Without doubt, the No Child Left Behind Act was a step in the right direction for k-12 education. It forced us to look at the achievement of all students, by subgroups, rather than just an average.
Prior to NCLB, many of us thought our schools were doing a better job of educating all students than they actually were. One of the flaws with NCLB, however, is that since the focus was on a single test score, and because of very unrealistic measures, such as requiring that 100 percent of all students be proficient by 2014, many in the general public now think our schools are doing a terrible job of educating any of our students.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of our schools do a tremendous job educating students with the knowledge and skills they will need to be successful in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the current accountability process under NCLB gives our schools no credit for those successes. It limits their “progress” to a single test score given at a single point in time. We know that there is much more to educating a child than preparing him or her to pass a test.
That’s why U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and I recently met in Washington to hand-deliver a waiver of NCLB to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. We feel that Georgia has a new and vastly improved plan to effectively and appropriately measure the real progress of our schools, while increasing accountability.
We delivered an accountability plan called the College and Career Ready Performance Index. Georgia has been working on this index for more than a year and it has been vetted throughout the state and beyond. This index will take us to the next level of accountability and allow us to give schools a grade that is comprehensive, meaningful and easy to understand. It will look at various indicators designed to determine what schools are doing to prepare our students to be college and career ready.
Secretary Duncan summed up our proposal well when he stated, “Georgia has a real chance to help lead the country where we need to go. Georgia did not use this as an opportunity to perpetuate the status quo, but to continue to push forward in a very thoughtful way.”
I sincerely appreciate and am encouraged by Secretary Duncan’s willingness to let the states determine how they approach the guiding principles of accountability. We are strengthening our accountability while returning control to the states and local systems, something I agree with wholeheartedly.
I want to be clear. Seeking a waiver of NCLB is in no way stepping backward with respect to accountability. Our schools are not afraid of accountability; they want to be held accountable for the full scope of work that they do and not just a test score. That is why we are seeking a waiver from NCLB.
John Barge is Georgia’s state school superintendent
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