Connecticut has been struggling to understand the stagnation and actual decline in its 4th grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The problems began in 2002. I believe that it is not simply coincidence that the implementation of No Child Left Behind also began in 2002. Now more than five years later education critics from both ends of the political spectrum are questioning the paradoxical consequences of the law - principally that even more children are left behind. (more…)