Barack Obama and John McCain haven’t said what they’d do about No Child Left Behind. Fordham’s Mike Petrilli has specific ideas.

Right now, NCLB micromanages the formula and timelines by which schools are labeled and sanctioned, yet it allows states total discretion over the academic standards and tests used to judge schools (and kids) in the first place. These should be flipped. Provide incentives for states to sign up for rigorous nationwide (not federal) standards and tests. Make the results of this testing publicly available, sliced every which way by school and group. But then allow states and districts (or private entities, such as GreatSchools.net) to devise their own school labels and ratings – and let them decide what to do with schools that need help.

Richard Kahlenberg of Century Foundation and co-authors offer other ideas for strengthening NCLB.

Update: Eduwonk jumps in to the debate, arguing that NCLB has done a good job of identifying schools that need to improve.

To keep up with the $37 million school/palace down the road, the Fayetteville, Arkansas school board wants to replace Fayetteville High with a “21st century” building.

Buildings Don’t Teach Kids, People Do, writes Jay Greene, who will end up paying taxes for the new building.

We should invest much more in ensuring that we attract, retain, and motivate the best people as teachers rather than in “21st Century” facilities (whatever that blather means). The systematic evidence overwhelmingly shows that the quality of school facilities in the United States has no relationship to student achievement, while the quality of teachers is very strongly related.

Fayetteville may spend twice as much as the $93 per square foot that rival Har-Ber High cost, Greene writes. Why should it cost so much to build a school?

Meanwhile, Third World kids are learning in open-air shacks — and paying for the privilege.

Students in some U.S. cities match international students in math, concludes an American Institutes for Research study which uses NAEP and TIMSS scores. From USA Today:

Fourth- and eighth-grade students in six U.S. cities — Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Houston, New York City and San Diego — actually hold their own against international competitors from Singapore, Japan, England and elsewhere.

But international students in many nations outperform students in five other U.S. cities: Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The AIR study also found that U.S. math achievement declines in middle school, while students in Asian countries continue to excel.

Worried that high drop-out rates are hurting their cities’ economies, urban mayors are begging teens to go back to high school, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Mayors in Houston and other Texas cities go door to door to the homes of dropouts, encouraging them to return to school. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin meets on weekends with students and helps them with life planning.

Only about 70 percent of students earn a high school diploma in four years, estimates America’s Promise Alliance. In big cities, about half earn a diploma in four years. Detroit public schools have the worst rate: One student in four graduates on time.

Students often are lost long before high school. They stop trying, stop caring, stop showing up.

San Diego’s superintendent wants to keep low achievers in school by promoting a basic-skills diploma, while adding an honors diploma for students who pass multiple AP courses. Many California districts have raised graduation requirements above the state minimum, pushing students to take the college-prep courses required by the state university systems. From Voices of San Diego:

Offering multiple diplomas also raises worries that schools could prematurely push students onto different paths, deciding who is bound for college and who will scrape by with the minimum to graduate. It is a problem that has surfaced in classes for San Diego Unified students with disabilities, who have the option of a certificate that falls short of a diploma. Teens such as Gladney say that problem already exists, with or without more options to graduate. But proponents of tougher standards are wary of providing an easier path out of high school that could leave students unprepared for college or a career.

A basic diploma is better than no diploma at all. The unprepared can get on the college or career track in community college.

Education Trust’s Counting on Graduation report finds states are setting low expectations for improving graduation rates: “Among industrialized nations, the United States is the only country in which today’s young people are less likely than their parents to have earned a high school diploma.”

Twenty percent of New York City’s elementary students missed a month of classes or more during the last school year, according to a recent report. In middle school, 24 percent of students missed 20 or more days; by high school, chronic absenteeism rose to 40 percent. In low-income neighborhoods, the number of no-shows was even higher.

At Public School 55, where 20 percent of the students were chronically absent, the principal, Luis Torres, said he had worked to expand a school health clinic so children would not have to miss a full day to visit the doctor. He also hired an outreach counselor to work with immigrant parents to explain that every school day really mattered.

“Other times, it was just that it was raining,” Mr. Torres said. “I had to say, ‘I understand that it’s raining, but that’s not a reason not to come to school.’ And then I just had to get them an umbrella.”

Not surprisingly, kids who miss a lot of school in the early grades tend to fall behind and drop out later on.

It’s hardly an “invisible problem” to inner-city teachers, writes Robert Pondiscio at Core Knowledge Blog.

In my South Bronx elementary school we regularly promoted students who missed dozens of school days, as long as they passed — or even came close to passing – a single standardized test.  In a particularly acute case, I fought unsuccessfully to have one of my 5th graders held over who missed nearly 100 school days.  He received a 1 (below grade level) on his state math test and a 2 (”approaching” grade level) on his ELA exam and was passed without even having to attend summer school.  As long as he scored a 2 or better on either of the tests, I was told, he had to be promoted.  God help that kid.  Three years later, I still get angry thinking about it.

A San Jose K-8 school district with a lot of Mexican immigrant students started sending police officers to parents’ doors to explain that it’s illegal to keep healthy children home from school to babysit, translate or just sleep in. Attendance improved dramatically.

Graduation rates are very low in less-selective urban universities, especially for low-income minority students, writes Kevin Carey on Education Sector. Many students start in remedial classes and never get to college-level work. He looks at math courses offered by the crumbling University of the District of Columbia:

• 16 sections of “Basic Mathematics”
• 13 sections of “Introductory Algebra”
• 9 sections of “General College Math I”
• 7 sections of “General College Math II”
• 4 sections of “Intermediate Algebra”
• 2 sections each of “Pre Calc with Trig I,” “Pre Calc with Trig II,” “Calculus I,” “Calculus II,” and “Calculus III”
• 1 section each of “Differential Equations,” “Number Theory,” “Linear Algebra,” “Advanced Calculus,” etc.

Seventy percent of UDC students require remedial classes. It’s not surprising that most won’t earn a degree.

Carey writes about “the strange and dangerous idea that educational institutions bear little responsibility for how much their students learn or whether those students earn degrees.”

What can a university do if so many students enter without basic math (and reading) skills? UDC could take a hit on enrollment by sending applicants to community college for remediation. Are there other options?