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No
Child Left Behind
by
Alan Shapiro
To
the Teacher:
Have
your students discussed the No Child Left Behind law and its impact
on them? If not, now is a teachable moment for exploring this
issue.
Because
NCLB has personal meanings for students, it is an excellent subject
for independent and small-group inquiries. See the opening questions
and a suggested inquiry approach that begins with learning how
to ask good questions.
The
two student readings below might be used for student background
in their inquiries and/or for class discussion of NCLB. The first
reading outlines the law's major provisions and the president's
and the education secretary's defenses of it. The secondreading
details a number of criticisms of NCLB. Discussion questions and
other student activities follow.
Some
possible opening questions for class discussion:
1.
How many of you have heard of the No Child Left Behind program?
2.
What do you know about it? From personal experience? From
other sources?
3.
What do you think you know but are not sure about? Why?
4.
How would you assess the value of NCLB?
5.
What questions do you have about NCLB?
An inquiry into NCLB
A good
starting point might be student questions that emerge from the
opening discussion. See "Thinking
Is Questioning" on this website for detailed suggestions
about how to help students learn to analyze questions, ask good
questions, and pursue answers to them either independently or
in small groups. See also the conclusion of "Thinking Is
Questioning" for other materials on this website that can
be helpful in guiding students through an inquiry process. In
their inquiries, have students examine the websites of the presidential
candidates for their criticisms of and ideas about No Child Left
Behind.
Student
Reading 1:
A law to overcome "the bigotry of low expectations"
President
Bush signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law
on January 8, 2002, but this law of more than 1,000 pages quickly
became popularly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) A White
House "Fact Sheet" on its key provisions included:
"Accountability
for results: Creates strong standards in each state for what every
child should know and learn in reading and mathematics, grades
3-8. Student progress and achievement will be measured every year.
Results from these tests will be made available in annual report
cards so that parents can measure school performance…and
their child's progress in key subjects." The goal is to have
all students, grades 3-8, "proficient" in reading and
math by 2014.
"Unprecedented
state and local flexibility in the use of federal funds."
"Focusing
resources on proven educational methods…research-based approaches
will most help children to learn."
"Expanded
choices for parents…with children in chronically failing
schools" to transfer their child to a better school.
Requirements
that schools hire "highly qualified teachers" and that
states develop plans to provide them
Requirement
that Congress consider reauthorizing NCLB after five years.
The
president assessed NCLB's results on September 26, 2007 and called
for its reauthorization with needed changes: "The NCLB is
working. I say that because the Nation's Report Card says it's
working….Children across America are learning. The achievement
gap that has long punished underprivileged students is beginning
to close.
"The
law is based on this premise. The federal government invests money
in education, and we ought to expect results in return for that
investment….And the best way to determine whether you get
good results is to measure….Measuring results is important
because it helps teachers spot problems early. You can't solve
a problem unless you diagnose the problem, and it's best to diagnose
problems early in a child's life….
"A
system that doesn't hold people to account assumes that certain
children cannot learn, and that it's acceptable to shuffle them
through school. That's what I have called the bigotry of low expectations….And
the Nation's Report Card shows we're making good progress."
The
president called upon Congress to improve NCLB by giving local
leaders "more flexibility" in carrying out its provisions.
He also called for adequate funding "to turn troubled schools
around." And he argued that tutoring programs should be established
for students who need them.
NCLB
has been harshly criticized and was not reauthorized in 2007 as
scheduled. The presidential candidates of both parties support
its provisions for high standards and school accountability for
meeting them. But Hillary Clinton said she would "end"
NCLB because is was "just not working." Barack Obama
called for a "fundamental" overhaul. John Edwards criticized
its overemphasis on testing. "You don't make a hog fatter
by weighing it," he said. Republican presidential candidate
Mike Huckabee, like a number of Republican lawmakers, objected
to NCLB's intrusion on states' rights. He said he preferred states
to develop their own standards.
