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NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND 10TH ANNIVERSARY REPORT

NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress:
What Can We Learn from this Policy Failure?

By Lisa Guisbond with Monty Neill and Bob Schaeffer
January 2012

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law failed badly in terms of its own goals, leading to a decade of educational stagnation, according to FairTest’s report marking NCLB’s tenth anniversary.

Among the report’s major findings:

1) Hold a public forum in your community to discuss NCLB.

2) Build local alliances that link testing reform from your school/community to state and federal issues. Reach out to teacher unions and other education organizations; parent, community, civil rights and faith-based groups; labor unions; civic associations; business groups when you can.

3) Persuade your organizations to pass resolutions calling for reform of NCLB. (Such resolutions are often issued by unions, religious groups, professional associations, and parents groups.) Ask them to:

Summary and Critique of Key Provisions in Harkin-Enzi ESEA/NCLB
Reauthorization Bill of October 2011

FairTest review, analysis – summary and critique notes, October 16, 2011

When you call your Senator to ask him to help overhaul NCLB, here are five suggested talking points, which you can deliver in 2-3 minutes:

FairTest key recommendations to the Senate, October 16, 2011:

Here are FairTest’s key points that should be part of a Senate bill. We rely in part on the recommendations of the Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA). We specifically respond to some of the points in the Harkin-Enzi bill to reauthorize NCLB/ESEA.

Contacting your Senators to recommend changes to NCLB:

You can reach your members of Congress or the Committees by fax, phone, email or regular mail.

A fax is the best way to contact Senators, if you can, since it arrives immediately and you can provide a bit of detail (but keep it to a page, two at most). You can fax the Democrat majority of the HELP committee directly at 202-224-5128, and you can fax the Republicans at 202-224-6510.

Models for writing about personal experience with NCLB’s damaging effects:

Parents about children:

In "From the Frying Pan to the Fire While Adding Gasoline," FairTest
responds to the Administration's dangerous "flexibility" proposals to
change NCLB.

The Forum on Educational Accountability has published a public letter: What Should Congress Do About Teacher Evaluation? A Public Letter from the Forum on Educational Accountability.(PDF)

Click here to read: FairTest Critiques Sen. Alexander's ESEA-NCLB proposals: The few benefits don't outweigh the problems.