A New Year for School Reform

WOW!  I had to rub my eyes to make sure this was the New York Times writing this spot-on, hard-nosed editorial, quoting the Fordham Foundation and praising "states that have stayed the course and continued to build rigorous, standards-based reforms" and specifically calling for differential pay!

With the easy achievement gains already behind us, the next level of progress will require rigorous systemic change. The states, for example, will need to adopt rigorous examinations that track the federal test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more closely. They will have to crack down on state teachers colleges that turn out poor graduates, and devise ways — including differential pay — to persuade highly qualified teachers to work in failing schools that they have historically avoided. To move forward, the country must also find new ways to support and transform failing schools, beyond labeling them failures and presuming that the stigma will inspire better performance.

These are difficult issues. But they are the ones that Congress needs to focus on as it moves toward reauthorizing No Child Left Behind.

A New Year for School Reform

Published: December 31, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/opinion/31sun2.html?th&emc=th

The No Child Left Behind Act broke new ground when it required the states to educate impoverished children up to the same standards as their affluent counterparts, in exchange for federal aid. The law did not just drop out of the sky. It represented a deliberate attempt by Congress to ratify and accelerate the school reform effort that swept the country in the early 1990’s, when the states began to embrace standards-based accountability systems that quickly showed promising results.