In the years of reform efforts before No Child Left Behind, no federal laws, sanctions, or incentives had been sufficient to convince the nation that millions of children do not have access to the public education quality assumed to be the standard for all. More than 1,000 pages of testimony presented across the country at Public Education Network hearings on the law in the summer and fall of 2004 dramatically confirm this. The hearings revealed the deep concerns—and ultimately, the hopes—of students, parents and communities that have been left out of even a decent standard of public schooling.

No Child Left Behind, however, imposes its serious flaws on a public education system already in flux. On some issues, it barely begins to address the problems.

A product of congressional policymakers frustrated by the slow response of states and districts to previous demands for reform, and a White House with a single-minded structure for change, the law developed without much understanding of what it takes to be really good at accountability and at teaching itself. It would have been a very different law if students, parents, and communities could have helped to shape it. On the basis of the spoken testimony and more than 12,000 responses to a PEN online survey, NCLB should have been able to:

•
 Maintain accountability as the core of reforms, but hold others, in addition to schools and
students responsible for progress
•
 Require the use of much more sophisticated tests for accountability that are aligned to a
broad range of content areas and skills and are used more for diagnosis than for penalties.
•
 Assure that standards are not lowered, and that all students have access to a curriculum
and to teaching that challenges them.
•
 Focus on measuring improvement as a means of motivating schools, teachers, and students, rather than on attaining an almost impossible static goal.
•
 Broaden the definition of a highly qualified teacher beyond paper certification to include true competence—and commitment to high levels of learning—in diverse classrooms.
•
 Invest time and money in building the capacity of schools struggling to improve before taking away their resources for such interventions as choice; the goal should be all excellent schools in every neighborhood.

 

"I don't want No Child Left Behind to stay a wonderful idea.
I want it to really become as it should be and have it really serve to improve our children's education and that way, better our community as a whole."

Maria Leon, parent, (speaking in Spanish),
Los Angeles, California
 

Finally, No Child Left Behind already has made transparent very troubling problems with the public education system beyond the law’s emphasis on low-performing students and schools. Given a chance to speak up about their schools, the public—whether students, parents, community leaders and advocates, or business leaders—made it obvious that:

•
 NCLB is being blamed for policy and funding decisions made—or more often, not made—by state and district leadership.
•
 Inequities persist in basic funding, access to highly qualified teachers, and sufficient resources that, among many wrongs, place unfair burdens on poor students and schools.
•
 The public school system has a serious communications problem, not only in explaining NCLB but also in explaining itself to the public, especially to poor families and communities.
•
 Despite an unprecedented emphasis in NCLB on parent involvement, public educators generally still don’t “get it” when it comes to listening, accepting, and partnering with low income/minority parents and communities.
•
 More than ineptness is at work in the failure to comply with some NCLB provisions, in the lowering of standards, and in the tepid approaches to communicating with parents and the public. The lack of will is evident.

The hearing testimony and survey data pinpoint specific or technical changes that need to be
made to NCLB, which are discussed below. More importantly, they tell compelling stories. The parents who testified often apologized for being nervous in an unfamiliar role. A few choked up when talking about their children’s needs. Some chose to speak in Spanish because they had too much to say in their brief appearances to try to find the words in English. Students, undaunted by the formal hearing process, described their school experiences with absolute candor. Businesspeople provided larger contexts for reform than the personal ones of most
speakers. Community activists told of both rebuffs and promising efforts at organizing.

This was the democratic process at its best, encouraging people to talk about something
deeply important to them and to speak openly from their hearts.

The report crystallizes the themes and stories from the nine hearings, held in eight states. Its unique contribution to the debate over NCLB is that it gives voice to those who ordinarily do not have access to policymakers, but who perhaps are more dependent on the promises in the law than any others—the students, their families, and their communities. They have insights
policymakers need.