No Child Left Behind: Hits and Myths
Michael J. Wiebe
Texas Woman’s University
Passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) marked a new chapter in federal oversight of American public education. The publicity surrounding NCLB focused on political concerns over academic achievement, accountability, controls, research-based instruction, and not the least, cost controls.
As with any other well-intended legislation, there are usually unintended consequences that result as the program unfolds. Outcomes of NCLB abound and appear to focus on both the intent and implementation of the law to date. The Forum on Educational Accountability (2007) concluded that the NCLB Act:
- fails to ensure adequate opportunities to learn;
- is too rigid in its conceptualization and application;
- sets forth goals that are impossible to meet and far too narrow; and
- inhibits rather than strengthens local capacity to improve the quality of
- education.
In defense of the legislation, early reports suggest that some gains are being made under NCLB, especially for historically underserved groups. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007) report revealed gains in achievement scores for Hispanic and African American students in the United States.
In a public educational system as diverse as seen in the United States, challenges can be expected. Implementing a noble concept such as NCLB is a daunting task in itself. On the surface, any attempt to establish policy for public education will be met with political and professional resistance. Issues that continue include the locus of control for publicly funded education and cost-benefit analysis of conformity in return for relatively limited federal dollars.
An implicit assumption of current reform and accountability efforts is that all students will pursue higher education goals. Such a Lake Wobegon approach (Keillor, 1985) (where all children are above average) does not adequately address needs of individual students and how best to meet those needs. Nor does a law formulated solely on narrow definitions of achievement favorably impact publicly funded training that could lead to preparation for adult success, including not only post secondary education but vocational and technical careers as well.
Accountability
I want to share something with you -- the three sentences that will get you through life. Number one, "Cover for me." Number two, "Oh, good idea, boss." Number three, "It was like that when I got here." -Homer Simpson (Scovell & Archer, 1991)
Accountability in public education is not a new issue, but rather has been recorded since the founding of the republic. For example, much of the legal history of American public education centered on the need for secondary education and who should pay its costs.
Perhaps accountability issues have received more attention over the past four decades as instructional strategies research tipped the balance of teaching from an “art” to more of a “science.” With new research directions, came altered views of achievement and the learning environment.
In 1963, John Carroll introduced a theory of instruction based on learning as a mathematical function (Davis & Sorrell, 1995). Carroll equated learning as a function of time expended on a task divided by the time needed for task completion. Student aptitude appeared to be the critical variable that defined the time needed portion of the relationship.
Bloom extended Carroll’s ideas into measurable outcome of student achievement. Recognized as a major force in current learning theories, Bloom defined mastery learning as a predictable outcome of learning measured by mastery performance (Davis & Sorrell, 1995).
A shift in focus of accountability toward achievement was reflected by Lessinger (1970) who called for evidence that a student could perform specific tasks at the completion of a public school curriculum.
The Utah Foundation (1999) report tracked the growth of accountability through a “Nation At Risk” in 1983 and the ebb and flow of approaches to accountability over the near term. Accountability became the description of reform, since proponents held that improvement in public education could not be expected unless the both the institutions and its students were held accountable. Among the forms of accountability described in the Utah report were the following:
- performance ratings
- monitoring and compliance with standards or regulations
- incentive systems
- reliance on the market
- changing the locus of authority or control of schools
- changing professional roles
Each of these components of accountability now appears as a part of the regulations designed to implement NCLB. In turn, the substance of these elements characterizes assumptions, well-founded or faulty, that led to the sweeping reforms of the federal act.
Myth #1—Education Can be Run on a Business Model
Mr. Scorpio says productivity is up 2%, and it's all because of my motivational techniques - like donuts and the possibility of more donuts to come. -Homer Simpson (Swartzwelder & Anderson, 1996)
Calls to apply business models to public education are not new. In the 1920’s, cost accounting strategies were utilized to demonstrate fiscal responsibility in the funding of public schools (Utah Foundation, 1999).
Since that time, calls for a market-driven model of educational reform have been made. Paige (2001) recognized the limits of a business analogy to education, but understood that some organization change was necessary.
Concepts such as tuition vouchers, merit pay, rewards, and privatization of schools have not yet addressed specific problems in the educational system. Brower (2007) posited that proponents of business models lack the direct experience and research base to support their claims. As well, claims that market forces will enhance education are unfounded and that ultimately, federal mandates will only increase the problems.
Still other issues exist with business concepts applied to public education. In business, quality control is expected from raw materials, through product production, to consumer sales, with cost containment a driving force.
In public education the first conflict arises at the raw material stage. Students come to public schools from diverse backgrounds and bring significant differences in preparation or readiness for formal education. Thus, schools are expected to “level the playing field” with a primary curriculum drastically different from that used only 25 years ago.
Other forces facing public education exist in stark contrast to a business application. For example, absenteeism, family relocation, and unpredictable support from the home make on-going quality control in schools a monumental hurdle. Shifts in social structure impact public education in ways beyond the comprehension of a business manager.
The risk elements of business could also be considered as applied to public education. As Waite (2005) reflected, Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, and more recently Bear Sterns do not exactly offer a model of success and integrity that schools might choose to emulate.
To wit, American Airlines expects to offer executive bonuses for 2008 in spite of significant losses in profit and a disastrous episode of compliance with safety directives. Under this model of merit pay, teacher salaries should also increase even when student achievement test scores fall.
Pressures to meet goals of accountability is already evident in well-publicized episodes of teacher or administrator manipulation of state-mandated testing data. Waite (2005) warned “Is this the model we want for our schools—a slippery ethical footing where almost anything is justified in pursuit of profit.?
Perhaps many of the calls for a business model are based on fiscal concerns. Certainly, the annual expenditures per student have risen dramatically over the near term. Data from the 2005-06 year suggest that of the nearly $9,400 spent per pupil, $1601 was needed to underwrite special resources and another $1943 for district-wide overhead., leaving just under $5850 for general education resources (Odden, Goetz, & Picus, 2007). On the surface, public education is an expensive venture, but when analyzed on a per-hour basis, the US educates its youth at a rate of less than $5.00 per hour, or $7.67 per hours with all auxiliary costs included.
Myth #2—Formal Assessment is the only Measureable Outcome
“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 40% of people know that.” -Homer Simpson (Swartzwelder & Reardon, 1994)
Testing, both formal and informal, have long been a tool of measuring student progress in schools. The “science” of assessment has evolved parallel with efforts to define and in turn to measure human attributes such as intelligence. Methods used to design, standardize, and establish the adequacy of test instruments have been developed over the past century and have grown exponentially with advances in technology and applications in accountability.
Test developers, psychometrists, and statisticians contribute to the development of assessment instruments and to research that underlies formal assessment. These experts understand the parameters of test construction and application. Test construction and standardization is a lot like making sausage, with the general public, including lawmakers, choosing to focus only on the product, leaving the details to the “experts.”
High-stakes testing has become a litmus test issue in NCLB. Test scores are used to create “report cards” for school performance with pass or fail judgments made on data disaggregated by ethnicity and other cultural or social attributes. Without understanding assumptions of assessment, the public can easily by swayed by erroneous or incomplete data. As Mark Twain (1906) so aptly described, “"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Test scores appear in public media with little if any clarification or detail. For example, to compare one school to another without making statistical corrections for sample or instrumental differences is a cardinal sin for a statistician. Yet a government employee or journalist does not grasp the need to equate groups before using differences in making judgments.
Another major concern surrounding high stakes testing involves the lack of knowledge of scores used in the test instruments. Most test instruments used in high stakes assessment are norm-referenced and as such rely on assumptions of the normal distribution or “curve.” During the standardization process, raw scores are converted into “standard scores” which are generated using central tendency and sample variability to determine the adjusted or standard scores. Thus, if growth is a desired outcome, then raw score analysis would be the preferred approach to addressing accountability.
Standard or scaled scores are, by definition, designed to remain stable to allow for comparison over time of across samples. If raw scores increase in a sample, then adjustments are made in the standardization process to preserve the standard score (why IQ scores are defined with a mean standard score of 100).
For example, when the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale was revised in the 1970’s, the preschool sample produced higher raw scores than previously obtained. Without adjustment, the effect of these higher scores would have resulted in a new average IQ of nearly 106. In order to maintain the traditional or standard IQ mean of 100, the revised Binet required more correct responses in order to be “average” than required in earlier editions of the instrument. Even though more preschoolers scored at higher levels on the revised test, their scores were adjusted downward to preserve the standard score.
