In support of our community …

Dear Editor:
On behalf of the Board of Directors for Clarendon Habitat for Humanity, we would like to extend our sincere appreciation to ArvinMeritor for their generous donation of safety equipment to help our volunteers continue to protect themselves while building homes in Clarendon County. This gift is a sure sign of ArvinMeritor’s continuing support for our community and our collective efforts to help those in need.

Sincerely,
Connie Robinson
Clarendon Habitat for Humanity
Executive Director

Keep politics out of education law

Dear Editor:
As we approach the six-year mark since passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, nearly everyone recognizes it is a badly flawed law. What is more deeply troubling is that Congress and the administration have failed to make urgently needed improvements. Allowing reauthorization to languish for another two or three years would be a disservice to our students and local communities.

Working to implement the law since its inception, school boards across the country have shown Congress the many obstacles and unintended consequences rendered by the law. Its “one size fits all” approach rigidly tied to high stakes testing is inadequate and does not provide a true picture of student and school performance. This has led to schools being unfairly labeled as failures even though they may be making important progress in helping all students achieve. Uncorrected, this misidentification of schools will only grow worse in the years ahead. This is especially true for South Carolina whose schools must achieve a much higher standard than schools in other states. A steadily rising performance bar within a flawed system will wrongfully trap more schools in a progression of increasingly severe sanctions, creating a vicious cycle that threatens to undermine public support for our schools.

School boards have recommended improvements such as common sense flexibility that defers to the judgment of local schools and educators – those closest to the issue. We need changes that more fairly and accurately assess student and school performance. And we need the law’s requirements and associated costs to be adequately funded by the federal government.

Our schools, students and educators should not be told to “wait it out” until after the 2008 presidential election when Congress can find the time to fix an unsound and under funded law. Waiting for a new administration and Congress to take action would result in the nation’s schools suffering under a broken system for another two or three school years. No one, least of all our students, will benefit from a continuation of the status quo. It is time for our leaders in Washington to deliver for our children by improving the law now.

Sincerely,
Debi Bush
President
South Carolina School Boards Association
Greenville County School Board
The South Carolina School Boards Association is a non-profit, statewide professional organization for the state’s 85 locally elected/appointed school boards and serves as a voice for public schools.