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New Data Shows Failure of No Child Left Behind
Despite billions of dollars spent on a test-and-punish approach to school "reform," today's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report provides more evidence that the federal No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) is a failure. With few exceptions, across three age groups and two subjects, the rate of improvement slowed compared with the previous period while gaps between blacks and white as well as Hispanics and whites ranged from widening to unchanging to slightly closing.
"NCLB is demonstrably unable to produce sustained and significant improvements even on a standardized test in the two subjects on which it focuses, reading and math. It also fails to make a real dent in the wide gaps between whites, African Americans and Latinos," said Monty Neill, Ed.D., FairTest's Deputy Director. "It is time to completely overhaul this educationally destructive law. The Forum on Educational Accountability has produced a blueprint to rewrite the law to focus on improving schools not just inflating state test scores." Neill chairs the Forum, whose Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB is endorsed by 150 national education, civil rights, religious, disability, parent, labor and civic groups.
Since NCLB, state test scores have typically increased, but NAEP results have failed to show similar increases. "This is a clear sign that schools are pressured to narrow curriculum and teach to the state tests. That inflates state test scores but the inflated scores don't mean real learning has improved," explained FairTest's Lisa Guisbond. "NCLB has proven to be counter-productive. The Obama administration and the Congress must take the necessary steps to craft helpful, not harmful, federal legislation."
Numerous research reports have shown NCLB has led to narrowed curriculum, teaching to the test, organizational chaos, educator resentment, and other educational damage. Public opinion surveys have shown increasing public dislike of the law and strong opposition to the law's emphases on testing and sanctions.
Summary of results from the NAEP 2008 Long Term Trend report, released April 28, 2009
Reading
Age 9 reading: reading scores did go up 4 points from 2004 to 2008, but they went up 7 points from 1999 to 2004 (more than 1.5 points/year). That is, the rate of improvement has slowed substantially since NCLB took hold compared to a period when at most NCLB might have had some impact at the very end of the period (2003-04). This tendency is common across subjects and age levels.
The black-white reading gap closed 3 points (statistically significant) while the Hispanic-white gap closed 4 points, also statistically significant. However, the Hispanic-white gap closed 7 points from 1999-2004, and the black-white gap closed 9 points from 1999-2004, about three times as fast. That is, while the racial gaps keep closing, the rate of closure has slowed dramatically. Similarly, there have been score gains for blacks and Hispanics, but the rate of improvement for both groups slowed in the 04-08 period compared with the 99-04 period.
Age 13 reading: scores rose modestly but were approximately level with the scores of the early to mid 1990s.
The black-white gap closed 4 points from 2004-2008, but that gap closed 7 points from 1999-2004. The Hispanic-white gap actually widened by 2 points from 2004-08 after widening one point in the 99-04 period. Actual scores have improved for blacks, but not for Hispanics.
Age 17 reading: again, scores gained modestly, but in this case they have not returned to the higher levels reached from the late 1980s through the 1990s.
The black-white gap widened by 2 points from 2004-08 after narrowing 2 points from 1999-2004; and the Hispanic-white gap widened by 4 points from 04-08 after widening by 5 points from 99-04, with NCLB failing to reverse a negative trend. The black-white gap remains far wider than it was at its narrowest, in 1988, and black scores are still below their 1988 peak. The same is true for Hispanics, with 1999 their peak year and the smallest gap with whites.
Math
Age 9 math: the largest gains in the past were from 1986-90 (8 points) and 1999-2004 (9 points) – both 2 points per year gains. However, the 4-point gain from 2004 to 2008 averages only 1 point per year, showing that improvement rates have declined in age 9 math since NCLB took hold.
From 2004-08, the black-white gap widened by 2 points and the Hispanic-white gap remained unchanged, with no changes being statistically significant.
Age 13 math: in the five-year span from 1999 – 2004 NAEP rose 5 points, or 1 point per year. In the four years under NCLB, from 2004 to 2008, NAEP gains were only 2 points, or half the rate of improvement in the previous period.
From 2004 to 2008, the black-white score gap closed 2 points and the Hispanic-white score gap remained unchanged, with no changes being statistically significant.
Age 17 math: score have been essentially flat and are now slightly lower than the previous high point in 1999, prior to NCLB.
The black-white gap closed one point from 2004-2008, while the Hispanic-white gap widened by two points, with no changes being statistically significant.
The NAEP results are at http://nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2008 with links to overall trends by racial groups.
