No Child Left Behind—love it or hate it, it’s a law. The law specifies that children in a failing school have a right to transfer to a neighboring school district if the district they are currently assigned to is failing to meet basic standards. Students in Cape school district at Jefferson Elementary will have that choice this year, and officials have said that every transfer request will be accepted by the receiving school. The No Child Left Behind Law states that districts are required to allow parents to move in the case of a Title 1 designation or loss of accreditation.
The noteworthy part of this story is that some school districts in Missouri haven’t afforded parents and students the right to choose another district, even though it is part of the national law. St. Louis Public Schools and neighboring districts did everything they could to block students from transferring after the district lost accreditation. Unlike the Cape district, they took no action to notify parents of their options, and adjacent districts refused to accept students from St. Louis Public Schools seeking to transfer under the provision of NCLB.
What recourse do parents have when their school district refuses to comply with the law? I think the only option would be to bring a lawsuit, which is too costly and time consuming to be a reasonable recourse. St. Louis families are essentially held hostage by the district—but if parental choice was the standard in Missouri they would not be faced with this conundrum and could seek out an appropriate education.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment