What the Presidential Candidates Are Saying about NCLB
Now that the realm of presidential candidates has narrowed, here is an updated summary of the positions on NCLB from Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Republican John McCain.
The reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law has stalled, making it unlikely anything will happen until a new president takes office (see " Education Groups Deepen Proposals for NCLB Overhaul," Examiner, April 2008). With a growing consensus that NCLB needs major change, the next president will have a critical opportunity to influence the shape and scope of a reauthorized law.
The two remaining Democratic candidates for president, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have called for substantial changes. As the campaign has progressed, so too has the candidates’ willingness to denounce NCLB in stronger and stronger terms. Republican John McCain has mostly spoken in favor of the law. While minor-party candidates are expected to be on the ballot in some states, FairTest has not obtained information yet on any such possible candidates.
FairTest and the 143 signers of the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB (representing more than 50 million Americans) have developed a set of key principles for overhauling NCLB:
* Replace the law's arbitrary proficiency targets with outcome and improvement goals based on achievable rates of success.
* Reduce testing, support multiple indicators of student learning, including state and local assessments, and utilize growth models, while funding development of a new accountability system.
* Focus on improvement, not punishment.
* Support continuing high-quality professional development, and strong family involvement.
* Fully fund Title I and supply the additional resources needed to ensure all schools can develop the capacity to serve their children well.
(See www.fairtest.org and www.edaccountability.org for more information on FairTest and FEA recommendations.)
Echoes of these principles can be found in some of the candidates’ positions on NCLB.
Here is what the Democratic and Republican candidates have said about the federal education law (in alphabetical order). (Note: We were diligent in trying to find candidate positions on NCLB; some were more expansive and specific than others.)
Hillary Clinton
In mid-March, Senator Hillary Clinton responded to a new U.S. DOE policy on differentiated consequences. “While a small pilot, this is a long overdue step in the right direction. By allowing states to differentiate between schools that need modest improvements and those that are chronically failing, this pilot will provide some much-needed flexibility," Clinton said in the March 18 statement. "This step, however, should be just the beginning. No Child Left Behind is a failed policy that needs fundamental overhaul - not tinkering around the edges."
In a TV campaign ad, Clinton said we need to “end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind which has been so difficult for so many.” On her web site, she says she “supports the use of growth models to track student performance; believes we ought to reward schools that make progress and thinks educators should have more of a say in turning around struggling schools.” Clinton “opposes the one size fits all approach” to schools and “is pushing for more flexibility in the law.”
- http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/education/
John McCain
Senator John McCain's website says: “No Child Left Behind has focused our attention on the realities of how students perform against a common standard. John McCain believes that we can no longer accept low standards for some students and high standards for others. In this age of honest reporting, we finally see what is happening to students who were previously invisible. While that is progress all its own, it compels us to seek and find solutions to the dismal facts before us….. John McCain will place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children. He believes all federal financial support must be predicated on providing parents the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing schools.”
The National Education Association reports, “At a town hall meeting in Guilford, Senator John McCain supported fixing NCLB's testing requirements for special ed students and English-language learners.”
Another indication of Senator McCain’s education policy leanings can be seen in his appointment of Lisa Graham Keegan, a former Arizona superintendent of public instruction, as an education advisor. Keegan is known for promoting charter schools and fighting to impose the state's high-stakes AIMS graduation test, over bitter objections.
Barack Obama
Senator Barack Obama “understands that NCLB has demoralized our educators, broken its promise to our children and must be changed in a fundamental way.” Obama calls for improved assessments, and says he “believes we should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests.” He wants assessment models that provide “educators and students with timely feedback about how to improve student learning, that measure readiness for college and success in an information-age workplace; and that indicate whether individual students are making progress toward reaching high standards.” He would provide funds so states could implement a “broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas.” Obama “believes we need an accountability system that supports schools to improve, rather than focuses on punishments.” He cites the need to assess children appropriately, including “English language learners and special needs students.” The system “should also create incentives to keep students in school through graduation, rather than pushing them out to make scores look better.”
One of Obama's key education advisors is professor Linda Darling-Hammond, with whom FairTest has worked on a number of testing issues. She is also a convener of the Forum on Education and Democracy, which promotes progressive education, including a reduction in the amount and weight of standardized testing.
- http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf