No Child Left Behind requires schools that don't make "adequate yearly progress" two years in a row to allow students to transfer
NORTH CAROLINA - State educators are struggling to cope with part of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Under the law, some schools that don't make "adequate yearly progress" on reading or math tests two years in a row have to let students transfer. But the N.C. State Board of Education believes that should be a last resort, so they're lobbying the U.S. Department of Education for change. They'd like to see more tutoring offered as a first-choice for students.
"We think it's unfair simply to swoop in and use this as a means for making a determination about where students should go," said State Board of Education Chairman Howard Lee in an earlier interview. "Certainly, in some cases parents may not have any choice, the schools may be full. For example we don't have a problem in Wake County per se, but if we did it would be difficult to find a school."
State educators are struggling to cope with part of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
In the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, three elementary schools have not met all the standards of No Child Left Behind on math tests.
"You can miss by one student in one category and fail," explained Diane Villwock, executive director of testing and program evaluation for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system. "We do now have three elementary schools in school improvement for mathematics, and that's Carrboro, Frank Porter Graham, and McDougle elementaries. But that also means we have six elementary schools who met all their [Adequate Yearly Progress] goals in mathematics this year."
No Child Left Behind requires schools that don't make "adequate yearly progress" two years in a row to allow students to transfer, but Villwock said that's not a popular choice.
In the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, three elementary schools have not met all the standards of No Child Left Behind on math tests.
"We had only 16 families out of three schools, three schools have about 1,800 students, so it's a very small group of families that are taking advantage of the option of choice," Villwock said.
Villwock said making the change makes sense to her too. She believes switching schools may not be the answer for every student.
"My feeling about this is you need to look at your child and look at what the situation is and whether the school is meeting your child's needs or not," she said. "If a child is happy there and you're happy with the child's performance and the level of education you see, it makes sense to me to just be where you are."