This is an obviously achievable goal. As a district, the overall scores were 98% reading, 99% writing, 99% social studies, 95% math and 94% science. One of the schools that didn't make exemplary was because the special ed kids only had a 77% pass rate.

It very well may be that when it comes time to have the 100% rating requirement, that they shift from a government sourced funding to parent sourced funding in the form of tuition credits. That would let parents decide what they find acceptable.

Partially, it isn't that the burden is on the public school system (which after all does have a monopoly so it has assumed that burden to some degree, and wants to be the sole provider of it).

They don't like the accountability aspect. The testing the kids take also keeps a record of which teachers failing students have. So each student a teacher opts to pass on to the next grade has their name attached to that students score-that is a scary prospect.

I think the one thing NCLB has done at least in our school is made the school less reluctant to retain kids, if they can't meet the outcomes, they are more likely to see retention.

I do think 100% of all kids at grade level is an unrealistic goal. I would much rather see tests indicate the amount of proggress a child is making than comparing one years grade to the kids from the next years grade-they may not be comparable.

I have no problems with testing, and I have no problems with demanding that schools meet a specific standard, but I do think the standard should be realistic.

In the end I suspect one reason 100% was used, was to keep schools from deeming a certainn number of students as throwaways. I can easily see, if the goal was 90%, the schools not working to hard with the lowest 10% and focusing on the other 90%.

Research in cognition and education policy suggests that childrens’ development is more correlated with a supportive family and a higher household income than anything teachers necessarily do or fail to do.

I would say that this is pretty much a true statement. I don't think anyone in education needs to see this kind of research to know this.

NCLB though does have various grants that are designed to bring parents into the school and get them involved. Our school participates in the reading first grant. The school is required to have family literacy night every other month. They also have various incentives, and other things to try to get parents involved. It works nominally well, but at least they are trying.

So, NCLB does try to address this, but there is only so much a school can do to get a parent involved, and in the end crappy parents doesn't excuse the school from doing its job, which is to educate children.

Sure. And I’m all in favor of higher household incomes and supportive families. How, though, do we make those, especially the latter, happen via the public policy process?

William Julius Wilson has some interesting ideas on this, which I'm sure you would oppose. But they boil down to more inner-city job creation at a decent wage.

The main problem with NCLB is that it is based on the presumption that schools are isolated from the rest of society--which is fundamentally problematic.

Still, the need for kids from the poorest families to be able to get the best possible education is almost universally recognized.

Fully and enthusiastically conceded.

It does not follow that government should be the producer of that education. Being the regulator and financer are quite enough.

Research in cognition and education policy suggests that childrens’ development is more correlated with a supportive family and a higher household income than anything teachers necessarily do or fail to do.

Tell the teachers that during the next union negotiation

Sure. And I'm all in favor of higher household incomes and supportive families. How, though, do we make those, especially the latter, happen via the public policy process?

Research in cognition and education policy suggests that childrens’ development is more correlated with a supportive family and a higher household income than anything teachers necessarily do or fail to do.

That sounds like something I read years ago in The Bell Curve.

Yet, like virtually any public institution, there was no penalty for failure. That’s what the teachers unions want to return to, because their concern is job security for their members, not educating children.

The main reason teachers are against No Child Left Behind is that it places the entire burden of education on the school system.

Research in cognition and education policy suggests that childrens' development is more correlated with a supportive family and a higher household income than anything teachers necessarily do or fail to do.