THE KANSAS Board of Education, which has found little to agree about in the past few years, has found something its members can agree on — something has to be done about the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Last week, the state department of education said that 26 Kansas schools and 11 districts with high numbers of low-income students have failed to make required progress under the program. Emporia is one of the districts.
No Child Left Behind sets yearly improvement goals for student performance on math and reading tests. Improving students’ math and reading skills is a worthy aim, but the program has several grave — perhaps fatal — problems.
F No Child Left Behind requires schools and their students to march in national lockstep to 100 percent proficiency on the tests by 2014. That would mean that within eight years, every child in the country would have to pass the tests. Even if teachers gave up actually teaching to devote all their time to teaching children how to take the tests, that goal would still be unrealistic.
F Congress and the administration, once so eager to set standards and take the credit for finally doing something to improve education, seem to have lost interest once the microphones were turned off. No Child Left Behind was supposed to impose national standards on education. To help meet those standards, the federal government was to pour billions of dollars into related programs to help schools and improve teacher training. U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore of Kansas said the government is $40 billion behind on its promises.
What the Kansas board has decided to do is explore what would happen to Kansas schools if the state opted out of No Child Left Behind and its attendant federal money. The board also is considering lobbying Congress to modify the law to set more realistic goals and provide more help in meeting those goals.
For now, it would be best if the board concentrated on getting Congress to modify the law and to fulfill its promises on funding. That would show that Kansas is still committed to the national effort to improve public education.
And the lobbying effort would get plenty of support from other states. As the law stands now, eventually every school system in the nation will fail to meet the current federal standards.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor