Education

Reporting on NCLB

By Stacey Decker — August 13, 2007 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Ken DeRosa of D-Ed Reckoning criticizes a San Diego Union Tribune article that says NCLB unfairly classifies schools as failing. The article says school leaders in the San Diego area feel the education law doesn’t acknowledge progress over time, but DeRosa disagrees.

NCLB contains a Safe Harbor provision that permits a school that is, in fact, failing to avoid the "failing label" if it reduces its percentage of students not meeting standards by 10% of the previous year's percentage.
I fail to see how this is unfair. If you are not meeting your state's pass rate and aren't improving sufficiently to fall within the safe harbor, you are failing regardless if you miss that mark by 30% or 0.01%. This isn't horseshoes or hand grenades. Near misses don't count.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Blogboard blog.