Parents told of expanded rights under No Child Left Behind
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, June 8, 2007

HAMDEN — A workshop on parents’ rights under the No Child Left Behind Act Thursday began as polite policy primer and ended on an intense emotional note as parents opened up about their struggles with schools.

More 50 people came Keefe Community Center to learn about the controversial law, which uses annual testing to determine how much students are learning in schools, and penalizes schools where student scores do not meet annual targets. The law’s expansion of parents’ rights has been largely overlooked because public debate has focused on the law’s testing requirements.

Toni Ellis, a New Haven grandmother, urged parents to soak up information about the law and get involved with their schools immediately. “If you don’t pay attention now, you know what will happen later. Your heart will break,” said Toni Ellis, who has two grandchildren in New Haven schools.

“Connecticut has the largest achievement gap between the have and the havenots in school. The purpose of this No Child Left Behind law is to close that gap. I hope this is the beginning of a revolution,” said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut State Conference of NAACP branches, one the sponsor agencies, along with the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Connecticut Appleseed and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Esdaile said parents should not underestimate the importance of testing in American society: In order to become a police officer, lawyer, doctor, accountant, applicants first need to pass tests. “If we can’t pass tests, our people are at a disadvantage,” he said.

The committee ran a slide show breaking down the complicated No Child Left Behind Act into its basic parts and pointed out the special rights it assigns to parents. The law requires schools to adopt a quality curriculum, test students frequently, and provide special services to students and parents.

Parents can get free tutoring for a child in a consistently low performing school, or the right to transfer children out of failing schools if those schools have repeatedly failed to meet federal targets. Parents also learned that federal law gives them the right to get detailed data about academic performance in a school broken out by subgroups such as black, Hispanic, disabled, English language learners and economically disadvantaged. The data helps parents see school progress on closing the achievement gap. Finally, NCLB gives parents the right to have a voice in school improvement plans for failing schools.

“This law says that, at the end of the day, schools are responsible for making sure students succeed,” said Alex Johnston, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now.