Last week, Education Secretary Rod Paige warned state officials not to attempt to skirt the intent of "No Child Left Behind" by lowering standards or redefining proficiency to ease the impact of the law's accountability provisions. In a forceful letter designed to shame readers into putting forth their best efforts to improve, Paige labeled educators who fiddle with statistics and semantics to hide schools' poor performance "enemies of equal justice and equal opportunity." But the note wasn't all brickbats. The Education Secretary also lauded educators' courage as they "confront the evidence and do something about" underperformance, noting that NCLB labels troubled schools places "in need of improvement," not failures. Paige's letter can be found at http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/10-2002/10232002a.html. Also see "States Get Federal Warning on School Standards," by Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times, October 24, 2002, and "Schools may lower standards to stay off federal watch list," by Adam Emerson, Lansing State Journal, October 24, 2002.
