Thursday, June 7, 2007

USATODAY.com: Fixing No Child Left Behind: Two views...

Federal education officials plan to release a report that concludes that many states hold students to relatively low education standards in order to make the federal grade. (Schools that don't make "adequate yearly progress" risk being flagged as underperforming.)

Education experts Frederick Hess and Eva Baker raise their hands with ideas on how states can score better results.

Replace 100% proficiency with realistic goals

By Frederick M. Hess

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Education | NAEP | Assessment

The No Child Left Behind Act is currently up for reauthorization, giving congressional champions of educational accountability a chance to address a major problem in its design.

When it took effect in 2002, No Child Left Behind required every state to adopt an accountability system with regular testing in reading and math while leaving each state free to decide what material tests should cover, which tests to use, and how to define and measure student "proficiency."

Congress also mandated that schools and districts be evaluated based primarily on how many students are "proficient" in reading and math with consequences for schools and districts that fail to meet state performance goals.

Congress then added a third ingredient — the requirement that 100% of students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. While states initially enjoyed a relatively free hand in determining what percentage of students had to be proficient, they are ratcheting that number up as 2014 draws closer.

Unfortunately, state-by-state flexibility on defining proficiency, coupled with consequences for "failing" schools and a focus on the 100% target, encourages governors and state legislators to boost student scores by adopting easier performance standards, setting lower passing scores, making tests easier or otherwise gaming the system.

Today, we see the results. Oklahoma claims 93% of its fourth-graders are proficient in reading and 86% in math. But the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress — the closest thing we have to a national benchmark — finds that just 26% of Oklahoma's fourth-graders are proficient in reading and 29% are proficient in math.

In fact, just 61% scored "basic" or above on the NAEP reading test, meaning one in three children that Oklahoma labels proficient was deemed "below basic" by NAEP standards.

Massachusetts, which led the nation on the latest NAEP, reports that, based on state tests, only 50% of its students are proficient in reading and 40% in math. The reward for having set this demanding bar is that Gov. Deval Patrick must explain to voters why Massachusetts schools seem to be faring only half as well as those in Oklahoma. How many governors standing for re-election will prefer Massachusetts' course to Oklahoma's?

Not surprisingly, many more states look like Oklahoma than like Massachusetts. What's needed is an approach that focuses states on educational quality rather than manipulating outcomes.

The first step is to abandon the grandiose 100% target.

A second is requiring states to calibrate their results against the NAEP in some fashion. A more ambitious approach would entail gradually moving toward rigorous national tests in reading and math.

A third step is encouraging states to adopt sensibly designed "value-added" systems that evaluate schools based upon whether students make reasonable progress during the school year rather than whether their students clear arbitrary hurdles.

An alternative course is to embrace a more modest federal role, let states set their own goals and charge the feds with illuminating how states are doing.

Absent such changes, state reports of rising achievement will be as useful and reliable as those old reports by Soviet commissars, claiming food production had doubled in line with the Kremlin's five-year plan — and never mind those empty store shelves.

Frederick "Rick" Hess is director of Education Policy Studies at Washington's American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

Standardized tests no substitute for challenging course work

By Eva L. Baker

It's time to make serious changes to the No Child Left Behind education law.

The law's critics and supporters agree on some of what's needed — better monitoring of student performance over time, ways to avoid mislabeling good schools as failing ones, more flexibility in testing different student groups.

But those changes won't be enough.

U.S. students still perform worse than students in countries with lower standards of living and less innovative economies. Countries like Canada have attained a high level of student achievement with fewer gaps separating students of different ethnic backgrounds and affluence. And too many U.S. secondary students leave school before graduating.

To make a difference in those areas, lawmakers need to think first about whether student achievement tests — the core of No Child Left Behind — are doing their job.

The tests, which are being used more and more often, are designed to hold schools accountable for raising academic standards. But there's little evidence they do that. In fact, they may simply measure the effects of submitting students to repetitive test-like exercises.

That may help explain why No Child Left Behind hasn't dramatically improved student performance. The usual reasons given for this are low expectations for students and their lack of motivation. But these could be consequences, not causes.

Let's agree the tests generated by No Child Left Behind aren't relevant to higher school standards and move on to other solutions.

The administration talks about giving students new choices, such as the option to leave a failing school for a better one. But why don't we start giving students more choices inside the classroom?

Academic reform is hampered by our routine approach to teaching, learning and assessment. More successful education systems in other countries use clear syllabuses, relevant professional development, curricula and challenging examinations.

Without copying other nations that impose rigid standards on their schools — and without creating a monolithic education system — we can better integrate goals, learning and assessment, and on a more human scale.

We need to raise academic standards by offering students high-quality, integrated instructional experiences rather than stand-alone tests.

Especially in high schools, we should let students accumulate their own mix of qualifications — crafted by educators or businesses — in academic and workforce areas.

There's increasing support for letting students obtain these qualifications not just in school but also on the Web, through work or via community internships. They could earn them through science and math competitions, design exhibits, certifications in networking skills, Advanced Placement courses, and environmental projects.

Qualifications should count at college and the workplace — without forcing students onto a particular path. Accountability, a cornerstone of No Child Left Behind, would increase, not just for the school but for each student.

Eva L. Baker is a professor of educational psychology and social methods at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She also directs the school's Center for the Study of Evaluation and co-directs the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing.