Archives for category: NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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Kymberly Walcott: Stop Closing Our Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2018 //
22

This video features Kymberly Walcott, now a senior in Hunter College in New York City. She describes the terrible injustice of closing her high school, Jamaica High School.

The idea that closing schools is a “remedy” was one of the cruelest aspects of the failed No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Countless schools were closed because they had low scores. Typically, these schools were located in black and brown communities, and the students enrolled in them were, of course, nonwhite. Children were dispersed, communities were disrupted, teachers and principals and support staff lost their jobs and had to fend for themselves.

Jamaica High School was once one of the greatest high schools in the nation and in New York City. As its population changed from white to predominantly nonwhite, its reputation changed. It enrolled needier students. But instead of providing the school with the supports it needed, school officials in the Bloomberg era declared that it was a “failing school.” That immediately sent enrollments into a tail spin, as parents withdrew their children. The label became a self-fulfilling prophecy, dooming the school. The Department of Education closed it and replaced it with small high schools, none of which could match the broad curriculum, the programs for ELLs, or other offerings at the original school.

This article in the New Yorker in 2015 captures a sense of what was lost.

There is no evidence that closing schools produces better outcomes for students. It predictably produces disruption and chaos, which are not good for children and teens.

If there are any researchers out there who have a source for the number of schools closed by NCLB and RTTT, please let me know. I have searched for the number without success.

Categories Closing schools, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Network for Public Education, New York City, Race, Race to the Top

Testing: A Modest Proposal

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2018 //
90

 

To my knowledge, the United States is the only nation in the world that requires students to take standardized tests every year from grades 3-8. I believe that it is surely the only advanced nation that requires annual testing in these grades. The tests are required by federal law, a hangover from George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind, and the requirement was re-enacted in the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015.

This testing regime has been in place since 2002, when the law was signed by President Bush the first. The consequences attached to the tests have been harsh in many states, which use them to stigmatize students, teachers, and schools. Teachers have been fired, and schools have been closed based on test scores. That is called test-based accountability, and there is growing evidence that TBA is ineffective. NAEP scores have been flat since 2013. The number of people entering teaching has declined sharply. Schools have cut back on the arts, physical education, and other subjects that are not “counted” in the test score calculus. It is difficult to find any real benefits to our national investment in high-stakes testing.

Why do our policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels continue to require and enforce annual testing, despite the non-existent benefits? I believe that testing survives for two reasons: One is that there is a lobby that loves testing, composed of testing corporations and groups like Democrats for Education Reform, the hedge fund managers organization. The other is that our policymakers are still inhaling the stale fumes of NCLB and the non-existent “Texas Miracle.” It is hard to break away from a practice, even a bad practice, that has become ingrained. Annual testing began with NCLB, became more punitive with Race to the Top, and survived in ESSA. Bad habits are hard to change.

Testing authorities have a general rule. Tests should not be used for any purpose other than the one for which they are intended. Tests are supposed to be diagnostic; they are supposed to provide teachers with information to help them improve instruction. They never do, because the results are reported long after the student has left the teacher who administered the test and they never provide enough detail about the strengths and weaknesses of individual children to be useful.

Standardized tests should not be used for high school graduation or for firing teachers or closing schools. Yet they are. Obviously, they are misused on a regular basis.

So, I have a modest proposal.

I am not aware of any legal requirement that the annual tests required by Congress must be offered in the spring.

Why not give the tests in the first week of school and use only a test whose results may be returned within a month? Let machines score the standardized questions, and let teachers score the constructed responses. The testing vendor would know that they would be chosen only if they could report the results in a month, in a format that informs teachers what students do and do not know. That way, the teacher can find out where students are as they begin the year and tailor instruction to address the needs of the students.

That way, tests would no longer be high-stakes. They would be expressly designed for diagnostic purposes, to help teachers help students. The results would come too early to misuse the tests to stigmatize students, punish teachers, and close schools. There would be no punishments attached to the tests, but plenty of valuable information to help teachers.

How would we know how schools are doing?

We could rely on the National Assessment of Progress, which reports on states and many districts and is disaggregated by race, gender, disability, and other categories. It reports on achievement gaps as well.

