Marco Polo left a comment, saying:
…if the arguments against it [NCLB] are good, then surely they should be made clearly. What is so fascinating and disappointing, is that the two “camps” seem to find no common ground, not to be able to speak the same language. I think it is important that they communicate.
Marco is right. Communication about important things is a worthwhile goal. NCLB is part of a big, many-sided debate, and it touches on deep-seated beliefs and values. I think most teachers in the US aren’t talking about it much because we believe that complaining leaves us open to charges of incompetence or, worse, whining.
Other similarly troublesome arguments we could tackle include The Death Penalty, Abortion, Atheism, or Evolution. Instead, teachers deal with more immediate situations, like who knows how to change the toner cartridge for the copy machine.
If there is any non-swampy common ground fit to occupy, we might want to map it to see what lies just past the edges of both camps. The question What is NCLB about? might be seen as a list of unresolved tensions:
- Teacher accountability vs teacher autonomy (trust);
- Student and family roles vs institutional functions (responsibility);
- Objective high stakes assessments vs anecdotal records (standardization);
- Education for social mobility vs education for participatory democracy (mission);
- Rigor vs accommodation (standards);
- Competition and free markets vs publicly funded institutions (fiscal policy);
- Maintenance of cultural norms vs cultural diversity (cultural values);
- Equity vs class differences (social justice);
- Education research vs practical knowledge (methodology);
- Knowledge as a received commodity vs constructed understanding (epistemology).
This list describes the social-political matrix we usually call The Classroom. Positions at the extreme edges of the issues describe imaginary worlds that lack the inconvenient limitations of space, time, and individual differences. One of the reasons that it’s hard for teachers to talk about NCLB is that finding common ground demands a common physics to define what is and is not possible. And there is no such thing as a generic classroom.
Can we find common ground there? In our dreams. I like the idea that school could help someone have a better life. But building a program of reforms around a slogan like No Child Left Behind won’t make it so. My clearest and simplest argument against NCLB is this: It won’t work.
A paper called Proficiency for All: An Oxymoron (Rothstein, Jacobson & Wilder, 2006) argues that
…the conceptual basis of NCLB is deeply flawed; no goal can simultaneously be challenging to and achievable by all students across the entire achievement distribution. A standard can either be a minimal standard which presents no challenge to typical and advanced students, or it can be a challenging standard which is unachievable by most below-average students. No standard can serve both purposes – this is why we call ‘proficiency for all’ an oxymoron – but this is what NCLB requires.
Rothstein acknowledges that while the goal of closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged and middle class kids is laudable, it also means eliminating achievement differences within socioeconomic groups, which ignores the obvious limitations of individual differences.
In the meantime, while we are arguing (or whining) about the methods and techniques of instruction and measurement, the merits and demerits of rigorous standards and standardization, who’s worthy and who isn’t, and all the rest, we have this impossible target set for us.
It does nothing to further – and even impedes – the cause that it was apparently set up to promote. To serve this mandate in practice, there is pressure to push through curriculum goals whether kids are ready or not, and to devote more time to skills development while neglecting content area studies like science and social studies, focusing our efforts on the tested performance standards. Disadvantaged kids are further disadvantaged.
Short of scrapping the legislation (I did sign the petition), which appears unlikely, I support the NCTE recommendations for changes to the law:
- Multiple assessments;
- Professional development;
- High-need students should have the best prepared teachers;
- Re-examining the definition of “scientifically based reading research;”
- Adoption of growth models to track increased achievement.
We need more good teachers, fewer tests, and flexibility to meet students’ needs as they are presented. But I’m not a policy maker. I’m an agent of the system – a witness to what it intends and what it actually does.
6 Comments
Thanks for this post, particularly your list of “tensions” and the quote from “Proficiency for All.” There are so many complex, far-reaching issues and implications tied to this argument that it’s sometimes hard to keep it all in mind at once. I think we need more attempts to get at the “essence” of this argument.
I also think that’s part of the problem with the debate so far–all sides are too quick to oversimplify (myself included). It’s easy to do, it’s exciting and attracts attention, but it won’t be helpful. What will be helpful is the hard work of careful, balanced thinking … and that can be kinda boring.
