RALEIGH, N.C. -- The U.S. Secretary of Education had nothing but praise for North Carolina during her visit here Wednesday.

Margaret Spelling, stopped in the Tar Heel state during her listening tour of the states.

U.S. Department of Education

“There is more to praise about North Carolina accountability than there is to criticize.” Spelling said. "We are pleased, but not satisfied with results."

Overall, North Carolina is not performing as well as other states. Only 44.8 percent of the schools made adequate yearly progress as compared to 70 percent in the United States.

Spelling suggested No Child Left Behind (NCLB) improvements to include:

• Implementing a growth model, providing more nuances in accountability. Spelling said this is a smarter and fairer way to manage school accountability. Spelling called North Carolina’s ABC model as a pioneer in the education arena that encourages schools to track progress by improvements made. The ABC plan is based on three goals: A - strong Accountability, B - mastery of Basic skills and C - localized Control. 
• Provide more nuances in accountability. NCLB is a pass or fail policy. Spelling said there needs to be distinctions across the spectrum. There are chronic underperforming schools in the mix with those who are within range.
• Focus and be smarter about high schools. Spelling said there is not a lot of data about best practices in the high schools.
• Reward teachers who do the most challenging work. Spelling said that the brightest teachers are often found in the cream puff schools while the new teachers are assigned to the more challenging ones. We need to change our priorities.
• Improve funding for education. Spellings said that federal funds for N.C. have about doubled. Money is being used in smarter ways because the problems are being diagnosed.

Following Spelling’s presentations board members fired off a variety of questions. Spelling’s answered each with what some call an unwavering commitment to a program that may not continue when a new president is elected.

Click on video tab to hear Spelling's comments.

Spelling said she doesn’t believe a national curriculum would improve student achievement. The likelihood is that all states would drop to the lowest common denominator instead of raising the bar of achievement. Spelling said NCLB is enforcing national standards through testing. In Spelling’s opinion, this will continue to raise the bar on achievement.

When asked to predict whether the next president would continue NCLB, Spelling said that it would continue for at least one more year because a new president would have more pressing matters to attend than ending NCLB.