Dive Brief:
- Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, sat down with Time Magazine to discuss coming changes for education in America, specifically with the forthcoming re-authorization of No Child Left Behind — or, as it's also known, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- The interview comes weeks after Alexander released a 400-page draft bill mapping out two different options for standardized testing — the most contentious part of the 2001 law.
- Alexander told Time that the biggest failure of NCLB is its federal accountability system, stating that letting Washington decide whether school are failing or not "just doesn’t work."
Dive Insight:
While Alexander was clear that the teacher and school accountability aspect of tests doesn't work, he is not so positive about where he stands on the tests themselves. A big deterrent for him is just how many tests students now have to take. "What I didn’t realize when we started was the large number of tests that are required by state and local governments," Alexander told Time, citing data from former Florida governor Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which shows that between eight and 200 tests are required by Florida's state and local governments — far more than the 17 required by No Child Left Behind.
Based on the interview, it sounds as though Alexander is leaning toward the idea of keeping the 17 tests of the original NCLB, but letting states decide consequences on their own. That was an idea presented to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last week by Dr. Martin West of Harvard University.