NCLB Discussion Draft

You can read the discussion draft of the first part of Title I of No Child Left Behind right here (pdf) (summary here – pdf). Overall the draft is a reasonable starting point. First blush reactions: Look for a fight on comparability*, that’s a sleeper that will likely wake-up — although it’s a harder fight to have in the open so having it in the bill now ups the ante. The multiple indicators for “adequate yearly progress” language probably will please few in that debate but especially the gut NCLB crowd.

I disagree with Sherman Dorn’s grumbling contention that this is a fraud because of the short timetable for reading it. First, there has been a lot of opportunity for input so far –and interest groups working on this full time for months — so this is not really the first cut, second a lot of the language isn’t new anyway and it’s 400 pages of legislative text, which is different than 400 pages of prose, and third, if people have to read a little over Labor Day that’s OK, the staff working on this has worked weekends all summer, one weekend won’t kill anyone, Special Eduwonk incentive plan: The first person I or one of my spotters see walking around with a copy of the draft Friday to Monday at the beach, in DC, in Charlottesville, VA, or wherever can guestblog for a day and say whatever you want right here on the blog.

*The nut issue is whether or not to include teacher salaries in determinations of funding equity between schools, current law doesn’t, this proposal does. This is one of those seemingly arcane issues that can actually impact where a lot of money is spent and change local practice. Additional background from Ed Trust’s Wilkins here (scroll down) and close readers of the bill, bill summary, and the Wilkins testimony will get the picture on the political lay of the land here…

Stay tuned…

One Reply to “NCLB Discussion Draft”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.