This letter to the editor by Kristine Cohn, Secretary's Regional Representative in Region V, appeared in the Fort Wayne News Sentinel (Indiana) on March 23, 2007.

Your March 6 editorial, "Leave Behind a Bad Idea," made a passionate but unconvincing argument against the No Child Left Behind Act, which you called a "dangerous illusion."

Let's look at the record. More reading progress was made by 9-year-olds in five years (1999-2004) than in the previous 28 years combined, according to the Nation's Report Card. Math scores for 9- and 13-year-olds have reached new heights. And achievement gaps in reading and math between African-American and Hispanic 9-year-olds and their white peers have narrowed to all-time lows. This progress is no illusion.

Another fallacy is the claim that NCLB does not enjoy broad support. NCLB is not a mandate; it's a voluntary partnership that states have chosen to join. All 50 states are participating, assessing students annually based on state academic standards and holding schools accountable for results. For the first time in history, each state has an accountability plan in place governing its schools and ensuring that students once left behind will be taught to the highest possible standards.

Have states received the resources to make these plans work? You bet. Low-income Hoosier students have benefited from a near-doubling of Title I funds since President Bush took office (from $132 million in 2001 to a proposed $246 million in 2008). Overall, Indiana's schools have received more than $367 million to implement NCLB's reforms.

And states now have unprecedented flexibility to target those funds where they're needed, whether for proven reading instruction, professional development, technology grants or grants for English-language learners. Fort Wayne Community Schools recently was awarded a $3 million federal grant under the Smaller Learning Communities program, which the district has used to fund homework help, tutoring and mentoring at six high schools.

But does NCLB represent a vast new expansion of federal powers? Not at all. Instead, it represented a bipartisan effort to put real teeth into existing federal law. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act sought to give minority and disadvantaged students the same educational opportunities enjoyed by their classmates. Thirty-five years later, it was clear that something was wrong.

An attitude of low expectations kept students shuffled from grade to grade, whether they were learning or not. Rising dropout rates and falling test scores were the result. The 1983 "A Nation at Risk" report warned of the need to test our students and fix our schools before we drowned in a "rising tide of mediocrity."

Today, we are turning back the tide. From 2002 to 2005, the percentage of students passing Indiana's ISTEP+ English exams increased among white, African-American, Hispanic and low-income students. In math, the progress was even greater.

President Bush has offered states showing progress new flexibilities, including modified assessments for students with disabilities, exempting recent immigrants from test-taking for a year, and allowing states to use "growth models" in their accountability plans.

No Child Left Behind is no illusion. It's a federal-state partnership we take seriously. It is working for our students. And it's here to stay.

Kristine Cohn
Secretary's Regional Representative
Region V
U.S. Department of Education