NCLB, the Sequel

Here are two thoughtful responses to the Obama administration's Blueprint for re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), from Renee Moore and Richard Rothstein. All of this can seem incredibly wonky but if there's one thing we should have learned from NCLB, it's that we ignore these issues at our peril.

Fundamentally Flawed

Diane Ravitch, who was a pretty energetic cheerleader for NCLB during its first few years, has changed her mind. From the NY Times:

October 3, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Get Congress Out of the Classroom

By DIANE RAVITCH

DESPITE the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. 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.

The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable. The primary strategy — to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year — has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools.

Read the rest here.

CEE Members and NCLB

A couple of suggested items from CEE members on the NCLB front: Patti Stock points us to Linda Darling-Hammond's September 10 testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee and Michael Moore, as evidence of how difficult it will be to change some minds, directs our attention to this recent NY Times editorial. You might also want to look at the stand being taken by the over 300,000 members of the California Teachers Association (which isn't making George Miller happy). I'm now betting that the law won't get reauthorized until after the elections next fall.

NCLB and More NCLB

Here's an update from Education Week's David Hoff on the back-and-forth that's been going on between Ed. Secretary Spellings and Congressman Miller about NCLB reauthorization. It sounds as though Miller is sticking to his support for multiple measures (part of NCTE's legislative platform). Notice also that the last paragraph of Hoff's post says the rest of the Miller-McKeon discussion draft, including the parts that address Reading First and teacher quality, will be out today.

400 Pages in 8 Days

One thing I've discovered about trying to have a voice in federal education policy is that the time-lines to act are often so short that only insiders (or someone without a real job) can play. Today's example is the 400 page "Miller-McKeon Discussion Draft" about NCLB reauthorization. The public has eight days to respond. I'll say that again. The public has eight days to respond. We should certainly call our representatives and reiterate the points we've already made (using the NCTE platform as ammunition) but that falls far short of a coordinated calling and writing campaign that would focus on specific aspects of the draft. I guess this is why lobbyists think-tanks often get their way.

What Teachers Have to Say

Here's an interesting report from PBS's News Hour on how "America's best teachers" view NCLB. You can read the transcript or watch the video.

Pelosi on NCLB

It's pretty clear that it's time to stop wondering if it will change and start focusing on what the changes will be. From Stateline.org:

U.S. House speaker pledges to overhaul No Child law

By Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org Staff Writer

BOSTON - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told state legislators Congress would seek a major overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act, which states have protested as an unfunded mandate and unprecedented federal intrusion into schools.

"So different will this bill be from the original No Child Left Behind, that we're thinking of changing it's name," Pelosi said Wendesday (Aug. 8) addressing the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

Read the rest here.

Total Change

Here's Hillary Clinton during last night's AFL-CIO debate. The coalition that has been propping up NCLB appears to be crumbling:

"It was an unfunded mandate. And part of it is that the Department of Education under President Bush did not absolutely enforce it and interpret it in the right way. So we need growth models for students. We need broader curriculum. We need to make sure that when we look at our children, we don't just see a little walking test. We've got to have a total change in No Child Left Behind."

Jim Cummins on NCLB

From Daily Kos:

Jim Cummins Demolishes NCLB’s Ideology and Practice

by Meteor Blades

Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 11:49:56 AM PDT

Two days before Jim Cummins stood behind the podium at the annual conference of the organization of California Teachers of Other Languages (CATESOL) in San Diego, the place buzzed about his coming appearance. Four standing ovations indicated that he did not disappoint.

^{Jim Cummins}

No surprise. A treasured, no-nonsense voice in the world of second-language acquisition, during the past three decades, Cummins, now a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, has touched the life of many an English as a second language teacher, inspiring thousands with a thoroughly grounded iconoclastic approach to the pedagogy of language. He has shattered myths, developed new theories and concepts, promoted innovations in the classroom, affected policy, and arguably done as much to shift the paradigm of language instruction as Noam Chomsky 20 years earlier did to shift scientific thought toward a paradigm of innate universal grammar.

Cummins is Canada Research Chair in Language and Literacy Development in Multilingual Contexts at the University of Toronto and a prolific author of books on second language learning and literacy development. His research has focused on the nature of language proficiency and second language acquisition with particular emphasis on the social and educational barriers that limit academic success for culturally diverse students. Recent books include Literacy, Technology, and Diversity: Teaching for Success in Changing Times, Language, Power and Pedagogy, Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society, and Bilingual Children's Mother Tongue: Why Is It Important for Education?

