The Latest on the Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind

            Even if the smart money is still betting against the possibility of reauthorization of No Child Left Behind this session, that’s not how the congressional committees are acting. Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Senator Edward Kennedy and chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor George Miller are holding hearings and gathering ideas for how to change the law, and lobbying groups are targeting key members to try to sway them to their points of view.
            The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which No Child Left Behind is the latest incarnation, is required to be reauthorized every six years, and 2007 would ordinarily be the year to reauthorize it. There was much talk before the November election that reauthorization would be postponed, but both Kennedy and Miller, who took their chairmanships after the election, have pledged to reauthorize the law this session.
            This means that lots of groups and legislators are coming up with proposals to change the law. One of the most radical attempts to change the law is that of Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan), who has introduced a bill to allow states to opt out of NCLB if they have some kind of state improvement process in place. This has been characterized as “just give us the money and don’t bother about whether it gets results” approach, and isn’t given much chance of winning, though it does have 58 co-sponsors.
            Some of the organizations in The Achievement Alliance have made their own recommendations for how No Child Left Behind which can be found on their respective web sites.
            For the recommendations of Business Roundtable, which participates with other business groups as part of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, click here. 
            For the recommendations of Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, incorporated into congressional testimony by Dianne Piché, click here.
            For the recommendations of The Education Trust, click here.
            For the recommendations of National Council of La Raza, click here.

Why Do Teachers Leave the Profession?  Hint: It’s not about the money.

One of the most interesting studies to come out lately is “A possible dream: Retaining California’s teachers so all students learn,” by Ken Futernick, Director of K-12 Studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at California State University. He looked at why teachers—particularly teachers in high-poverty schools—leave the profession, and he found that the main reason was what the study calls the teaching and learning environment which “refers to a whole range of instructional, collegial, and systemic conditions which, for many, make teaching a highly satisfying profession.”
            The study went on to say that teachers who left “lacked a strong sense of team at their school—i.e., a sense that all or nearly all individuals working at the school are focused on creating an environment that fosters student learning; trusting, respectful professional relationships among teachers and other staff; and a collaborative, mutually supportive approach to leadership between teachers and principal.”
            When teachers who stayed were asked why they stayed, they often pointed to the presence of effective system supports such as adequate resources, adequate time for planning, and effective support from the district office and, most particularly, the collegial nature of relationships among staff.
            One of the most interesting findings of the study was that teachers who saw their schools as having good learning conditions thought their pay was a reason to stay. That is, if the job is good the pay is adequate. They only saw their pay as inadequate when they saw teaching and learning conditions as being inadequate.

Although the study focused only on California, its findings seem to have implications for the nation. To read the whole report, click here.