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By William McKenzie A Dallas principal lamented this spring that her high school probably wouldn't earn one of the top notches on Texas' school ranking system. The reason, she told me, was that her school had "inherited" some AYP students from other schools. In the education world, AYP is like catching the dreaded hantavirus. Your school gets it, and you can die. AYP – or "adequate yearly progress" – also is one of the most important elements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Students in schools that show little or no progress over a two-year period on a state's achievement exam can transfer to a school that is progressing faster. (Under No Child's rules, a low-performing school is even at risk of being shut down.) The AYP standard draws a fair amount of criticism, especially from educators who find it too onerous. But it's not fair to stick any of our children in a school that's doing a lousy job educating them. They won't get the skills they need for a world that prizes those who solve problems and think imaginatively. Nor is it fair to the rest of us to keep students in lackluster schools. These are the kids who easily become the next gang member who stands zero chance of contributing to society. This is why I'm all in favor of Congress sticking to requiring schools to show progress as it rewrites No Child this year. But the principal I interviewed has a point. Her campus shouldn't suffer because another school didn't do its job. The students who came to her high school from lower-performing schools probably would drag down how well her campus did on the state's annual achievement exam, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills – the dreaded TAKS. If the AYP transfers were behind when they showed up, it's hard to imagine they could get caught up in a few months. Realistically, it could take a year or more to make up deficits in math, science or other subjects. The AYP inheritance issue is one of the sticking points the Bush administration and education reformers in Congress need to work out as they race to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act. They are up against it because the education lobby and some conservative lawmakers fiercely oppose keeping the tough standards in the revolutionary law that President Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy largely produced in 2001. But we need a strong federal education law now more than ever because of the Supreme Court ruling last month limiting the role race can play in deciding where students go to school. I'll spare you the details, but the decision could return America to a place where white students routinely end up in better schools than Latinos and African-Americans. If there isn't a way to ensure that every child has a fair shot at a good education, today's income and achievement gaps will only grow. Fortunately, No Child's fundamental thrust is making sure that no student – as the title says – is left behind. Mr. Bush has rightly championed the bill's reforms since his first year in office, as have Mr. Kennedy and Democratic Rep. George Miller. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Miller are under enormous pressure to weaken the bill, but at least they remain in talks with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings about how to rewrite it for several more years. Here's a suggestion to resolve the AYP problem: Good schools that inherit AYP transfers could receive credit for how much a transfer student improves on their watch. That compromise would maintain high goals and deal with the reality the better schools face. What we don't need is for No Child to collapse the way immigration reform did. Getting our kids ready for a complex world is the nation's second-most important challenge, behind controlling terrorism. The education challenge grows even more important when you factor in the large – and irreversible – wave of Latino immigrants enrolling in schools across America. Trite as it may sound, we really can't afford to leave any child behind. With enough practicality, Washington should be able to make sure we don't. |
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