When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, he called it “a new path of reform and a new path of results” for American public education. Many educators—nationwide and here in Oklahoma—call it a difficult path to follow.

The No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB, increased standards of accountability for schools and gave parents more say in their child’s education. The 1,000-page document focuses on student progress in reading, math, and science through testing which begins in third grade. Every child must be tested, which means that teachers are responsible for ingraining the same test information in all children in their classes, regardless of disability. Some say that is both a blessing and a serious challenge that has teachers stretched beyond their capabilities.

“We’re asking our public schools to do a lot. Logistically, it’s becoming a real problem,” said Paul Boer, executive director of Oklahoma City’s Rubicon School, which serves children with pervasive developmental disabilities, ranging from autism to Down Syndrome. “The emphasis is to mainstream kids as soon as possible. For some of our kids, that is the not the best option.”

The Least Restrictive Environment
Mainstreaming in public education dates back to 1975 and is based on providing education in the “least restrictive environment,” which translates to “the most normal environment.” Educators are asked to teach all children in the same setting, unless students are identified as needing to be “pulled out” for special education or other services.

“Every child has a right to the regular education curriculum,” said Sherri Gewin, a Putnam City Windsor Hills Elementary special education teacher with 30 years of experience. “They have done studies that [found] the ‘pull-out’ model did not work. We are not to pull [students] out of the curriculum until we’ve tried every intervention.”

Intervention starts much earlier than in the past and that’s a welcome advancement, Gewin said. Previously, learning disabilities or “exceptionalities” often would not be identified until fourth or fifth grade, when a combination of IQ testing and classroom achievement might point out a problem. Today, children are evaluated for problem areas as early as kindergarten.

Teachers alerted Daphne Summers of Norman that her son should be evaluated when he was in first grade. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder, a cousin to autism that often shows up through problems with social interaction, language, and eccentric behavior. Under old models of education,
Summers’ son might have been pulled out of class; but under NCLB, he is in the same classroom as his peers—essentially, because he must learn and be tested on the same academic content as every other student.

“Academically, he could keep up, but socially, he couldn’t,” Summers said. She worked with the school to develop an Individual Education Plan (IEP), a road map that both parents and teachers can follow to track students’ achievement and special needs. In Summers’ case, the IEP calls for her son to have an aide in the classroom, which she said has been central to his success—and that of his classmates. The aide has helped her son, now entering fourth grade, to learn to calm himself when he becomes overwhelmed. Having the aide in the classroom also means that her son’s teacher does not have to focus a majority of her time on him. “The teacher won’t be so frustrated and she’ll have more time to spend with the other children … it’s not just for my child’s sake, but for the whole classroom’s sake. Everyone wins,” Summers said.

The Bottom Line: Advocacy, Training, and Funding
The key to winning is a successful partnership between parents and teachers, according to Nancy Reder, deputy executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, or NASDSE. The IEP plays a central role, but teachers must learn to speak up when the plan needs to be reworked. “What it means is that you need to bring supports into the classroom,” she said. “That means learning new ways of teaching, like co-teaching,” such as pairing with a special educator in the classroom.

Reder said the bottom line may be teachers advocating for what they need—and in many cases, that need may be training. Part of NCLB requires that all educators become “highly qualified teachers,” but there is no stipulation for special-education training. Reder related that her own son is a teacher and has only been offered one class in special education. “That doesn’t go very far in teaching diverse learners,” she said, noting that most teachers are probably in the same predicament. “There’s a gap in general-education
teachers working with all students.”

Such gaps are leading to a great deal of frustration among teachers, said Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers, or AFT, a labor union representing 1.5 million members nationally.

“They don’t have the training, and many of them view it as a distraction,” Allen said of teachers
working with 20-plus students while trying to stay current of education trends. “We haven’t quite figured out how to blend that all together, and teachers feel as though, ‘I’m just left out here to deal with a problem I’m not equipped to handle.’ “Most of this can be overcome if the resources are there,” he said. “But we don’t get the money to do what they’re telling us to do.”

Although training for teachers, as well as accommodations and services for students, is mandated under NCLB, the act never has been fully funded. Nationwide, NCLB has faced a $40-billion funding shortfall since its implementation in 2001, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. Oklahoma’s portion of NCLB funding
was $72.2 million less than had been promised in 2005, the most recent year of data provided online by AFT.

Successes and Consequences of “No Child Left Behind”
While Reder of NASDSE and others in her field are celebrating the fact that special-needs students’ strengths and challenges truly are being reported for the first time under NCLB, some states have declared these students are driving down their scores and causing them to “fail” under NCLB standards. The consequences for failure can be dire, from sanctions on transportation funds to shutting down schools. Nonetheless, Allen says the AFT stands behind many of the goals of NCLB, which is credited with improvement in national reading and math scores. Between 2002 and 2005, NCLB data shows that Oklahoma fifth-grade reading scores increased 7% and math scores increased 13%. “We wouldn’t be doing some things in Oklahoma City without that big hammer over our heads,” Allen acknowledges.

Five years after its implementation, NCLB is up for renewal by Congress and promises to continue as a hot-button issue. While U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings maintains the act is “99.9% pure … There’s not much needed in the way of change,” families and teachers who deal directly with the successes and consequences of NCLB hope that its path of reform eventually will become much smoother.

“We are in such a transition period,” reflects special education teacher Gewin. “It’s just going to take some time.”

Anne Barajas Harp of Norman is a freelance writer and editor and the mother of two young boys.