But
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings vigorously defended
NCLB in interviews: "We have learned a lot about schools"
over the past five years, she said (6/18/07). Responding to critics'
comments about the neglect of science, social studies and the
arts, she maintained, "Reading and math are fundamental skills
without which you can't learn social studies, history and so forth."
While allowing that NCLB has room for improvement, she said, "Seventy
percent of our schools are meeting 'adequate yearly progress targets.'"
(11/5/07)
Senator
Edward Kennedy (D, MA), chairman of the Senate education committee,
plans to introduce a new bill in 2008. He said, "We have
to convince people that the bill we introduce…will not be
a rubber stamp of the current law." (12/23/07)
For discussion
1.
What questions do students have about the reading? How might
they be answered?
2.
A major provision of NCLB is "accountability for results."
What does its emphasis suggest about pre-NCLB criticisms of American
schools?
3.
Consider "accountability" and "results." What
do you understand each to mean? Apply the two words to yourself.
For what specific "results" does NCLB require your school
to be accountable for you? How? Are there other "results"
that completing public school should produce for you? Why?
4.
Explain "research-based approaches." Are you aware of
such approaches in reading and math? How might you find out if
you don't know?
5.
What makes a "highly-qualified teacher"?
6.
Explain "the bigotry of low expectations."
Student
Reading 2:
Two NCLB critics
"Rosy
claims"
"Despite
the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed," wrote Diane
Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University and a
former assistant secretary of education. "The latest national
tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003
have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before
the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have
been no gains at all since 1998….
"In
inner cities, where academic performance is weakest, only a handful
of students move to successful schools because there are very
few seats available to them….Under current law, state education
departments have an incentive to show that schools and students
are making steady progress, even if they are not. So the results
of state tests, which are administered every year, are almost
everywhere better than the results of the National Assessment
of Educational Progress, the benchmark federal test that is administered
every other year….
"Under
current law, Congress now decides precisely which sanctions and
penalties are needed to reform schools, which is way beyond its
competence….Washington should supply unbiased information
about student academic performance to states and local districts.
It should then be the responsibility of states and local districts
to improve performance.
"Congress
should also drop the absurd goal of achieving universal proficiency
by 2014. Given that no nation, no state and no school district
has ever reached 100 percent math and reading proficiency for
all grades, it is certain that this goal cannot be met."
(New York Times, 10/3/07)
"The
most inequitable education system in the industrialized world"
"NCLB
contains some major breakthroughs," Linda Darling-Hammond,
a professor of education at Stanford University, began in her
critique of NCLB, published in The Nation magazine. "First,
by flagging differences in student performance by race and class,
it shines a spotlight on longstanding inequalities and could trigger
attention to the needs of students neglected in many schools.
Second, by insisting that all students are entitled to qualified
teachers, the law has stimulated recruitment efforts in states
where low-income and minority students have experienced a revolving
door of inexperienced, untrained teachers,"
She
went on to detail serious problems. "Critics claim that the
law's focus on complicated tallies of multiple-choice-test scores
has dumbed down the curriculum, fostered a 'drill and kill' approach
to teaching, mistakenly labeled successful schools as failing,
driven teachers and middle-class students out of public schools
and harmed special education students and English-language learners
through inappropriate assessments and efforts to push out low-scoring
students in order to boost scores….
"At
base, the law has misdefined the problem. It assumes that what
schools need is more carrots and sticks rather than fundamental
changes….[for the] United States has the most inequitable
education system in the industrialized world.
"School
funding lawsuits brought in more than twenty-five states describe
apartheid schools serving low-income students of color with crumbling
facilities, overcrowded classrooms, out-of-date textbooks, no
science labs, no art or music courses and a revolving door of
untrained teachers, while their suburban counterparts, spending
twice as much for students with fewer needs, offer expansive libraries,
up-to-date labs an technology, small classes, well-qualified teachers
and expert specialists, in luxurious facilities….
"As…the
former president of the American Educational Research Association,
has noted, the problem we face is less an 'achievement gap' than
educational debt that has accumulated over centuries of denied
access to education and employment, reinforced by deepening poverty
and resource inequalities in schools. Until American society confronts
the accumulated educational debt owed to these students and takes
responsibility for the inferior resources they receive,…children
of color and of poverty will continue to be left behind….
