Tell Your Senator To Fix NCLB

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

I am writing to express my concerns about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). My experience as an educator confirms that flaws in the law are undercutting its worthy goals.

The upcoming reauthorization gives us a chance to get it right for educators, our children and our schools. This can only happen when Congress makes necessary changes to the law. A reauthorized NCLB must:

Recognize that student achievement should be measured by more than test scores. I have witnessed an increase in testing under NCLB and a narrowing of the curriculum. We need a fairer and more accurate accountability system that gives credit to schools that started further behind but are making real progress. Any additional indicators used to assess student learning and school performance should be helpful, not harmful; and they should not lead to more testing. We need to continue to assess English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities so that we have a clear picture of how they are performing. But these students should be more appropriately assessed as part of any new accountability systems.

Provide educators the support and resources they need to succeed in the classroom. The legislation should not impose new and unnecessary requirements on teachers and paraprofessionals, and should not include a federal mandate to use test scores to evaluate teachers for incentive or performance pay. Including a new federal mandate for evaluating teacher performance would take us in the wrong direction. Mandating that compensation be tied to test scores will mean more teaching to the test and narrowing of the curriculum. In addition, teacher compensation plans should be negotiated on the local level. In order to attract and retain teachers, particularly in hard-to-staff schools, we need modernized school facilities, a safe working environment, financial and professional supports, effective school leadership and fair compensation.

Increase support for research-based interventions to truly struggling schools to help raise student achievement. The current system of punitive sanctions must be changed. Requiring that limited federal education dollars be spent on supplemental educational services that have no track record of success, and which are not held accountable, cannot continue.

These funds should instead be spent on more research-based interventions at the school level to help struggling students.

Provide to districts and schools the funds they need to ensure that our children and school staff have the very best to do their very best. Achieving the goals of NCLB requires an investment in proven programs that help underserved students, such as reducing class size, offering research-based interventions to low-performing schools, and developing mentoring and induction programs.

Making these commonsense revisions not only will improve NCLB and help students, but also will lead to legislation that educators and parents can support.

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