President Obama's administration recently estimated that 82% of the nation's schools could miss meeting standards mandated under No Child Left Behind. Wait...what? We are all aware that the state of educational achievement in this country is not what it should be...but...82% seems an extraordinarily high estimate of the total schools that will fail in 2011.

No Child Left Behind, signature legislation of the Bush Administration, includes an aggressive review system developed with the ultimate goal of assuring that all public school students are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Under the law, students are tested in reading and math in grades three through eight and again in high school. These scores, along with attendance and graduation rates are used to determine the effectiveness of individual schools. 

Follow up:

Critics of NCLB, however, take objection to the blunt pass-fail approach of the legislation. It is President Obama's desire to see that "brownie points" are given for improvement even when students are not academically proficient. How exactly does that help failing students in failing schools? Margaret Spellings, Education Secretary under Bush feels the same. "If we're going to try, in the name of closing the achievement gap, to whitewash the underperformance of schools, that's really regrettable," said Spellings.

Another objection of President Obama and his education staff is that it's too hard for improving schools to meet their annual progress goals because the standards are raised each year. Wow! How is expecting continued progress and improvement in academic achievement bad? Education Secretary Arne Duncan has suggested that Congress change federal standards so that failing grades are awarded only to the schools most in need of help. It seems that schools with high poverty levels should get A's for effort and the accompanying federal funds. However, as The Heritage Foundation determined in its investigation of spending vs. reading proficiency from 1970/1 through 2004/5, there is no causal relationship between increased spending and academic achievement. The stark reality is that labeling schools as failures when their students are not academically proficient is akin to calling a cow...well, a cow. Accepting a lower level of achievement from poor students is not "fair and flexible" as suggested by the administration. What's not fair is continuing to make excuses for the administrative staff of failing schools. What's not fair is accepting less from students in poor districts. What's not fair is accepting mediocrity as a "good try."

Going back to the original, seemingly impossible contention of the current administration that 82% of schools will fail NCLB benchmarks in 2011 should give us all pause. Is this a good figure...or one inflated to scare legislators into accepting the recommendations of the Obama administration? According to The Center on Education Policy, 28% of schools nationwide missed their benchmarks in 2007; 35% in 2008; 33% in 2009; and 37% in 2010. It seems improbable to me that these relatively flat figures would suddenly spike by 45 percentage points...and I'm not alone. Charles Barone, a member of Democrats for Education Reform has called these figures fiction. "He's creating a bogeyman that doesn't exist," Barone said of Duncan." It seems that the current administration is more focused on pushing their own agenda and vision of where dollars should be spent than on providing an effective education for all children.

Sources:

• Anderson, Nick. The Washington Post: Most Schools Could Face 'Failing' Under No Child Left Behind. 10 Mar 2011.
• Parsons, Christi. Los Angeles Times: 82% of U.S. Public Schools Could Fail 'No Child Left Behind Review'. 9 Mar 2011.