Iowa Educator Calls for End to NCLB, Advocates Proven Whole Child Approach to Learning and Teaching

Washington, DC (04/22/10)—A veteran educator with more than 25 years’ experience today called for an end to the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s overemphasis on standardized tests, punitive accountability systems, and rigid mandates. Clare Struck, an elementary school guidance counselor from the Malcolm Price Laboratory School (PLS) in Cedar Falls, Iowa, traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate for a more student-centered, educator-supported, instruction-driven education system that focuses on teaching and learning and meeting the needs of each student, both in and out of school.

Struck delivered her testimony on behalf of ASCD, a nonprofit educational leadership association with more than 170,000 local educators in the United States and abroad. PLS was awarded ASCD’s inaugural Vision in Action: The Whole Child Award in 2010 for its efforts to ensure that all of its preK–12 students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

PLS, a preK through 12th grade public school with a diverse population of 369 students, is located on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). As part of UNI's College of Education, the school is a setting for clinical teacher education and research at the preK through high school levels and conducts professional development for its own faculty and for faculty at schools across the state. The state has passed legislation allowing the Iowa Department of Education and UNI to develop Iowa's first statewide research and development school at PLS.

PLS has taken a coordinated and cohesive approach to implementing whole child practices, ensuring that they connect to the school’s broader improvement and planning framework and are sustainable despite potential changes in funding and personnel. The school has also engaged a variety of stakeholders, including students and adults from within the school and university and from the local community.

A core belief of PLS is that every child can be ready for work, life, and college. PLS courses are grounded in a student-centered and inquiry-based classroom where students are engaged in interactive and project-based learning. Faculty members are well seasoned in developing and delivering differentiated learning to meet the needs of each student.

"Children who are hurting, hungry, scared, and disengaged cannot learn," Struck told the committee. "We must recognize and address these needs if we are to have any hope of educating all students to proficiency in all academic subjects. PLS joins with educators across the country in calling on policymakers to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged."

David Griffith, ASCD’s director of public policy, said that PLS’s comprehensive, coordinated whole child approach is more than a mission statement. "Over 90 percent of its graduates go on to a postsecondary program of study. Its students rank second in the state for college freshmen grades earned in the most advanced courses. When compared to high school graduates from other Iowa schools, graduates from Price Laboratory School rank among the top 10 percent for overall GPA for college freshmen courses."

Read the full text of Struck’s testimony.

Learn more about ASCD’s Vision in Action award.

Contact Information  

• David Griffith, policy director, at 1-703-575-5621 or by e-mail
• Barbara Michelman, communications director, at 1-703-575-5764 or by e-mail