COLUMN: No Child Left Behind act very flawed
University Wire; 11/1/2004; Cezary Podkul

(Daily Pennsylvanian) (U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA -- Last month, I read an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about the confusing effects of the national No Child Left Behind legislation in my home state of Illinois. Apparently, this well-intentioned but highly impractical piece of national education legislation has managed to label nearly 44 percent of Illinois schools as "failing" -- among them New Trier Township High School and Northside College Prep.

As a native of Chicago, I can attest that New Trier and Northside are among Illinois' best-funded and best-performing schools. So how did they end up on the list of failing schools, sending mixed signals to parents, students and teachers about the quality of their education? Obviously, there must be something wrong with NCLB if it is capable of generating such assessments: underfunding, improper incentive systems, unrealistic expectations -- the list goes on.

But rather than just voicing my discontent, I decided to ask my former high school teachers what they thought of NCLB and the mess it has created in Illinois.

Their number one concern was underfunding. As of now, federal spending accounts for only 10 percent of all school spending in Illinois, which means that the local and state governments have had to fund the vast majority of NCLB provisions -- a huge burden, considering that Illinois' budget has been bleeding red ink for the past few years. My former Math Team coach, Mr. Salerno, commented that "any schools that fail to make AYP, a stupid buzz-acronym for 'adequate yearly progress' determined by some bureaucratic pinhead, are placed on a warning list, and if it happens two years in a row, then students of schools that are not making the AYP have the option of attending a school that is meeting AYP -- at our expense!"

He added, "How many people here would our district need to pay for? How quickly would we be bankrupt?" Obviously, making school districts pay for federal education legislation places a huge, unfair financial burden on them.

However, the lack of funding is even more absurd than it seems. If a school is labeled "failing" and has to pay to send students to other, better schools, then obviously its financial resources will be drained by those students who decide to transfer. My former English teacher, Mr. Narter, commented, "So if a school can't serve its students under its current budget, the federal government requires that it spread its funds thinner and include more outside expenditures. Get it? Schools that can't overcome their problems with their present budget are supposed to improve if they simply have less money." Certainly, this cannot be good for Illinois' -- and our nation's -- already gargantuan income-education gap.

But even if parents decide to send their child to another school that is meeting AYP, there is no incentive system in place for that other school to accept the child. My former debate coach, the legendary Mr. Vallicielli, explains it best: "Schools that don't make AYP for two years running must offer students the opportunity to attend [school in] other school districts. But the other school districts have no incentive, of course, to accept students from failing schools. Most likely, those students would drag them into the deficit pool. It's a catch-22. Students are trapped in their failing schools and cannot avail themselves of NCLB's provisions that are voluntary." Obviously, something must be done to align the incentives of the schools to work together -- such as allotting more federal money.

Finally, one can easily understand setting high expectations for schools, but unrealistic expectations are absolutely meaningless. By the year 2014, NCLB expects 100 percent of students to be up to standards prescribed by the law. President George W. Bush "believes that it is possible to keep improving achievement until all schools are at 100 percent compliance. Tell me, how this is statistically possible?" Salerno asked. Furthermore, it is impossible to hold all public schools -- rich and poor alike -- to the same 2014 benchmark, since, as my former geometry teacher, Mrs. Corwin, commented, "Some children and special groups with less educational and cultural experiences bring less to the classroom and thus take longer to reach expected levels of achievement than students who have all the supportive experiences from the beginning, are well-fed and come from one- or two-parent homes with attentive parenting and continuity of residence and school attendance." Clearly, then, holding schools with large groups of such disadvantaged students to the same benchmark of achievement as privileged schools sets a standard which will never be reached.

It is a scary thought, but after talking to my teachers, I'm beginning to think that Congress must have passed NCLB without any reliable teacher feedback whatsoever. The result? Mass-confusion and little or no faith in a law that was supposed to have been a monumental step in the right direction for education policy in the United States. In fact, legislatures in Utah and Virginia have voted not to comply with NCLB legislation. Unless the next president -- whomever he may be -- takes drastic steps to overhaul NCLB, I suggest that the Prairie State do the same.