With this fairly simple but drastic change, we could put testing in its proper place. We could stop terrorizing students and teachers.

We could let teachers gain at least a month, maybe two, for instruction instead of test prep.

Tell me what you think.

Some of you, I know, will tell me why all testing is a waste of time.

But so long as the requirement for annual testing is in the law, there must be a good faith effort to comply.

Why not comply in a way that is not harmful to students, teachers, or schools, but that might actually provide useful information?

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

Rick Hess: The Pendulum Is Swinging Against the Bush-Obama “Reform” Era

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2018 //
45

 

Although I often disagree with Rick Hess, I think he is the most insightful of the reformers and the nicest as well. He has a code of civility, and he never descends into mud-slinging or name-calling, unlike others in the reform camp.

In his latest article, I was surprised and delighted to see his acknowledgement that the pendulum is swinging away from the Bush-Obama reforms. He tacitly admits, as few other reformers do, that the era of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top has failed, and (as John Merrow said in his latest post) “the air is humming,” and something great is coming. The current federal law (Every Student Succeeds Act) is a stripped-down version of NCLB, still insanely test-focused, in my view. Under ESSA, despite its grandiose name, there is no hope, none, that “every student will succeed.”

Rick looks at the wave of teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky (with more likely to happen) and draws five lessons.

First, “Teachers are immensely sympathetic actors. For all the gibes, harsh rhetoric of the accountability era, and tsk-tsk’ing occasioned by polls in which people say they don’t want their kids to be teachers, the reality is that people really like teachers. In surveys, no matter how much talk there is about “failing” schools and problems with tenure, teachers are trusted and popular.” Although he doesn’t say it, I will: People trust teachers more than hedge fund managers or billionaires.

Second, “The Trump era has made it tougher for GOP officials to plead “fiscal restraint.” For years, GOP governors and legislators have said there is no more money, but the national GOP has just added billions to the defense budget, over a trillion dollars to the national deficit, and cut taxes for corporations by more billions.

Third, the reform movement must shoulder a significant part of the blame for demonizing teachers, demoralizing them, and building a reservoir of rage. “Along the way, teachers came to look and feel like targets, rather than beneficiaries, of “school reform,” which may be why bread-and-butter demands from teachers are ascending as the guts of Bush-Obama school reform are sinking to the bottom of the “discarded school reform” sea.”

Fourth, teachers’ strikes and walkouts are succeeding because they have broad appeal.

Fifth, he sees the current moment as a good time to rethink compensation, pensions, and staffing. In the minds of reformers, this could be converted into their usual mindset: merit pay, performance pay, replacing pensions with savings plans, etc. As the Kentucky walkout showed, teachers will not sit still while their retirement benefits are whittled away. Part of the appeal of teaching is the expectation that one will not retire to a life of penury after a career of low-paid service.

This is one of the most hopeful articles I have recently read about the pendulum swing that almost everyone knows is coming.

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, Hope, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Resistance, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Tom Loveless: Billions Have Been Spent on Standards Based Reforms: Was It Worth It?

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2018 //
25

 

Tom Loveless taught fifth grade in California, then earned a doctorate in educational policy, taught at Harvard, then landed at Brookings where he wrote reports on the condition of American education and analyzed international assessments. He recently retired from Brookings but continues to write.

He is one of the few original thinkers in the education think tank world. Neither the right nor left claims him. He is a straight shooter and brings a fresh perspective. He was one of the first to knock down the Great Shanghai Myth by pointing out that the student population of that city is not typical of China. Meanwhile the media and Arne Duncan ranted and raved about the superiority of Shanghai, as proven by its ranking on the international tests, which Loveless debunked.

I recently learned that Loveless had written a new paper evaluating the value of standards-based reform, the approach that is central to No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.  

He presented his findings at a conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative D.C. think tank.

It is, as I expected, original and important.

Unless there is breaking news today, this will be the only post.

Please read the paper and feel free to comment.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), International, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

NAEP Results: Scores Mostly Flat, Gaps Widen

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2018 //
18

 

Education Week reports that NAEP results are flat, with few exceptions. The billions squandered on annual testing and Common Core Gabe produced meager change, especially for those already at the bottom. Achievement gaps widened.

