NCLB Petition Grows

Fall 2004

	illustration: David McLimans

FairTest, a Cambridge-based activist organization, has gathered nearly 1,000 signatures on an online petition calling for an overhaul of the federal No Child Left Behind act (NCLB).

"FairTest plans to use the petition to help show the extent of resistance to No Child Left Behind, and we will be able to contact most signers with information about the efforts to overhaul the law," explained FairTest Executive Director Monty Neill.

The following petition can be accessed at Fairtest's website (www.fairtest.org):

Support Quality Education by Signing This Petition to Overhaul No Child Left Behind

FairTest will use the following petition in public education efforts and to influence policymakers:

Every child in our country needs and deserves a high-quality education. The federal "No Child Left Behind" law, while proclaiming this goal, is in fact doing the opposite. NCLB is leaving millions of young people behind, disrupting school districts, undermining the democratic oversight of our children's education, and setting back the quality of public education.

• Reduce reliance on standardized, one-size-fits-all testing as the principal measure of student and school progress. Do not make decisions based only on test scores. Promote authentic assessments for students and schools including multiple ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge, primarily on the basis of their daily classroom work.

• Implement a high-quality accountability system that will help schools improve and fully address achievement gaps.
  

• Replace the rigid and unrealistic "Adequate Yearly Progress" rules which will label most schools in the country as failures, even those that are high-achieving or steadily improving, and subject them to severe and unhelpful sanctions.

• Prevent privatization of public education through vouchers.

• Fully fund our public schools at the level necessary to provide an excellent education for all our children.

Fall 2004