Election News and Features
'No Child' Debate Resurfaces on Campaign Trail
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Democratic presidential candidates speaking to the nation's largest teachers’ union call for an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act, bringing renewed attention to the law as Congress's reauthorization deadline approaches.
30-Second Summary
The democratic presidential candidates spoke as one in calling for major changes to the No Child Left Behind Act, at the National Education Association's annual convention,
The NCLB Act came into law in 2002, doubling federal education funding. However, it sanctions that extra money only for those schools that pass annual standardized tests designed to assess classroom, school and state performance.
The goal of the NCLB Act is to "narrow achievement gaps" between disadvantaged students and their more privileged counterparts. Whether it succeeds has been a matter for debate.
Critics have made three claims: the emphasis on standardized testing lowers the quality and breadth of education; the national accountability benchmarks are unrealistic; and increased federal interferences impinge on states' rights.
As Congress's September 30 reauthorization deadline approaches, there is a broad bipartisan consensus that the public school system needs improvement. The United States has fallen out of the top 20 countries in math and science scores, and the top 10 in reading scores.
The NCLB Act came into law in 2002, doubling federal education funding. However, it sanctions that extra money only for those schools that pass annual standardized tests designed to assess classroom, school and state performance.
The goal of the NCLB Act is to "narrow achievement gaps" between disadvantaged students and their more privileged counterparts. Whether it succeeds has been a matter for debate.
Critics have made three claims: the emphasis on standardized testing lowers the quality and breadth of education; the national accountability benchmarks are unrealistic; and increased federal interferences impinge on states' rights.
As Congress's September 30 reauthorization deadline approaches, there is a broad bipartisan consensus that the public school system needs improvement. The United States has fallen out of the top 20 countries in math and science scores, and the top 10 in reading scores.
Headline Links:Democrats denounce NCLB at NEA conference and the full text of NCLB
All the Democratic candidates voted for No Child Left Behind, but they unanimously denounced it when speaking at the National Education Association conference on July 2, 2007. NEA endorsement means a lot to a presidential candidate. The association has supported only Democratic candidates in the past, and about 85 percent of its 3.2 million members vote for the union's recommended candidate.
Source: ABC News
The full text of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Source: The U.S. Department of Education official Web site
Reports on the NCLB Act
In a report titled "Answering the Question That Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased since No Child Left Behind?" researchers at the Center on Education Policy write that more states have seen their reading and math test scores rise than fall since the NCLB Act. However, the report also notes that state test scores were more encouraging than were results on the National Assessment of Education Performance (NAEP).
The full report is available in pdf format on the Center on Education Policy's Web site.
Source: The Center on Education Policy Web site
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, public perception of the NCLB Act is mixed. Among those Americans who had heard of the law, 34 percent said that it had improved schools, 26 percent said it had actually worsened schools, and 32 percent said the law had had no effect. The survey was based on phone interviews with 1,508 adults from across the country.
Source: The Pew Resarch Center official site
Background: How NCLB changed U.S. education
The NCLB Act dramatically expanded the federal role in state education, doubling federal funding while at the same time attaching a number of conditions that schools nationwide must meet in order to receive that extra money. Criticism of the law has concentrated primarily on three accusations: the standardized or nationalized education policy isn't effective; national accountability benchmarks are difficult to implement and unrealistic; and the increased role of the federal government impinges on states' rights. Forbes offers a concise guide to the major talking points surrounding the law, reprinted from Oxford Analytica's Daily Brief Service.
Source: Forbes
Official Revision Proposals
The White House, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education headed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, released a proposal in January 2007 outlining what they want to see changed in the NCLB Act. The report suggested private school voucher programs for poor students, school accountability for science scores, state report cards showing how students do on state tests compared to the national test, and a number of other recommendations.
Source: ABC News
The full text of the report, titled "Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act," is available on the Department of Education Web site.
Source: The U.S. Department of Education official Web site
The National Education Association (NEA) is the nation's largest teachers’ union. The group officially supports NCLB, but only under the condition that it be "fundamentally improved." According to the NEA's Web site, the association focuses on three main improvements: use more than test scores to measure student learning and school performance; reduce class size to help students learn; and increase the number of highly qualified teachers in our schools.
