As leaders and individuals with decades of experience in improving public education at all levels, the Conveners of The Forum for Education and Democracy have viewed the debates over the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as offering the opportunity to finally get it right. The Forum asserts that, after a decade of tinkering around the edges and avoiding the hard questions, the “No Child Left Behind” version of ESEA did little to improve schools. In fact, they posit, our schools look much like they did when the act was passed – and many think that the attempts to implement NCLB have hindered school improvement efforts going on prior to its passage.

Inspiration, hunger: these are the qualities that drive good schools. The best we educational planners can do is to create the most likely conditions for them to flourish, and then get out of their way.
– Ted Sizer

Read the report: http://www.forumforeducation.org/files/u48/FED_Short_Paper_on_ESEA.pdf