Robert Maranto along with Rod Paige published an article, “Learning from Success,” in Education Week last Tuesday.
A decade after the No Child Left Behind Act, Maranto and Paige review how the legislation has succeeded and where it has fallen short. NCLB began a new era of accountability measures within schools, so that achievement scores are increasingly measured and analyzed.
Maranto and Paige offer four reasons to explain why some schools, however, continually fail to improve: “interests, investment, institutions, and ideology.” Whether it is educators’ mixed motives, imprudent spending, top-down ordering, or ideas that do more harm than good, NCLB still has many challenges to overcome. Yet, Maranto and Paige also find reason for hope as they see improvements in testing methods, school choice, and alternative teaching programs.
