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Viewpoints

Rebecca Flores

Rebecca Flores was a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act before it even existed. As a corps member, she chose to work in Houston because the city's school district was already slicing and dicing data to track the performance of different groups of students - Hispanic, African-American, and low income - not just the majority.

That idea is the core principle behind the No Child Left Behind Act, which has its roots in Texas, where President Bush was governor from 1995 to 2000.

Under NCLB, Flores says, "People can no longer make excuses for the most at-risk populations," since those students, too, must reach grade-level proficiency. "It reminds me of a civil-rights piece of legislation."

As a teacher, Flores embraced standardized testing and the information it could provide on individual student achievement. "If we didn't have that measure," she says, "I'm not sure some people in the district or the classroom would have known where to take their kids beyond a vague 'I want them to learn more.'"

Now, as the director of government relations for the Houston Independent School District, Flores serves as the liaison between the district and elected officials and develops policy positions on NCLB. She believes the law has shifted thinking on education in a positive way, though it does need tweaking to address unanticipated problems for schools and to improve ways to measure student achievement.

"The skeletal aspects of No Child Left Behind are brilliant," Flores says. "As one of those poor kids who grew up in those horrible schools, I wish someone would have been accountable back then for those types of indicators."

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Jeff Good

Ask Jeff Good what he thinks about the No Child Left Behind Act, and you'll get a litany of the federal law's failures.

Punitive, shortsighted, one-size-fits-all, lacks funding and resources - those are some of the items on his list. "It's a horrible law," says Good, executive director of the South Bay United Teachers Association, an affiliate of the California Teachers Association. "It does very little to address the problems in public education."

One of the central goals of NCLB is to get all students to proficiency levels by the 2013-2014 school year, but Good believes that is unattainable. "Right off the bat, the concept that proficiency is going to reach 100 percent ... is simply approaching the system with your head in the sand," he says.

Good adds that teachers he represents have expressed concerns about the lack of freedom in teaching they believe NCLB has brought about. "You're no longer an artist," he says. "You're a functionary."

He also believes that subjects that aren't tested under NCLB - including art, music, physical education, and science - are suffering at the expense of the two that are: reading and math. "We're not tending to the broader needs of the whole child," he says.

Asked whether the law contains any positives for schools, Good replies, "If I had to find a redeeming quality... actually, I don't think I could."

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Laura Stramel

Three months before state education testing begins, life changes for the students in Laura Stramel's sixth grade Chicago public school class.

Preparation for the Illinois test, which measures students' abilities in reading and math, is intense at Fort Dearborn Elementary. Stramel stops teaching social studies and science, on orders from the principal. Instead, she drills students on reading and math and how to take a standardized test.

"In a school like mine that is so test-prep crazy, we just get the kids to be really good at taking tests," she says. "They're definitely learning to take a test, but not creative-thinking skills or higher-order learning."

This situation is, perhaps, an unintended consequence of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which penalizes schools that fail to meet student achievement benchmarks in reading and math. Some feel this singular focus on testing misinterprets the law's intent, but other leaders in struggling schools say they have no choice in order to meet the demands of the law.

Stramel's 100 percent African-American, 92 percent low-income school is facing a complete overhaul after four years in a row of missing achievement targets.

Still, the South Side Chicago school where Stramel started as a 2004 corps member has also benefited from the NCLB requirements, she says.

"There's nothing wrong with holding students to high standards regardless of where they come from," says Stramel. And the law's emphasis on state testing has forced a standardization of curriculum that has helped teachers at Dearborn know exactly what their students should be learning.

Though Stramel initially found the curriculum requirements stifling, she now enjoys finding innovative ways to teach within those parameters. "I see it as a framework," she says. "I do very creative things, but I make sure they're objective- and standards-based now. Balancing the two is a skill you get over the years."

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Tracy Wright

Washington, D.C., elementary school principal Tracy Wright views the No Child Left Behind Act through two lenses: theory and reality.

"In theory, this is a very noble law," says Wright. "The whole concept of saying, 'We don't want to see any more children slipping through the cracks' is very noble."

But as principal of Nalle Elementary School, she also sees a reality that is very different. "There are so many factors today that go into educating children and go into determining whether a child actually masters the skills that are taught-from teacher preparedness to the social and emotional issues the children bring into the school. I don't believe NCLB addresses those aspects."

Furthermore, Wright says, she feels some of the law's provisions operate in a vacuum. For example, because Nalle had hit targeted achievement levels (known as adequate yearly progress) in 2003-2004, during the 2005-2006 school year it became a receiver school for others in D.C. that had not. NCLB mandates that a school that fails to make AYP two years in a row must allow students to transfer to a nearby, higher-performing school. About 30 students, most with "major academic deficiencies in math," transferred to Nalle, Wright says. Last year, the school failed to make AYP in math.

But Wright says the reality is that she has to deal with the issues that her students bring to their classrooms regardless of the law.

"I don't let NCLB rule me," she says. "It's in the back of my mind, but my first order of business is to make sure that my children are well, emotionally and psychologically. It's only when I do that, that I can ensure they'll be okay academically."

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