Payday for NCLB?

NCLB has entered its fifth year, the year that its draconian sanctions are scheduled to take effect.

But almost all of the schools serving poor children in the nation's largest cities are still failing.

The schools are now scheduled for closure or other drastic remedies. But nothing seems to be happening.

So far, education experts say they are unaware of a single state that has taken over a failing school in response to the law. Instead, most allow school districts to seek other ways to improve.

“When you have a state like California with so many schools up for restructuring,” said Heinrich Mintrop, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “that taxes the capacity of the whole school change industry.”


As a result, the law is branding numerous schools as failing, but not producing radical change — leaving angry parents demanding redress. California citizens’ groups have sued the state and federal government for failing to deliver on the law’s promises.

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