Standardizing the Standards

This article correctly underscores the need for better testing -- and calls for the federal government to do this, which I tend to agree with, though I've heard persuasive arguments to the contrary:

So one of the most glaring legacies of No Child Left Behind is surprising: it has made a muddle of meaningful assessment. Testing has never been more important; inadequate annual progress toward “proficiency” triggers sanctions on schools. Yet testing has never been more suspect, either. The very zeal for accountability is confusing the quest for consistent academic expectations across the country.

In 2014, when states are supposed to report 100 percent pass rates, no governor will be able (honestly) to claim perfect success. But by then, it would be useful at least to agree on what “proficiency” entails. That issue is precisely what is obscured by a blizzard of scores, courtesy of America’s decentralized educational tradition. N.C.L.B. left the states free to choose their own standards and testing methods for determining adequate yearly progress toward proficiency in math and reading. The data therefore defy comparison. In Florida, for example, 71 percent of schools failed to make A.Y.P. in 2006, while only 4 percent did in Wisconsin. More brain-boosting cheese on school lunch menus, perhaps?

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Standardizing the Standards

By ANN HULBERT

Published: May 27, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/magazine/27wwln-lede-t.html

“I know you’re restless today, but I need to see you sitting at your desks. Angel, that means you, too!” In the second-grade classroom at the Washington school where I volunteer, the teacher turned to me and said with a sigh, “It’s testing week.” In fact, her class wasn’t suffering through the standardized ordeal, just tiptoeing around while others did. The “adequate yearly progress” (A.Y.P.) assessments mandated by the No Child Left Behind legislation, which was enacted in 2002 with high hopes of closing the achievement gap for minorities, don’t kick in until third grade. But when it comes to tests, N.C.L.B. is fulfilling its inclusive mission all too well: nobody — not even kids too young to be filling in the bubbles yet — escapes the atmosphere of exam-induced edginess.