Obama proposes sweeping reforms to No Child Left Behind

McALLEN — President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s education law received generally positive marks from superintendents in the Rio Grande Valley on Monday.

Obama’s proposal would cast aside much of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law and would move away from punishing schools for not meeting federal benchmarks and instead focus on rewarding progress.

Among the more important revisions, local superintendents said, was Obama’s proposal to call for states to adopt standards to ensure students are college or career ready rather than grade-level proficient, as the current law does.

“Eight years later, we probably need a course correction,” said James Ponce, superintendent of McAllen school district. “Whatever we define as the college and career readiness standards, we want to make sure that all of our children are succeeding.”

Obama unveiled his plan Saturday, saying the proposal would make sure kids have better teachers and attend better schools so that they can make up for academic ground lost to children in other countries.

“Unless we take action — unless we step up — there are countless children who will never realize their full talent and potential,” Obama said Saturday, The Associated Press reported. “I don’t accept that future for them. And I don’t accept that future for the United States of America.”

Obama’s plan also involves a $4 billion increase in federal education spending, money that would be given to states through competitive grants. It represents a movement away from the current formula-based federal funding.

The administration’s blueprint would also allow states to use subjects other than reading and mathematics as part of their measurements for student progress, appeasing critics of No Child Left Behind who said the law put too much pressure on schools to focus on just those two subjects at the expense of history, art, science and social studies among other subjects.

Texas already considers social studies and science in assessing student performance.

 “There are those who say if a student can read on level and do math on level they can probably handle any subject,” said Daniel King, superintendent of the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district. “It’s hard to find the perfect system.”

The changes to No Child Left Behind follow a Texas Education Agency announcement in February that it plans to upgrade its accountability system. The new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, which takes effect in the 2011-2012 school year, includes new tests for third through eighth grades and would require high school students to pass 12 end-of-course assignments in order to receive a diploma.

--

Sean Gaffney covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.