Sunderman- Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

I found this article really interesting and wish I could have read it sooner in the semester as I did not know too much about NCLB before starting this class.

Sunderman and the introduction written by Orfield show that many problems with NCLB were very predictable, but the right people were not at the table with the passage of this law to help legislators see this.  "These unforeseen circumstances are exactly what congressional oversight and good evaluation by administrators and researchers are supposed to discover and correct." pg. 6  Neither of which happened before NCLB was enacted.

He also continuously discussed the unlawfulness of NCLB as it is seen today and in the last administration by how individual states and even districts are exempt from parts of NCLB.  Orfieldfocused on states like Florida and Texas (Bush admin), but I think it can be applied more broadly, particularly with the waivers being granted to states now with the Department of Ed (see trip reflection from DC on how the executive branch is using too much of their power and not going through the proper channels). While it seems like Orfield does have a political bend, it does somewhat speak to Kelly (WM grad) on pg. 8.

NCLB is by no means perfect.  There are plenty of problems with it, and it does need to be changed (possibly be removed) but individual states getting waivers is not the way to do.  It's sad to think more care was not put into thinking about the consequences of the law and not bringing more of the right people around the table-- I know it was the right time politically to pass an education law, but really, was this the best our country's leaders could do? Reading this article was frustrating to see that special circumstances were not taken from the get-go for ESL students and students with disabilities.  I understand the idea of the law was for all students to be held to the same high standards, but in some cases- this just can't happen.  As I'm scanning through my notes in this 60 page document, there are more and more changes made to NCLB after it was enacted.  Minor changes I can understand but more at the state and district level with implementation, not at the national level.  I just think the whole law should have been thought through better.

Looking at implementation, we could in an optimistic world that NCLB was a good idea in theory....but in practice was not fleshed out/implementation when the policy was enacted, particularly for those who are working at the ground level.  I also had questions about what it means to be a highly qualified teacher-- what did that mean? each state/district had different requirements. can the federal government really dictate this?

I don't know if common sense wasn't in place when NCLB says that there needs to be 95% participation in state tests (pg. 21).  What was the percentage for state and federal testing normally?  How can teachers/schools be responsible for attendance-- I understand why NCLB wants such a strong representation for data purposes, but is 95% possible?

With the waivers, isn't it favoring states and districts with more resources?  Places with more money who can devote time and man-power to securing these waivers? I'm sure some states and districts did a better job at negotiating their waivers with the federal government.  It's also frustrating to see how states weren't pushing for their states to be better.  Georgia for instance (pg. 44) was able to change their graduation rates targets.  In one year, it was 61.8%.  The next year, GA set their goal to be 60%.  Really?  How did this get approved?  If NCLB is meant for students to achieve higher, why is one state lower their standards and being approved by the federal government to do so?

I don't think the goals of NCLB are even close to being achieved with vague language in the law, it not being thought-out, and all these waivers.  What is its point now besides for causing headaches? It's a pretty pessimistic viewpoint, and Sunderman does provide some relief with his suggestions to improve NCLB:
-reexamine core assumptions
-reexamine mechanisms used by NCLB to improve schools
- (most important)-- include educations in open and honest debate!!

This article is dated and even more compromise has been made to NCLB-- I wonder what Sunderman would suggest now?