http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/06/nclb-gets-a-pas.html
Simply amazing how time does it's thing.
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The standards-and-accountability movement appears to be working.
A new, 50-state report on the law's impact by the Center on Education Policy, a non-partisan think tank, found reading and math scores rising and minority achievement gaps narrowing.
In elementary school math, students in 21 of the 27 states that had suitable data for measurement made moderate-to-large gains. In middle school math, 22 of the 27 states made those gains.
In elementary reading, 17 of 28 states made moderate-to-large gains; half of those states registered reading gains of that size at the middle school level.
And in states with enough data that could be used for comparisons, the black/white learning gaps narrowed much more than they widened.
To be sure, NCLB has significant flaws that need to be fixed. It is better at identifying troubled schools than it is at doing something about those troubles. Its twin remedies, school transfer and tutoring, have proved largely ineffective.
Even so, the latest data strongly suggest that testing and accountability are improving school performance. That's what NCLB was supposed to accomplish. And it ought to be enough to give pause to even the law's harshest detractors.
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I'm a bottom line guy.
Simply amazing how time does it's thing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The standards-and-accountability movement appears to be working.
A new, 50-state report on the law's impact by the Center on Education Policy, a non-partisan think tank, found reading and math scores rising and minority achievement gaps narrowing.
In elementary school math, students in 21 of the 27 states that had suitable data for measurement made moderate-to-large gains. In middle school math, 22 of the 27 states made those gains.
In elementary reading, 17 of 28 states made moderate-to-large gains; half of those states registered reading gains of that size at the middle school level.
And in states with enough data that could be used for comparisons, the black/white learning gaps narrowed much more than they widened.
To be sure, NCLB has significant flaws that need to be fixed. It is better at identifying troubled schools than it is at doing something about those troubles. Its twin remedies, school transfer and tutoring, have proved largely ineffective.
Even so, the latest data strongly suggest that testing and accountability are improving school performance. That's what NCLB was supposed to accomplish. And it ought to be enough to give pause to even the law's harshest detractors.
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I'm a bottom line guy.
hno:
