It's time to start watching which political groups are lining up where on the battlefield that will be NCLB reauthorization. The position of many, maybe most, organizations can be predicted. The important question is whether the groups that straddle the seams joining each parties' ideological and pragmatic wings will support or oppose the core provisions of NCLB 1.0.

In this respect, the July 13 letter from the Center for American Progress, Citizens’ Commission for Civil Rights, Education Trust, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Council of La Raza is an important indicator.  It was most likely issued in response to a sign that House Education Committee Chair George Miller may be entertaining a weakening of NCLB's AYP provisions, indicated in a memo to Congressional freshmem. (See here.)  The letter's bottom line:

We are concerned about the considerable pressure being placed on Congress to alter the Title I accountability systems by adding more ways of measuring school success..... We therefore urge you to provide for additional information in school-level report cards, but to reject the pressure to include such measures in the Title I accountability system if they would mask low achievement and deprive students and schools of resources and assistance that they genuinely need.

The full letter, dated July 13 was posted in This Week in Education on July 18.

Three of the organizations, La Raza, Ed Trust  and the Citizen's Commission belong to NCLB Works!, a broader coalition that includes the Business Coalition for Student Achievement  (itself the joint effort of the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) , The Links Incorporated  ( anational association for women of color) , and Just for the Kids, which has similar wording in one of its eight principles for reauthorization:

4. ACCOUNTABILITY. Schools and school districts must be held accountable for helping all students to reach
proficiency in math and reading by a specific date. The original goal of NCLB – 100 percent proficiency in math
and reading, based on current standards, by 2014 – should remain. While states can collect information on additional
measures, such measures must not undermine the existing accountability system.
If you read Washington's tea leaves, what does the May 18 letter say? 

At a minimum, that the "pragmatic respectable" left of the Democratic Party does not agree with their "ideologically pure" colleagues plans to gut the law. It tells us nothing about the pragmatics' views on NCLB programs like Reading First or SES, but it says the core of NCLB I has a fighting chance of surviving into NCLB, if there are enough pragmatic Republicans. And as with NCLB I, that means dropping "scholarships" (vouchers), and - your editor predicts -  very likely dropping unconditional support for SES.

It also tells us that at least some Democrats in a better position to know than you or I, think Miller may be "going wobbly" on NCLB accountability.  And that is definitely something for the school improvement industry to worry about, and lobby to prevent.