Leaving No Local Child Behind

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was based on the principle that, in an America genuinely dedicated to equal opportunity, a quality public education must be the birthright of every child. The Act embodied a national commitment to provide that kind of education to all children, and it delivered a substantial investment to our neediest schools.

Over three decades later, the No Child Left Behind Act advanced the commitment to giving every child the opportunity to learn to his or her full potential. The law is intended to be a blueprint for educational opportunity, and as Congress reauthorizes it this year, we must renew its noble purposes and make changes to ensure that it works better.

We need to invest in better assessments of student performance and expand the law's definition of progress to measure student growth. Instead of relying solely on tests, we must meet the demands of our low-performing schools with intensive assistance and support. We must support, especially, the social, emotional, and intellectual needs of students and find innovative ways to engage parents in the education of their children.

We need a national commitment to attract and keep our best teachers in the neediest classrooms and more rigorous and relevant standards that expect more of students and schools.

Our nation's founders relied on the powerful principles of equality, justice and opportunity for all to shape and guide our nation in its early years. Those principles begin in our public schools, with a solemn commitment guaranteeing opportunity for all children.

Edward M. Kennedy

The writer, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was a co-sponsor of the original No Child Left Behind Act.

As No Child Left Behind turns five years old, it is increasingly evident that the nation's boldest reform of federal education policy is both living up to the promises of its strongest proponents and encountering the pitfalls forewarned by its harshest critics.

The promise of NCLB rests in its pledge to close achievement gaps and attain academic proficiency for all students, goals that galvanized support from the nation's urban schools. The law has brought attention to students that schools historically overlooked, required greater transparency in public reporting and held school officials accountable for results. These are important and positive developments.

But the law has also devolved into a paper chase that has little to do with student learning. Instead, considerable effort has gone into specifying who should provide what services, how teachers should be credentialed, when sanctions should be levied, and what data should be reported. Unfortunately, precious little attention has been given to the instructional strategies and supports schools need to attain the goals the legislation rightly set.

Congress needs to steer the law away from its overbearing and largely ineffectual procedural rules, streamline its requirements and return to NCLB's foundation in the standards movement. Most important, the reauthorization should direct the law's resources toward instructional practices that solid research indicates actually boost student achievement rather than toward costly activities that demonstrate little promise of success. Then No Child Left Behind really could meet the grand intent that its authors so boldly envisioned.

Michael Casserly