Discussion of the No Child Left Behind Act’s reauthorization often revolves around ensuring appropriate levels of federal funding and tweaking the law without changing its basic provisions.
But in this Education Week commentary, Eric Schaps argues that the law is fatally flawed because its “unrealistic goals"—such as requiring all students to meet a uniform level of proficiency and eliminating, rather than reducing, the achievement gap between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups—set schools up for failure.
Lawmakers should scrap NCLB, he writes, and “we should return to being guided less by federal policymakers and more by local stakeholders.”
What do you think? Does the federal role in education need rethinking? Can the No Child Left Behind Act be salvaged?
