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'help to focus our schools on quality staff development AND the processes we support -- data-driven decision making, improving teacher knowledge and skills, leadership development, monitoring and reflection (Mizell, 2003.)'

 

While Task Force members are hopeful about the impact of the NCLB, they are also thinking about how states and school systems will respond to the law. Some believe that some of these school systems and schools will not be able to meet the deadline. This idea presented the states and school systems with a great opportunity to demonstrate creative leadership (Mizell, 2003.) States and school systems will then need to use some strategies that will result in teachers whose practice, as well as credentials, demonstrate they are highly qualified.

 

Schools can choose to embrace the challenge of NCLB. There are other opportunities to use the NCLB creatively. School systems do not have to merely go through the motions of disaggregating student achievement data (Mizell, 2003.) Some fear that the School systems will just duck their heads and hope that neither the state nor the federal government will expect them to take seriously the NCLB's definition of professional development.

 

The Bush administration has deployed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, a former White House aide close to the president, to quell the grassroots revolt (Antel, 2005.) School districts in the state will now have to have 45 special-education students in order for the federal government to monitor them as a subgroup under the law; last year it was just 40. This means that state resistance may elicit greater federal flexibility, but not seriously jeopardize NCLB. Marie Gryphon, an education policy analyst for the Cato Institute, worries “that the state rebellion against NCLB will end with a whimper, not a bang (Antel, 2005.)”

 

Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, points out that state legislation opting out of NCLB is still largely symbolic. According to Education-policy experts, being able to preserve accountability but still offer flexibility is a major issue at hand (Antel, 2005.)

 

Although the Act mandates annual testing for all states by 2005-2006, it does not provide federal standards for testing practices, which means that each state can test in their own way. Some states test reading and math every year. Others test those subjects every three or four years, and others test a variety of subjects in a variety of grades (Wenning, 2003.)

 

Whether or not states use norm referenced or criterion referenced tests is one major difference between the testing practices. Norm-referenced tests assess a student’s broad knowledge, measuring performance against a relevant comparison group (Wenning, 2003.) When and what subjects are tested is an example of the flexibility states have. By 2005-2006, states must annually measure stude本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。