By Monty Neill

The federal law that is wreaking havoc on educational quality across the nation, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is due for reauthorization by Congress in 2007. While many observers believe this will not be completed until after the 2008 presidential election, we need to begin mobilizing now to ensure that the next version of the longstanding Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is a very different law in several critical regards.

The importance of changing the law can scarcely be overemphasized. While state laws and district practices have often promoted the same harmful policies as NCLB, the federal law has made such programs more onerous, adding more testing and layers of counterproductive "accountability" mandates. And NCLB has made it harder and less likely for states or districts to implement improved assessment and genuine school improvement programs. Over-hauling NCLB should be a political priority, not only for groups working at the national level, but also for local and state individuals and organizations, many of whom have potentially powerful ways to reach out to and influence members of Congress.

To ensure that the new ESEA provides positive assistance to low-income children and their schools, three key things are necessary: a clear, widely agreed-upon vision of what the law should be; an aroused, mobilized, and organized force to support change; and an understanding of the various positions in Congress and what it will take to produce major changes in the law. Each of these points could easily be a separate article, but after short comments on the first two points, I will focus on the third.

Five principles should guide thinking about a new law.

First, the goal should be high-quality teaching and learning to benefit the whole child, not drill-and-kill to artificially inflate scores on mostly multiple-choice tests in a few subjects.

Second, a new law should focus on the capacity of schools to improve, including adequate resources, professional development, and stronger parental involvement.