[I hope this post about the changes to No Child Left Behind proposed by Congress proves interesting. It was originally posted on Edwize and written by Edwize blogger Maisie.]

Lest you think that the debate over reauthorizing No Child Left Behind is hard-to-follow/wonkish/a tempest-in-a-teapot or anything like that, note that Jonathan Kozol today entered his 76th day of a partial hunger strike over NCLB.

In protest over that law, Kozol, the widely-published, passionate advocate of educational equality, has taken himself into the realm of serious danger.

He's sick of NCLB. Mandating math and reading tests and punishing schools and students who do not meet their targets is "turning thousands of inner-city schools into Dickensian test-preparation factories," Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page quoted Kozol as saying. It has "dumbed down" school for poor, urban kids and created "a parallel curriculum that would be rejected out-of-hand" in the suburbs.

Kozol, in his clever way goading legislators on the race and class issues that underlie the debate, would have NCLB changed to permit students in low-performing inner city districts to transfer to schools in the suburbs. See how that plays in Great Neck or Larchmont.

Then there is this dangerous "teacher equalization" effort in the proposed reauthorization bill, which would attempt to force teachers to move to low-performing schools by shifting money around. As Kate Walsh wrote in the Education Gadfly last week, this will probably come down hardest on poor schools and districts:

Congress won't dare tell states to take highly qualified teachers from the more-affluent districts and reassigning them to the city. Instead, they're going after the handful of schools in these urban districts that are still able to attract middle class families, in no small part on the basis of their teachers' quality.

Even in the "wealthiest" schools in urban areas like ours, or Philadelphia's or Baltimore's or Detroit's where half or more of students are poor, this shuffling of teachers will have pernicious effects, she writes.

If teachers are shuffled from rather poor to very poor schools--nonsensical, illogical moves that will create anger and bitterness--what is the likelihood that any middle-class families will remain?

It doesn't take a historian or a sociologist to recognize that the loss of the middle class in urban school districts has worsened the education of poor children. And it remains unclear how the "equitable distribution" of teachers within such districts is going to help them. More often than not, it will be the teacher who works in a school with a 60 percent poverty rate who must be moved to a school with a 90 percent poverty rate. Poor is poor, and doing the teacher shuffle isn't going to stack up in kids' favor.

Finally, the proposal on the table, the Miller-McKeon proposal to reauthorize and revamp NCLB, would introduce performance pay for teachers, inserting the giant federal nose into what should be a local discussion--each district's negotiated teacher pay plans. It would also offer teacher bonuses based on student test scores. AFT and NEA are fighting this provision but it has powerful supporters.

So it's not just an inside-the-Beltway kind of thing going on. NCLB's reauthorization is drawing blood. To draw a little blood yourself, use this handy link right here.

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