In a simultaneously scathing and humorous talk, "I’m not just a coloring person," Cummins laid out a case that what is happening now in the schools is not science but ideology, with federal and state policies imposing a pedagogical divide in which "poor kids get behaviorism and rich kids get social constructionism." In practice, that means skills for the poor and knowledge for the rich. That ideologically based approach ignores and rejects research into the way students learn, particularly how they learn language and how to read, he said.

More here.

NCLB at the Debate

Here are some candidate opinions about NCLB (Richardson, Biden, Dodd) from last night's debate. (I'm doing this mostly to see if I can successfully put a You Tube clip on this blog.)

Keeping Up with NCLB

If you're trying to follow the ins and outs of NCLB reauthorization, you'll find Education Week reporter David Hoff's new blog helpful.

NCLB Study Released

A new federal study on NCLB, conducted by the Rand Corporation, was released last week. You may not have heard about it because it was made public with as little fanfare as possible. Given that this is the first federal study to examine how NCLB's school choice and supplemental services provisions are affecting student achievement, you'd think it would have been unveiled at a big press conference. Why wasn't it? Here's the money quote, from Education Week: "Pupils who transferred to other schools under the NCLB choice provision did no better, on average, than they had in their previous schools, according to the study."

Read the rest of the Education Week story here, or you can find the entire Rand report here.

Consequences

From the Associated Press:

2,300 schools face 'No Child' overhaul

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, AP Education Writer Wed Jun 20

NEW YORK - The scarlet letter in education these days is an "R." It stands for restructuring — the purgatory that schools are pushed into if they fail to meet testing goals for six straight years under the No Child Left Behind law.

Nationwide, about 2,300 schools are either in restructuring or are a year away and planning for such drastic action as firing the principal and moving many of the teachers, according to a database provided to The Associated Press by the Education Department. Those schools are being warily eyed by educators elsewhere as the law's consequences begin to hit home.

Read the rest here.

Report on NCLB Assessment and Accountability

The Forum on Educational Accountability (of which NCTE is a member) has released a report on "Assessment and Accountability for Improving Schools and Learning." It argues that changes must be made to NCLB's assessment and accountability system to make it more inclusive and fair. You can download the executive summary or the entire report. You can also read Margaret Spellings' response.

NCLB Potpourri

There are several items about NCLB making the rounds this week. The one that's getting the most notice is the report from the Center on Education Policy ("Answering the Question that Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind?"). What the report actually says is that it's hard to tell, but with reports like this, the headlines may matter more than the substance: "Scores Up Since 'No Child' Was Signed" (Washington Post) and "New Study Finds Gains Since No Child Left Behind" (NY Times). There's also a report from NCES that focuses on how widely the proficiency levels on state tests vary (using NAEP as a benchmark). But the most important piece in the long run may be James Crawford's in Education Week, "A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights" (registration required). In it, Crawford discusses the shift from the term "equal educational opportunity" to "achievement gap":

What’s the significance of this shift in terminology? Achievement gap is all about measurable “outputs”—standardized-test scores—and not about equalizing resources, addressing poverty, combating segregation, or guaranteeing children an opportunity to learn. The No Child Left Behind Act is silent on such matters. Dropping equal educational opportunity, which highlights the role of inputs, has a subtle but powerful effect on how we think about accountability. It shifts the entire burden of reform from legislators and policymakers to teachers and kids and schools.

By implication, educators are the obstacle to change. Every mandate of No Child Left Behind—and there are hundreds—is designed to force the people who run our schools to shape up, work harder, raise expectations, and stop “making excuses” for low test scores, or face the consequences. Despite the law’s oft-stated reverence for “scientifically based research,” this narrow approach is contradicted by numerous studies documenting the importance of social and economic factors in children’s academic progress. Yet it has the advantage of enabling politicians to ignore the difficult issues and avoid costly remedies. If educators are the obstacle, there’s no need to address what Jonathan Kozol calls the “savage inequalities” of our educational system and our society.

TIME for NCLB

The cover story of TIME this week is about No Child Left Behind. The kind of people who read this blog won't learn anything new from it, but it's interesting to see how the mainstream press handles the story. As far as I can tell, there's not a lot of momentum on either side. The supporters of the law know they are shackled with all of its messiness and with its underlying blame-the-teacher bias, while opponents haven't been able to come up with a narrative that's compelling enough to convince those who aren't education insiders that the law is genuinely destructive. So here's a question for CEE types: What do you (and your colleagues) teach your students about NCLB?

