Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to the podcast. Get ready for some numbers. I promise you’ll be smarter in just a few minutes with our famous Joel Packer Has All the Answers individualized instruction. And there will be no test needed to move on to the next podcast. What’s the main objective of No Child Left Behind? Increasing student test scores. Sure, the law is more than 1,000 pages long and contains some 50 programs, most of them unfunded mandates by the way. But the major “bright line” to quote Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, is that by the year 2014, every single student – 100 percent - will be proficient on statewide reading and math tests. Every year from the start of the law in the 2002-03 school year through the year when all children will be above average and living in Lake Wobegon, increasing percentages of students must score proficient or higher on these two tests. So, has it worked? Are the children now all above average, just as in Garrison Keillor’s fantasy world? Secretary Spellings says everything is fine. She says scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have increased, so she says NCLB is “like Ivory soap: It’s 99.9 percent pure…there’s not much needed in the way of change.” Even President Bush said, “These scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working.” But is it? The percentage of fourth graders who scored at the proficient or higher level on NAEP only increased by 2% between 1998 and 2002 (pre-NCLB). Yet from 2002 to 2007 - after NCLB began - the increase in the percent proficient was also just 2%. Based on 4th grade math scores, the percent proficient rose by 9% from 2000 to 2003 but only 8 points from 2003 to 2007. For 8th graders in reading, the percent proficient improved by only 1% between 1998 and 2002 but actually went down by 2 points between 2002 and 2007. The only area where performance was better post-NCLB than before was in 8th grade math, where the percent proficient went up just two points between 2000 and 2003, but rose 4 points between 2003 and 2007. FairTest co-Executive Director Monty Neill criticized the Administration for its claims saying, “NAEP shows educational improvement across the nation slowed significantly since NCLB went into effect…despite the fact that curriculum narrowed in many schools to little more than test preparation in reading and math.” The NY Times in a September 2007 article said, “…gains in reading achievement have been marginal, with performance declining among eighth graders… The results also showed that the nation had made only incremental progress in narrowing historic gaps in achievement between white and minority students, a fundamental goal of the federal law.” The Civil Rights project at UCLA (formerly at Harvard) in a 2006 study, Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps, reached the following conclusions:
It’s time for Congress to reject the hype and outright falsehoods too often marking the final months of Bush policy. It’s time to fundamentally overhaul NCLB and shift its focus from testing, labeling, and punishing. It’s time to support states and districts to build capacity, use comprehensive meaningful measures of student learning and school quality, and provide resources for proven programs like smaller class size. And finally, it’s especially time to stop pretending when it comes to closing the achievement gaps – to allow school systems flexibility to put in place appropriate interventions targeted to the underlying problems in struggling schools – instead of failed one-size-fits-all mandates. Thanks very much. I’m Joel Packer.
Labels: Bush Administration, ESEA, NCLB, NEA, No Child Left Behind, testing
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COMMENT-DATE:May 14, 2008 5:49 AM
COMMENT-BODY:Pithy synopsis of where things stand...keep it up please! But is there a way to keep the good (growth model, disaggregated data by school, district and state,fair reporting of reading, math and graduation rates, focus on all kids?)and, at the same time, make the investment (a very large one)to get help to the schools that need it and supports for the kids we are losing so they graduate from high school? In other words, can we move from here rather than starting over?
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COMMENT-AUTHOR:
COMMENT-DATE:May 14, 2008 5:29 PM
COMMENT-BODY:You're right on target -Unfortunately, you're preaching to the choir!
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COMMENT-AUTHOR:
COMMENT-DATE:May 14, 2008 10:14 PM
COMMENT-BODY:The NLCB does not meet the needs of students who have special needs. There is no way that you can instruct a student who functions at a kindergarten to 1st grade level on a fourth grade level. What is going to be done to make sure these students experience some success? It is not fair to test these students above their functioning level. Changes are definitely needed. These changes need to occur now.
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COMMENT-AUTHOR:
COMMENT-DATE:May 15, 2008 3:23 PM
COMMENT-BODY:Amen to that! I was a substitute teacher for many years pre-NCLB before I returned to college to finish my EE.BS to teach full time. I returned to a mess this last year after graduation! I have not only seen decline in progress, but a decline in student motivation as well. No wonder we are losing our children. We have created a hostile environment that contradicts all cognitive and social development theories! I feel as if we have returned to the dark ages where rulers were slapped over student's hands. Now they are just invisible rulers called standardized tests.
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COMMENT-AUTHOR:
COMMENT-DATE:May 15, 2008 5:32 PM
COMMENT-BODY:Anonymous said it correctly. What about the special ed kids who will never function on grade level? In my school we have a student who has an IQ of under 50. Of course, he had to take the SAT tests, writing assessmnt, etc. He can't read much less write much beyond his name. The teacher had to show him where to put the marks for the answers. What about the gifted students-again in our school we can't have advanced classes for them because as the principal told me, "these students act as though they are better then everyobe else." Bush has never taught nor have the people who dreamt up the NLCB. Of course, as a classroom teacher, we don't have any input nor do we know what we are talking about.
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COMMENT-AUTHOR:
COMMENT-DATE:May 16, 2008 9:25 AM
COMMENT-BODY:Why not concentrate on parenting skills, reading to infants and toddlers, playing games with them and spending one on one time with them ...... if children develop a love of reading at a young age, they won't have any problem passing any tests. Why not put our money in prevention of the problem instead of band-aid fixes for problems that could have been avoided with good parenting skills?
COMMENT-DATE:May 22, 2008 10:28 AM
COMMENT-BODY:You can argue the success/failure of NCLB, but please don't make it political. This was bipartisan legislation (Ted Kennedy was the original sponsor). He still does not disagree with NCLB, only the amount of funding that it has received.
COMMENT-DATE:January 3, 2009 12:18 AM
COMMENT-BODY:I believe that students with special needs (Life Skills Classes) need to learn how to make a peanut butter sandwich instead of who was the first president of the US. This is an insult for our special population. We were told that as long as they can breath they will be tested. We all need to go back to reality. These population is not getting life skills so needed to survive and be a productive citizen. I wonder who was the smart one that came out with TAKS-ALT testing for this special population, I am sure it was someone that make decisions behind a desk and never been in a classroom.