How to Go Forward With 'No Child Left Behind'

I don't think we want the federal government to create the assessments. But we should have a standard throughout the United States. What does fourth-grade math look like?

If you don't have reading and math, you can't do anything else. But what I've seen is that everything becomes very focused and narrowed. We're losing arts because we have to get that reading and math in there.

Are we shortchanging our kids in a well-rounded education by having a narrow focus?

Edgar B. Hatrick III

Loudoun County school

superintendent

I think it is a fatally flawed version. It assumes that all children can somehow succeed at the same level, and it also assumes that vastly different measures of success could be allowed state by state and then used comparatively.

My hope is the new law will return to its roots and will focus on children in poverty. They are the most at-risk children in our society. The evidence is clear that when kids don't have good health care, when kids don't have access to cultural and academic stimuli outside the school, they are at a disadvantage from the moment they walk in.

I think the law has got to recognize the limited funding of education by the federal government. For very little money in the game, the federal government has the ability to impose huge changes on local schools. I think that there are ways to shine a spotlight on schools that are both not succeeding and not trying to succeed. I think it doesn't have to be through what I believe are misguided sanctions.

Randi Weingarten

American Federation of Teachers president

We need a federal law that is really aligned with how to get continuous sustainable improvement in our education system. How do we address the achievement gap head-on? How do we improve teaching and learning head-on? How do we build a workable accountability system that helps and doesn't punish schools?