Source: The National Education Association official Web site
The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA) convened a nine-member panel to determine which aspects of the assessment and accountability provisions of the NCLB Act need improvement. The panel's goal was to provide lawmakers with guiding principles and recommendations as they prepare to reauthorize the law. According to a news story on the NEA Web site, the resultant report––titled "Assessment and Accountability for Improving Schools and Learning"––"calls for replacing the one-shot tests used to impose sanctions under the law with multiple measures that better support high-quality teaching and increased student achievement."
The NEA offers an executive summary of the FEA's report.
Source: The National Education Association official Web site
The full report in pdf format, also from the NEA.
Source: The National Education Association official Web site
The FEA also drew up a petition called the "Joint Organizational Statement on the NCLB Act." Although this document calls for a number of structural changes to the law, it states that "the undersigned education, civil rights, religious, children's, disability, civic, and labor organizations are committed to the No Child Left Behind Act's objectives of strong academic achievement for all children and closing the achievement gap." The statement has 137 signers, including the AFL-CIO, the Children's Defense Fund, and the NAACP.
Source: The Forum on Educational Accountability official Web site
The National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) supports many aspects of the NCLB Act, especially those that expand parental involvement in the classroom. However, the group is also concerned with how heavily the law relies on standardized testing as the federal government's principal measure of school performance.
The National PTA has drafted its own list of recommendations for lawmakers as they prepare to reauthorize the act. Their recommendations focus specifically on the parental involvement provisions of the law, and include increased school accountability for involving parents, better and more accessible information for parents about school performance, and increased community support.
Source: The National Parent Teacher Association official Web site
In February 2007, the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind released a report detailing 75 recommendations for improving the law before its reauthorization. Among them was a controversial suggestion calling for annual teacher evaluations. The evaluations would be based on progress in test scores and colleague reviews. If a teacher failed to improve performance after seven years, than he/she would be prevented from teaching in a school receiving federal aid. Critics of the proposed change said it would encourage teachers to focus too much on the tests.
Source: The Boston Globe
The Aspen Institute offers the full text of the commission's report
Source: The Aspen Institute official Web site
Historical Context: The history of NCLB
The NCLB Act was introduced during the first session of the 107th Congress in 2001. The act amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, authorizing numerous federal mandates requiring states to administer annual standardized tests. Those states that fail to show progress on the tests are penalized in a number of ways, most commonly through reduced federal funding. One of the major goals of the act, is to have every student in the nation reach "proficiency" levels for their grade by the year 2014.
Source: Congresspedia
Prior to NCLB, there was no federal oversight of student performance. Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, states created their academic curricula and assessed students, but were not held accountable by federal government oversight.
Source: PBS
Opinions: Does NLCB behind work?
Want to Keep It
The San Diego Union-Tribune supports the NCLB Act, writing that "Congress should reauthorize the law without hesitation ... [it] may not be perfect, but it represents an innovative and valuable weapon in the ongoing battle to improve America's public schools and ensure that all our students have the skills to compete in a rapidly changing society and world."
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
USA Today looks at the effects of the law and criticizes much of the debate over its particulars: the "debate misses a larger point. NCLB is the primary driver of improvement in the nation's schools––particularly to provide equal opportunity, regardless of economic status. But it can only provide the incentive to change, not the means. That's up to individual schools and districts. The real reward from the law is the innovative and successful practices that have sprung up to address demands for improvement." The editorial goes on to tout the successes of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) in New York City schools.
Source: USA Today
Want to Keep It With Revisions
Education Next interviewed Sandy Kress, who served as a domestic policy advisor in the White House and President George W. Bush's chief negotiator during the 2001 NCLB Act debate. When asked which policies he would like to see addressed in coming months, Kress wrote, "A few major areas I hope will receive attention during reauthorization are college/workplace readiness ... more sophisticated policy and greater accountability for improving teacher effectiveness, particularly at the late elementary and secondary levels; a broadening of attention to math and science as well as to history; and ... greater attention and improvement on the persistently failing schools by offering real choices to parents of students stuck in such schools."
