FIX, THE

The hue and cry over the landmark federal education law has only gotten more fervent in the two years since its passage-and some of the loudest voices are coming from the very lawmakers who crafted it. Is there hope for the Elementary and secondary Education Act (ESEA), the so-called No Child Left Behind law? Can it be repaired to live up to the spirit of its name?

NO QUESTION. In just the last few months, in fact, the Bush Administration has succumbed to enormous pressures from a hosts of interests, including NEA, by making notable changes to the law's regulations-changes activists hope will work in the interest of students and teachers, not against them. But such fixes have come in fits and starts. And the unpredictability, not to mention the pace, of the reform is now testing the patience of many who have been demanding it since the law was signed in 2002.

Not only have congressional lawmakers introduced a rack of NEA-backed bills aimed at making the law more flexible (see "Take Action," page 35), more than a dozen state legislatures-some with Republican majoritieshave passed bills and resolutions from at least one of their chambers urging immediate repairs. And more states join the protest almost every week. (See "Missing Moola," page 38.)

"The debate over whether ESEA needs to be fixed is over," says NEA chief lobbyist Joel Packer. "The issue now is how it to fix it-and whether those changes will be meaningful and timely." So far, Packer adds, "we've made lots of headway. But we have a long way to go, and mobilization will be the key to more success."

Why mobilize? What makes this law with the noble-sounding name still so problematic?

Simply put, say educators, many of its provisions turn great ideas into bad practice. Consider the requirement that test scores be reported separately for several categories of students who often do poorly. Many welcomed this move, yet because the law is so underfunded-President George W. Bush is recommending appropriation levels more than $9.4 billion below the law's authorized amounts-the opportunity to give focused attention to low performers is becoming a pipe dream in many districts. Still, if just one subgroup falls short of the progress mark, educators must live with the demoralizing mark on their school as deficient-a "failure" in the mind of the public.

In addition, while the law aims to put quality teachers in every classroom, its definition of "highly qualified" leaves out thousands who are not only competent, but leaders of their profession.

And it puts new, often confusing demands on education support professionals aiming to fulfill their own puzzling "highly qualified" requirements. Many have expressed frustration over not having the time-or financial means-to legally continue the work they love. (See "Para Quality: Not So Simple Anymore," page 24).

The problems have not escaped lawmakers, who were once big boosters of the law. "Clearly, we have encountered some unintended consequences," wrote U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican from Connecticut in a letter to Department of Education secretary Rod Paige last year. "If we are not able to restructure the law...," he added, "we run the risk of losing [its] worthwhile goals."

A series of studies from the Harvard Civi Rights Project (www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/ research/esea/nclb.php) came to the same conclusion and raised concerns about the law's ability to help those needing it most. The researchers found that:

FEWER THAN 3 percent of students eligible for Title I-funded transfers from "low-performing" schools took advantage of them in the 10 districts studied, and those transferring usually went to schools not so different from the ones they left.

SUPPLEMENTAL SERVICES such as tutoring, mandated under the law, siphoned money from school improvement and required little accountability from organizations rendering those services.

THE LAWS SANCTIONS are falling disproportionately on the very low-performing schools E SEA is supposed to help most.

"It's as if you were to take the temperature of everybody in a hospital waiting room, and then take away the medicine from those with the highest temperatures and threaten to hit them," said Project Co-director Gary Orfield. "That's supposed to be the cure: They will cure themselves if you punish them enough."

Orfield says the irony is huge. "We're dismantling desegregation, sending kids back to highly impoverished schools, and then we slap a big F on them," he notes. "All of a sudden, instead of the problems being blamed on discrimination and inequality, they're blamed on whoever happens to be in that school-both the staff and the kids."

It is no wonder that as the number of schools labeled "in need of improvement" swells to 30 percent of all American schools, many people inside and outside education are putting the law itself on the list. And they are asking: Are the claims the law promised to fulfill being met?

CLAIM

Every student in America will be proficient in reading and math by 2014.