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The board voted 6-0 during their regular meeting Monday night in favor of a resolution to support legislation that will revamp the federal law signed by George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002. Secretary Amy DeLoof was absent.

"I agree with the majority of it," Trustee John Brzozowski said. "It's the right step to take overall."

Known as the NCLB, the law re-authorized numerous federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools. This was done by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts, and schools. It also gave more flexibility to parents in choosing which schools their children will attend.

However there have been various concerns regarding the effectiveness of the act including the White House's failure to fund the program, limitations on local control, and state budgets not having the funds set aside for NCLB.

In January, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) re-introduced legislation to strengthen accountability for improving the academic performance for the children. Calling it the NCLB Improvements Act of 2007, H.R. 648 offers more than 40 provisions to the original law.

"While not all 42 will possibly impact Almont schools, it will have a positive impact on schools in general," Superintendent Steve Zott said.

The Improvements Act goes through a variety of categories from measuring adequate yearly progress (AYP), goals for AYP, participation rates in tests, and much more.

Some of the provisions and rationale behind them include:

n In calculating AYP, students identified in more than one group may be represented in the count for each group as an equal fraction totaling one student. The change would force larger schools to not over-represent their count and not adversely affect schools with greater diversity.

n The 95% test participation requirement may be adjusted to a range of 90% to 95%. The current percentage could cause small schools to miss the AYP because a few students did not take the test.

n Students determined to have "unusual patterns of attendance" as defined by the state education agency may be exempt from the calculation to determine participation rate and referenced in the local school district accountability plan. Some communities have students with very poor attendance but are still encouraged to remain in school rather than drop out. Schools would have to show they are encouraging these students to remain in school.

"Some of these seem like no brainers, and some could raise an issue," Zott said. "By taking an action, we acknowledge that it can be improved by adopting House Bill 648.

The district is encouraging Congresswoman Candice Miller to co-sponsor H.R. 648, send copies of the bill to members of the Michigan Congressional Delegation, and mail letters out to state representatives and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Jeff Hoard can be reached at (810) 664-0811, Ext. 8127 or jeff.hoard@lapeergroup.com.

We have a mug of Zott on file.