NYT/Reuters: Bush Education Policy (NCLB) to Miss Goals: Harvard Study

Bush Education Policy to Miss Goals: Harvard Study
By REUTERS
Published: June 14, 2006

BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind education policy is failing to close racial achievement gaps and will miss its goals by 2014 according to recent trends, a Harvard study said on Wednesday.

It said the policy has had no significant impact on improving reading and math achievement since it was introduced in 2001, contradicting White House claims and potentially adding to concerns over America's academic competitiveness.

Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was meant to introduce national standards to an education system where only two-thirds of teenagers graduate from high school, a proportion that slides to 50 percent for blacks and Hispanics.

The study released by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project said national average of achievement by U.S. students has been flat in reading since 2001 and the growth rate in math has remained the same as before the policy was introduced.

The study follows results last month from the first nationwide science test administered in five years which showed achievement among U.S. high school seniors falling over the past decade -- a time when students in many other developed countries are outscoring U.S. students in science testing....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-bush-education.html

terrorists in Iraq.

No Child Left Behind was doomed from the start. But it succeeded in compromising Ted Kennedy, and giving the Bush* Administration positive PR before they could (allegedly) pull off 9-11. Bush* never really cared about its success, that's why its goals were to be measured long after he left office.

.......But a surge in the number of schools identified as ``needing improvement,'' including many considered top performers in their state, has stirred opposition to the law nationwide -- from a legal challenge in Connecticut to a rebellion by state legislators in staunchly Republican Utah.

U.S. officials counter the reforms are working.

``Across the country test scores in reading and math in the early grades are rising,'' Deputy Secretary for the Department of Education, Raymond Simon, testified in Congress on Tuesday.

``The 'achievement gap' is finally beginning to close.''

That differs from Harvard's study, which predicts less than 25 percent of poor and black students will hit the 2014 target in reading proficiency and less than 50 percent in math, with the overall racial achievement gap barely closing by 2014.

esp. for schools with lack of funds resources!

or as I like to say, it's a "No Shit headline" - you read it and say, "no shit!"

What "reality based" person didn't see this coming?