NCLB opponents

Not surprisingly, there are many defenders of the status quo who are going nuts -- NUTS I tell ya! -- at how the renewal debate over NCLB is going.  Some group called The National Center for Fair & Open Testing issued the press release below, which said:

The Commission report contains numerous examples of flawed logic, unreasonable requirements and bad policy. These include:

- Using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers and principals. This will only intensify teaching to the test, narrowing and dumbing-down education most severely for the nation's neediest children.

 

-  Creating multiple additional ways for schools to fail by mandating that science scores count in AYP and that subgroup scores count toward accountability when subgroup size reaches 20 - a number so small as to guarantee statistically inaccurate results.

 

-  Making assessment and accountability for students with disabilities more rigid, countering a demand by parents that their children be included in ways that are flexible and reasonable.

 

-  Encouraging uniform state tests, which will pave the way to reducing education to preparation for one national test instead of many different state tests

Let's go through these points one by one:

A) They object to "Using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers and principals" and instead call for (from their web site): "fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial evaluations of students, teachers and schools. FairTest also works to end the misuses and flaws of testing practices that impede those goals."

 

This is the tired old canard trotted out by those who oppose accountability and who want to instead continue to use useless loosy-goosy metrics that allow failing teachers, principals and schools to continue their educational malpractice, year after year, with nobody the wiser and no consequences.  If they really want to help needy children, they should be demanding MORE testing, because I've NEVER ONCE seen a test of needy children that has failed to underscore how dire the situation is for these children and how much more needs to be done for them.

 

While no doubt many of the tests need improvement, the solution is NOT to abandon testing but to improve the tests!

 

B) As for including science, they should be embracing the expansion of testing to include more subjects -- that way, it's not narrowed and dumbed down.  And setting a standard for subgroup sizes closes a big accountability loophole, as some states were excluding subgroups of up to 200 students!

Each state now chooses the minimum number of students who must be present for a school to report on test results by ethnic and other groups. Some states set the bar so high that they largely sidestep the law’s full scrutiny. Texas, for example, sets the minimum at 200 students, while Maryland, at the other end, sets it at 5.

C) What they decry as "rigid" is closing another loophole that allowed schools to continue failing students with disabilities.

 

D) "Encouraging uniform state tests, which will pave the way to reducing education to preparation for one national test instead of many different state tests."  What's wrong with this?  We've tried letting states set their own standards and it's led to absurdities like this:

Its report compared the way in many states, students considered proficient in reading on the state tests were not considered proficient on the National Assessment. In Mississippi, for example, the state test found that 87 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading. According to the national test, only 18 percent were.

Why should we as a nation hold 8th grade students in New York, for example, to a different standard in math than 8th graders in Arkansas?

 

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ASPEN COMMISSION PROPOSALS ARE "NCLB ON STEROIDS;" SIDE-EFFECT WILL BE MORE "TEACHING TO THE TESTS"

 

REACTION OF MONTY NEILL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAIR & OPEN TESTING (FairTest)

 

The Aspen Commission's recommendations for reauthorizing the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, released today, amount to little more than NCLB on steroids.

 

Their predictable side-effect will be the further reduction of education to coaching for narrow exams that fail to support or assess high-quality student learning.

 

While the Commission claims that the public now accepts NCLB, numerous state and national surveys find that educators overwhelmingly reject the test-and- punish dictates of the law while parents reject the side effects of teaching to the test. The more the public knows about the law, the more they oppose it.

 

The Commission report contains numerous examples of flawed logic, unreasonable requirements and bad policy. These include:

 

- Using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers and principals. This will only intensify teaching to the test, narrowing and dumbing-down education most severely for the nation's neediest children.

 

-  Creating multiple additional ways for schools to fail by mandating that science scores count in AYP and that subgroup scores count toward accountability when subgroup size reaches 20 - a number so small as to guarantee statistically inaccurate results.

 

-  Making assessment and accountability for students with disabilities more rigid, countering a demand by parents that their children be included in ways that are flexible and reasonable.

 

-  Encouraging uniform state tests, which will pave the way to reducing education to preparation for one national test instead of many different state tests

 

Our nation deserves a federal law that encourages a rich education for all rather than mindless test-preparation. A more rational approach is found in the Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind, now endorsed by 106 national education, civil rights, religious, disability and civic organizations. Follow-up reports with detailed recommendations will soon be released by the Forum on Educational Accountability, a working group of the Joint Statement signers.

 

The Joint Statement and other information on the failures of NCLB may be found at www.fairtest.org.