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Advocacy NCLB |
Partnerships for Advocacy NABE has joined with a group of more than 60 education and civil rights organizations in calling for an end to the "test and punish" philosophy that guides the No Child Left Behind Act. The Alliance for Fair and Effective Accountability proposed a series of recommendations to Congress that would reform the worst excesses of NCLB. The statement follows: Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act The undersigned education, civil rights, children’s, disability, and citizens’ organizations are committed to the No Child Left Behind Act’s objectives of strong academic achievement for all children and closing the achievement gap. We believe that the federal government has a critical role to play in attaining these goals. We endorse the use of an accountability system that helps ensure all children, including children of color, from low-income families, with disabilities, and of limited English proficiency, are prepared to be successful, participating members of our democracy. While we all have different positions on various aspects of the law, based on concerns raised Recommended Changes in NCLB Progress Measurement 1. Replace the law's arbitrary proficiency targets with ambitious achievement targets based on rates of success actually achieved by the most effective public schools. 2. Allow states to measure progress by using students’ growth in achievement as well as their performance in relation to pre-determined levels of academic proficiency. 3. Ensure that states and school districts regularly report to the government and the public their progress in implementing systemic changes to enhance educator, family, and community capacity to improve student learning. 4. Provide a comprehensive picture of students' and schools' performance by moving from an overwhelming reliance on standardized tests to using multiple indicators of student achievement in addition to these tests. 5. Fund research and development of more effective accountability systems that better meet the goal of high academic achievement for all children Assessments 6. Help states develop assessment systems that include district and school-based measures in order to provide better, more timely information about student learning. 7. Strengthen enforcement of NCLB provisions requiring that assessments must: 8. Decrease the testing burden on states, schools and districts by allowing states to assess students annually in selected grades in elementary, middle schools, and high schools. Building Capacity 9. Ensure changes in teacher and administrator preparation and continuing professional development that research evidence and experience indicate improve educational quality and student achievement. 10. Enhance state and local capacity to effectively implement the comprehensive changes required to increase the knowledge and skills of administrators, teachers, families, and communities to support high student achievement. Sanctions 11. Ensure that improvement plans are allowed sufficient time to take hold before applying sanctions; sanctions should not be applied if they undermine existing effective reform efforts. 12. Replace sanctions that do not have a consistent record of success with interventions that enable schools to make changes that result in improved student achievement. Funding 13. Raise authorized levels of NCLB funding to cover a substantial percentage of the costs that states and districts will incur to carry out these recommendations, and fully fund the law at those levels without reducing expenditures for other education programs. 14. Fully fund Title I to ensure that 100 percent of eligible children are served. We, the undersigned, will work for the adoption of these recommendations as central structural changes needed to NCLB at the same time that we advance our individual organization’s proposals. (List of signers updated Nov. 14, 2005) |
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