Soviet-Style Education

The latest on No Child Left Behind:
Yesterday's Education Daily says some Senate education staffers have put together a proposal to replace the current NCLB accountability system with a Yearly Growth Index calculated as follows:

"States' indices would base AYP on a combination of student results on standardized reading and math tests, additional content-area tests, performance- based tests, and 'additional indicators' that are not test based. States could assign different weights to the components in the index, subject to certain caps. Reading and math test results would each make up no less than 35 percent of the index weight in grades 3-8 and 25 percent of the index in high school, for instance. States could give additional credit to students who move from the 'below basic' to the 'basic' proficiency level on these tests. To calculate AYP, states would set a total proficiency objective and calculate a separate baseline index score for each school and each subgroup within the school."

Got that?

Good, 'cause there's more:

"Each year, a school would make AYP if the schoolwide index score and each subgroup's index score met or exceeded the state proficiency objective.

"Schools and subgroups whose index score fell below the state proficiency objective would still make AYP if both the schoolwide index score and each subgroup's index score increased at least 5 percent of the difference between their respective baseline scores and the state proficiency objective."

(Sigh.)

Yes, NCLB flunks some great schools and passes some that are not so great. But that doesn't mean we need even more complex rules, which won't work, either. It means rigid central planning for complicated enterprises is the wrong way to go.

The Soviet Union failed, remember?