When test scores are used inappropriately, serious damage can be done. For instance, an on-going series of reports on achievement scores presents longitudinal data with narrative implying that “achievement scores were flat.” The (Brown Center Report (Loveless (2006) suggests that from 1971 to present, no gains in academic achievement had been realized. The report’s data subtitles offered more insight with the clarification that the data were expressed as scale scores. The report made a presumption of fact that achievement scores should increase over time, leading to an indictment of school quality. Unfortunately, the use of scaled scores reverts to a working hypothesis that that a constant or standard score will be maintained over time.
Perhaps a different tone would have been made had the analysis focused on changes in raw scores over time and the resultant “gain” in achievement. When this type of data is misinterpreted at the source, the negative impact in public and political arenas cannot be undone.
Myth #3—Narrow Academic Focus yields broad Outcomes
America's health care (educational) system is second only to Japan... Canada, Sweden, Great Britain... well, all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay! -Homer Simpson (Apple & Carrington, 1992)
When the focus of accountability and the NCLB act are specific areas of achievement, there is a risk that the curriculum will narrow to emphasize only those areas. Assessment measures that receive the most government attention are restricted to reading, mathematics, and to a lesser degree, science.
This focus continues the curriculum concerns that “Nation At Risk” articulated in 1983. Two major problems with assumed deficiencies must be presented for discussion.
First, is the US public education system operating at significantly lower levels than other industrialized nations? As presented earlier, to simply compare data sets without accounting for equivalence is a significant research error at two levels . For example, what is defined as a high school student in some European or Asian countries may not be the same as a high school student in the U.S. Some nations segregate students early on into vocational tracks, leaving their high schools to function with a college-preparation focus. In U.S. schools, achievement testing is a remarkably democratic process, with scores obtained from all who attend, not solely on those with post-secondary aptitude and experience.
In addition, regression effects must be considered when comparing samples. The assumption of regression is that on repeated measurements, extreme scores, high or low performers, will tend to migrate toward the mean or average. Regression should temper conclusions about any shifts in scores.
A second and related issue with curriculum is the need to encourage the discussion of what U.S public schools should be. Obviously, the use of high-stakes assessment focuses on academic achievement that still relies on the three “R’s”
This dilemma was articulated by Lanich (2007) who argued that there appeared to be some consensus that graduating high school seniors should be able to enter the workforce or seek high education. The unanswered element of Lanich’s conclusions is what are the basic skills that clearly define the ability to enter the work force and are those skills different from the skills necessary for success in higher education? Assessment that focuses on a narrow component of the curriculum will not offer data needed to best make decision about curricular changes.
If one reflects on the dreams of America’s founders, the importance and function of public education are both clear and ambiguous. While both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin differed markedly in their politics, both were strong proponents of public education.
Franklin’s approach focused more on applied learning necessary within a broader context of service. In his call for public education in Pennsylvania, Franklin (1749) proposed that
“The idea of what is true merit, should also be often presented to youth, explain’d and impress’d on their minds, as consisting in an inclination join’d with an ability to serve mankind, one’s country, friends, and family…”
Jefferson’s goals for a public education were articulated as a wider concern.
“The objects of…primary education {which} determine its character and limits {are} To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business, to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts ad accounts in writing, to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties, to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." -Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.
It seems clear that our history and future are linked to education. Jefferson and Franklin agreed that education and freedom are intertwined and synergistic in nature. Yet to reduce public education to assessment of its base components of reading, mathematics, and science achievement is to reduce the value of knowledge and its intrinsic role in freedom.
Measurement of the true effectiveness of an education may be accomplished only years after graduation from high school. Gelberg (1997) argued that the values of education cannot be quantified and that the form of training a society elects to provide for its youth must reflect cultural ambitions and goals.
Myth #4—Schools and Teachers are accountable for all learning
Don't worry. Being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep. In a giant blender. -Homer Simpson (Swartzwelder & Kirkland, 2001)
Accountability systems tend to focus on responsibility for pre-defined outcomes. AS the NCLB act unfolds, accountability tends to be passed through the layers of government. The federal level holds states accountable, states focus on districts, and districts focus on schools. While the education of American youth should be a coordinated effort shared by all levels of government, most accountability systems target state or school performance. In a systemic approach, all the stakeholders are ultimately responsible.
