Will We Leave Children Behind?

Diane Ravitch reported in a New York Times Op-ed on Oct 3, 2007 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E6D91031F930A35753C1A9619C8B63) that the success claims surrounding the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is overstated in general. Instead, the academic gains have been mediocre when compared to years prior to the program. She further reports that the central goal of the act requires all students to be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014, but that goal is unattainable and testing students in grades 3-8 has lead to an unhealthy obsession toward standardized testing. Moreover, the focus on those subject areas has lead to other subjects being shortchanged. Ms. Ravitch’s solution is presented in the title of her article: “Get Congress Out of the Classroom.”

So, what does this have to do with early childhood education? Well, I was surfing the net the other day and located information concerning a National Academies of Sciences project titled, “Developmental Outcomes and Assessments for Young Children.” This 20-month project (http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=48786} started in September 2006 and has the following purpose: "’review and provide guidance on appropriate outcomes and assessments for young children.’ The committee will focus on two key topics: (1) the identification of key outcomes associated with early stages of child development for children ages 0-5, and (2) the quality and purpose of different state-of-the art techniques and instruments for developmental assessments.” I suspect that this project may become a program similar to or be attached to No Child Left Behind since Congress is involved. If that is the case, then my concern is that we need to “fix” the current No Child Left Behind initiative before considering expanding it or establishing a similar program. There is also the strong possibility that I’m becoming paranoid about all of this…