News Archives – June 2007
June 26, 2007- Congress AM- "Bush Pushes For Renewal Of No Child Left Behind"
President Bush made a pitch Monday for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind education law, with the additions of a $200 million teacher incentive fund and accountability standards for high schools.
"Reauthorizing 'No Child' is one of the top priorities of my administration," Bush said at a White House ceremony honoring the 2007 Presidential Scholars.
"But we need to do more," Bush said. "Our high schools need to have accountability. We want to make sure that same rigor that we've applied in the elementary and middle schools are applied to our high schools. If we want to be competitive, the high school diploma has to mean something."
June 25, 2007- Education Daily, Patti Mohr, "Stakeholders: Principals need more control" 
Corporate representatives and philanthropists built momentum for standards-based reforms in NCLB during 2001. Now that the accountability structure is in place, private-sector stakeholders say it’s time to free school leaders from burdensome regulations that impede needed reforms. “To truly embrace accountability,” school leaders need to have more authority to make local decisions, said Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach for America. NCLB helped raise and define expectations for all leaders. But the law has not helped public school systems make the changes that are needed to improve outcomes for students, according to panelists at a recent panel discussion hosted by the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, a national network of business leaders from all economic sectors with an interest in NCLB reauthorization.
June 21, 2007 -New York Times, James Flanigan, “Small Companies That Try to Bring Innovative Technology to Teaching”
There is a growing cluster of companies in the Northwest looking to capitalize on educational needs. Learning.com makes computer software programs that help elementary school students learn science, math, languages and social studies. “We help teachers by integrating our program with the school’s curricula,” said William J. Kelly, founder and chief executive of the company, based here. Vernier Software and Technology, based in Beaverton, makes a device that allows instant data analysis and graph-making. “So students can concentrate on the experiment and not spend all period making a graph,” said David Vernier, a one-time physics teacher who founded the company with his wife, Christine, also a teacher, in 1981.
June 21, 2007 - Market Wire-“ETS Poll: Californians Support NCLB Reauthorization"
With a summer of congressional debate ahead over No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, a major public opinion poll from ETS shows that Californian parents, teachers and school administrators strongly support reauthorization of the law. They also favor greater flexibility in assisting students and schools struggling to meet high standards and call for increased funding for schools failing to make adequate progress.
ETS's seventh annual Americans Speak survey, "Standards, Accountability and Flexibility: Americans Speak on No Child Left Behind Reauthorization," is a national poll conducted by bipartisan pollsters Peter Hart, Democrat, and David Winston, Republican. The pollsters oversampled California residents, as well as Spanish-speaking adults in California and nationally.
June 20, 2007 - USA Today-“Opposing view: Tutoring shows success”
Don't give up. That's what we tell our children when they fall behind in school. What kind of message would it send to give up on a program that helps them get back on track? The program is called Supplemental Educational Services, or SES. Here's how it works: A school must offer low-income students free tutoring and after-school instruction if it has not met its achievement goals for three years running. Many of these schools are in poor neighborhoods and have a poor track record of reform. Students who need extra help should not be held hostage to their school's broken promises. Today, more than 500,000 children receive tutoring through SES, part of the No Child Left Behind Act. Now we have concrete evidence of the program's success.
June 19, 2007 - Education Week-“To Know NCLB Is to Like It, ETS Poll Finds”
The more Americans learn about the No Child Left Behind Act, they more they like it, according to a poll scheduled to be released this week. When asked whether they back President Bush’s K-12 initiative, respondents to the poll were evenly split over supporting the 5-year-old law. But once the questioner described the law’s goals and its emphasis on holding schools to academic standards, support for the law grew substantially, according to the poll commissioned by the Educational Testing Service. The poll was scheduled to be released June 19, and this summer, congressional committees may act on a bill that would reauthorize the law, which is one of President Bush’s biggest domestic accomplishments.
June 10, 2007,- Chattanooga Times Free Press –“College head supports accountability, questions measurement”
In the past several months, the U.S. Department of Education has begun an aggressive push to make colleges and universities demonstrate how much their students are learning. From the Spellings Commission, organized by Secretary Margaret Spellings, comes a call for accreditation agencies to set minimum levels of acceptable performance from higher education institutions. Recommendations include baseline comprehensive exams for freshmen and seniors along with a central database to track students and to link federal funding for financial aid to student performance.
June 6, 2007-Washington Post-“Scores Up Since 'No Child' Was Signed; Study's Authors Unsure Whether to Credit Law for Gains”
The nation's students have performed significantly better on state reading and math tests since President Bush signed his landmark education initiative into law five years ago, according to a major independent study released yesterday.
The study's authors warned that it is difficult to say whether or how much the No Child Left Behind law is driving the achievement gains. But Republican and Democratic supporters of the law said the findings indicate that it has been a success. Some said the findings bolster the odds that Congress will renew the controversial law this year.
June 5, 2007- Associated Press- “Student achievement on state reading and math tests up since NCLB, report says”
Students are doing better on state reading and math tests since the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted five years ago, according to a report Tuesday. Students made the most progress on elementary-school math tests, according to the report by the Center on Education Policy, a national nonprofit policy group. The report focused on states where trend data are available, including Ohio. Some states have changed tests in recent years, making it impossible to compare year-to-year results.
June 6, 2007-Department of Education-“Statement by Secretary Spellings on the Center for Education Policy's Report on Student Achievement Under No Child Left Behind”
In response to the Center for Education Policy's release of Answering the Question that Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind?, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said the following:
"I'm greatly encouraged by the findings of the Center for Education Policy's report. This study confirms that No Child Left Behind has struck a chord of success with our nation's schools and students.
Under President Bush's leadership, No Child Left Behind has driven meaningful reforms in our nation's education system. In five short years, we've seen encouraging results, especially in our elementary schools. Students are making remarkable gains in reading and math, and the achievement gap that once seemed intractable is now narrowing in many of our nation's schools.
We know the law is working, so now is the time to reauthorize No Child Left Behind and continue the promise of a quality education for all of America's children."
June 4, 2007-Investors Business Daily-“The Singular Vision Of George W. Bush”
"Bush transformed our education system from a union-run baby sitter to an actual learning tool with the No Child Left Behind Act ... Educators were now actually forced to educate and document their success -- or failure. The result has been steadily improving test scores across the board and, perhaps most significantly, a steady narrowing of the gap between test scores of whites and minorities."