One concern of NCLB is where accountability should be directed. Currently teachers wear the target of responsibility with both threats and rewards on the platter of accountability. To hold an individual teacher solely responsible for academic achievement is remarkably narrow. The teacher is an important element but not the only one.
Part of the NCLB process is to offer parents alternatives to placement in a school with a history of low performance. While the question of vouchers for public education remains a political topic, accountability measures will have an impact on the ultimate outcome, subject to public perceptions of the competence of students completing public schools (Ravich, 2002)
Currently, some states are experimenting with a reward system loosely tied to merit pay. While promising on the surface, merit pay assumes a significant addition to income. At present, some schools are accepting bonus/merit rewards while other “high achieving” school reject the payments, arguing that merit is attributable to a larger group of educators and that monetary rewards should include more than just the classroom teachers.
Myth #5—Student Responsibility
How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?” –Homer Simpson (Daniels & Baeza, 1994)
The original framework of NCLD extended the responsibility for education beyond the school walls. Few would disagree that parents must become full partners in the learning process. Perhaps as educators, we have not been clear in defining the expectations for entry-level skills parents need to instill in their children.
Learning is as much a function of discipline as knowledge and the home is a logical place to begin. Like the business model, some measure of quality control for the “raw material” of learning must be a part of national school reform efforts.
Of all the discussion and interpretation of NCLB, two major omissions seem clear. First, one of the ultimate purposes of accountability may be lost. Certainly one purpose of accountability is to evaluate and report the absolute performance of students, schools, and school districts in achieving specific standards.(Banicky & Foss, 1999)
At present, the implementation of NCLB and its accountability components focus on rewards and sanctions for teachers and schools. The risk of such an approach to accountability is to risk unintended consequences that take the form of negative reinforcement and punishers.
Another vital purpose of accountability is to generate the information necessary to lead to improvement. The promise is that by engaging community action and reflection in the educational process improved performance can be achieved. (Banicky & Foss, 1999)
Responsibility and accountability are major tenets of NCLB. However until the “sins of omission” can be addressed, progress will continue to be limited. If successful learning relies on the interaction of school, home, and student, focus on only one element while ignoring the other two is a pathway to failure.
As earlier, the role of home and parents needs to be addresses so that readiness to learn becomes a set of prerequisite skills needed for early school success. Parents have a significant role to play in the education of their children and must be held accountable.
Perhaps more important is the absence of individual student responsibility for learning and achievement. The shift to Mastery Learning over the past 40 years and ever-shifting political expectations can be linked to the current tenets of accountability. As Warren (n.d.) related, the theories of Mastery Learning resulted in a radical shift in responsibility in the educational process. Increased focus on the role of the teacher shifted the blame for a student's failure to engage in instruction rather than a lack of ability or effort on the part of the student.
The Dallas Independent School District (2008) recently adopted new grading policies that are slated to take effect in the fall of 1008. Disguised as an effort to create a uniform grading system, the administratively created policies claim to rely on “effort-based” grading and a content mastery approach. Attracting a significant community outcry, the new directives (Fischer, 2008) include the following:
- Homework grades will be given only when the grades will raise the student’s average, not lower it.
- Teachers must accept overdue assignments and only the principal may determine whether students will be penalized for missing the assignment.
- Students who fail tests may retake the exam and only the higher grade will be recorded.
- Teachers cannot give a zero o an assignment unless parents are contacted and efforts made to assist the student in completing the work.
This shift in policy comes from the same school district who determined last year that that the lowest grade possible was a 50%. Apparently in Dallas at least, if you lower the standards and expectations enough, no child will be left behind.
Teachers report frustration with students who disrupt classrooms and seem to be occupying space rather than being engaged in learning. Some research reports suggest that drop-out decisions are internalized as early as the third grade, leading to detachment from learning until the magic drop-out age is reached. NCLB is a noble concept, but we must consider a cost-benefit approach including revisiting career path alternatives. Somewhere along the line, college education became the accepted expectation for all students. What will be the ultimate cost if limited resources are directed to students who could be better served in other venues.
How best to address individual student performance and how to deal with readiness, motivation, and other determinants of success is not yet a part of the federal regulations. It seems likely that until all stakeholders bear responsibility for academic achievement (most importantly the student) accountability measures are doomed to failure, or worse, promulgation.
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