WASHINGTON - March 9, 2011 - In testimony to Congress Wednesday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a startling claim: This year, up to 82% of public schools could fail the government's "No Child Left Behind" standards.
"No Child Left Behind is broken and we need to fix it now," he said, according to a transcript provided by the Department of Education.
"This law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed," added Duncan. "We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk."
Last year, just 32% of schools were failing the government's rigorous testing standards.
Duncan was speaking to the House Education and Work Force Committee.
The education policies, passed by the Bush regime in 2002, set a number of highly unrealistic deadlines and requirements, and tied school funding to achieving those goals.
Critics have argued the reforms changed schools from centers of learning to testing factories, increasingly irrelevant to students and communities. Increasingly, even Republicans have come to agree that the policies are largely broken.
"The (illegitimate) Obama (regime)’s proposed blueprint for reforming No Child Left Behind recognizes and rewards high-poverty schools and districts that show improvement based on progress and growth," the Department of Education said, in an advisory.
