The NCLB stories in the current issue of Education Week focus on the news of last week in Washington, but a couple of others will give you a glimpse of issues out in the field.
When the House Education and Labor Committee posted discussion drafts of Title II and other sections of NCLB at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, several of us collaborated to get the news out before the paper went to press at noon on Friday. We didn’t have time to find reaction to the draft itself. I dug through the NEA Web site to find Reg Weaver’s quote supporting the TEACH Act. The union president had a chance to revise and extend his remarks on Monday.
While we haven’t heard how Margaret Spellings feels about the drafts released Thursday, my story explains some of the reasons why the secretary of education is “deeply troubled” by changes proposed in the Title I proposal.
In an enterprising story, Vaishali Honawar finds that schools may be cutting corners on NCLB by hiring substitutes who aren’t required to meet the law’s highly qualified teacher rules. More than half of states don’t require subs to have more than a high school degree.
While it doesn’t address NCLB directly, educators will be interested in new research examining the “4th grade slump” in reading test scores. The National Institutes of Health has given $30 million to researchers studying the issue, Christina Samuels reports.
Finally, the Federal File column reports on a new Government Accountability Office report on lax efforts to turn around the schools that haven’t met AYP for 4 or more years.
