USAT's Whitmire Takes on Orfield's Harvard Civil Rights Project

The most interesting piece on NCLB this week was Richard Whitmire's USAT editorial (No lessons left behind ) highlighting among other things the deafening silence in response to last week's generally good news about NAEP scores that came from not only the NEA (big surprise) but also from nominally progressive organizations like Gary Orfield's Civil Rights Project at Harvard, which has taken a mystifying stance against NCLB:

"Earlier this month, the group issued a report essentially accusing the federal law of being racially discriminatory because its accountability net caught too many poor and minority school districts. Huh? For years, poor and minority students have suffered from attending schools that have failed them. Holding those schools accountable is the law's bedrock."

Most misleading headline of the week goes to this one: Study: No Child Left Behind will fail most schools. It's the schools, not the law, that are failing, according to the report that's being cited. Blaming the law for failing the schools won't work.

Best of the Rest:

Utah plays waiting game on No Child rules Daily Herald
Requests Win More Leeway Under NCLB Education Week
Still swimming in Lake Wobegon Gadfly
An Interview with Chester Finn Education News
AFT Follows Separate Path in Changing Law EW
NRC Weighs In on States’ Science Assessments EW