"Most
high-achieving countries not only provide high-quality universal
pre-school and healthcare for children; they also fund their schools
centrally and equally, with additional funds going to the neediest
schools. Furthermore, they support a better-prepared teaching
force-funding competitive salaries and high-quality teacher education,
mentoring and ongoing professional development for all teachers.
"Finally,
high-achieving nations focus their curriculums on critical thinking
and problem solving, using exams that require students to conduct
research and scientific investigations, solve complex real-word
problems and defend their ideas orally and in writing….By
asking student to show what they know through real-world applications
of knowledge, these other nations' assessment systems encourage
serious intellectual activities that are being driven out of many
U.S. schools by the tests promoted by NCLB….
"Perhaps
the most adverse unintended consequence of NCLB is that it creates
incentives for schools to rid themselves of students who are not
doing well, producing higher scores at the expense of vulnerable
students' education….The child and the school are accountable
to the state for test performance, but the state is not held accountable
to the child or his school for providing adequate educational
resources."
There
are hundreds of proposals to improve NCLB. But a substantial shift
is essential "if our educational system is to support powerful
learning for all students." Among them:
- "The
federal government should assist states in developing systems
for evaluating student progress that are performance based-including
assessments like essays, research papers and science experiments."
- To
stop penalizing schools serving the most diverse populations,
the system should move from requiring adequate yearly progress
to a model that promotes continuous improvement.
- Schools
should be judged on whether students make progress on multiple
measures of achievement, including those that assess higher-order
thinking and understanding.
- Schools
should insure appropriate assessment for special-education students
and English-language learners.
Linda
Darling-Hammond argues that "schools alone are not responsible
for student achievement." This, she says, should lead us
to develop "programs that will provide adequate healthcare
and nutrition, safe and secure housing and healthy communities
for children."
("Evaluating
No Child Left Behind," The Nation, 5/21/07)
For
discussion
1.
What questions do students have about the reading? How might they
be answered?
2.
What does Darling-Hammond view as two "major breakthroughs
in NCLB"? Do you agree? Why or why not?
3.
What do you view as the two or three most important criticisms
of NCLB? Why?
4.
Has your curriculum been "dumbed down"? How do you know?
5.
What is a 'drill and kill' method of teaching? "Apartheid
schools"?
6.
What "educational debt" has the U.S. accumulated? How
can it be paid?
7.
What should curriculums focus on and why?
8.
What is a "performance based" system of evaluation?
9.
What do healthcare, nutrition, safe and secure housing and
healthy communities have to do with student achievement?
For
writing
Two
key points in discussions of schools are the importance of qualified
teachers and that students learn. Write a well-developed essay
in which you discuss one of the following:
1.
What is a qualified teacher? What are his or her characteristics?
If you were in the classroom of such a teacher, what, specifically,
would you observe that teacher doing?
2.
What does it mean to learn something? What are the characteristics
of a good learner? If you were observing such a learner, what
would you observe him or her doing?
For citizenship
Students have the most important stake in any No Child Left Behind
law. As citizens, their voices should be heard in any revisions
of that law.
1.
After students have completed their inquiries, have them work
for a consensus on what they consider to be the five most important
provisions in a revised No Child Left Behind law and why.
2.
Divide the class into five groups. Ask each to discuss one provision
and its importance, then draft a model statement on it.
3.
Have each statement duplicated so that every student has a
copy.
4.
Conduct a class discussion of each statement aimed at any necessary
revisions and a final consensus on it.
5.
Have a student committee prepare a letter incorporating the consensus
to be approved by a final class discussion and then mailed to
their senators and representative.
For
additional possibilities, see "Teaching
Social Responsibility" on this website.
This
lesson was written for TeachableMoment.Org, a project of Morningside
Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We
welcome
your comments. Please email author Alan Shapiro at: ashapiro7@comcast.net.
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