In August 2005, Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California, with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, invited a dozen education editors to participate in an Editors Retreat for the purpose of planning journal issues on No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In an effort to amplify the voices of educators in the upcoming debates on reauthorization, the editors decided to publish research-based and experience-based articles by and for educators about the effects of NCLB on schools and students. This issue ofEducational Leadership is ASCD's effort to contribute to the discussion by sharing both educators' most pressing concerns about NCLB and their proposals for achieving the law's intent.
Concern: Testing, the wrong linchpin. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is not the only one who sees “testing as the linchpin of the whole darn thing.” Standardized tests have become the dominant force in U.S. public schooling. The task of assessing each student's reading and math skills requires 45 million standardized tests annually. Another 11 million tests will be needed to meet the new science testing requirements. Despite the fact that different states use different tests and thus determine proficiency differently, despite the fact that the testing industry is scrambling to produce valid tests, and despite the fact that designing learning around test taking is no one's vision of best practice, testing has become a way of life in classrooms.
Many educators know better ways to increase learning, including providing a diverse, rich curriculum that goes beyond the tested subjects and using multiple measures to inform instruction and determine proficiency. In our lead article this month, ASCD public policy staffer Christy Guilfoyle (p. 8) writes: “We need a more sophisticated assessment system that places less emphasis on standardized assessments and incorporates more meaningful assessment data at the school level.” Director of Public Policy Dan Fuller (p. 12) spells out ASCD's positions: a legislative agenda that includes innovative high school reform and support for effective school readiness programs.
Concern: The definition of “highly qualified.” Not one state met this past summer's deadline to place what the law defines as a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. And even if they had, by no means would meeting the law's definition guarantee the kind of teachers that Linda Darling-Hammond and Barnett Berry (p. 14) describe as highly qualified: “those who know both their content and how to teach it.” They call for aggressive national strategies for enhancing the supply and quality of teachers, similar to those that have been used in the medical profession to fill shortages in particular fields and meet the needs of underserved populations. And they call for better supports for the continued learning of both new and experienced teachers. As Ronald Wolk recently noted, “Certification guarantees high quality about as much as a driver's license guarantees a good driver.”
Concern: Helping invisible children. The most positive effect of NCLB thus far is the focus of attention and resources on poor and minority students, English language learners, and students with disabilities, Kati Haycock writes (p. 38). But closing achievement gaps will require more resources, more supports for teachers, and better assessments. The greatest shame of a failed NCLB would be that these students will suffer more from the withholding of a rich curriculum in favor of a test-heavy education.
Concern: A broken accountability system. A system that hinges the evaluation of an entire school on one test score average from one group of students at one grade level cannot hope to accurately assess that school. Paul E. Barton (p. 28) explains what is needed:The goal should be designing a standard for how much growth we expect during a school year in a particular subject....The education assessment system now used cannot be considered valid under ordinary standards of program evaluation because it does not do what it is supposed to do: sort effective schools from ineffective ones.
Time for Change
The reauthorization of NCLB will require some tough decisions. To serve the more than 14,000 districts in 50 states, the law is necessarily complex. Educators hope that bipartisan legislators will not simply tinker with a few of the 588 regulations but will instead keep in mind the big picture: The goals are fine, but key parts need an overhaul.