Source: Education Next
PBS's NewsHour interviewed Paul Vallas, chief executive officer for the Philadelphia school district, and Douglas Christenson, commissioner of education in Nebraska. Although both men agreed that the law should be reauthorized, they differed in their views of how the law should be changed. Vallas said that the law needs increased flexibility: "For example, I think the goal of 100 percent proficiency is not a realistic goal. I think schools should be and states should be allowed to do value-added assessments." Christensen said that the law in its current form "distorts accountability by making testing be the centerpiece of the policy. There's nothing wrong with accountability ... [but] when we reduce that to testing, we've robbed teachers of the instructional tool of testing students in their classrooms."
Source: PBS NewsHour
Time magazine reporters Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe offer a number of suggestions for improving the law: "Create strong incentives for the states to move away from 50 different standards and 50 different tests and instead converge on NAEP or some other gold standard--perhaps Massachusetts's high-quality exams--as the national assessment. This would stop the states from watering down their standards ... Back off from the business of slapping failure labels on schools and imposing remedies. Leave school turnaround to the people who are closer to the students, but fund research into what works ... Most important, federal policymakers need to listen hard to the people who are working in the nation's schools every day."
Source: Time Magazine
Nelson Smith of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools suggests changing the NCLB Act by giving more attention and funding to charter school programs in failing schools: "In the next five years, it should do more to galvanize real change by ratcheting up its support of public charter schools. A vibrant new-schools sector is the best way to challenge the status quo and offer real promise of achievement for every American public-school student." Reprinted from The Wall Street Journal.
Source: The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
After President Bush announced in his State of the Union Address that he would pursue a voucher program during the law's renewal process, The Wall Street Journal came out in support of the provision: "The most effective way to hold public schools accountable is by arming parents with more education choices. Nothing motivates teachers, principals and administrators like the threat of losing their charges (and the attendant funding) to 'something better.' Mr. Bush could pick worse fights than arguing that poor kids should be able to escape failing schools."
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Very Critical
Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg of The Heritage Foundation describe what they call "the race to the bottom": "state tests have always differed from the national exam. The real problem is that No Child Left Behind actually put in place incentives for states to weaken their standards––making it more pressing for them to meet political objectives than to improve student achievement by objective measures. Under NCLB, states are required each year to increase the percentage of students scoring 'proficient' on state exams ... This has led states to simply lower the bar."
Source: The Heritage Foundation
Writing for The Nation, Linda Darling-Hammond asserts that "at base, the law has misdefined the problem. It assumes that what schools need is more carrots and sticks rather than fundamental changes ... Most centrally, the law does not address the profound educational inequalities that plague our nation ... Merely adopting tests and punishments will not create genuine accountability. In fact, adopting punitive sanctions without investments increases the likelihood that the most vulnerable students will be more severely victimized by a system not organized to support their learning."
Source: The Nation
James Crawford of the Institute for Language and Education Policy examines how the NCLB Act has influenced civil rights in education: "There is a growing divide in how educational equity is understood. Some clues can be found in the changing terminology used to discuss school reform ... in the [NCLB] era, the words equal educational opportunity have largely faded from the public discourse. In their place, there is talk of eliminating the ‘achievement gaps’ between various groups of students ... despite its stated goals, the No Child Left Behind law represents a diminished vision of civil rights. Educational equity is reduced to equalizing test scores. The effect has been to impoverish the educational experience of minority students." Reprinted from Education Week.
Source: The Institute for Language and Education Policy
Alfie Kohn of USA Today wants to scrap the law altogether, describing it as "an appalling and unredeemable experiment that has done incalculable damage to our schools––particularly those serving poor, minority and limited-English proficiency students ... This law is not about discovering which schools need help; we already know. This law is not about narrowing the achievement gap; its main effect has been to sentence poor children to an endless regimen of test-preparation drills. Thus, even if the scores do rise, it's at the expense of a quality education."
Source: USA Today
Reference Material: NCLB sample tests, state rankings, and America's international ranking
PBS's Online NewsHour offers users the opportunity to test their knowledge with sample questions from NCLB standardized tests.
Source: PBS NewsHour
PBS's Online NewsHour also provides a state by state overview of No Child Left Behind test results using an interactive map.
Source: PBS NewsHour
Internationally, the 15-year-olds in America rank between 25th and 28th place in math test scores, between 12th and 23rd place in reading scores, and between 20th and 27th place in science scores.
Source: Infoplease
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