go down the drain for Fairfax schools if they do not comply with the NCLB testing rules. The state alone can lose 2 million bucks as well.

on the fight the Virginia Department of Education is having over the NCLB bill.

The Commission On No Child Left Behind has released this major report given out loads of changes that they would like to see with this bill.

The first thing they look is quality of teachers. They would like to move over to a new Highly Qualified Effective Teacher Status. To meet this status data is going to be collected on a teacher. Data collected includes student achievement. If they do not meet HQET status professional development begins, if they still do not meet it principals will notify parents a teacher does not meet HQET status and if a teacher can’t meet HQET status at the end of seven years they will not be able to teach in a title 1 school.

Under my plan I created a few years ago I came up with a teacher’s portfolio idea. It is a little bit like what they have.

They want principals to meet Highly Effective Principal status.

The second thing they look at is AYP goals. They want improved AYP calculations, science scores be apart of AYP scores, ELL students gets one extra year to stay in this subgroup.

The third thing they look at is Transfers and fixing struggling schools. They would like to see an expansion of school seats available at schools that meet AYP goals and would like to more federal funds set aside for title one schools.

The fourth thing they look at is standardize testing. One of the recommendations they want is to create a 12-grade standardize exam that could be used to also award college credit as well.

The fifth thing they look at is curriculum. They want a voluntary national set standard for students. That standard will get looked at compared to every state standard.

The rest of the report for me does not included anything super spectacular.

This report is really great at telling you how the NCLB works in its current form. This report contains loads of great stats in it as well.

students under the NCLB bill may get changed. Most of the special education students are subjected to the same exam as the regular students are. The article states then even the alternative exam for some special education students is still too tough.

The article is a long, but good read.

is going to hold a one day conference in March in Washington in hopes of fixing the No Child Left Behind Bill.

looks at how the No Child Left Behind Act is working in eight school districts. The school district is home to 42,000 public school students and around 22,000 private school students. From the class of 2005 26% went on to a two-year college while 68% went to a four-year college.

Things they liked about the NCLB bill were Accountability, Striving to close the achievement gap, Family connections, preparing children to achieve standards, professional development benefits, and finally addressing the overall quality of education.

Some challenges and negative things about this bill were, funding problems, performance of educators as it pertains to the “highly qualified teacher” rules of the bill, meeting year 2014 goals, overemphasis on testing, impact on curriculum, data problem, and English Language Learners just to name a few.

A couple of recommendations they give is setting aside federal money for after-school programs for low-performing schools, private schools need to give out same performance information, and base accountability only on grades 4 and 8.

I found this report to be a nice read and certainly something I would love to see more areas in the US do.