DFER Board Member Dianne Piche, of the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, bypasses all the hysteria coming from the National Education and others (who claim that is is unfair and unrealistic for kids in American public schools to be able to read and do very basic math by the year 2014!!!) to explain what is really going on here in the latest Education Next.
Piche makes the case that unless the federal money attached to NCLB is used to force dramatic change, achievement gaps will be here with us to stay. “The status quo is a powerful player to be reckoned with in the struggle for educational equity.”
From the piece:
NCLB is in many respects the latest in a long line of efforts in the policy and legal arenas to promote equity and opportunity in the public schools, including desegregation cases, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the original ESEA, and school finance and adequacy cases in the states.
How long does it take a cutting-edge civil rights law to “work”? Could a credible argument have been made in 1969, five years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, that the ambitious law was “not working” and therefore ought to be abandoned?
This particular legislation needs to be strengthened by ensuring high state standards, reliable assessments, realistic school-improvement measures, an equitable distribution of effective teachers, and real parental choice. Those of us—on the left, right, and middle—who believe in the transformative power of education need to draw more from the work of the increasing numbers of urban schools that are demonstrating how to succeed with large numbers of poor and minority students despite the odds. We need to learn from the contagious successes of outstanding public schools and choice programs like the Amistad Academy in Connecticut, the Green Dot schools in California, and the voluntary interdistrict transfer program in St. Louis.
Abandoning NCLB now would be the height of cynicism. Instead, like the civil rights movement itself, the education reform movement is in dire need of creative thinking, committed education leaders, and informed, involved parents—all united in our belief in the worth and value of every young life and each child’s potential to learn and do great things.