Maine has 124 schools that have been identified as sub-par according to standards created in 2001 by federal education reform.

Commonly called the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal law tries to raise achievement levels in public schools and hold school districts accountable if they are unsuccessful.

Parents whose children attend schools on the blacklist shouldn’t fret, yet. While certainly there are some schools in the state that are not doing well enough and there’s always room for improvement, the flaws identified by No Child Left Behind are in the legislation itself, not in the education Maine provides to its students.

The law is just a single measure of student and school performance. It doesn’t take into account Maine’s high level of standards, its aggressive Learning Results program and testing or the rural nature of the state.

There are several other sources that give a more accurate picture of how our schools are performing. Maine ranks in the top 10 among states for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests kids in fourth and eighth grades, and generally cracks the top six. In 1999, the state ranked first in overall student performance and was named the best state in which to raise a child and, in 2001, was ranked first in high school completion rates.

Bottom line: Maine’s schools are pretty good and, in a lot of cases, excellent.

Many parents with students in school today probably remember being graded on a bell curve, with a small number of students expected to excel, a similar number expected to fail and the majority of kids somewhere in between. That paradigm is gone and expectations have been raised for all students. Maine’s Learning Results look to grade students on an individual level, using several tools to test knowledge. Those results are then used to help students learn, not label them.

At its core, supporters of No Child Left Behind say its purpose is to make sure all students have an opportunity to learn and that those who are vulnerable receive the attention they need to be successful.

What it does, instead, is create a bureaucratic maze of data collection, manipulation and interpretation. The system just to collect information on Maine’s schools for No Child Left Behind will cost more than $2.5 million – not a penny of which will go to train teachers, improve classrooms or tutor students.

The law punishes school systems with already high standards and rewards mediocrity. It imposes new requirements on failing schools, but offers scant resources to implement them. Ultimately, the law could drain federal funding from troubled schools and force the state to take them over.

Parents with kids at schools on the state’s failing list shouldn’t panic. They should consider their own experiences with the school, the teachers and their child’s performance.

No Child Left Behind may be based on good intentions and accountability, but it just doesn’t pass muster. It should be re-examined. So far, on issues of funding, accurate evaluations and improving student learning, it gets a consistent grade: Needs improvement.
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