Read the Opposing Views debate, Has No Child Left Behind Improved Public Education?
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Comments
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The FAILURE is not NCLB
The implication that NCLB in and of itself is a failure is an oversimplication. It wasn't NCLB or its premises that were at fault, but it's a problem that has existed in our school systems for YEARS that not only derailed it but will continue to plague every new initiative until we deal with it.
That problem: the high and increasing level of disruption in the classroom. Teachers all across this country are losing 20/30/40/50% or more of productive teaching time due to disruptive, unfocused, and disrespectful kids . It impacts every aspect of the learning environment , yet virtually no one wants to do anything about it.
NCLB actually had a provision in it for identifying this issue. There's a phrase in there about "... students will be adequately prepared to participate in the classroom environment." When we conduct our teacher training, and I ask teachers, "how many of you have students who are 'adequately prepared' in your classroom?" They laugh.
Too many of our kids come into the school systems lacking the essential social skills, character and values development they need to "participate successsfully" in the classrooms, and the lack of discipline and order only degrades over time. It costs us over $100B annually in wasted time and productivity. It is within the top 3 reasons why teachers leave the profession. It's responsible for underachievement, bullying and other anti-social behavior. It's robbing our kids of an education .
If you'd like discuss more, join us at http://socialsmarts.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/teachers-dont-have-time /
Its because
of this kinder gentler society that has been created to make things easier for kids . For goodness sakes, we could never put stress on our fragile kids. I remember when I was in school , there was no class room disruptions, if there were, they did not last very long and the issue was resolved within minutes. Back in that day, the teachers were in charge of their classrooms, not the kids, or their parents, or the idiots at the school board. This was the case in the 70's when I was in elementary school.
I agree
My high school is like this. Kids get caught selling drugs or high and they are temporally suspended because the school is responsible for educating the kids it expels with private tutors.
The people who get in trouble the most happen (by random chance) to be minorities so they cry racism .
Then you have the kids who when through elementary school under the self-esteem movement. They think that if they work two hours on a project it deserves an A+.
I disagree
The problem is tenure of incompetent educators. NCLB was designed to target the removal of such incompetents. The failure of NCLB is the direct result of failure to enforce the law as written. There isn't any other profession in existance where an employee is guaranteed a forever job even long after that employ has failed to perform that job. I saw exactly one "report card" on local schools , which under the law I was supposed to see every year. The results were disgraceful and 4 out of 5 teachers should have been kicked to the curb without further ado.
Until the 4 out of 5 incompetents have been replaced with teachers of the calibur of the 1 out of 5, nothing will change .
Look at the opponents of NCLB. Across the board, it's opposed by the incompetents who know full well they would be fired without ceremony if job security were based on performance, as it should be.
Your argument that the problem is discipline has to fail on its face. If it were true, which it obviously is not, the 1 out of 5 couldn't exist. Same school , same community, same student body: some teachers excell at their profession, the vast majority do not. Crunch the numbers for any individual school district and the data pinpoints where the problem is in every example. It sticks out in a fashion that is impossible to deny. In one school, the students will excell in math, and nothing else. In another it's science . In another it's English. At several grade levels taught by the same teacher, everyone is ahead. At the level before or after, taught by different teachers, everyone is behind.
Darwin thought well of competition and survival of the fittest. It works as well with teachers as it does with tigers. If you aren't any good at what you do, you don't get to eat. In 8 years of the worst presidency in US history , NCLB was the ONLY right thing Bush did.
The only thing robbing kids of an education is the parents who continue to buy into the rationalizations of whining, prima donna, incompetents. If you believe education is important, and you should, you must develop zero tolerance for rationalizations and excuses for why teachers aren't doing the job you're paying them to do.
It's a job, not Club Med. You are the boss, they are your employees. When you see the job is not being done, hand them their pink slips. It's really that simple. Strict enforcement of NCLB will do what needs to be done.
In the news today
Just found this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_dc_schools_teachers
241 Washington DC teachers are to be fired for incompetence under a "new" program. 700 more are on notice that if they don't get their act together, they're next. Needless to say, the teacher's union doesn't think it's fair that teachers should be fired for no better reason than they're not doing the job they're paid to do based on performance.
This is what NCLB was supposed to do.
Every teacher
Every teacher could have told you this without another outlay of money !
No teacher or educator worth their salt ever thought that NCLB was a good concept. Teaching to the test and not the child is never really the answer.
You would not want your doctor to treat your chart instead of you, but that is exactly what NCLB does with teaching.