NCLB Update: Neither Draconian Nor Toothless

Ben Feller's latest article on NCLB might alarmist from the headline some papers are giving it (Rising Number of Schools Face Penalties) but in reality the piece highlights a couple of key facts that suggest the law is neither as Draconian as has been argued by others nor as toothless as has been argued by me.

Some of these key facts include (a) the highly varied rates of schools not making AYP by state (seven states account for almost 70 percent of all 1750 schools nationwide that have been ordered to restructure), (b) the context that these 1750 schools make up just 3 percent of the federally funded schools nationwide, and (c) the reality that, while most states and districts are doing fairly minimal things when schools reach the "restructuring" stage, the few states like Maryland that have tried to do more have sometimes run into a political buzz saw.