NCLB - Understanding No Child Left Behind

By now you have doubtlessly heard of "No Child Left Behind," the education initiative developed by the Bush administration. Although NCLB is not technically a learning disability term, many of its provisions are having a profound impact on schools, children, and yes, even special education. As with any government education initiative, parts of NCLB are good, and other parts are bad. NCLB is a huge piece of legislation, and we will only address some issues I've observed as a concern.

The Good: NCLB developed an accountability model that required states to analyze progress of schools and the composite groups of children within them. In many states, for the first time, score analysis of groups of children by race, socioeconomic status, and disability was required. Further, it required that all groups of children must make adequate yearly progress. NCLB made it necessary to schools to focus on children with disabilities (and others), develop and implement strategies to move those students forward academically, and maintain continuous improvement.

The Bad: Placing all children with disabilities into one group for analysis may not be the best way to assess their progress. Children with disabilities have a broad range of abilities, and their various diagnoses are as different as night and day. However, some analysis is better than none, and this is a start.

The Good: NCLB requires that all teachers be certified in the subject area they are teaching. This is intended to ensure that students have the best-trained teachers delivering instruction. It also specified minimum criteria for teacher assistants.

The Bad: So far, I've seen the most impact on high school students. Limits on teacher certifications shrink an already diminishing pool of teachers. Generally, many special education teachers are trained to address specific types of disabilities. For example, a teacher may be certified in learning and behavior disorders or mental disabilities. These teachers also have training for a grade range, and they also have curriculum training in subject areas, but often their certifications are not for specific subjects such as 9-12 math, social studies, or other subject area. Some apparently unintended results I've seen:

• Special education teachers functioning mostly as aides rather than teachers;
• Students who really need small group instruction in a resource setting who have no special education teacher there to assist them because of shortages and funding.
• High schools, already underfunded, do not have funds to hire additional special education teachers to double up with regular education teachers.

The Good: Accountability. NCLB has a series of consequences for covered schools (those with high numbers of low-income students) that fail to make adequate yearly progress. For example, if a school fails to make adequate progress in reading or math for two consecutive years, they must provide free tutoring services to the lowest performing, low-income students in the school until the school is no longer in need of improvement. Consequences become progressively serious. Ranging from allowing students to change schools to the most significant consequence, takeover by the state for a complete restructuring of management and instructional programs. NCLB also includes provisions to allow children to change schools if they attend a persistently dangerous school. This point, I applaud.

The Bad: While accountability is good, there are limitations of this model:

• It doesn't apply to all schools. Those without high numbers of low-income students are not affected.
• There are basic requirements for independent tutoring organizations that provide tutoring. Some are well-established and deliver excellent results. However, not all providers employ certified teachers or staff qualified to teach special education children.
• Exercising school choice decisions requires careful analysis of several factors. For example, it is possible that one school in the district is failing, another is making progress, and the failing school may have better scores than the one making progress. Strange but true. If you are considering school choice, you need to do your homework on school choice.

The bottom line when dealing with NCLB in your school system is to remember that you still have your rights as a parent under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Regardless of whether your child attends a Title I school or not, or whether your school offers tutoring or school choice, you can still work with the school and district to ensure your child receives a Free Appropriate Public Education.