Can No Child Left Behind be fixed?  That is the question that noted Harvard education expert Richard Elmore will pose to his audience on Thursday, February 23rd from 3:00 -- 5:00 p.m. at Teachers College, Columbia University.  A large contingent of New York City public school teachers will attend the event which will include an open discussion session.

Elmore argues that the problems of NCLB, the federal law which was passed in 2001, lie both in its design and the politics of federal policymaking. "The federal government has over-extended its reach in NCLB by adopting a theory of intergovernmental relations that it cannot possibly adhere to in the long run," says Elmore, who will discuss the consequences of these flaws for state, local, and school-level efforts to hold all students accountable for meeting NCLB's stringent performance standards. "There is no way the federal government can oversee and regulate the accountability systems of 50 states and more than 16,000 local jurisdictions without reducing them to a caricature of what they were originally designed to do," Elmore argues. He further points out the inherent contradiction in an administration that advocates for less government interference and states rights exerting unprecedented control over education at the state and local level.

Richard F. Elmore is a Professor of Education at Harvard University. He is a Senior Research Fellow with Harvard's Consortium for Policy Research in Education and co-director of a Consortium research project on school accountability.  In addition, he is co-principal investigator of a multi-year study of instructional improvement and professional development in New York City.  A prolific scholar, Professor Elmore's most recent book is School Reform from the Inside Out: Policy, Practice, and Performance. (Harvard Education Press, 2004).

This event is co-sponsored by Teachers College's Office of Policy and Research and the Campaign for Educational Equity.  It is one in a series of events that will focus on the upcoming reauthorization of NCLB.  This February 23rd lecture will be held in room 179 Grace Dodge Hall at Teachers College, 525 West 120th Street from 3:00-5:00 p.m.  The event is free and open to the public.

Published Friday, Mar. 10, 2006