On March 9, 2011, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave testimony before a Congressional committee and warned that, next year, more than 80 percent of U.S. schools could fail to meet education goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In his testimony, as posted on the ed.gov Web site, he told the committee that NCLB is “fundamentally broken and we need to fix it this year.” Although the Secretary credited NCLB with highlighting the achievement gaps between poor and minority students, students with disabilities, English language learners, and their peers, he stated that the law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. He stated that the law allows every state to set its own arbitrary bar for proficiency and measure only whether students are above or below the bar. He said, “We don’t know how much students learn each year. We don’t know what they need to get over the bar. And we can’t recognize and reward the teachers and principals that are succeeding.” He urged that Congress must revise the law before the next school year begins “so that the schools and students most at risk get the help they need.” He pointed to the administration’s 2010 Blueprint for Reform as the approach for change and said that states are already leading the way by developing robust data systems to measure student growth and raising the bar by voluntarily adopting college- and career-ready standards. On March 2nd Education Week reported that a group of Senators released an ESEA reauthorization proposal very similar to the Blueprint for Reform and that bills reflecting the proposal are expected to be introduced in Congress soon.
As education reform continues, PCG Education is positioned to support state and local education agencies with state-of-the-art Web-based tools able to monitor student growth over time. PCG Education also provides professional consulting services to help educators and administrators achieve goals for student achievement and teacher performance.
About Tom Entrikin
A former policy specialist with the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (now Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)), Tom Entrikin has vast experience providing technical assistance to states on Medicaid eligibility, coverage, and reimbursement; provider certification and enrollment; program integrity; recovery of third party liabilities; Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) performance specifications and operations; interagency agreements; contracts with managed care organizations; and Medicaid waiver programs.
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