I was writing last night about the need to spend more time thinking about the terms “standards” and “assessment.” They are both complex, and the way we choose to define them has far-reaching implications. In our quest for balance, I think we need to work backwards from a more unified and nuanced understanding of these terms, because I don’t think we’re there yet. I *think* this is one more piece of the puzzle.
But I could be wrong. As you say, I’m not a policy-maker either …
Good list, but I’m not sure about the “vs” between the pairs. I can imagine a pro-NCLB-er (say, Dan, for instance) reading this and saying, “See!?!? Those whiners think autonomy means the opposite of accountability. What slackers!!”
They are not mutually incompatible, shorely? I think we need both.
It’s partly a matter of semantics, of what one means by “accountable” and perhaps that is the place to start. But frankly, I think you’re waffling on this issue. If I understand the anti-NCLB-ers correctly, their point is that “accountability” is taken to mean “testing” and testing so intensely that a) it means (in effect) the teacher is tested as well (or perhaps it is primarily teachers who are being targeted here; Dan’s and others’ comments seem to support this suspicion, as does the growth in teacher-proof materials, as documented by Michael Apple et al.),
and b) the testing severely cramps the teacher’s style, in that they pretty much have to spend a large amount of time teaching to the test.
BUT, the pro-NCLB/testing camp say teachers are employed, by the parents, by the board of directors, by the city or state, to do a certain job, and there obviously need to be standards and checks to make sure teachers are doing that job. To suggest otherwise is to invite contempt and suspicion: why would anyone argue against that, unless their continued employment is threatened by standards and checks? (In other words, they’re a slacker!).
Isn’t semantics? About what we mean by accountability (or assessment or whatever)?
How early is “early”? How much leeway is there in being “on time”? These things are not written in stone; they vary (hugely) from culture to culture. Assuming that my understanding of “early” will be shared by anyone I talk to is guaranteed to lead to problems somewhere down the road (I speak from experience!). (Suggested further reading on this fascinating subject: any book by anthropologist Edward T. Hall).
Very well said. NCLB mistakenly sends the message that by homogenizing education we will improve our system. Those who do not spend time within schools buy into this notion, and that is one reason why they perceive teachers to “whine” when they speak out against this fallacy.
Marco (and Doug) – The parent part is one of the inconsistencies – when I talk to parents they think test scores are important, but not more important than doing a good job teaching their kids (whatever that might mean to that parent). “I’m not tied to test scores.” – I’ve heard this 1,000 times from parents. This is one reason why when parents are surveyed they will say schools are terrible (based on what they see of test scores in general), just not their child’s school, which just so happens does a pretty good job – at least this is what the results of the many surveys on this subject I’ve seen over the years – from most parents and across all socio-economic levels.
Brian
Brian – Your point about parent perceptions is right on. My own school is now on (I don’t know the official designation.) its first year of being an “underperforming” school for not meeting “adequate yearly progress” in one category last year. But we have a large population of kids from outside of our official attendance area who are choosing to come there. Many parents like what we do, and they bring their kids to us.
Marco – The issues I outlined are not black or white – which was my point. The middle ground is the only sane place to try to understand any of this. Is that what you mean by waffling? I agree that this is mostly semantics. Words like failure, achievement, and accountability have gained enormous symbolic weight. What do they mean? How they are influencing us? Those are not easy questions. Are they helping to make things better for kids? No.
There needs to be reconciliation between NCLB and IDEA; for example, IDEA never states that if a student with an IEP does not make progress that a school will be penalized. Schools do need to make a “good faith” effort in achieving those goals in a child’s IEP. NCLB’s AYP does punish schools if students with special needs don’t make the progress.
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] Next, there are pleas for alternative assessment. I will admit that having come into teaching when I did, I don’t have much experience in “portfolio” based education, except what I’ve done inadvertently, so I am not the best person to discuss this. I’d like to see teachers who do this talk about what it would look like. Here are some concerns that I have, but I view them as problems that can be solved, not impediments to implementing alternative/portfolio based assessment .What standards will you have for the work? Who will set the standards (local, state, federal)?Who will “grade” the work? How do you stop grade inflation/deflation from creeping in? Will there be auditing? Part of the reason that exams are so popular is that bubble-tests are cheap to have outsiders grade (as opposed to having outsiders review a portfolio) and are uniform. [...]
Post a Comment