More Say NCLB Leaves Many Behind

See today’s Washington Post for an article on many more think tanks believing that the 2014 NCLB achivement target is fantasy rather than reality.

“There is a zero percent chance that we will ever reach a 100 percent target,” said Robert L. Linn, co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA. “But because the title of the law is so rhetorically brilliant, politicians are afraid to change this completely unrealistic standard. They don’t want to be accused of leaving some children behind.”

Ironically, the politicians themselves say the law is unrealistic.

“The idea of 100 percent is, in any legislation, not achievable,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate education committee. “There isn’t a member of Congress or a parent or a student that doesn’t understand that.”

Kennedy says in the article that the law’s universal proficiency standard served to inspire students and teachers. But “it’s too early in the process to predict whether we’ll consider changes” to the 2014 deadline, he said.

Wow.

E.C. 🙂