Professor Helen F. Ladd is professor of public policy and economics at Duke University.
In this paper, she analyzes the merits and demerits f No Child Left Behind and concludes that it failed in reaching the ambitious (and unrealistic) goal that all children would be proficient by 2014.
She calls NCLB “a deeply flawed federal policy.”
She writes:
“NCLB relied instead almost exclusively on tough test-based incentives. This approach would only have made sense if the problem of low-performing schools could be attributed primarily to teacher shirking, as some people believed, or to the problem of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” as suggested by President George W. Bush. But in fact low achievement in such schools is far more likely to reflect the limited capacity of such schools to meet the challenges that children from disadvantaged backgrounds bring to the classroom. Because of these challenges, schools serving concentrations of low-income students face greater tasks than those serving middle class students. The NCLB approach of holding schools alone responsible for student test score levels while paying little if any attention to the conditions in which learning takes place is simply not fair either to the schools or the children and was bound to be unsuccessful.”
I hope that Professor Ladd applies her sharp analytical skills to reviewing Race to the Top.
At some point, we can begin to calculate the billions spent for 13 years of punitive test-based accountability.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “so-called reforms” from the pundits have NOT BEEN reforms; they are DEFORMS in my book of terms.
So SAD.
LikeLike
NCLB was another top down federal plan to improve education. It failed because it focused on standardized testing and required students to reach unrealistic scores. It did nothing to address the issue of poverty the students faced. As they point out, it was accountability without support.
While some students on the bottom may have made some slight improvement in math, most did not make gains in reading. My district responded to NCLB with RTI (response to intervention). The student study team, of which I was a member, met to create plans to provide students with assistance from some of the building specialists (reading, math, ESL, speech/language, special education, social worker, psychologist) A short term plan was enacted with a review of results after eight to twelve weeks. It was somewhat useful in that it ensured that those on the very bottom got services to help them do better.
Perhaps reading scores did not improve because reading whole texts produces better readers than just focusing on low level skill based instruction.
While the authors are somewhat optimistic about ESSA, I disagree. ESSA will be a gigantic pay to play scheme led by corporations that know nothing students, teaching and learning. Jeb Bush has already met with his privatization cronies to figure out how to extract public money from ESSA and send it to private companies. I predict we will see a negative return on this investment. At least, NCLB had professionals providing most of the interventions. Once again poverty is the giant gorilla in the room politicians conveniently ignore as they sell more test, baby, test.
LikeLike
Diane A most powerful statement of fact: “But in fact low achievement in such schools is far more likely to reflect the limited capacity of such schools to meet the challenges that children from disadvantaged backgrounds bring to the classroom (rather than perceived school- or teacher-based flaws). Because of these challenges, schools serving concentrations of low-income students face greater tasks than those serving middle class students.” (my parentheses)
LikeLike
I feel like they did the exact same thing with Common Core that they did with NCLB.
They never came thru with the “supports”. Public schools should get the “supports” before they agree to the “reforms”.
These people renege. They don’t hold up their end of the deal. I cannot tell you how many Democratic politicians I heard over the years proclaim that they supported NCLB but “Bush” never came thru with the support.
They never come thru with the support. Obama didn’t either and Trump certainly won’t.
Public schools need to get it UP FRONT because once they agree or are coerced into these reforms they will NEVER get the support they’re promised. Ed reform moved directly from jamming in Common Core to jamming in “blended learning”- my God, please don’t fall for this song and dance again! At what point do we LEARN something about these folks?
LikeLike
Future Ready
#FutureReady Sacramento kicks off with 200 school leaders in just about 90 minutes! Follow #FutureReady today and tomorrow to see the reflections of many great school leaders!
These are the publicly-paid ed tech salespeople.
You know, if public schools fall for another ed reform marketing campaign it is their own fault. We hire people to run public schools because they’re supposed to KNOW something. We don’t hire them to act as cheerleaders for any and all ed reform campaigns.
Stop going along. Use the individual judgment you were hired to employ. These people are selling public schools BILLIONS of dollars in ed tech product and not a one of them will be around when this bubble bursts. Public schools will still be there and public schools will (rightly) be blamed by the public for buying a pig in a poke.
LikeLike
The demand that all students be “proficient” by 2014 was an obvious statistical/ mathematical impossibility, yet the entire world of US public education was ordered on this forced march, and teacher’s lives were destroyed in the process.
“Innocent over-zealousness, or purposeful, destructive agendas at work? Where does the incompetence end, and the malice begin?
LikeLike
I cannot agree that there were positives, least of all that CALDER (The Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research) generated 170 “research papers” using data extracted at huge costs to the whole system of education, with most papers dealing only with an extremely truncated view of education as properly driven by scores on statewide tests, especially math and ELA or trends in NAEP tests.
Here is a 2004 peer reviewed article: No Child Left Behind in Art? It begins:
In June 2004. three out of four public schools in Florida failed to meet a new federal standard for school improvement, including one arts school that had earned “A” ratings on statewide tests for four consecutive years (Shanklin 2004). How can so many schools, including “A” schools, be failing?
