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Recent Article from Winter/Spring 2004:
Is No Child Left Behind with High Stakes Testing?
By now almost every educator in America is familiar with the phrase “No Child Left Behind.” It is the name given to an act which President Bush signed into law in January, 2001. According to the Education Department web site, “It is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work.” (www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/esea)The motivation behind No Child Left Behind is noble, and it is good to see some idealism injected into a field where parents, administrators, teachers and students alike have all become skeptical, if not downright cynical. At the same time, however, we at Stevenson Learning Skills are concerned that skepticism will only increase if No Child Left Behind becomes another failed initiative. The idea of really leaving no child behind is dear to us, but there are many reasons why this phrase could easily turn into another meaningless political platitude. Therefore, we decided to use some space in Food For Thought to voice some of our concerns.
Almost everyone in education today feels the pressure to be held accountable. Taxpaying parents want to hold administrators accountable for improving student performance. Administrators want to hold teachers accountable, and teachers want to hold students accountable. This is reasonable, but not so easy when you actually try to account performance. Policy makers in most states have decided to measure performance with “high stakes” state-level tests given every few years. Not only do schools get compared to other schools, in most cases students are required to achieve certain minimum scores in high school if they are to graduate. The majority of teachers in America are now conducting their classes with at least one eye on the state test - the MCAS in Massachusetts, the FCAT in Florida, the TAAS or TAKS in Texas, and many more. The first question that many administrators ask about curriculum materials is, “Are they designed to get students to pass our test?”
There is a great deal of controversy in many states about how effective the state test is for determining a student’s competence. We are not familiar with every test, but we are confident that most of these tests have some important value. At the same time, however, these tests create an important problem. In any given state, there is one test. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individual students will be judged principally on the results of one test.
Almost every experienced school teacher knows something important, something that almost every parent who has more than one child also knows; individual students learn in different ways and at different rates. Ample evidence in the field of Child Developmental Psychology demonstrates this fact scientifically. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that no single test - no matter how good it is - is likely to measure accurately the progress of all students in a given state.
Along with the state test, usually come state “guidelines,” “standards,” “academic elements,” or other criteria for progress. It is only fair for educators who are held accountable for students’ success to have guidelines as to what they are accountable to do. The standards often start in Kindergarten and continue for each grade after that (although the actual statewide tests may be administered at only three or four junctures during grades K-12). Today’s teachers are either required or pressured to teach to the guidelines. Teachers know that they will not be blamed, as long as they try hard and follow the state guidelines, no matter how the students actually perform. On the other hand, teachers will be blamed if they deviate from the guidelines and students perform poorly. So what happens when some children do not learn in such a way that they meet that one specific set of standards at particular points in time? Most teachers are not willing to find out. Even if a child shows other valuable signs of progress, will the teacher be able to defend her efforts if the results on the state tests are poor? What happens if a child is identified with a learning difference and that child needs to take a different path to success? His or her teachers and administrators have to be willing to put their jobs on the line in order to deviate from the standard.
Consider the different meanings of the word standard. One concept of standard has a very positive connotation; it is a goal spurring people toward accomplishment. Another connotation of the word is different; it implies uniformity and rigidity. This second meaning may be very positive if you are trying to manufacture a reliable socket wrench, but not desirable if you are trying to produce an educated, productive, individual human being. When viewed from a larger perspective, the state standards are a double-edged sword. The first basic goal of No Child Left Behind, accountability, comes into conflict with the second goal, flexibility, and the third goal, expanded options for parents.
Let us give you a specific example. This winter we spoke to a teacher who was worried about a third grade boy she was trying to help. In particular, the teacher was worried about the boy’s likely performance on the writing portion of the test. This boy could read above grade level and was quite well spoken. He had excellent general knowledge and he tested very well in math (although his math papers were messy and hard to correct). In fact, all of his handwriting was atrocious and his spelling was barely first grade level. He had an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) because the school system had recognized the specific learning difficulties he had with written expression. Nonetheless, he was being held accountable to perform certain writing activities that were part of the state guidelines. These activities involved writing simple compositions. The problem, however, was that the boy had such difficulty with handwriting and spelling that even the simplest of composition tasks were often overwhelming. Some common sense would indicate that the boy’s handwriting and spelling problems should be remediated before one can expect him to write compositions effectively.
The teacher had hoped that the student could be accommodated by using a computer. He could easily understand the principals of good composition, he could express himself clearly and he could type onto a word processor reasonably well for a third grader. A computer could not solve his problems, however, because spell checkers are not very useful if you only spell at a first grade level. The student could not take this state test with a computer anyway. Using a computer for the test, of course, would also not address the boy’s need to master writing, a valuable life skill.
