By Monty Neill

With more pressing issues on its agenda and no consensus about how to proceed, Congress probably will delay the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) until after this November's elections. The outcome of those contests might create significant political shifts that would affect any new version of the widely criticized federal education law.

Many organizations that have long sought changes in the law are taking advantage of the delay to begin thinking more deeply about what alterations are necessary if the federal government is to play a positive role in improving public schools. When first considering reauthorization, soon after President Bush signed NCLB, these groups recognized that the political environment limited the extent of possible changes. Thus they developed their recommendations within the NCLB framework of standards, tests, and consequences (a framework initiated by the 1994 authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA).

Examples of this include the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, now signed by 143 national education, civil rights, religious, disability, parent, labor, and civic organizations, and the proposals by the Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA, which I chair) based on the Statement. These push for fewer but richer state assessments complemented by school-based assessments and multiple indicators of learning and teaching. They argue for establishing rational expectations to replace the impossible demand that all students score proficient by 2014, and call for conceptions of accountability that include implementing improvement processes such as high-quality professional development, not just outcome data. The groups propose a focus on assistance to replace NCLB's emphasis on sanctions. Taken together, these changes would markedly improve NCLB. But they only indirectly address whether the federal role in education should be structured primarily around standards, assessments, and consequences.

Over the past few years, public dissatisfaction with NCLB has become ever more visible, as indicated by polls and the shifting positions of politicians who originally supported the law. Meanwhile, paltry results — slowing increases in scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), for example — combined with the narrowing of curriculum and instruction make clear that major changes to NCLB are vitally necessary.

Progressive educators in particular have sharply criticized NCLB for encouraging the reduction of schooling to test prep. However, a comprehensive proposal to overhaul the federal law to meet the requirements of progressive education, civil rights, and social justice has not fully emerged. If the federal role is to be helpful and not harmful, we need such a proposal, backed by significant social sectors mobilized to win in Congress.