The No Child Left Behind law has lingered long after it was due for an update in 2007, a legislative zombie born from a broken Congress’ inability to renew it.
States such as Georgia have gotten waivers from the law from the Obama administration, which has stepped into the breach with its own at times controversial programs.
Despite poor perceptions of the law these days, Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, one of the few remaining members of Congress who worked in committee on the original No Child Left Behind in 2001, says it has had a positive impact.
“It’s important to measure every child individually, not to aggregate them into a group, that’s No. 1,” Isakson said. “Two, that higher standards are important to setting the standard for public education. The higher you set the standards, the better off you’re going to get in terms of performance. …
“It worked so well, it verified why No Child Left Behind was the right thing to do. But because we in the Congress did so poorly in the reauthorization, it became a negative rather than a positive. Not because schools weren’t doing well, but because good schools were reaching the ceiling.”
Over the years, the high bar became an impossible bar for many schools, requiring 100 percent of students pass.
As Isakson and his colleagues on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee amended a bipartisan deal to replace No Child Left Behind this week, the stiff prison sentences for Atlanta Public Schools educators in a wide-ranging cheating scandal made national news.
It’s not hard to see the link between increasingly difficult federal testing mandates and cheating.
"Our focus on testing and test scores has really warped and distorted our public educational system," Tim Callahan, of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Ty Tagami. "The Atlanta debacle is the worst example of that."
The Senate bill would keep the requirement that each child be tested yearly in math and reading in grades 3 through 8, and once again in high school. It also would require three science tests between grades 3 and 12. But it’s up to the states how to use the data in judging their teachers.
“Experience is the great teacher, and we learned from experience that overtesting can be hurtful, undertesting can be hurtful,” Isakson said. “What you want to do is try to be able to measure progress as best you can.”
The bill indirectly addresses cheating by encouraging states and school districts to come up with merit pay systems for teachers that go beyond test scores. But Isakson said the Atlanta scandal had no real bearing on the debate that followed a years-long effort at compromise by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash.
“Nobody thought in a million years that teachers would falsify grades to get a raise,” Isakson said.
Georgia’s senior senator says the law merely overstayed its welcome, but it was controversial from the start, as many complained it was an overly intrusive federal mandate.
A 2007 Pew Research Center poll showed a close divide on the law's merits, with 34 percent saying it had made schools better. By 2009, only 18 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll said the law had made things better.
Nearly eight years behind schedule, a rewrite unanimously cleared committee Thursday and awaits floor action in the coming weeks. The House had in mind a more drastic scale-back of federal influence in education but could not summon Republican unanimity in the face of Democratic opposition, so its bill was shelved earlier this year.
The House might be forced to swallow whatever the Senate passes. Or, despite the backslapping among senators and stakeholders at this week’s bipartisan moment, the impasse could well continue for the undead law.
Already ready already
Three of Georgia’s four Democratic U.S. House members climbed aboard the Hillary Clinton train as soon she announced her bid for the presidency. So much for Martin O’Malley.
Atlanta-area Reps. Hank Johnson, John Lewis and David Scott all confirmed they were supporting Clinton's campaign. You may recall Lewis supported Clinton early on in 2008 before switching his support to Barack Obama.
The delegation’s commitment-phobe is Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany, even though according to a spokesman he is “favorably impressed” with Clinton.
Vote of the week
The U.S. House voted, 240-179, Thursday to repeal the estate tax.
Yes: U.S. Reps. Rick Allen, R-Evans; Sanford Bishop, D-Albany; Buddy Carter, R-Pooler; Doug Collins, R-Gainesville; Tom Graves, R-Ranger; Jody Hice, R-Monroe; Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville; Tom Price, R-Roswell; Austin Scott, R-Tifton; Lynn Westmoreland, R-Coweta County; Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville.
No: U.S. Reps. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia; John Lewis, D-Atlanta; David Scott, D-Atlanta.
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