Overhauling No Child Left Behind
By Monty Neill, FairTest
The highly controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law is the latest version of the long-standing federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It is due to be reviewed and possibly revised in 2007, though that re-authorization process may be delayed.
While the law's professed goal of high quality learning for all students, which includes closing achievement gaps, is laudable, the actual structure of NCLB hurts, rather than helps, efforts to reach the goal. As a result, fundamental changes are needed.
This view is shared by nearly 100 education, civil rights, religious, and civic organizations, including the Advancement Project and FairTest, which signed the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB (on the Internet at http://www.fairtest.org/joint%20statement%20civil%20rights%20grps%2010-21-04.html). The two-page statement lists key flaws in the law and sets the direction for positive changes.
The concerns include: "over-emphasizing standardized testing, narrowing curriculum and instruction to focus on test preparation rather than richer academic learning; over-identifying schools in need of improvement; using sanctions that do not help improve schools; inappropriately excluding low-scoring children in order to boost test results; and inadequate funding." NCLB harms the very children it purports to help. As a result, it leaves more children further behind, while undermining the capacity of schools to provide all students with a truly high-quality education.
To address these problems, the Joint Statement offers recommendations to better measure progress, improve school capacity to teach and assess, shift away from sanctions, and increase funding. It concludes, "Overall, the law’s emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement."
Systemic Changes
Since the Joint Statement was issued, many of the participating groups have worked together to flesh it out. They convened an Expert Panel on Assessment to address such issues as: What would it mean to change the types of assessment, to switch to multiple sources of evidence of learning for instruction and accountability, instead of just relying on standardized tests? Naming itself the Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA), together the groups addressed topics such as: What kinds of capacity-building activities best build strong learning environments and how can states and localities be held accountable for implementing systemic changes? The FEA will release its report on capacity building and the expert panel report on assessment early in 2007.
Though its recommendations and language are not final, the capacity building report will cover two essential areas: professional development and family involvement. If these are properly supported, they will provide a valuable basis for school improvement.
The key to successful professional development is having educators collaborate, school by school with district support, learning together how to better do their jobs and working together to implement changes. High-quality professional development does not mean top-down mandates, workshops where someone talks at teachers then leaves, short-term quick fixes, or salesmen pitching products so teachers can do a better job of prepping kids for the multiple-choice test. Rather, it involves opportunities for educators to evaluate their schools, figure out what is needed, find ways to learn and share their knowledge and skills, and establish a process of continuous improvement. The federal government and the states must greatly increase financial support for professional development, but not micromanage how it is done.
Parent involvement is increasingly recognized as another key to better schools. Parent advocates agree there are many good points in NCLB, such as requiring creation of parent advisory councils, though in places it can be strengthened. But there is no enforcement. In addition, in many families the adults themselves need help with literacy or with support to assist their children with schoolwork. The federal government should expand parental involvement assistance, enforce regulations requiring schools to involve parents, and strengthen support for adults to help their children learn. Additional funding will be needed to make this happen.
Responsibility
In the emerging FEA accountability proposal, schools and districts receiving Title I money will have to plan and implement systemic changes, then report annually on what they are doing and how well it is working. If they need help, the district or state must provide it. If schools or districts are unable to implement the programs well, then interventions to assist them must be crafted, with the interventions tailored to the specific needs of the school or of groups within the school. FEA supports reporting assessment data by race, class, language, and disability, as NCLB requires. But this information must include far more than just test scores, and it should not be used to punish schools in unhelpful ways.
Since the purpose of these changes is to improve student learning, classroom outcomes also must be monitored. Because heavy reliance on standardized exams violates professional norms for test use and, more importantly, leads to narrowing and dumbing-down the curriculum; states need to use multiple forms of assessment. Taken together, the assessments must be able to help students learn a rich curriculum to high levels, and provide evidence to the public that meaningful learning has occurred.
The primary source of evidence must be the work students actually do in the classroom. Among the states, only Nebraska is headed in this direction for NCLB purposes, though some other states are using multiple measures in crafting graduation requirements. Across the nation, it means a big change in thinking about assessment and substantial work to design and implement systems that will provide rich evidence that educators and school systems can use to actually help students learn and schools improve. Professional development in assessment for teachers will be a big part of making the change work.
Most educators want to do their jobs well. Local educators will take responsibility for improving schools when given opportunity, authority, and support. As they do so, the weight of external accountability structures can diminish. However, if schools or districts are unable to improve, despite assistance and sufficient time for changes to take hold, then states have a responsibility to intervene.
This fundamental shift in accountability thinking—from looking only at a narrow set of outcomes (test scores) and then applying punishments, to using rich sources of evidence and providing assistance—incorporates strong expectations for improved learning outcomes. However, the demand that all students score "proficient" on a state exam by 2014 is a dangerous illusion. It sounds nice, but attaching sanctions to the aspiration leads primarily to harmful, not helpful, behaviors, such as narrowing the curriculum and excluding students. The expectations for improvement—growth—should be rooted in some real world understanding of actual change processes and plausible rates of improvement.
If the new ESEA focuses on assistance via professional development and parental involvement, removes irrational penalties, and includes reasonable growth expectations based on using multiple measures, it can become a helpful law. Three broader factors must be considered:
- Schools alone cannot overcome the consequences of poverty and racism, the real "gap" in the nation, so policies to address nutrition, housing, health, income, and community stability must be adopted if "closing the achievement gap" is not to remain an illusion.
- Schools also must be funded adequately if they are to play their social role well, be able to educate all children to high levels of learning and skill. Adequate funding for schools serving primarily low-income students means those schools actually must have access to greater resources than schools serving economically wealthier communities.
- Teaching is a particular enterprise that should not be narrowly controlled by state or federally mandated testing programs. The trend toward educational centralization that strips communities of almost all voice and meaningful involvement must be countered. Federal and state governments must ensure equality of opportunity to learn and enforce nondiscrimination requirements. They can also provide valuable assistance and support to local educators and communities.
When NCLB is reviewed by Congress, the likelihood of positive change depends greatly on action by parents, educators, civil rights and community activists, religious groups, and more. I encourage you and organizations to which you belong to use the Joint Statement and the forthcoming documents from the FEA. It is vital to contact members of Congress on these issues. The possibility to craft a helpful federal education law is in our hands, if we act together.
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The FairTest website—www.fairtest.org—contains the Joint Statement and will have the FEA reports. It also includes material analyzing the flaws with NCLB, the limits and dangers of reliance on standardized tests, alternative forms of assessment, recommendations for helpful accountability, and ideas for action.
Monty Neill, Ed.D., is the Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). He chairs the Forum on Educational Accountability.
