States and Their Struggles With NCLB: Does the Obama Blueprint Get It Right?

Abstract

This article analyzes challenges states identify in implementing No Child Left Behind (NCLB) with the Obama administration's proposals for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization. Drawing upon information from six states, this study shows that the Obama administration Blueprint for Reauthorization of ESEA responds to a number of state concerns with NCLB but fails to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of the challenges states face. The Blueprint addresses the overall concern for greater flexibility in timing, focus, and remedies that states express. Furthermore, the Blueprint acknowledges but does not fully address the importance of teacher and leader quality and the distributional challenges. The Blueprint falls short, however, in addressing the need for a more robust body of knowledge regarding effective intervention, the pragmatic obstacles to redistribution of high-quality teachers and leaders, and the political and fiscal challenges that states combat in intensifying and funding the level of performance it demands.

Notes

The applications followed guidelines developed by the ED, spelling out what kinds of information, guarantees, and analyses were to be included in each state's proposals. This information was supplemented with additional documents from the ED identifying the objectives of the waiver request program and the processes by which the federal government would evaluate the proposals and the criteria guiding the reviewers. A letter sent from the ED (2008a) stated that “priority for participation in the pilot will be given to states that have at least 20 percent of their Title 1 schools identified as in need of improvement in the 2007–08 school year; states that propose substantive and comprehensive interventions for the lowest-performing schools and school districts (i.e., restructuring), and states that propose an innovative model of differentiation and interventions.”

The state does have two incentive funds to compensate teachers for transfers to hard-to-staff schools. The adequacy of these funds or their successful application to improve teacher efficacy in high-need schools was not analyzed.