Compromise on No Child Left Behind

By Nevada Appeal editorial board

Maybe there's hope for the No Child Left Behind act, after all. In a significant reversal this week, the Bush administration acknowledged what has been obvious to teachers (and most everybody else) all along. Children with severe learning disabilities can't be held to the same proficiency standards as their classmates.

No Child Left Behind has an admirable goal of raising the level of education across the country by forcing individual schools to meet a complicated set of standards based on proficiency tests of students.

By 2005-06, all states must test students in grades three though eight in math and reading annually and at least once during high school.

No Child Left Behind also requires a science test at least once in elementary, middle and high school by 2007-08. The goal is to ensure all children are proficient in reading and math by 2014.

Schools not making the standard are placed on "needs improvement" lists and, if they fail to adequately raise scores, can be penalized. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of being sent to the principal's office.

The act is flawed, however, because it drags down otherwise excellent schools if a few of their students - special education, non-English speakers, poor families - aren't making the grade. (It is also flawed because we prefer standards be set by states, not the federal government, but that's a separate argument.)

The Education Department's new interpretation takes into account only severely learning-handicapped students, representing about 10 percent of all children in special-education classes.

So there remains a long way to go in matching reality with idealism.

Still, we're encouraged to see some bend in a previously inflexible policy.

This is not a signal of lowered expectations; it's a recognition by Education Secretary Rod Paige that the rules as written were creating more problems than they solved.