Politics & Government

Obama, Windsor's Schools, and No Child Left Behind

The Obama Administration recently announced that it would do away with some requirements of No Child Left Behind.

According to The Washington Post, Secretary of State Arne Duncan recently announced that the Obama administration plans to give some states a pass on complying with the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation — requirements that initiated .

The decision to grant some states waivers, NPR reports, "is in response to state and local education officials who say the law's requirements are unrealistic."

The unrealistic nature of the legislation, for some states, lies in its requirement that the percentage of students required to perform on proficient levels is reaching 100 percent — a number that pushes the nation's school districts to improve student performance on standardized tests, but has also created an educational climate in which the vast majority of schools will be identified as in need of improvement by 2014, when the legislation expires and 100 percent of students will be required to perform on proficient levels.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

NCLB is intended to improve academic performance throughout the nation by identifying schools in need of improvement based on performance on standardized tests.

The tests serve two basic needs: identify the percentage of students performing on a proficient level, and provide provide the basis to judge the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) of school districts.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Every three years the ante goes up," said Windsor Assistant Superintendent of Schools Robin Sorensen in a January interview with Windsor Patch.

"So every year more and more schools and districts are not meeting Adquate Yearly Progress... Quite honestly, by 2014 it could be almost every school and district in the state — 100 percent," she said.

The trend is not unique to Connecticut.

According to NPR, the New York Times reported that "last year 38,000 of the country's 100,000 schools did not meet standards set by the law. Duncan said that number would be 80,000 this year."

Duncan and Melody Barnes, President Obama's domestic policy adviser, have yet to release details regarding waivers given to states, but that more information will be provided in September, The Washington Post reported.

The Post also reported that Obama administration officials "will grant waivers to states that adopt standards designed to prepare high school graduates for college and careers, use a 'flexible and targeted' accountability system for educators based on student growth and make 'robust use of data,' among other things."

The new standards may be unlikely to change Windsor's relationship with the state department, as Windsor Public Schools were already utilizing resources provided by the state to help boost academic achievement in town prior to being named a partner district in November 2010.

The "flexible and targeted" accountability system, however, may be an an amendment to the legislation that works to improve things in town because of its diverse nature.

The difficult thing about standardized testing with regards to NCLB is that it holds all students to the same standard, before leaving for Milford.

NCLB requires that student populations be broken down into subgroups, Feser said. The subgroups separate students based on ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status and special needs.

All of the subgroups are then held to the same standard, which is a flaw in the legislation, said Feser.

"The flaw in that, in my estimation, is it’s assuming that all students are on the same playing field. And they’re not," she added.

"That’s not to diminish, at all, students. It’s to recognize that they’re on a continuum with respect to skills, with respect to ability...

"And to set the same standard, it’s a noble standard, but to then penalize schools if you don’t [meet the standard], I think that there are some questions that might be able to be raised to it."


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