January 4, 2009 The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)

HEADLINE: A civil rights law for students

Maybe the children at East Gresham Elementary School would have learned to read and write just as well without the No Child Left Behind law, but it's unlikely.

As Congress and President-elect Barack Obama prepare to renew this sweeping federal education law, they must preserve the law's power to help disadvantaged children. These students attend schools everywhere in the United States --from the sprawling, failing districts in big cities to the lower-profile schools here in Oregon.

The No Child Left Behind law is one of the few admirable domestic initiatives of the Bush administration. This bipartisan legislation requires states to regularly test its students and publish scores by group, such as low-income and special education. Schools with a significant number of failing students in any group face negative publicity, plus sanctions for persistent failure.

Civil rights groups tend to support the law, for good reason. The law punishes schools for holding poor and minority students to lower standards and giving them fewer resources to succeed. Business groups tend to favor No Child Left Behind as well, because they're weary of job applicants who can scarcely read or write.

Yet No Child Left Behind remains a frequent target of teachers unions, middle-class parents and politicians. The law gets blamed for most every problem in public schools, from overzealous testing to inadequate enrichment. Political candidates of any party can count on applause if they rail against the law before a crowd.

In this climate, the No Child Left Behind law could be repealed --rather than simplified and better funded, as it should be. Worse yet, it could be made more "flexible" in ways that deliberately remove the accountability and send problems back into hiding.

This would be a big mistake. As one Beaverton principal told The Oregonian's Betsy Hammond last year, "For me, it raises the bar for children, it raises the bar for instruction and it raises the bar for my accountability. Why would I complain when it has raised the achievement level of our kids?"

Test scores among special education students, low-income students and nonnative English speakers have risen under No Child Left Behind. The law has inspired many schools to revamp their teaching strategies. For example, low test scores at East Gresham Elementary compelled educators in 2006 to drop everything and collaborate more. Achievement at the high-poverty school rose overnight.

This federal mandate has room for improvement, to be sure. So do Oregon schools, which remain stubbornly average. If Congress and Obama want to help students in Oregon, they should fiercely protect the three goals of No Child Left Behind:

Shine a light on persistent problems.

Give power to the most powerless students.

Keep the question simple. As Bush himself once famously put it, "Is our children learning?"