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Stumble It!WASHINGTON—States need more flexibility under the federal No Child Left Behind law to find ways to improve education, Billy Cannaday, Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction, told a House panel Monday.
“We must ensure that we are getting the law right by avoiding the notion that a single formula for success can be codified in federal law for every local and state context,” he said.
Cannaday was one of 44 education leaders testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee as it moves to reauthorize the No Child law.
Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., is pushing to have a bill ready for House debate by the end of this month.
Top on Cannaday’s list of issues that need more flexibility is how best to include children who don’t speak English in state accountability systems. Several Virginia school districts—and Cannaday himself—have challenged the current law for requiring that non-English speakers take high-stakes tests in English before they are competent in the language.
Cannaday said he does not argue with the need for high standards, just on the way to achieve them.
Without more flexibility, he said, states and local school districts “might spend years” trying to comply with federal regulations “that may make sense in some contexts and fail miserably in others.”
(Contact gklein@mediageneral.com)
