EDITORIAL: Stepping forward into reality

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July 10, 2012

EDITORIAL: Stepping forward into reality

The Cullman Times The Cullman Times Tue Jul 10, 2012, 09:44 AM CDT

CULLMAN — Alabama is stepping away from the once highly touted No Child Left Behind public education initiative.

State school superintendents are not sad to see Alabama gain this waiver. Like most of federal initiatives, the George W. Bush-inspired No Child came without resources to support its demands.

As of today, 26 states have been granted a waiver from the federal plan. The future likely means that No Child Left Behind will be left behind.

One of the key components in No Child was a demand that students — 100 percent of students — read and do math at grade level by 2014. Alabama was far from attaining such a lofty goal. So are most states.

No Child was not developed with evil intent toward the states and public education. In fact, former President Bush and the bipartisan crowd in Congress that supported the measure wanted public education to progress to a higher level of achievement and standards. Depending on where you look, that is happening. But reality shows that not every community can be measured so quickly and so sternly. Educators at the local level of school districts understand clearly that a successful education program is measured in increments, a big push up in one area and a smaller improvement in another.

Overcoming the issues that cause students to lag behind in certain areas of education can be attributed to wide range of problems. A tradition of low achievement among parents, troubled home life, and underfunding of local school districts are just a few of the hurdles in public education.

But one point that the federal government has failed to take into consideration is that states and local school districts are capable of crafting successful plans for students, provided they have adequate funding and less interference from the bureaucratic towers of the nation’s capital.

American students overall need to perform better in reading and math, and probably a lot of other areas such as history, English, science, writing and geography. Addressing those needs should start and end at the local level. Public education should be crafted to meet a wide range of needs and capabilities. Unfunded mandates and idealistic blueprints from the federal level don’t work without a clear understanding of reality at the local level.

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