The Obama administration's decision to allow states to request waivers from No Child Left Behind was a step in the right direction, but only a baby step. Four in five schools across the country will be deemed "failing" this coming year if nothing stops the "train wreck" that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said No Child Left Behind (NCLB) will inflict upon the nation's schools. These include schools in which the vast majority of students are proficient in math and English, as well as schools in which students, teachers, and principals are making real progress in the face of formidable challenges: concentrated poverty, large numbers of students with special-needs, and state budget cuts that have severely reduced the resources needed to address the obstacles to learning.
Duncan's characterization of NCLB is apt; a recent National Research Council study found that 10 years of test-based accountability "reform" has delivered no significant progress for students. Throughout the country, pressure to improve test scores has led to an increase in intense test preparation. In many cases, this has led to less time for actual learning and reduced the ability of schools to respond to the learning needs of the most disadvantaged students. Instead of focusing on how to deliver high quality instruction schools have become preoccupied with how to produce increases in test scores. Reports of widespread cheating on state exams appearing in city after city are increasingly viewed not as isolated instances of teacher misbehavior, but as a consequence of high-stakes testing.
To avert this "train wreck," the Education Department is offering waivers to states to avoid forcing a massive number of schools to submit to the NCLB sanctions that kick in when school districts fail to make "adequate yearly progress." These so-called waivers, however, amount to little more than a temporary reprieve and do not provide the change in direction that is needed. Under the Race to the Top (RTT) formula, the department is demanding that states evaluate teachers based in significant part on student test scores, and in their quest to "turn around" struggling schools RTT requires districts to fire teachers and principals who work in struggling schools. As education policy expert Diane Ravitch recently asserted, this should be seen as a Race to the Bottom for these schools and the low-income students they disproportionately serve. Most districts have no teachers or administrators prepared to take over failing schools, and not a single state has produced a reliable formula for evaluating teachers based on student test scores. In his well-regarded Learning Matters series, PBS education commentator John Merrow describes the rigid demands of RTT, collectively, as "An Act of War" against instilling in children a love of learning.
A growing number of leaders in education are beginning to openly speak out against these policies. Montana's superintendent of public instruction, Denise Juneau, has rejected both NCLB's requirements and Education Department waiver demands. There are signs that other states may follow her lead. California's superintendent of public instruction, Tom Torlakson, has demanded an unconditional waiver, citing excessive costs, until Congress and the president determine how to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
It is time for the federal government to go further than to simply allow waivers under the law. Federal education policy should be focused on helping schools improve, not on punishing them. It should support the "whole student" vision of education that Juneau and others have championed, based on standards that go far beyond test scores. Most importantly, during the worst recession to hit this country in the last seventy years, we must acknowledge the need for schools and local government to address the impediments to learning posed by poverty. This does not mean allowing poverty to serve as an excuse for poor academic performance, but it does mean that we must do more to support the schools that serve the most disadvantaged children so that they can focus on authentic evidence of learning and be held accountable for student outcomes.
Ultimately, the federal government must embrace a broader, bolder approach to education that includes high-quality early education to narrow large gaps in school readiness, health and nutrition supports to keep children in class and alert, and enriching afterschool and summer activities to build on school-year gains resulting from the work of those great teachers. Anything less will keep us from achieving the educational progress our society so desperately needs.
health and nutrition supports - YES
after-school and summer programs - YES
to those i would also add:
smaller class sizes
extended social services for family and community support
extended arts and physical education
and last but not least, classroom teaching requirements for ALL "leadership" positions.
Like Race from the Top, one of the conditions of the waiver is for states to ramp up their privatization efforts through charters and turnarounds. In fact, states are given millions of dollars for every turnaround they create, which provides a perverse incentive that has more to do with finances than education. Despite the research, Arne still wants to use standardized tests to determine the fate of schools and teachers. There is a good reason why the U.S. is the only country that does this.
Unfortunately, accountability only applies to teachers. When Arne was given the job of U.S. Sect. of Ed., he was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, which was in the toilet on the NAEPs at the time. 20 years of privatization, union-busting, deprofessionalizing teaching, and disenfranchising communities (this started before his tenure, but was ramped up under his administration) has been a massive failure in regards to the achievement gap, school safety, and other issues. Duh.
Arne needs to be placed on the "Do Not Hire" list he has put so many teachers on.
Unfortunately, accountability only applies to teachers and principals. When Arne was made Sect. of Ed, he was overseeing Chicago Public Schools, which was in the toilet on the NAEPs. 20 years of privatization, community disenfrachisement, and deprofessionalizing teaching (started before his tenure, but was ramped up under his administration) has been a failure in regards to the achievement gap, safety, and other issues.
Arne Duncan needs to be placed on the "Do Not Hire" list that he has put so many teachers on.
--
actually, robert, this is a pet peeve of mine. I would love to have a discussion about this.
I tend to believe we have zero understanding of achievement gap, and that is because we dont accurately separate our subgroup definitions. i am most familiar with california but i have yet to see another state that does it properly.
for example, ethnic subgroup data (eg african american, latino, white, etc) is not separable from non-ethnic subgroup data (SED, SWD, ELL, etc). Some ethnic subgroups have disproportionately high representations of those non-ethnic subgroups, so to the extent those non-ethnic subgroups are a relevant metric (which I have to assume they are given that we chose to define them), then ethnic subgroup information is misleading at best. This is nothing short of a travesty imho. Even worse, this disproportionate representation varies by grade level!
In short, imho, we have no clue about what achievement gap really means in the context of a traditional learning environment. Nonetheless we have constructed an infinitely complex and dynamic education policy based on what this misleadingly incomplete data appears to be telling us.
The reason we shouldn't evaluate teachers on student test scores is simple: it doesn't work. It results in poor teachers receiving good evaluations and good teachers receiving bad evaluations. Despite many people's efforts to portray it as "Holding teachers accountable for their results," a lie you've clearly swallowed, it's actually holding teachers responsible for someone ELSE'S results.
At the risk of repeating myself: “Can anyone offer a cogent, objective reason why teachers should not be held to delivering results?”
The sports coach is evaluated on the performance of his team (someone else).
The hospital administrator is evaluated by the waiting time in the e-room (someone else).
Etc., etc., etc.
SO WHAT.
You continue to make excuses and view teachers as not needing to function in the manner of everyone else.
Diane Ravitch: "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education"
Linda Darling Hammond notes, "They (Finland)organize their curriculum around problem-solving and critical thinking skills. And they test students rarely (in Finland, not at all) – and almost never with multiple-choice tests."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/darling-hammond-the-mess-we-are-in/2011/07/31/gIQAXWSIoI_blog.html
What children learn should be evaluated through a variety of assessments.
I am certain that these tactics will maintain America's greatness.
- try something random
- if it doesnt work, try it harder
- ignore whether its actually the right approach.
The Federal government has no constitutional standing to require any state to perform in any way, and certainly not the Executive Branch for goodness sake. The Department of Education should return every dime to the states from which the money came, and let them educate their constituents to the best of their ability.
Finally, anyone who believes for a minute that education is a "Race" to the top, or the middle, or the foothills, clearly has never taught in a classroom. We aren't going to end up anywhere at the end of the race except in a state of confusion as to how we arrived in such a state of disarray and how in the world to get back to real education. No state should ever have to come hat in hand to the federal government appealing for a waiver related to legislation that the Feds had not business cooking up in the first place. NCLB is proof positive that it just doesn't work.