Critique and recommendations from the NEA as NCLB is considered for renewal

The NEA discusses some of the unintended consequences of NCLB such as:

• Clustering of students with disabilities in separate pull-out schools to reduce the risk of failure for regular neighborhood schools
• Special education teachers are often required to demonstrate highly-qualified status in multiple disciplines. Many states do not yet have workable regimes for making this possible
• Alternate assessments were specified by NCLB, but only 10 states currently have them in place. It is difficult create quality tests of any sort. Regular education testing has exceeded the testing industry's capacity. Alternate assessments are even further behind

This is a pretty lucid piece of argument from Patti Ralabate presented by the NEA to the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind.

Chris