How Are These NCLB Reports Like All The Other Reports? Lotsa Ways.

From the Ed Week column This Week in Education...

Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, This Week in Education covers education news, policymakers, and trends with a distinctly political edge...

Back in the day, there used to be a thing called a "side by side" that would compare the key provisions of different versions of legislation category by category or even sometimes provision by provision. Maybe it's still done.

In the meantime, David DeSchryver from Brustein & Manasevit has done somewhat the same thing based on seven NCLB reauthorization reports (USDE, Commission, Chiefs, NEA, AFT, NASBE, NCSL.

Common if not unanimous areas of interest and direction include: a focus on standards and cross-state comparisons, calls for more flexibility in accountability models, improved assessment quality, a better menu of sanctions and corrective action, addressing the special education system, incentives for teachers in high need schools and districts, more exemptions for ELLs, and increased funding. However, the devil is in the details...

Interestingly, he says it's the Aspen Institute Commission Report that is the real outlier in terms of size and scope (I had thought it was the USDE proposal).

This is a pretty thorough review of what people are thinking, and as the man says the devil is in the details...