No Child Left Behind's Twin Failures
Added by on 3/17/2009 8:14:44 PM
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was intended to improve educational performance and accountability with new testing standards and better teachers.  The bottom-line: it purported to be a NATIONAL policy centered on TESTING.  However, states still set educational standards and local districts direct policy.  NCLB delimits how these standards can be set and the consequences of not meeting them.  Its intense focus on standardized tests handcuffs teachers, incentivizing test-based instruction over creative, engaging curricula.  
Full text:
NCLB's irony and internal contradictions became stunningly evident when I saw that both conservatives and liberals were criticizing it for the opposite reasons.  Conservatives took issue that the policy purported to impose a raft of national standards, stripping the states of their traditional freedom to direct education policy.  A uniform policy would not work, they argue, because the states have different education levels and systems.  Central standards cannot govern such a disparate network.  

Wary of these concerns, authors of NCLB left significant room for states to interpret the national mandate.  NCLB only required that states test their students and measure their progress.  The policy accepted that the states were at different levels; it claimed that it only hoped to facilitate improvement.  To do so, it mandated myriad requirements for state tests, including how the scores should be measured and interpreted.  

In the end, the policy is mushy -- a mess of contradictions and crooked incentives.  First, it is neither firmly national nor reservedly federalist.  If it planned to be a strong national education policy, fine.  A strong central education policy should set a national agenda for reform and prepare to fund it.  I do not think that serious national education reform is the best medicine for the current problems in American education, but a firm national education need not be brash.  The reform agenda can be limited to a few areas that the federal government has the ability to see through, monitor and support with funding.  The current discussion of federal initiatives on charter schools is a positive example of how the federal government can promote innovation in learning.

Second, the idea of "adequate yearly progress" set the wrong incentives for states charged with setting testing standards.  When the goal is progress, schools and teachers do not have an incentive to strive for perfection; instead they are led to strive for a level that they can improve upon the next test cycle.  While I do maintain that educational standards are necessary, they should be couched in order to measure whether the system is affording students the skills to function in the world.  Are minimum standards so bad?

Third, NCLB's rigid focus on testing as the sole measure of success is wrongheaded.  Written multiple-choice tests appeal to a limited skill-set.  They do not gauge creativity, communication skills or subject knowledge (e.g. U.S. History or Biology).  When teachers' success is predicated on their students' test scores, it is reasonable that the teacher will focus on preparing the students to pass.  Such "teaching to the test" distracts from the curriculum that the instructor wants to -- and was trained to -- teach.  

These points are theoretical and are not at all reactions to the loads of data that NCLB-mandated tests have produced.  However, education experts continue to be critical of the Act and its results.  
Coming Soon
Re-imagining Community Colleges (CAP) in Education by Center for American Progress



Login