The answer: the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (U.S. Congress 2001). The act is reshaping public education in the United States. In this article, I identify key terms and regulations in the law and indicate how it is related to the companion Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (U.S. Congress 2002). At the close, I consider the impact of NCLB on our schools, including our best ones. http://people.uncw.edu/caropresoe/EDN523/chapmannclb.pdf
LikeLike
I know I sound like a broken record, but NCLB didn’t fail, unless you actually believe that it’s intention was to improve education. If, however, you understand that it’s intention was to undermine education by painting public schools as “failing”, you understand that it succeeded wildly, as did its successor, RttT.
LikeLike
I have written for years now that NCLB, Race to the Top, Goals 2000 of POTUS Bush I, and Obama’s Goal’s 2020, had unrealistic and therefore unethical goals. Any unachievable goal is unethical.
They all want at least 90% High School graduation rates. Now small population states like Iowa and Nebraska have achieved this, I feel that it is impossible to do so nationwide. Even i those few states 90% is pushing it. The may have redefined education to mean CTE (Career and Technology)..
Texas I s getting close but I believe that is because of CTE. CTE was meant as an alternative to the 25% or so that struggled with traditional high school.But ow more than 80% are in it. Only Gifted and Talented and severally handicapped are not in it.
LikeLike
The worst thing about NCLB was not the testing per se, but the kinds of tests they used: reading and math. This had the effect of stripping content from the curriculum and replacing it with instruction in ersatz “reading skills” and math. I don’t know if the math instruction has been all bad, but the so-called reading instruction has. Contrary to what the phony ed school authorities claim, reading comprehension is not a function of skills that a teacher can teach. It is the fruit of a lot of word knowledge and this can only be imparted by teaching about the world (i.e. teaching content). Ironically we have doomed our kids to be bad readers (and ignorant citizens) by trying to teach reading as if it were as skill like playing tennis. This fatal error at the root of NCLB seems to be rarely understood.
LikeLike
Diane,
EdWEEK had the following story on Common Core and its status today in the various states:
• A new report from the nonprofit Achieve, titled “Strong Standards: A Review of Changes to State Standards Since the Common Core,” details revisions to state educational standards following revisions to the Common Core State Standards, finding that the changes kept in place many of those standards’ key components, Education Week reports.
• While Education Week notes that the report doesn’t compare old and new standards, its metrics are based directly on the standards and find that the “core” of Common Core largely remains intact.
• The report examined a total of 24 states, additionally offering perspective on challenges those states are likely to encounter amid revisions, with the most variation being found among math standards.
Initially adopted by nearly all states and the District of Columbia, the Common Core State Standards received backlash — particularly in red states — following the Obama administration’s backing of them and subsequent efforts to encourage their adoption via measures like federal Race to the Top grants.
That many states largely kept them intact while rebranding them with new names or minor tweaks isn’t exactly news. Indiana was notably the first state to “drop” the standards, though retired University of Arkansas professor and Common Core opponent Sandra Stotsky notably referred to initial replacement drafts as a “warmed-over version of Common Core’s standards” for English language arts. But the report from Achieve provides a great, big-picture view of just how common that approach was among states that made changes to the standards.
Recommended Reading:
• Education WeekEven When States Revise Standards, the Core of the Common Core Remains
LikeLike
it is always wise to read the reports offered by Achieve, not just the press about the reports in EdWeek.
This review was far more specific for math. College and career readiness standards were approved only if algebra 2 was required. For ELA , the concept of “literacy” and assumptions about “college and career readiness” are really arbitrary in terms of content–history and social studies noted–but not science, not literature or any of the arts.
Achieve’s criteria for judging the state standards still connected with or rebranded as if Common Core are listed on page 46.They are noteworthy in being completely free of any idea of the complexities of learning, The writers of standards assume that everything to be learned at one grade is master so perfectly that grade to grade reviews and never needed.
“Achieve has historically reviewed standards based on the criteria of focus, coherence, rigor, clarity, specificity, and measurability.
Standards should focus on the most important aspects at each grade level, and they should lack repetition.
They should be fully coherent within and between grade levels. Every standard should fit into some progression of ideas.
They should evidence rigor throughout by balancing conceptual understanding, procedural skills and fluencies, and applications. States should maintain strong expectations for students to create arguments, prove, and justify.
Standards (and examples) should be clear; lack ambiguity; and be free from mathematical, typographical, and grammatical errors.
They should be specific and neither too vague nor too atomistic.
And they should be measurable, using performance verbs that call for students to demonstrate knowledge and skills.” p. 46.
The arbitrary and truncated view of learning set forth in these criteria is really pathetic. Set standards so students will be always and forever behind unless they master every CCSS on time and on grade-level. And never mind that they may pass the tests but hate reading and mathematics.
LikeLike