No Parent Left Behind?: Law’s promises are enormous and elusive
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Achievement numbers by race, teacher qualifications, test explanations, offers to transfer students from struggling or dangerous schools — the No Child Left Behind education law requires all of it and more be provided to parents.
In Carter’s case, she found that a high percentage of black students were below grade level in reading and math. She is using the information to rally black parents and lobby Lower Merion School District leaders to do better.
More personally, she came to believe that her son was being held to lower standards than other students because he has a medical condition that affects his speech and hearing. She has demanded that those expectations be raised.
“We have to know this law, we have to understand it, and we have to use it,” Carter said. “And then, collectively, we have to go in and present the community’s issues.”
No education law has made more promises to parents. Its goal of getting all students to grade level in reading and math is itself built on this promise: Parents will get vast, timely, understandable information about schools, and use it to make the best choices for their kids.
Yet as the second full school year under the law winds down, many in education say the parental provisions are potentially powerful, but too enormous to deal with or too easy to sidestep while other aspects of the law demand attention.
As a result, many parents who stand to gain do not know what they are missing.
“Unless you really work in the field, you don’t know how desperate parents are,” said Lisa Tait of Lilburn, Ga., a leader of an education network for parents in her state. “With No Child Left Behind, and with the services being available, they should not be this desperate.”
Groups such as Tait’s are out to explain the law in churches, social service centers and Boy Scout meetings. The National PTA, which fought for the law’s parental promises, is trying to inform constituents about their rights. Many school districts are reaching out with letters and advertisements, some geared for Spanish-speaking adults.
Federal officials are campaigning, too.
The Education Department has given millions of dollars to promote school choices to parents. With help from a private foundation, the department created a Web site to make it easier for parents to get data about their schools. The department plans to highlight school districts that do a good job informing parents.
“Our hope is once districts see how this is done, they’ll have a road map to follow rather than give up and say, ‘This is too complicated, this is too burdensome to notify each and every parent,'” said Nina Rees, the deputy undersecretary who oversees school choice.
Some observers say the outreach efforts are scattershot at best.
“My impression is not only are most communities doing a miserable job of giving parents timely and clear information, but also that states are doing next to nothing about monitoring it,” said Chester Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and an assistant education secretary under President Reagan. “And the feds are only monitoring it if and when somebody complains.”
Maria Fenton had reason to complain. The Boston parent found out with three days’ notice that she had the right to transfer her son, Michael, out of his struggling elementary school. But she could not find an open spot elsewhere or get answers to her questions. Fed up, she moved her son into a private school and helped create an advocacy group for parents.
“I was thoroughly frustrated with the process, frustrated with the fact that I didn’t know what to do, and feeling kind of humiliated and embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do,” Fenton said. “I take good care of my children, so I should know how to navigate them through this mess. I couldn’t.”
School officials say they understand such concerns, but add they have valid ones of their own. The law’s parent provisions are complicated; some affect all schools, some apply only in districts or schools that get poverty aid.
The task can also be overwhelming and expensive. It can mean sending letters home about unqualified teachers or reporting about bilingual teaching methods or giving notice about invasive physical exams. The law even says state tests should result in reports on the individual academic needs of every student.
When Bruce Hunter of the American Association of School Administrators trained superintendents about the parental notifications, his list took up three full slides.
“I could just see their eyes glaze over,” he said. “It was too much.”
Enforcement will improve as school districts learn the law, get better guidance from Washington and improve their data collection, said Patty Sullivan, deputy executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. For now, Sullivan said it does not appear any state has the oversight necessary to make sure parents get all the information they should.
School leaders say the parental requirements of the law often fall behind other priorities such as getting a highly qualified teacher in all core classes or trying to figure out how a school can make enough progress to avoid an unfavorable “needs improvement” list.
But Rees said picking and choosing which provisions to follow is not a tactic the department supports. “All of the pieces are important,” she said, “and we’re going to pay attention to all of them.”
Schools Promises
The No Child Left Behind Act makes unprecedented promises to parents. Some of those provisions affect all schools. The rest apply to the 93 percent of school districts and 50 percent of schools that get Title I poverty aid.
For all schools:
—States must publish report cards showing the math and English performance of all students, breaking out results for all major racial and ethnic groups, poor students, disabled students and limited-English students. The report cards must include qualifications of teachers, including a comparison of teachers in high-poverty and low-poverty schools.
—School districts must notify parents if their child attends a “persistently dangerous” school and give parents the choice to move their child to a safer school in the district.
—States must report progress in ensuring that poor and minority students are not disproportionately assigned to teachers who are inexperienced, unqualified or out of field.
—States must, based on their tests, provide diagnostic reports for every student.
—School districts must notify parents at least annually about the timing of certain activities and give parents a chance to opt their kids out. Those activities include the collection of student information to be used for many marketing purposes and any invasive physical exam that is not considered an emergency or essential to protecting public health.
—School districts must give any parent of a secondary school student the option of requiring written consent before the student’s information is given to military recruiters.
—States that receive federal aid to help homeless children must seek to notify parents or guardians of their rights. Those include the choice of schools children are eligible to attend and a promise that homeless children are not to be stigmatized by school personnel.
Title I districts must also:
—Notify parents of their right to transfer their child if the current school has not made adequate yearly progress for two straight years. Low-income parents must be offered tutoring for their child if a school has not met progress goals for three years, and districts must help parents get information about the qualifications and services of tutors.
—Inform parents of children in Title I schools that they have the right to request information about the qualifications of their children’s teachers.
—Give parents of children with limited English skills a package of information if Title I money is spent on programs for such students. That includes details on how the child will be taught and how parents can remove the child from the program and seek other options.
Title I schools must also:
—Give parents timely, clear notice if their child has been taught for at least four straight weeks by a teacher who is not highly qualified.
—Hold meetings at convenient times for parents and give parents an explanation of the school curriculum, the tests used and the achievement levels students are expected to meet.
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On the Net:
Education Department’s parents guide: http://www.ed.gov/parents/
State report cards: http://www.schoolresults.org
National PTA: http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/parenttalk/pt—newedlaw—overview.asp