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NCLR Reacts to Proposal to Waive Requirements Under the No Child Left Behind

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Julian Teixeira
(202) 776-1812
jteixeira@nclr.org
 

STATEMENT FROM NCLR PRESIDENT AND CEO JANET MURGUÍA ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S PROPOSAL TO WAIVE REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT

Washington, D.C.—Today, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan took a bold step to reform our nation’s public schools by offering states the opportunity to improve their education systems in exchange for relief from complying with provisions of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The proposal would put responsibility for achieving the goals of NCLB—to improve teacher quality, close achievement gaps, and ensure that every single child in America is afforded a quality education—squarely on the states. It is now up to states, policymakers, and advocates who called for relief from NCLB’s requirements to work with the administration to ensure that this results in education reform and improvement.

NCLB was enacted in 2002, laying out ambitious but necessary goals for preparing our nation’s schoolchildren for college and careers. The law acknowledged that the United States provided a low-quality educational experience to children who were poor, minority, English language learners, or disabled. NCLB recognized that the education system was unjust and unsustainable, especially considering the increasingly diverse student population and the evolving workplace, which required a more educated labor force. Since then, many teachers, principals, and education officials have worked diligently to put in place the elements needed to meet the law’s objectives. At the same time, many states have struggled to implement NCLB and have called for significant changes to the law. Today the Obama administration has opened the door for states to prove that they have a better plan to provide every student in every school with an education that prepares him or her for college and the 21st-century labor market.

At NCLR (National Council of La Raza), we are pleased that the administration’s waivers plan would continue to hold schools accountable for closing achievement gaps. We are also pleased that the waivers plan would not let any schools off the hook. We look forward to working with the administration to ensure that the process is transparent and includes a strong peer review process, as well as ongoing monitoring. In addition, we are encouraged by the administration’s commitment to enforcing civil rights laws and expect that commitment to continue.

The waivers package could set in motion a set of policies that define the federal role in education moving forward. NCLR and the Hispanic community will be watching closely to ensure that the waivers are implemented with an eye toward the well-being of all students, particularly those whom NCLB was designed to help the most.
 


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