No Child Left Behind and West Haven

There have been a number of articles on 'No child left behind' (NCLB) recently in the news. In today's New Haven Register article "'No Child' results improve in state", it is mentioned that 40 of the states 179 high schools failed to meet the standards set forth in NCLB, and that 38 of them did so for the second year in a row. West Haven High School is one of them, and has now been labeled as "in need of improvement".

To meet the standards:

• 69 % must be proficient in math
• 72 % must be proficient in reading
• 70 % of the 2002 freshman were required to graduate
• 95 % of sophomores had to participate in the CAPT test
  

According to the article "That designation gives parents the right to seek special tutoring for their children or request transfers to better-performing schools."

I believe I've mentioned before that I have a problem with an unfunded mandate... and given the fiscal crisis here in West Haven, that's even more of a problem.

Yesterday's New Haven Register article "State says 'No Child' suit still on" discussed Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's attempt to challenge NCLB. Connecticut, the first state in the US to challenge the law, claims " the law was unconstitutional, an unfunded federal mandate costing more than the state received in federal reimbursement."

While the judge in the case dismissed 3 of 4 claims in the case citing that "State officials can’t challenge the constitutionality of the law until they have exhausted the U.S. Department of Education’s administrative appeals", he didn't shut down the lawsuit entirely.

However this part of the article is worrisome, to me:

"In effect the court has said we must disobey and violate the statute in order to challenge the interpretation of the secretary," Blumenthal said.

To me, this sounds like the children will be the losers in this battle... and as West Haven High School has failed twice, that we're going to be one of the examples...