Boise, ID - Friday President Obama announces a new policy on the No Child Left Behind education law. It grants waivers to states who don’t want to participate. Idaho’s superintendent of education is there.
Superintendent Tom Luna says he can take some of the credit for states gaining the ability to opt out of No Child Left Behind. In June Luna sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan saying Idaho would no longer take part in the program. Since then other states have taken similar steps.
Tom Luna “When we notified the federal government of our intensions this summer there was no talk of the federal government offering us any additional flexibility. And now we see they are taking action.”
Luna is not opposed to No Child Left Behind. But he wants it revamped. Philip Kelly does too. He teaches educational policy at Boise State University. Kelly says when No Child Left Behind became law it had some fundamental flaws. Kelly says it relies entirely on whether a school reaches an average yearly progress goal.
Philip Kelly “It does not allow the states the flexibility to differentiate among the schools that do not make AYP. A school that doesn’t make AYP by a single point is different by a school that misses it by a large margin. The law as currently written doesn’t allow for a differential response to those two different types of schools.”
President Obama also wants congress to reform No Child Left Behind. But some critics want it scrapped entirely. They say its focus on test scores as the measure of educational effectiveness is too narrow.