Effort by Bush on Education (NCLB) Faces Obstacles in the States

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/education/18record.html

August 18, 2004
Effort by Bush on Education Faces Obstacles in the States
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

RAND RAPIDS, Mich. - At Madison Park Elementary, a high-poverty school whose students have failed to make enough progress year after year, the momentous consequences threatened in President Bush's landmark education law, No Child Left Behind, should come crashing down any month now.

At this stage of disrepair, after improvement plans and other "corrective actions" have failed to raise test scores enough, the law calls for a wholesale restructuring of Madison Park and similar public schools, the educational equivalent of a hostile takeover, with the possible elimination of principals and teachers and the installation of new management.

But Michigan has another idea.

Instead of the Bush administration's formula, Thomas D. Watkins Jr., the state superintendent, will try something less drastic: dispatching coaches to advise teachers and principals, importing new curriculums and monitoring school progress. Mr. Watkins likens state takeover of troubled schools to a dog chasing a bus. "What do you do with it once you get it?" he asked.

As events in Michigan and many other states suggest, all is not going as planned with the administration's goal. <snip>