Education Secretary Calls No Child Left Behind "Logical Next Step"
by Jim Brown
May 21, 2004
(AgapePress) - The U.S. Secretary of Education says the landmark Supreme Court case that declared the policy of segregation in the nation's public schools unconstitutional was one of the most important legal decisions in American history.Earlier this week, Secretary Rod Paige spoke at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the momentous ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, calling it "the most important piece of legislation rendered this century," he commented.
However, even though the now famous ruling provided for equal access to educational resources for every single American school child, Paige feels it has become clear that access is not enough. "What is important also is that we follow the Brown Decision with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is the logical next step," he says.
The Secretary of Education notes that, despite the 1954 high court decision, a glaring racial achievement gap still exists in the United States. However, he says President George W. Bush has made closing that gap a national priority with his education reform law. The president's 2005 budget proposal increases funding for the program to 25 billion dollars.
"The Brown decision provided access for young people -- they could now go to the classroom to have access," Paige says, "but we know now that that doesn't mean you get a quality education. What we need now is activity in the classroom, activity which is guaranteed through the No Child Left Behind Act."
Now, 50 years after the Supreme Court declared segregated schools inherently unequal, Paige says Bush's education reform law is doing the "heavy lifting" necessary to close the racial gap in learning. That legislation "assures that we have education going on in the classroom," he says.
The achievement gap between blacks and whites and between Hispanics and whites in reading and math is already narrowing in urban schools, and Secretary Paige believes this is largely thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act and the standards it prescribes.
