Jack Jennings Quotations

One benefit of the law is that it gives schools the authority to do things they've wanted to do for a long time but couldn't.

We have to ask the question whether No Child Left Behind is slowing down progress.

If the home is not reinforcing reading, it is much more difficult to learn it in school, ... Reading scores don't just measure schools. They're also a reflection of the values societies or families put on reading.

Math achievement is going up in the United States in the long term, ... It is not, however, where kids in the United States ought to be.

Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern.

It is an interesting case. It's interesting because a judge has to consider the fact that this is a state that's suing. It's not a school district. It's not a teacher's union. It's the state of Connecticut. So that adds a lot more gravity to the lawsuit.

Right now, you're not seeing radical restructuring. States are being very cautious.

The rate of improvement was faster before the law. There's a question as to whether No Child is slowing down our progress nationwide.

Currently the country is putting high hopes on reforming education through testing. One result is that it's putting enormous strain on the testing industry. There are only six major (testing) companies, and they can only expand so fast. That's why you're seeing all these mistakes.

The president is not going to back down on No Child Left Behind. That means these testing companies are going to have to improve very quickly, which will probably mean they'll have to charge the states more.

Both the President and Congress moved in exactly the wrong direction last year by approving a cut in education, and this year aggravated the situation by approving another cut just as the demands of the law were becoming greater.

Despite what the (Bush) administration was claiming, this is an indication that No Child Left Behind may not have made much of a difference because these are the same results we saw before the law was in effect.

They're trying incremental approaches -- bringing in coaches, rethinking use of time, changing curriculum, retraining teachers.

They're trying incremental approaches - bringing in coaches, rethinking use of time, changing curriculum, retraining teachers.

In the abstract, it's a good idea that students know more about the Constitution. Civics has been squeezed out of the curriculum.

The big question is will the Bush administration be able to defuse this political opposition.

The bottom line is we should take pleasure in the fact American kids are doing better in math. Math achievement is going up in the United States in the long term. It is not, however, where kids in the United States ought to be.

The key question (for parents) is whether kids are doing better in regular school as a result of the services.

It's a race against time over whether the Bush administration will be able to administer the act more sensibly so that people do not get so angry that the act will be overthrown by court or rewritten or substantially amended by Congress.