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Congress Must Change No Child Left Behind: Duncan

Education secretary promises to take action if Congress doesn't

By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff

Posted Jun 12, 2011 3:38 PM CDT

(Newser) – If Congress doesn’t do something about No Child Left Behind, then Arne Duncan will. The education secretary promised to take steps to ease some of the sanctions for states that are trying to improve schools, if Congress doesn’t act on rewriting the 2002 law by the beginning of next school year. “We are hearing a tremendous amount of frustration across the country,” Duncan tells the Washington Post. “We are not going to sit back here and do nothing.”

Teachers and state leaders have long complained the law, which sets a goal that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014, is unrealistic and too strict. Schools that fall short of target pass rates on standardized tests face sanctions, which Duncan says hurt states that are attempting to make lasting improvements. “This is not about giving states a break,” he said, but about giving them the flexibility to make changes.

Arne Duncan meets with People for the American Way Foundation's Young Elected Officials Network at the Washington Court Hotel on June 3, 2011 in Washington, DC.
Arne Duncan meets with People for the American Way Foundation's Young Elected Officials Network at the Washington Court Hotel on June 3, 2011 in Washington, DC.   (Getty Images)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 13 comments
Mersault
Jun 13, 2011 8:44 AM CDT
Education, founded on the industrial belief (read, modern myth) that equal outcomes can be achieved by applying equal force, is the Holy Grail of progressives by which they intend to render the Bell Curve into a Flat Line. It's the equivalent of having a mandate that everyone should be over six feet tall. Good luck, y'all.
bananana
Jun 12, 2011 9:35 PM CDT
It would have been newsworthy if Duncan had said that the Internet has rendered the current educational system (including higher education) largely obsolete and that we can't afford to waste any more human potential on the sacrificial altar of dead educational institutions.  Real education reform that would actually help improve the economy would include cheaper credentialing, allowing us to take advantage of the fact that all textbooks, interactive tutorials, videos, etc. can be recreated at zero marginal cost.   Or we can continue to all but ignore the miracle that is Internet access in our educational institutions and pretend that you have to sit on your ass for x years and spend thousands of dollars in order to master a subject, thereby squandering our children's and college students' youths and potential.
Scaramouche
Jun 12, 2011 4:32 PM CDT
http://www.khanacademy.org That's the template for the revolution. We have to be unafraid to try new things, because, clearly, the old has failed.
Politics • US

 
education • No Child Left Behind • Arne Duncan

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