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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > February > 06 > Entry
Editorial: Pressure, rewards good Obama combo
President Barack Obama has made one thing clear about his approach to schools — he prefers offering carrots over whacking them with a stick in pursuit of change. That approach could be in for a big test.
The president hinted at major changes to No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era federal education law, in the budget he released this week. His proposals, while still lacking details, mirror some of the good ideas that the administration has tried to entice schools to adopt during the past year.
But the president has a challenge — pushing new ideas while also keeping together the parts of No Child Left Behind that were revolutionary and truly improved schools.
Under President George W. Bush, No Child Left Behind got a bad rap in some quarters as primarily a tool for punishing schools. The law allowed 12 years for all students to achieve “proficiency” — by 2014 — and called out schools that failed to make enough progress toward that goal. As the law demanded more each year, ever more schools have been counted as failing.
Penalties for failing schools are increasingly harsh. Some of their federal money has been redirected to private tutors. Students are allowed to transfer. Failing schools can even be “reconstituted” with a new principal, new teachers and new curriculum.
Educators complain that test scores are not the only evidence of a good school, that too little credit is being given for improvement, and that taking away money, students and staff is often counterproductive.
But there are positives. No Child Left Behind requires schools to track and report test data. Even better, it requires separate tracking of kids who have been ignored — minority, poor and special education students, for example. And it demands that schools raise these students’ scores, too.
It allows parents, teachers and policy makers to understand schools’ performance in ways they never could before.
President Obama wants to reduce some of the heat No Child Left Behind has put on schools. He’s proposing dropping the 2014 proficiency requirement and creating new labels that go beyond pass and fail to recognize more levels of progress. Schools would be measured instead against a yet-undefined goal that kids leave school “college- and career-ready.”
The details will be important. The new standards must be challenging.
So far, President Obama’s education policy has focused on improving standards, testing and data systems; ramping up teaching training and accountability; and transforming the lowest-rated schools into effective ones.
In place of new demands, he’s offered financial incentives, using stimulus dollars. In the past year, the nation’s schools received about $100 billion in stimulus aid, primarily to prevent deep cuts caused by the recession.
Under the federal program Race to the Top, states and school districts that bought into the administration’s reforms can compete for about $5 billion in grants.
Now the president is toying with the idea of distributing a growing chunk of federal poverty money the same way — making districts compete and supporting only those which show progress or innovation.
Tinkering with the formula will be hotly controversial; care must be taken not to penalize kids just because their schools aren’t good at writing grant proposals. President Obama needs to make good on his campaign promise to “mend” not “end” No Child Left Behind.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
Comments
By Philman
February 6, 2010 7:12 AM | Link to this
Schools a PERFECT example of Unions gone wild, they have spent Thirty years raising pay & benifits for teachers with nooo accounability, good teacher bad teacher made no differance, now I know some teacher is going to comment on my spelling & grammer, but fail to address the problem. A union so powerfull it fights to keep losers on the payroll, they have succeded in moving the goalpost forward for Years & years.America used to be # 1 in academics in the world, now we are maybe # 20, what changed, we are teaching more about things that have no redeeming value, less on reading , writing & arithmatic.
By DR
February 6, 2010 8:06 AM | Link to this
Everyone told me if I voted for John McCain that this country would be messed up beyond belief. They were right…I voted for John McCain and this country is messed up beyond belief.
By Scrap Them & Start Over
February 6, 2010 8:48 AM | Link to this
The more we tax ourselves for schools & watch our federal & state monies go to education, all we get are: crippling higher taxes, better pay & benefits for school employees, kids that can’t function in the outside world & aren’t prepared for either college or careers, increased illicit teacher/student relationships, more half-filled school buses running the same routes all day long, and taj-mahal buildings. If money was the problem with education, we solved it billions of dollars ago!
By Scrap Them & Start Over
February 6, 2010 8:49 AM | Link to this
The more we tax ourselves for schools & watch our federal & state monies go to education, all we get are: crippling higher taxes, better pay & benefits for school employees, kids that can’t function in the outside world & aren’t prepared for either college or careers, increased illicit teacher/student relationships, more half-filled school buses running the same routes all day long, and taj-mahal buildings. If money was the problem with education, we solved it billions of dollars ago!