Arne Duncan: “No Child Left Behind Broken”!

Dear Commons Community,

Arne Duncan,  US Secretary of Education, has declared that the federal government’s signature program for K-12 education, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is “fundamentally broken”. The problem is that under NCLB, eighty-two percent of the public schools in this country will be identified as failing within the next year under NCLB guidelines.  Educators have been warning of the perils of NCLB almost since its enactment by President George W. Bush and approved by a bipartisan US Congress ten years ago.   Duncan in as candid an address as possible stated:

“The law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible and focused on the schools and students most at risk.”

Thank you Mr. Secretary and please figure out some way to protect our children from the elected officials and governing bodies that passed this legislation in the first place.

Tony