This letter to the editor by the Secretary's Regional Representative Cohn appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer on February 27, 2007.

In 1965, President Johnson signed into law the first federal aid program for high-poverty school districts. It lacked one core ingredient, however: accountability. A year later, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy asked, "What happened to the children? Do you mean you spent a billion dollars and you don't know whether they can read or not?"

The No Child Left Behind Act is America's answer to that question. In five years, it has committed unprecedented new resources to public education in exchange for true accountability for results. It has given schools a reliable yardstick to measure students' progress in learning fundamental reading and math skills so that they can succeed in school and in life.

In his "Your voice" commentary of Feb. 9 ("Education must be about much more than test scores"), Timothy Leonard takes issue with accountability, saying the law must now shift its focus to helping teachers. I agree with the sentiment conveyed by the headline. But left unsaid by Leonard's piece is how student assessments help teachers.

An earlier Enquirer article nicely illustrated this point. In May 2005, the newspaper spotlighted the successes of Reading Central Community Elementary School, named an Ohio School of Promise for its success in closing the achievement gaps between students of different races, ethnicities or income levels. Principal Connie Garafalo "recalled decades ago when teachers went only by their gut instincts that a student wasn't learning," The Enquirer reported. "Show me on paper," she said. "We've got teachers now making graphs, graphing students, progress monitoring. It's awesome to see."

It's also awesome to see the progress that our students have made under the law. According to the Nation's Report Card, more reading progress was made by 9-year-olds in five years (1999-2004) than in the previous 28 years combined. Math scores have reached new heights. And achievement gaps between young African-American and Hispanic students and their white peers have narrowed significantly, in many cases to record lows. In Ohio, fourth-graders improved their reading proficiency by 21 percentage points between 2002 and 2005, according to the Ohio Report Card.

With No Child Left Behind, our nation made a commitment to have every single child reading and doing math on grade level by 2014. To achieve this goal, NCLB called on states to set standards, measure annual progress, and publish clear and accurate data on how all categories of students are performing, so that teachers can identify problem areas and help students solve them before it's too late.

Teachers have a very important job to do. Helping them do it even better is a hallmark of the president's 2008 education budget. It contains a Teacher Incentive Fund to enable select school districts to reward good teachers who work in challenging environments or who show real results in raising achievement levels or closing the achievement gap. This year Ohio will receive more than $5 million in federal funds for its own Teacher Incentive Fund.

The president's budget also provides new tools and training to strengthen math instruction and to reach older students who are struggling to read. Finally, it funds an Adjunct Teacher Corps to encourage talented professionals from the math and science fields to share their knowledge in the classroom. Overall federal education funding for Ohio will have risen 58 percent since the President took office.

Leonard is absolutely right that supporting our teachers is one of the best ways to help our students. Quality teaching is the key to academic achievement. With this support, we can and will ensure that every student succeeds in Ohio and across the nation.

Kristine Cohn
Secretary's Regional Representative
Region V (Chicago)