Future of NCLB
The Obama administration has made it clear that they will change NCLB to do away with some of the problems. Current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, reports that the first thing that will be changed is the name because of all the negatives now associated with "No Child Left Behind". Throughout President Obama's campaign during the election of 2008 he described the need for parents to be more involved in the education their children recieve, and this will undoubtly be reflected in the NCLB update. Duncan mentions that it is possible that legislation will be necessary in order to create community support that will be available to students whose parents are unable to take an active role in their education (for reasons such as working hours that prevent them from being around while their children are doing homework). According to Duncan the system will be changed so that standards will be nationwide rather than statewide, and these standards will be up to the caliber of what would be necessary in order for students to attend college.
Duncan feels that the support for teachers needs to change. Under the current provisions of NCLB an entire staff can be fired if a school is deemed "requiring corrective action". A better system would be to reward the best teachers and do what is necessary to ensure that they maintain their current position and offer support to teachers who are not doing their job well enough. Of course, there are some teachers who would not be able to improve enough and would have to be removed from their positions. Making this possible will require changes to the tenure system currently in place in many districts, which in most cases means that after three years on the job teachers cannot be fired (as they are protected by the union).
On September 23, 2011, President Obama announced the beginning round of changes that are being made to No Child Left Behind. This means that states can see waivers of the pieces of the law that are most unrealistic while a new law is being reworked and put into place. One such provision is the requirement that by 2014 one hundred percent of students meet the test at grade level in math and language arts. Considering that in 2009 31,737 of the 98,916 schools involved did not meet AYP, this was definitely a necessary change.
Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education