Report card on school progress

In a press release today, Rep. John Boehner, chairman of the House committee on Education and the Workforce reported that real progress is now being seen by the No Child Left Behind Act.  (NCLB)  Most striking is the improvement made by the lowest scoring students.

“The most encouraging news in the long-term trend assessment is the gains made by the lowest scoring students – students who in the past may have been left behind are catching up to their peers and demonstrating that all children can succeed when given the opportunity,” said Boehner.

Just as interesting is the fact that:

"Achievement gains among minority students outpaced gains made by white students, shrinking achievement gaps and improving student success overall.  In the last five years, as accountability systems have been implemented and improved and national attention has focused on narrowing achievement gaps, 9-year-old white students gained five points in reading and eight points in math.  In that same time frame, black students of the same age gained 14 points in reading and 13 in math, and Hispanic students gained 12 points in reading and 17 points in math."

Fascinating stuff considering the continuous complaint among NEA leaders over having had to deal with the NCLB act at all the past several years.  And, since the NEA just finished up their annual convention, let's see what they accomplished.  New NEA president, Reg Weaver, said this: 

“If the nation calls on us to support the rhetoric of the so-called No Child Left Behind Law, then we call on the nation to elect politicians and policy makers who will vote to provide the resources -- both human and fiscal -- that will turn the rhetoric of the law into reality, not sanctions that do the most harm to schools and students who are in the most need.”

So while the NCLB act is showing real improvement for the lowest scoring students and the educational gap shrinking between minority and white students, what were the delegates to the NEA convention doing besides griping about NCLB? Michelle Malkin mentions a few things.  "Vowed to defeat the Central American Free Trade agreement, Resolved to educate about the need for debt cancellation in underdeveloped countries."  etc etc.  I have to agree with her sentiment.  Shut up and teach!

Comments

[Pam]

So if the higher achieving students are now, not advancing as much as they could, because more time is spent on those students at the lower achievement levels, we stil have a big problem. So now everyone will be average and we are cheating those with exceptional potential, because they have to "wait for others to catch up"?? The system is still broken!

[Diane]

I'm not sure the results show that higher achieving students are standing still, but that minority kids are learning more and catching up. Still, the higher you achieve, the more chance you have of reaching a learning plateau.