Essential to this effort should be maintaining the aspects of
No Child Left Behind that have focused our schools on driving achievement for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities, while also solving its shortcomings.

- Judy Elliott, Don’t Turn Back the Clock on Our Children’s Future, LA Daily News, December 4, 2011

Overview

On October 20, 2011, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed legislation that would reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (more commonly known as No Child Left Behind). The goal of the bill was to address shortcomings since the law’s passage in 2001. Despite some improvements, the reauthorization pushed through the committee also seriously jeopardizes the law’s focus on achievement of students with disabilities and other disadvantaged students. Despite its flaws, the No Child Left Behind has required schools to focus on the learning of students with disabilities and ensure that schools are responsible for the success of all of their students.
   
The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) understands the desire to make No Child Left Behind work  for schools, teachers and students. To ensure students with disabilities remain a priority, we have urged the Senate to fix their bill by setting academic performance targets, graduation goals and a requirement to improve instruction in struggling schools. NCLD is presently working with Senate leaders to urge them to adopt these changes.

NCLD  recently sent a letter to Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan concerning the Elementary & Secondary Education Act, more commonly know as the No Child Left Behind Act, flexibility waiver. In the December letter, NCLD Executive Director Jim Wendorf highlighted many concerns with the waiver process. Read the letter and learn more about NCLD’s position on the ESEA flexibility waivers.

In response to NCLD’s letter to Secretary Duncan, Education Week reporter Nirvi Shah recently published a blog highlighting the ways in which the ESEA waiver process has left behind student disabilities.

Why We Need Your Help

The National Center for Learning Disabilities works tirelessly to represent the nation’s 2.4 million students with learning disabilities, but we rely on the help of parents, students, teachers and others to spread the word about important initiatives such as this. We encourage you to write your Senators via the link below to urge them to fix the Senate bill and also to share this page and its information via social media so that more people might learn about the issue.

1. TAKE ACTION Contact your Senator to voice your concern with the current bill.  Take action ››

2. STAY INFORMED Sign up for email newsletters to stay informed about our latest advocacy and ESEA efforts. Sign up ››

3. STAY CONNECTED Stay connected to NCLD on Facebook and Twitter and share information about ESEA with your friends.