W ell, well, rural Calvert County has overtaken wealthier, better-educated Montgomery County on the 2008 Maryland State Assessments, even though Calvert has half as many adults with college degrees and spends about $2,600 less per child each year than Montgomery’s $12,647. A still mostly rustic enclave of modestly priced homes bordering Prince George’s County and extending south along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Calvert nearly tied state leader Howard County and posted double-digit improvements in student subgroups specifically targeted by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: African-Americans and students from low-income families who qualify for free or reduced price meals.

Calvert School Superintendent Jack Smith attributed his success on the MSAs, which are administered annually to elementary students in grades three through eight, to setting goals and closely monitoring students’ progress in meeting those goals. What Smith does not rely on are expensive after-school or summer sessions. Instead, he requires his teachers to provide additional help to struggling students during the normal course of the school day.

All teachers are also expected to reinforce whatever new vocabulary words students learn in class. This style of teaching requires strong and consistent leadership from administrators and principals, hard work from the teaching staff, and intensive follow-through to make sure no child is falling behind. Calvert’s test results prove it works. Note that “more tax dollars for the teachers unions” isn’t part of the prescription for student success.

NCLB is President Bush’s signature education policy. Despite its flaws, it has produced significant overall improvement in Maryland’s public schools. In the five years since the MSAs were first administered, composite reading and math scores have increased 24 percentage points, including measurable gains among disadvantaged and minority students who had previously fallen through the cracks.

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Instead of just throwing more money at underperforming schools, NCLB has forced educators to start teaching basic reading and math skills or risk losing millions of dollars in federal funds and/or humiliating sanctions.

With their own careers suddenly on the line, public school officials finally got serious about reversing the decades-long, dumbing-down trend that was churning out millions of undereducated graduates while spending record amounts of tax dollars. Montgomery Superintendent Jerry Weast obliquely acknowledged this failure when he referred to his highly acclaimed $2 billion school system as the “cream of the crap” at Harvard University in June. NCLB’s enduring lesson is that money can’t buy education excellence. Look what can happen when you threaten to take it away.