The Core Knowledge Blog

Why should Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer have all the fun on Sunday morning? Welcome to The Core Knowledge Blog’s Edupundit, where we email a question to the best and the brightest minds of the edusphere. This week Chester Finn, Andy Rotherham, Paul Peterson, Nelson Smith, Karin Chenoweth and others weigh in on No Child Left Behind’s chances for reauthorization.

The legislation turned six this week, and for its birthday, NCLB received an op-ed in its defense from Sen. Ted Kennedy, the promise of a veto from President Bush if anyone waters it down, and a commitment from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to tour the country to fight for reauthorization. But most of the Democrats who are running for President didn’t come to NCLB’s birthday party, while Richard Rothstein has already written its obituary. Will NCLB die the death of a thousand cuts in Congress? Let’s go to the crystal ball…

“NCLB isn’t going away, though it may look very different after a new President and the 111th Congress get their claws into it. Nothing is going to happen before the national election, but beginning in 2009 lawmakers need to get serious about the law’s reauthorization. Keep in mind that NCLB did not arrive deus ex machina in 2002. It is, in fact, the umpteenth refurbishment of the LBJ-era Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)–and many billions of federal education aid dollars now flow through it. Each iteration of that law has brought more strings, conditions and complexities, but NCLB is, to my eye, the lineal descendant of the ESEA version (called “Improving America’s Schools Act”) that Bill Clinton got through Congress in 1994. George W. Bush’s successor will surely do something similar. For my money, the current iteration is faltering on several key points and definitely needs a makeover. But it has pointed the country in a good direction and I hope (and predict) that we stay pointed there.”

Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University &
President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

“According to Education next polling, the public supports accountability but has doubts about NCLB. Very likely, Congress will mend it rather than end it, but only after election day. Look for an extension of most, perhaps all, existing law until 2009 or 2010, when fairly major overhaul is likely—for better or worse.”

Paul E. Peterson
Editor in Chief
Education next

“Of course [it will be reauthorized]. NCLB is merely the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the cornerstone of federal investment and involvement in K-12 schooling. Despite all the rhetoric there is little appetite to actually walk away from that. Instead, the debate today is about what the law should look like and what it should do. In the 1994 reauthorization the federal government made standards-based reform a part of federal policy and the 2001 reauthorization built on those changes. No one argues that No Child shouldn’t be changed and it has problems that were foreseen and unforeseen in 2001 but the debate is about when change it, how to change it, and specific changes aside, at a very core level about whether we are serious about school improvement or not.”

Andy Rotherham
Co-Founder and Co-Director
Education Sector

“It will indeed be reauthorized. Good people like Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller will stake their reputation on it. The only question is what NCLB will look like once the ink is dry.”

Joe Williams
Executive Director
Democrats for Education Reform

“NCLB should have been reauthorized on time, in 2007, and now we’re in an election year and hopes are dimming. Since the new administration will be dealing with a war (and maybe a recession), it might be 2010 before a new Act is approved. Which, of course, plays right into the hands of those who never joined the “grade level by 2014″ bandwagon in the first place, and who are hoping the whole structure implodes. What’s really a shame is that there’s wide agreement on some of the things that need to be fixed (like adding “growth” to AYP). Even the diehard opponents have to admit that the Act has done an amazing service by saying that all kids can achieve, and by disclosing the achievement gaps between groups. Progress has ground to a halt because of what our sixth-anniversary NCLB statement called “the well-financed antagonists of accountability.” They have nothing better to offer, and are simply trying to play out the clock.”

Nelson Smith
President
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

“I think it is too early to make any prediction. Tell me who the next president is first. Nothing will happen until 2009.”

Michael W. Kirst
Emeritus Professor of Education and Business Administration
Stanford University

“Certainly Senator Kennedy seems committed to recommitting the federal government’s education policy, so we may see a reauthorization this spring—he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. But I get very impatient with the education world’s endless debates about how federal law should be structured (status model of accountability or growth? tutoring before or after transfer?) instead of what good instruction is and how to make sure every child has it.

“Last week I was in a high school in Boston that takes in very poor kids from Dorchester and South Boston and sends almost all of them to college, most of them four-year colleges. Every year the school improves in terms of percentage of students who meet state standards. The principal there, though she has quibbles and problems with No Child Left Behind as it currently exists, told me that she would rather live with the current law than have a huge upheaval that will cause people to have to figure out a new system, giving them permission to avoid the tough issues of teaching and learning that they should be focused on. “We need stability,” the principal said. And, she added, “we need accountability.” That seems to be the consensus among the principals in all the high-performing schools I have visited. They spend a lot more time on improving instruction than on meeting accountability goals, and their efforts pay off—not only are their kids better educated than most of their peers, their schools easily meet federal accountability goals.”

Karin Chenoweth
Writer
The Education Trust
Author, It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools
http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/65

“No Child Left Behind won’t vanish if it’s not reauthorized. It will continue with all its deficiencies. That will push critics — at least, some of them — to look for compromises that backers will accept. President Bush says he’ll veto a bill that guts accountability. Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. George Miller will lead on the Democratic side. Polls show strong public support for accountability and standards. So I have some hope for NCLB II in 2008. But I wouldn’t bet the farm.”

Joanne Jacobs
http://joannejacobs.com/
Author, Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the Charter School That Beat the Odds