Software, Teacher Quality, and Frog and Toad

Two items from the new issue of Education Week:

Major Study on Software Stirs Debate
On whole, school products found to yield no net gains.
By Andrew Trotter

A long-awaited federal study of reading and math software that was released last week found no significant differences in standardized-test scores between students who used the technology in their classrooms and those who used other methods.

Representatives of the educational software industry immediately took issue with aspects of the $10 million study of 15 commercial software products, arguing that its findings did not mean that classroom technology had no academic payoff.

Scholars Suggest Policies to Bolster Teacher Quality
Approaches range from pay incentives to better training and conditions.
By Lynn Olson

While many scholars say surprisingly little solid evidence exists on exactly which public policies are most likely to enhance the quality of teaching, a new volume by the Washington-based Brookings Institution points to ideas that research suggests may be more effective than others.

Among the approaches highlighted in “Excellence in the Classroom,” and discussed at a forum at the think tank here March 28, are: selectively loosening up certification requirements for those entering teaching; targeting large pay incentives for highly effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects and schools; redesigning professional development; and making it easier to dismiss poorly performing educators.

And an essay about scripted reading programs from the Spring 2007 Rethinking Schools:

'I Just Want to Read Frog and Toad'
By Melanie Quinn

One mid-September night, when I was tucking my 5-year-old son Eamonn in bed, the standardization madness came home to roost. With quivering lip and tear-filled eyes, Eamonn told me he hated school. He said he had to read baby books that didn't make sense and that he was in the "dummy group."

Then he looked up at me and said, "I just want to read Frog and Toad."

I am an experienced elementary teacher and college professor, with a long-standing disdain for "ability" grouping, dummied-down curriculum, and stupid, phonics-driven stories that make no sense. And yet here I was, seemingly unable to prevent my own child from being crushed by a scripted reading program of the type so beloved by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Reading Recovery and NCLB in the News

A couple of items of interest in the news today, one from Education Week on the appearance of Reading Recovery in the Department of Education's "What Works Clearinghouse" and the second from the Christian Science Monitor about the politics of NCLB.

Education Week
Tutoring Program Found Effective, Despite Cold Shoulder Under Reading First
By Debra Viadero and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Reading Recovery, a popular tutoring program for struggling 1st grade readers that has been a target of criticism in recent years from the Bush administration, has received a rare thumbs-up rating from the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse.

'No Child Left Behind' losing steam
GOP lawmakers are among the biggest critics of Bush's school reform program.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON
Support for No Child Left Behind – President Bush's signature education reform – is fraying as it heads into reauthorization this year.

The heaviest criticism is coming from within his own party. Conservative Republicans in the House and Senate introduced bills last week that allow states to opt out of most of the law's requirements, while keeping federal funding. Backers of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) say that move would gut the law.

Burdensome and Demoralizing

AFT president Edward McElroy was one of those who testified at the senate hearings on NCLB held Tuesday. AFT has been rather supportive of NCLB, so some of the language in his testimony surprised me:

It’s demoralizing for students, parents, teachers and communities when they know that their schools are making solid academic progress, yet still see them listed in the local paper as “not making the grade.”

At one recent town hall meeting on NCLB convened by the AFT, the comments of a fourth-grade teacher from Boston reflected this demoralization: “The entire reputation of our school hangs on one test,” she said. “It’s not about balanced curriculum, enrichment or learning anymore. It’s all about avoiding that ‘failing school’ label.”

And

Educators also tell us they are required to administer test upon test upon test, including school, district and state tests. This layering of tests leads to an excessive amount of what should be instructional time being diverted instead to testing and drill-and-kill preparation, which results in a narrowing of the curriculum to only those subjects being tested. Students should have science, social studies, the arts, history—and recess.

And

Let me be clear: NCLB in its current form is burdensome and demoralizing to teachers, and yet they continue to teach and continue to adhere to requirements that allow them to teach because they have chosen the teaching of children as a career. But it is unacceptable to ask them to meet yet another unproven federal requirement.

Teachers want to be effective. And schools must be places where teachers feel they can be effective. We ask too many teachers to teach and students to learn in conditions that frankly are shameful—in dilapidated school buildings, without the basic materials they need, and in unsafe conditions that are hardly conducive to teaching and learning.

You can read the entire statement here (pdf).

NCLB Hearing

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on NCLB reauthorization yesterday. The focus was "Strategies for Attracting, Supporting, and Retaining High Quality Educators." Some semi-interesting testimony(if you like that sort of thing). Click here to read it or watch it.