THE AGENT OF CHANGE:

How school reform is altering classrooms: A study of 'No Child Left Behind' finds better record-keeping but a lack of qualified teachers. By Gail Russell Chaddock, 7/15/04, CS Monitor)

Despite a tide of resistance in school districts all over the country, federal education reforms now in their third year are beginning to do what few such efforts ever achieve: change what goes on in American classrooms. [...]

More than 20 states have asked for relief from the new law, which has become the butt of jokes on late-night television and the leading teachers' union website. Backers say it's a sign that the new law is taking hold.

"I'm glad that there is consternation with it," says Sandy Cress, senior adviser to President Bush on education and a consultant with school districts on NCLB. "It means that people are wrestling with it. Like Job wrestling with the angel, there's good at the end of it."

Teachers in Pueblo, Colo., thought they were doing a good job educating mostly poor and Hispanic kids - until they started seeing statewide test results.

"We called it 'CSAT shock,' " says school superintendent Joyce Bales of Colorado's student assessment program. "People thought they were doing a lot better than they were."

But the poor results on the 1997 program - a precursor to the NCLB Act - spurred Pueblo schools to teach, and reteach, all students until they could read.

"I fully support No Child Left Behind," says Ms. Bales, who calls her district "the most data-driven district in the state." In a recent study of Colorado schools that "beat the odds" in educating poor students, six of the 20 were in her district.