Graves: Changes need to be made in No Child Left Behind

Add Sixth District Congressman Sam Graves to those who think changes need to be made to No Child Left Behind.
In an interview with the Boonville Daily News, Graves said the law needs to be changed to track improvement of students from grade to grade rather than comparing the scores of one year's seventh graders to the scores posted by seventh graders during the previous years:

Graves said one major change will likely be growth tracking in school districts. Currently, a school district's performance is based on comparing test scores of grade levels from year to year. For example, this year's sixth grade test results are compared with previous years' sixth grade classes. Funding and school performance ratings are tied to these comparisons.

"That works fine in large school districts, where the law of averages comes more into play," Graves said. "But smaller rural districts, like most of the schools I represent, have more diversity and fewer students and there are peaks and valleys from year to year."

"Growth tracking will track the class from one grade to the next and see how they are progressing," Graves explained. "That is a common-sense thing that we heard from our teachers in the classrooms. That's one of the big changes we are going to see."