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The Campaign for High School Equity, the only coalition of leading civil rights groups to focus on high school education reform, today sent an urgent message to Congress: An improved version of The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) must be reauthorized in 2008 or the U.S. will fail the 1.2 million students who do not graduate from high school each year, the majority of whom are students of color. The Campaign emphasized the steps required by Congress to strengthen and improve NCLB legislation, including implementing meaningful federal accountability for high schools and investing in turning around low-performing high schools.

The Campaign introduced accountability for graduation as a strategy for raising the bar in high schools nationwide and improving the opportunity for equal education among underserved students. Campaign members further cited high schools with the lowest achievement as those most likely to serve minority students, increasing the urgency for federal policy that would accelerate high school reform.

Presenting on behalf of the Campaign were Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Peter Zamora, Washington, D.C., regional counsel of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Bethany Little, Vice President for Federal Advocacy and Policy Development at the Alliance for Excellent Education.

“This Congress must build on the successes of NCLB and learn from its shortcomings; anything less will amount to rolling back the clock on the civil rights reformation,” said Henderson. 

The Campaign called on Congress to enact a strong system for accountability and support in high schools in the reauthorization of NCLB that would include:

• - development of state longitudinal data systems with unique student identifiers that would align student data with teacher data and school performance and resource data; and
• - a definition of graduation rates according to a common standard and use of longitudinal data systems and individual student identifiers to follow every child’s path to graduation; and
• - development of an NCLB accountability system that requires schools to increase their disaggregated graduation rates over time and consider graduation rates on an equal footing with high-quality assessments aligned to college and work-readiness in determining school quality; and
• - providing states and districts with incentives to foster more effective data-driven decisionmaking and professional development in the use of data to improve policy and practice for state and district officials, school leaders, teachers, and parents; and
• - producing public reports of disaggregated racial and ethnic data to highlight subgroups of students (e.g., Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, newly-arrived immigrant students, and former limited English proficient students); and
• - investment in technical assistance and evidence-based school improvement tools to provide states, districts, and communities with resources to improve low-performing high schools; and
• - use of high-quality, valid, and accurate assessments for all students (including appropriate use of accommodations when needed and use of alternative assessments which may include native language assessments and simplified English assessments when English Language Learner students have not yet met the threshold for taking standard English-language assessments); and
• - dissemination of high school data and other information through media and other information distribution vehicles specifically serving communities of color.

For more information about strengthening NCLB to better serve students of color, visit the Campaign’s website at: www.highschoolequity.org

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AGENDA

I. Welcome and Opening Remarks

Michael Wotorson, Director of Community Partnerships, Alliance for Excellent Education

Video

II. Historical Overview of Accountability and Equity for Students of Color

Wade Henderson, President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Video

III. NCLB as a Tool for Accountability and Equity for Students of Color

Peter Zamora, Regional Counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Video

IV. Addressing the Needs of High School Students in NCLB Reauthorization

Bethany Little, Vice President of Federal Advocacy and Policy Development, Alliance for Excellent Education

Video

Download Charts presented at Briefing (pdf)

V. Press/Audience Q&A

Michael Wotorson, Director of Community Partnerships, Alliance for Excellent Education (moderator)

Video

VI. Closing Remarks

Michael Wotorson, Director of Community Partnerships, Alliance for Excellent Education

Video

Download Background Information on the Campaign for High School Equity pdf)

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