No improvement from NCLB

Re: “Impact of NCLB position,” Letters, March 18

There is one embarrassing fact left out of Christopher
Wright’s defense of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): There
is no evidence that it has worked. The President and
the Secretary of Education continue to insist that
reading scores have gone up, but research says
otherwise: Reports from Harvard and Berkeley both
conclude that there has been no improvement on
national tests of reading since NCLB was passed, and,
also contrary to pronouncements from the government,
the achievement gap between high- and low-income
students remains the same as it was before NCLB.

Mr. Wright claims that the impact of NCLB has been a
positive one, but the only ones who appear to have
profited are the companies that develop and sell the
tests.

Stephen Krashen