instead of two to implement improvement plans before taking additional action.

The extra tutoring was especially heartening to Christie Aird, East Aurora School District assistant superintendent for elementary programs. Under the old rules, students had the option to transfer to a different school after their school missed academic targets two years in a row; and after three years, tutoring was made available for students. Now tutoring and school transfers will be offered at the same time.

"Our thinking a long time ago was that those should have been reversed," she said. "This says, let's try to help the students out and keep them in their schools."

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Changes put NCLB on the right track

July 13, 2008 Beacon Opinion

No one seriously questions the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The six-year-old law seeks to improve teacher quality and bring all public school students -- regardless of disability, income or racial backgrounds -- to academic grade level.

But in practice, the law relies too heavily on punishing schools, sets unrealistic and onerous goals and foolishly treats every school that misses testing goals the same, whether they fall miserably short or by an inch.

A push in Congress to fix the law all but collapsed last year, leaving its most heavy-handed elements in place. In that void, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has been doing something smart.

Using her executive powers, Spellings has been chipping away at some of the worst parts of the law, responding to concerns of people who see the law play out in real life every day.

Illinois is the latest state to benefit. This week, Spellings chose Illinois and five other states for a new pilot program. For the first time, Illinois will be free to commit more time and help to schools that need it the most, rather than treating all failing schools the same. This will start in earnest in 2009.

Currently, all schools that fail to score high enough get the same label and the same broad-brush treatment, whether all students fail or it's just one group at the school, such as non-native speakers or special-education students. This one-size-fits-all approach spreads limited dollars too thin and blunts efforts to target help to the neediest schools.

Many of our school districts have fallen victim to No Child Left Behind's sweeping penalties because of the Fox Valley's diverse population and the number of students who don't speak English very well. A recent change that requires those students to take the ISAT test along with native speakers has administrators worried that test scores will drop, leading to more sanctions.

In addition to creating Illinois' pilot program, Spellings has allowed more special-education students to take modified tests and launched a "growth model" pilot program that gives schools credit when students are improving. Local schools are also encouraged that tutoring help will be available a year earlier for schools that don't make adequate yearly progress, and schools will have another year to develop and implement improvement plans.

These changes respond to one of the greatest criticisms of the law: that schools are judged solely on whether all students meet a single testing goal, regardless of how much progress kids make or how far behind they started.

While No Child Left Behind still rankles teachers working hard in the classroom, they're encouraged that state and federal officials are making changes to the law to make it less punitive and more helpful. "Currently, NCLB is not focused on continuous improvement," said West Aurora Superintendent Jim Rydland. "The pilot program sends the message to people doing the heavy lifting, the teachers in the schools every day, that people are listening."

Spellings listened to the critics and responded. That's called compromise, a commodity we could use more of in Washington.

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When common sense prevails it's always a good thing.