If you see thousands of children in West Virginia out of school this week, rest assured they are not playing hooky. In fact, it’s their teachers who are. Last week, a massive strike of almost 20,000 teachers occurred in the state, leading to widespread school closures. On Tuesday, every single public school in West Virginia was closed.
Testing requirements in No Child Left Behind are causing a "race tothe bottom" that threatens to eliminate academic transparency about student performance, denying parents, citizens, and policymakersneeded information on school performance. Congress should endfederal goals for student testing and allow states to opt out ofNCLB and reassert their policymaking authority.
Since 2004, students in the District of Columbia have had access to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP), the nation’s only federally funded school voucher program. Income-eligible children those from families earning 185 percent or less of the federal poverty level (FPL) can apply to receive a scholarship worth up to $13,287 to pay tuition at a private school of choice. The D.C. OSP has produced important outcomes for participants: significantly higher graduation rates, safer students, and more satisfied parents.
In her response to President Biden s State of the Union address, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared that she would soon unveil "the most far-reaching, bold, conservative education reform in the country."
Like previous federal education initiatives, No Child Left Behind(NCLB), which increased federal authority over schools, has failed to deliver meaning ful improvement in America's public education.NCLB's requirement for universal proficiency has created a perverseincentive for states to lower standards in order to avoid federalsanctions. Florida's experience over the past decade shows thatstate-level education reforms can deliver meaningful improvement.