So, is NCLB really impossible?

We’ve gotten a belly full of excuses and complaints from educators over the past few days about how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is terrible and schools and school districts that have finally had to face some accountability are being treated unfairly. These whiny educators claim NCLB sets impossible goals.

Well, maybe not. Maybe, not even if you get identified as a low-achieving school.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s News Release 10-065 has some interesting information that undermines the whining from the ‘Educators in Denial Club.’ You see, two schools on the first Persistently Low-Achieving Schools listing last year have pulled up their performance and actually made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2010.

Here is a table from the news release that shows this interesting information. Check out the entries in the far right column for the Leslie County and Metcalfe County High Schools.


Both Leslie County High and the Metcalfe County High made double-digit improvements in proficiency rates between 2009 and 2010, enough to allow them to meet the 2010 NCLB targets.



Of course, not all schools did as well. Three, of which two are in Jefferson County (home of a dean of the Educators in Denial Club), actually suffered a decline in student proficiency in 2010 after they were identified as low performers for their 2009 math and reading performance.

Some will argue the identification as low-achievers didn’t come until fairly late in the 2009-2010 school year, which is true, but the administrators and teachers in those schools would have to be blind not to know they had serious problems even before the Persistently Low-Achieving School designations came along. Or, maybe they were to busy hanging out at the Educators in Denial Club, to notice.

Anyway, Leslie County and Metcalfe County show that getting out of NCLB trouble, even as a low-performing school, may not be impossible after all. It looks like the teachers in those schools stopped wasting time on denials and started getting down to helping kids.

Congratulations to both schools.

Now, please tell the rest of the schools how you did it, if you can get them to stop denying their poor performance long enough to listen.