With so little change, it is time—past time—to give serious attention to rethinking the federal testing juggernaut that began with No Child Left Behind, intensified with Race to the Top, and continues with the so-called Every Student Succeeds Act. The latest national results show that many children have been left behind, we are nowhere near “the top,” and every student is not succeeding.

In short, the federal policy of standards, testing, and accountability is a train wreck.

It is past time to stop blaming students, teachers, and schools, and place the blame for stagnation where it belongs: On nearly 20 years of failed federal policy based on failed assumptions.

 

Education Werk reports:

“Across the board, struggling American students are falling behind, while top performers are rising higher on the test dubbed the “Nation’s Report Card.”

“A nationally representative group of nearlyt Behind,  585,000 4th- and 8th-graders took the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2017, the first time the tests were administered digitally. The results, released Tuesday, show no change at all for 4th grade in either subject or for 8th graders in math since the tests were last given in 2015. Eighth graders on average made only a 1-point gain in reading, to 267 on the NAEP’s 500-point scale.

“That meager gain in reading was driven entirely by the top 25 percent of students. During the last decade, 8th grade reading was the only test in which the average score for both high and low performers rose. By contrast, in math, the percentage of students performing below basic (30 percent) and those performing at the advanced level (10 percent) both increased significantly since 2007. The same pattern emerged in 4th grade math and reading.”

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, Inequity, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Lisa E. Litvin: How NCLB Continues to Ruin School and Childhood

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2018 //
28

 

Lisa Eggert Litvin, parent leader in Westchester County, remembers a childood in which testing was present, but far from dominant. There was time for play and hanging out with friends.

Today, however, standardized testing has become the measure of students, teachers, and schools. 

She writes:

“When I attended public school in the 1970s, we didn’t have the high-stakes tests in math and English Language Arts that elementary and middle schools now give every year. We studied math and English, of course, but we had time to dig into other disciplines. We didn’t have much homework, so that after school, we could play with friends and be with our families. Not every day was amazing by any means, but we had room to explore, have fun, make mistakes, and just be kids.

“We didn’t take many standardized tests. In fact, I remember taking a standardized test only two or three times over those years. There was no test prep, except for the reminder to bring a #2 pencil to school.

“Fast forward to 2001, with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The law was well-intended, hoping to ensure that all children were accounted for. It required that schools test every year in grades 3-8, and report the results, including for traditionally underserved groups. The thought was that low scores couldn’t be hidden, students’ needs would be addressed, and every child would eventually show proficiency. The tests would provide accountability.

“But NCLB went astray: it limited its focus to annual tests in math and ELA, and imposed harsh repercussions on schools for low scores (hence the term “high-stakes testing”). At the time, the nation’s top adolescent psychiatrists warned Congress not to increase testing, especially with draconian stakes, explaining that “test-stress is literally making children sick” and that “the health effects of such policies” must be studied. But the law and its testing mandates passed anyway.

“Now, nearly two decades later, such testing-centric public education means that my childhood, with its range of studies and exploration and free time, is endangered. Playtime, recess, and the arts are considered throwaways as schools double-down on ELA and math. As early as 2005, a survey by the Center on Education Policy found that 71 percent of school districts cut back on subjects like history and music so they could spend more time on the tested subjects.

“In addition, the pressure for high achievement in the tested subjects has intensified tremendously. Teaching has become more about preparing children for the tests, and tested subjects are being taught earlier than ever. Kindergarten is the new first grade, with emphasis on reading and math over unstructured free play time — even though experts have warned of the grave consequences that this will cause.”

In theory, NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (which is just another way to say “No Child Left Behind”, but the reality is that standardized tests continue to dominate the lives of students and teachers.

Can anyone say that no child was left behind as a result of the imposition of annual testing? With enough test prep, scores may go up, but they don’t translate into success after school. Does anyone sentient person believe that “every student” will succeed because of annual testing?

No other nation imposes annual tests on children from grades 3-8. Why do we? It is a massive waste of time, purpose, and money. The biggest beneficiaries are not the students but the testing companies.

The emperor has no clothes yet has paraded around stark naked  since January 8, 2002, the day NCLB was signed.

