Is 'No Child Left Behind' law best way to help student achievement?

By Rod Paige

There is a sea change happening in our schools, but many parents and children in Hawai'i may not be aware of the shifting tides. We are now in the midst of the most significant education reform this nation has ever undertaken: the No Child Left Behind Act.

PAIGE

While the Hawai'i Legislature certainly may choose to pass up the millions of dollars in federal support for K-12 education, such action would only harm the very students we are trying to help. I believe we can work together to reach a better solution.

The benefits of No Child Left Behind to Hawai'i are concrete and immediate. For example, Hawai'i's young learners will be tested regularly in math and reading, and in a few years, in science as well.

As a result, teachers can better tailor instruction to meet every child's needs, administrators can make better-informed decisions about how to target resources, and parents can better evaluate their children's progress and the effectiveness of their schools.

In addition, Hawai'i's parents have new options in the form of school choice or extra tutoring for their child, if they are eligible. And every student will soon be taught by a highly qualified teacher.

To help meet this goal, President Bush's latest budget provides more than $5 billion to help recruit, train, and retain great teachers.

This law is still quite new. It has been less than a year since every state put their accountability plans into place. These plans serve as a roadmap created by each state to fit their local needs. Once those plans were put into action at the beginning of this school year, we set out to understand the practical challenges of implementation.

This commitment resulted in an unprecedented partnership with states and districts through a series of conversations, summits, roundtables and visits with state chiefs, district superintendents, teachers and parents.

Then we responded — quickly and substantively — to what we saw and heard. We have been fine-tuning the law over these past few months — a progressive set of actions unveiled on a time line — to help meet the needs of students and teachers.

For example, we have instituted regulations to assist special-needs students and English-language learners. We recently asked for public input on new rules to allow for same-sex classrooms and programs. And we created a new policy to help strengthen current state efforts to improve teacher quality.

We are serious about implementing this law. And in making these policy changes, we always do so with an eye to what is right for the student and fair for the school. We have also ensured that we put enough money into the system to get the job done.

President Bush has provided historic levels of funding for education since he took office. In fact, in his latest budget request, overall federal education funding increases to $57.3 billion — an increase of 36 percent since the president took office.

In Hawai'i alone, this represents an increase to $340.6 million — 50 percent more than the previous administration. In using these investments, states and districts have unprecedented flexibility, because we know that local communities know best how to meet the needs of their students.

But the real problems in our educational system have not been caused by a lack of money. At all levels of government, we now invest more than $500 billion in K-12 education annually.

That level has continued rising for the past three decades, yet student achievement remained essentially flat over that same period. And the staggering achievement gap still persists, leaving many disadvantaged students without the skills they need. We can do better. We must do better.

We don't need to just spend more; we need to invest more wisely. The law helps to ensure that all children receive a high-quality education, regardless of their race, spoken accent or ZIP code.

Thanks to the reforms of No Child Left Behind, we have the framework for changes and the resources and support to get the job done. It is a promise to all students, including Hawai'i's neediest children.

All students, from Hilo to Hanalei, deserve our best efforts. No Child Left Behind might not always be easy, but it is the right course for Hawai'i and the nation. Let's not let arguments among adults ultimately take away opportunities from Hawai'i's children.

Rod Paige is the Bush administration’s secretary of education.