Dismissing a legal challenge to the federal No Child Left Behind law as a “red herring,” Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings championed the growth of charter schools in The Bronx yesterday.
Eight school districts in three states and the nation’s largest teachers union recently sued, arguing that the states do not receive enough federal money to meet the law’s requirements.
The law mandates that schools getting federal aid raise student performance on standardized test scores or face closure.
“This money concern is a red herring,” said Spellings, citing increases in education aid and various studies that have found the law to be appropriately funded.
Spellings spoke at KIPP Academy in the South Bronx, where she kicked off National Charter Schools Week with Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
“The president wants to see more KIPPs,” Spellings said, noting the fifth-through-eighth-grade school’s high percentage of students who have met the state’s standards.
That 90 percent of KIPP students go on to private high schools, Bloomberg said, means the city must do a better job of promoting its good public high schools and of improving its less desirable ones.