No Compromise Left Behind

Campus Report ^ | February 17, 2009 | Heather Latham

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No Compromise Left Behind

by: Heather Latham, February 17, 2009

In a room with five educational experts discussing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), opinions fly. But with a particular group of five experts at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), one thought rang loudest—NCLB can work, but it will take some work.

These experts were Michael J. Petrilli, vice president of national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Dianne M. Piché, the executive director of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights; Williamson M. Evers of the Hoover Institution; Andrew J. Rothersham, cofounder and codirector of Education Sector. Their point at AEI was to discuss an article written by Richard M. Hess, AEI, and Petrilli.

Michael Petrilli presented the arguments in the article to the panel. He argues that problems with the current NCLB were not in the original bill: “Many of the most controversial parts of that law—[most]…of the heat is taken away when you take those provisions away…. If you go back and you read the original No Child Left Behind document…you will find that it does not mention 100% proficiency, it does not mention [proficiency by] 2014, it does not mention ELL [English Language Learners] or special ed kids being included as separate subgroups, and it does not use the words ‘highly qualified teacher.’ And yet, by the end of the Congressional process, we had a law that included all of those provisions, and more."...