Bridges4Kids Logo

 
About Us Breaking News Find Help in Michigan Find Help in the USA Find Help in Canada Inspiration
IEP Goals Help4Parents Disability Info Homeschooling College/Financial Aid Summer Camp
IEP Topics Help4Teachers Homework Help Charter/Private Insurance Nutrition
Ask the Attorney Become an Advocate Children "At-Risk" Bullying Legal Research Lead Poisoning
 
Bridges4Kids is now on Facebook. Follow us today!
 

 

Article of Interest - No Child Left Behind

Printer-friendly Version

Bridges4Kids Logo

Education Secretary Hints of Changes
Ben Feller, The Associated Press, July 9, 2005
For more articles like this visit https://www.bridges4kids.org

 

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings showed growing support Friday for letting states change how they score student progress, a potentially major policy shift.

Under the No Child Left Behind law, schools are gauged based on how their current students perform compared with last year's students on math and reading tests.

State leaders say that system does not account for yearly changes in the student population and does not credit students who make big gains but fall short of school goals.

Spellings, addressing a gathering of the American Federation of Teachers, gave her strongest indication yet that she may embrace a "growth model" _ that is, one that measures the academic growth of individual students as they move among grades.

Some states are experimenting with such an idea, but a federal policy on the topic could trigger a broad shift in how progress is measured nationwide. Spellings has appointed a group to study a growth model, and she told AFT members she is committed to working on it.

"We need to have an understanding of what we mean by that, and what the necessary conditions are," Spellings told reporters after her comments to the AFT. "And then, I'm hopeful that netting out of that conversation will be a way to allow people to get credit for the progress they've made. And I believe in that as a policy matter."

Asked whether such a change is likely to happen, she said: "I'm not going to handicap that yet, I don't know. I just put the people to work."

The issue is significant because schools that receive federal poverty aid but don't make "adequate yearly progress" for at least two straight years face mounting penalties.

The AFT says the current federal measure of progress doesn't measure progress at all.

Spellings said there will be no change in the requirement that states give math and reading tests to students in grades three to eight yearly, and at least once in high school. Such testing, she said, must be the cornerstone of any effort to chart student progress.

The federal education law sets the unprecedented goal of ensuring all children are proficient in reading and math by 2013-14. States decide exactly what proficient means.

     

back to the top     ~     back to Breaking News     ~     back to What's New

 

Thank you for visiting https://www.bridges4kids.org/.
 

bridges4kids does not necessarily agree with the content or subject matter of all articles nor do we endorse any specific argument.  Direct any comments on articles to deb@bridges4kids.org.

© 2002-2021 Bridges4Kids

 

NOTE: (ALL RESOURCES PRE-IDEA 2004 ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL/HISTORICAL RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY)