No Child Left Behind reform may not come before school year, again

SALT LAKE CITY — As the months pass on before the start of the next school year, there is less hope of the White House coming to a decision about revamping the No Child Left Behind Act, something President Obama has told Congress he wants to have happen by that time.

As it stands, 100 percent of students in all 100,000 schools across the U.S. need to test proficient in English and math to comply with the law — something most educators say is impossible to do. And as it gets closer to this time, more and more students are required to be proficient to meet the 2014 goal. For instance, in Utah this year 89 percent of students in grades 3-8 need to test proficient in English language arts and by next year 95 percent need to be proficient to make adequately yearly progress, according to the State Office of Education. Schools who do not meet this goal are labeled as failing, and Title I schools who do not meet this goal face sanctions like being obligated to offer free tutoring to all students, or if they repeatedly miss their goals, a possible wholesale replacement of staff.

Secretary of Education has already predicted that 80 percent of schools will not make their goals this year, and if Congress does not act soon to change the law, Duncan said he will use his authority to start granting waivers to states to not meet their proficiency goals himself.

Last week, Education Weekly predicted that states will have to oblige to a series of other goals if they want be waived this year. They predict states will have to adopt college- and career-readiness standards and assessments, propose their own accountability systems that would measure growth and establish new performance goals and adopt evaluation systems for teachers and principals.

But some are against a short-fix like U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who was quoted by Education Weekly last month as saying that waivers are "an escape route" and that reauthorization of the act "is essential."

The Baltimore Sun wrote an op-ed piece on the current situation on Monday, agreeing that if Congress cannot come up with a new plan of action, waivers should be put in place but also stating that "Congress needs to own up to its mistakes in drafting this law, especially its emphasis on punishing schools labeled as failures and its reliance on a narrow array of test results as the sole measure of progress."

"The law's original goal of holding underperforming schools accountable has become a ticking time bomb that threatens to punish school districts across the country," the paper wrote.

And some states have set out on their own to address this unreachable goal, reported The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.