The teacher called us hoping we could help. We suggested that the boy really needed a different approach to both handwriting and spelling. She was happy to try any new approach, but she could not abandon the composition tasks - even though the boy was frustrated. These activities were simply mandated. The teacher asked if our spelling method could bring the boy up to grade level in two or three months. We told her that we could probably to bring him up to grade level in two or three years, and we offered more suggestions for alternatives to teaching writing and composition after his handwriting and spelling improved. We could not, however, solve all of his problems in two or three months.
The teacher said that our suggestions seemed reasonable, but she just did not dare take a different route. It had been made very clear to her that she had to prepare the boy for the test and that she had to follow the guidelines. She sounded rather discouraged when she hung up. Frankly, so were we.
This boy’s learning profile is not common, but it is hardly unique either. He obviously has fine academic potential, but also obviously needs some alternatives to the instructional methods that were not working for him. He is not likely to develop certain skills in the same sequence and in the same time frame as the “average,” or should we say “standard,” child. The state tests were devised to create accountability, which supports the No Child Left Behind initiative. These tests, however, could become the very reason this boy is left behind.
This story is not extreme. We can discuss many instances where dyslexic students have made progress that could be easily demonstrated but did not show up on the state test. Nor is the problem limited to special education students. We have seen some sample questions on the high-stakes tests that obviously assume the student has a sophisticated command of English, both in terms of vocabulary and usage. Other questions are simply vague. Many students without learning disabilities will struggle with such language issues even though they have mastered the basic skills the question is intended to test.
Our comments are not intended to dismiss the value of the No Child Left Behind initiative. It has enhanced some positive trends in education. One of these trends is to reach out to children with additional help earlier in their schooling. There is a great deal of talk about having every child reading at grade level by the time she or he leaves third grade. That may not be a realistic goal, since you cannot eliminate the fact that some students have severe learning problems. A decade ago, however, schools were very reluctant to supply additional help to students in reading until it had been proven that the child was failing to learn by the standard curriculum. Only after a child had demonstrated a sufficient “discrepancy” would he or she be given extra teaching resources, and usually only through Special Education. Then Special Education and General Education would often battle over who was “in charge” of the student’s reading program and which method should be used. Today, in an effort to make sure that no child falls too far behind, many schools are willing to look into extra help early. They are also showing more flexibility about offering different kinds of reading instruction in the primary grades.
Last fall at the IDA Conference, we saw a very impressive presentation by educators in Broward County, Florida who have devised a “Struggling Reader Chart” that provides for a variety of instructional possibilities for any student who needs help, from Kindergarten through the upper grades. The General and Special Education Departments worked closely together to develop the plan, and Broward is a very large system where such a plan is a major accomplishment. Of course, turf wars between Special Education and General Education continue in many systems, and many students still receive very few options for reading instruction. Overall, however, the spirit of leaving no child behind seems to be making progress.
The No Child Left Behind initiative’s emphasis on accountability makes sense. A decade ago, a number of very well intentioned trends in both Special and General Education caused educators to place less emphasis on standardized reading scores. Not surprisingly, those scores did not improve, and now the pendulum has moved the other way. Our largest concern is with the notion that a single high stakes test at the state level is a reasonable vehicle for holding educators and students accountable. A similar, and perhaps more important, concern is the emphasis on state “standards” in early grades. It seems reasonable that every student graduating from high school should have a certain minimum set of skills and a certain minimum body of knowledge. The idea that five to nine year olds, however, should all be able to do the same set of tasks at the same points in time contradicts what we know about child development.
There are many kinds of standardized tests that measure many skills. There are non-standardized tests (Criteria Reference Tests) that provide valuable information about a student’s progress. There are also portfolios, journals and files that can document both what a student accomplishes and what a teacher covers. We are not suggesting that the state tests be replaced by a random, chaotic potpourri of records. We have seen that in the past. Surely, however, some flexibility should be built into the “accountability” measures, particularly at the early grades. Otherwise, a single test can overshadow the full spectrum of learning. For some pupils, a “guideline” designed to promote success could actually become a barrier that prohibits them from reaching a goal by a different path that is more appropriate for the way they learn. With current trends, the No Child Left Behind initiative is in danger of promoting “One Size Fits All” education. That is not likely to improve our schools.
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2002 Stevenson Learning Skills, Inc. All rights reserved.
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