While the report is provocative and groundbreaking, the National School Boards Association questions how much ground we can afford to break on what is currently working in an effort to fix what is not.

There are several areas within the report with which NSBA agrees:

• Providing high quality, universal early childhood education is a critical component to ensuring our children succeed in school. There is clear research to support this recommendation.
• Targeting additional resources to disadvantaged students is necessary to balance the inequities experienced by children of poverty. We applaud the report's recommendations to extend the learning day at schools serving poor children, to provide extra support through tutoring and counseling, and to give teachers additional financial incentives to teach in traditionally undesirable schools.
• Increasing teacher salaries is a key component to attracting young adults who are now pursuing more financially rewarding careers. We agree that the current pension system needs to be fixed and alternative retirement plans make good sense.

In its report, the Commission addresses school board governance and suggests some dramatic changes in the role and oversight of the board. NSBA is committed to improving school board governance and has focused local boards' efforts on raising student achievement and better connecting to their communities. Given that focus, we believe that the report is flawed in its recommendation to reframe the current system of school board governance and school district operations. 

We believe that a community working with its local school board and superintendent is the way to enact changes to improve the education for all children in that community. The idea of giving individual schools the autonomy to run their own building operations may sound attractive, but is irresponsible without an adequate analysis of the time, skill, and resources that would need to be expended by building administrators. How many more administrators will each school have to hire to manage bus contracts, run the breakfast and lunch programs, or renovate and maintain their facilities?

Placing the authority and control at the school level, as the report recommends, removes the school system leadership that results in efficient operations, a shared vision, and a clear accountability system on which parents and community members depend to deliver outcomes.

The National School Boards Association strongly supports improvements in our public schools to ensure that our students will be ready to compete in a global marketplace. Data clearly show that the efforts at local, state and federal levels are paying off:

• More students are going to college (14.2 million in 2004 vs. 10.6 million in 1984; source: NCES, 2004)
• More high school students are completing advanced math and science courses (source: NCES, 2004)
• More high school students are taking AP courses and exams (source: College Entrance Examination Board, 1956-2004)
• Student achievement has gone up in math (NAEP, 1973-2004)
• Younger students are showing gains in reading achievement (NAEP, 1984-2004)

Do we need to improve our public schools? Absolutely. We can't rest until every student graduates from high school, successfully pursues the career of his or her choice, and helps to keep America a world leader in the global marketplace. However, many of the recommendations in this report will serve to distract school leaders from continuing their progress, rather than helping them reach their goal of every child succeeding.