Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Posted: 10:28 AM EST (1528 GMT) at CNN
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The No Child Left Behind education law is helping more needy students, but its success is in jeopardy unless states and schools get more support themselves, a review finds.
States are redoubling efforts to help low-achieving students, match up school courses to state standards and use test data to figure out the weaknesses of struggling children, according to the most comprehensive review yet of the 2002 law, a cornerstone of President Bush's education policy.
But states and school districts say they don't have the money or staffing to improve the thousands of schools that have failed to meet progress goals and face federal penalties.
Many schools leaders also say the law's testing requirements for disabled children and limited-English learners are "unfair, unrealistic, inappropriate or instructionally meaningless," according to the annual review by the independent Center on Education Policy.
Overall, in its third year of implementation, the law is showing preliminary signs of success but also severe difficulties that must be fixed, said center president Jack Jennings.
"The law runs the risk of being good at identifying problems, but not being good at providing the help to solve those problems," Jennings said.
The Education Department is expected to announce soon some additional flexibility for states, perhaps in the area of testing special-education students. The states and the federal government continue to tussle over matters underpinning the report, such as whether Congress should amend the law, provide more money or call for different enforcement.
The report released Wednesday is based largely on surveys of education officials from 49 states and 314 school districts, plus case studies in 36 districts. Oklahoma chose not to take part, and the District of Columbia responded too late to be included, Jennings said.
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