Next Steps for No Child Left Behind
Stuart Nachbar
October 28, 2008
Next week, America will choose a new president, and regardless of the victor, the voters will demand change. Yet little was said by Senator Obama or Senator McCain about No Child Left Behind. Both praise the intent of the law. Obama hopes to provide more funding while McCain called for a spending freeze. McCain hopes to allow more school choices, vouchers and alternatives teacher certification. Both support merit pay for existing teachers and both want to recruit and reward new math and science teachers.
But neither candidate proposes extreme revisions to this act, and they are desperately needed. The act, while bipartisan, passed in 2001 with little input from educators; it was intended to be more of a parent´s bill of rights where parents would know if their schools were failing, they could receive government funded tutoring for their children, and they could remove their child from a federally sanctioned school.
But No Child Left Behind offers parents no means for appeal when a school system, state government, or the U.S. Department of Education is unresponsive to their concerns. Congress did not intend for the federal government to step in and close failing schools, just as sent National Guard troops in to force state and local school boards to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws half a century ago. However, we have schools in a so-called Year 7, where they must be closed or restructured, but the federal government lacks the resources to aid or intervene.
Some good has come from this act: schools now use student data to monitor academic progress over the course of school years, and from grade to grade; reading and mathematics test scores are higher in most districts; and, there is a realization of a serious lack of qualified teachers in urban public schools. That realization has led to record numbers of applicants for Teach for America, a 20 year old, privately run, education immersion program for bright liberal arts college graduates.
But there are structural problems to No Child Left Behind that must be resolved before it can be reauthorized, for example:
The nation must move to a smaller set of national, and federally funded, exams for grades three through eight, even if they are normative tests, as opposed to state-specific high-stakes tests. Congress wants to know that children are learning and relevant comparisons are needed to compare academic progress across state lines. In addition, states are fiscally stretched; it makes no financial sense for state departments of education to be in the test design business.
There is no need for high-stakes high school tests, as states are moving towards more stringent core requirements for graduation, with each class having its own final examination. This is a fairer way to treat students; they can learn and complete the core at their pace. It is also more possible to develop national tests for core courses than a national high school examination. High schools can also be evaluated using the tests the students already take such as the SAT, ACT, achievement tests and the military´s aptitude test.
School choice should include access to community college courses for top performing high school juniors and seniors in urban areas. There is no reason for finally compromised school systems to develop advanced classes when these students could get a head start in a college setting.
Teacher evaluations need to be based on academic progress over a school year, not student performance on one test. But teachers need more than grade books to measure progress. They need measurement tools that allow comparisons with class, school, district and national averages, as well as grade level.
Teacher recruitment efforts are noble, but scattered, and there has been little attention to teacher retention. One can make the assumption that tenure leads teachers to stay on the job, but still half of entry level teachers leave after five years—but they earn tenure after three. Merit pay or pay for performance plans work well for new teachers—a $1,500 to $3,000 merit bonus is much appreciated by someone getting settled—but the incentive is not high enough for experienced teachers to give up tenure. My idea, proposed in a previous blog, is to have a national public-private partnership to pay $10,000 bonuses to the top 100,000 teachers.
Military recruiting provisions should be removed from the act. The U.S. Selective Service already requires eighteen year old males to register in the event of a military draft and the services do not wish to repeal "don´t ask, don´t tell," or allow women to serve in combat as other national armies do. There is no need for the armed forces to approach high school students until after they have had the chance to graduate, unless they want to run a junior ROTC program on campus.
2009 will be the best time for educators, innovators and pundits to jump in with new ideas. Let´s hope we see an administration that is open to listening to them.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
But neither candidate proposes extreme revisions to this act, and they are desperately needed. The act, while bipartisan, passed in 2001 with little input from educators; it was intended to be more of a parent´s bill of rights where parents would know if their schools were failing, they could receive government funded tutoring for their children, and they could remove their child from a federally sanctioned school.
But No Child Left Behind offers parents no means for appeal when a school system, state government, or the U.S. Department of Education is unresponsive to their concerns. Congress did not intend for the federal government to step in and close failing schools, just as sent National Guard troops in to force state and local school boards to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws half a century ago. However, we have schools in a so-called Year 7, where they must be closed or restructured, but the federal government lacks the resources to aid or intervene.
Some good has come from this act: schools now use student data to monitor academic progress over the course of school years, and from grade to grade; reading and mathematics test scores are higher in most districts; and, there is a realization of a serious lack of qualified teachers in urban public schools. That realization has led to record numbers of applicants for Teach for America, a 20 year old, privately run, education immersion program for bright liberal arts college graduates.
But there are structural problems to No Child Left Behind that must be resolved before it can be reauthorized, for example:
The nation must move to a smaller set of national, and federally funded, exams for grades three through eight, even if they are normative tests, as opposed to state-specific high-stakes tests. Congress wants to know that children are learning and relevant comparisons are needed to compare academic progress across state lines. In addition, states are fiscally stretched; it makes no financial sense for state departments of education to be in the test design business.
There is no need for high-stakes high school tests, as states are moving towards more stringent core requirements for graduation, with each class having its own final examination. This is a fairer way to treat students; they can learn and complete the core at their pace. It is also more possible to develop national tests for core courses than a national high school examination. High schools can also be evaluated using the tests the students already take such as the SAT, ACT, achievement tests and the military´s aptitude test.
School choice should include access to community college courses for top performing high school juniors and seniors in urban areas. There is no reason for finally compromised school systems to develop advanced classes when these students could get a head start in a college setting.
Teacher evaluations need to be based on academic progress over a school year, not student performance on one test. But teachers need more than grade books to measure progress. They need measurement tools that allow comparisons with class, school, district and national averages, as well as grade level.
Teacher recruitment efforts are noble, but scattered, and there has been little attention to teacher retention. One can make the assumption that tenure leads teachers to stay on the job, but still half of entry level teachers leave after five years—but they earn tenure after three. Merit pay or pay for performance plans work well for new teachers—a $1,500 to $3,000 merit bonus is much appreciated by someone getting settled—but the incentive is not high enough for experienced teachers to give up tenure. My idea, proposed in a previous blog, is to have a national public-private partnership to pay $10,000 bonuses to the top 100,000 teachers.
Military recruiting provisions should be removed from the act. The U.S. Selective Service already requires eighteen year old males to register in the event of a military draft and the services do not wish to repeal "don´t ask, don´t tell," or allow women to serve in combat as other national armies do. There is no need for the armed forces to approach high school students until after they have had the chance to graduate, unless they want to run a junior ROTC program on campus.
2009 will be the best time for educators, innovators and pundits to jump in with new ideas. Let´s hope we see an administration that is open to listening to them.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
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