 

Categories Accountability, Childhood, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

DFER’s Choices for 2012: Still Relevant

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
10

The hedge fund managers created an organization called “Democrats for Education Reform” to advocate for charter schools and high-stakes testing, including evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students (VAM).

In the comments section, someone recalled that George Miller was one of the architects of No Child Left Behind, and I remembered having an unpleasant encounter with Miller in 2010, after the release of my 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I was invited by Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro to a private dinner at her home to talk about the book to the Democratic members of the House Education Committee, and Miller was there. In my talk, I was highly critical of NCLB. Miller was outraged. He defended it vociferously.

Yesterday I remembered that I had received an invitation to a fundraiser in 2012 for George Miller from DFER at a posh restaurant in Manhattan. The cost of each breakfast was $1,250. Miller did  not have an opponent. I did not attend.

Miller has since retired. I was told that Nancy Pelosi relied on him as the leading education expert in Congress

Here is the list of Democrats (pro-charter, pro-high-stakes testing) endorsed by DFER in 2012. You may be surprised to see who is on the list, including Congressman Bobby Scott, who succeeded Miller as the leading Democrat on the House Education Committee, and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, now a leading voice for gun control, but sponsor of the Murphy Amendment to ESSA, which was intended to preserve the George W. Bush punitive consequences of testing. Although every Democrat on the Senate HELP committee (including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders) supported the Murphy Amendment, it was defeated by the Republican majority on the committee. Had it passed, schools would still be judged by AYP. And, of course, Jared Polis was on the DFER list; he is now running for governor of Colorado. He is a zealous supporter of charter schools.

This year, DFER’s big cause is the governor’s race in California, and their candidate is Antonio Villiraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, who is carrying forward the DeVos agenda of privatization by charters.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization

Slate: DeVos Said What Democrats Have Been Saying for Years

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
55

 

Ben Mathis-Lilley, chief news editor for SLATE, points out what should be obvious: everyone is mocking Betsy DeVos’s clueless interview with 60 Minutes, but she echoed what Democrats have been saying for years.

Low-scoring schools should compete to get better, even if they have less funding and larger classes? More money for high-scoring schools? Charters are awesome?

“The bad news for Democrats who found DeVos’ performance appalling is that these principles have been a crucial part of their party’s education policy for 17 years. Broadly speaking, the regime of compelling competition between schools by creating charter-school or school-choice programs and by rewarding those whose students do well on standardized tests was launched at a federal level by the No Child Left Behind Act; the NCLB was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and passed the Senate in 2001 with 87 votes. When Barack Obama became president, he created the Race to the Top program, which the Washington Post described at the time as a “competition for $4.35 billion in grants” that would “ease limits on charter schools” and “tie teacher pay to student achievement,” i.e. direct extra funds to already-successful schools.”

He points out that Senator Cory Booker addressed DeVos’s pro-voucher, anti-public school organization twice. Yet Booker is shocked, shocked that she has the same views as he does.

”DeVos is not qualified for her job and has more than earned her reputation for cluelessness. But if you gave her a Harvard degree, a history of employment at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, and a little more public-speaking finesse, nothing DeVos told Lesley Stahl above would have bothered the Democrats who’ve been setting their party’s education policy for going on two decades.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Thomas Cox: In Praise of Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
32

 

 

Thomas A. Cox practiced law in Georgia for many years and taught Education Policy and the Law at Emory University. Recently he moved to Virginia and discovered that the state’s leading newspaper, the Richmond Times Dispatch, was habitually hostile to the principle of public education and cheerleading for privatization. Cox submitted this opinion article to set the record straight, which the newspaper published.

I hope the editorial writers read his article.

He wrote about the falsity of the “failing schools narrative” and demonstrated that it is just plain wrong.

“Not often heard over the noise of this failure narrative is some compelling evidence that America’s public schools, far from being awash in failure, have overall been performing remarkably well, particularly in the face of new challenges and changing demographics. This counter-narrative is shared by a number of education researchers, historians, and educators, although they seldom receive the same fanfare (or financial impetus) as the nay-saying privatization advocates.”

Privatization is no answer to the challenges faced by our students today.

“A blind reliance on profit-driven markets to address and solve the challenges in educating America’s children would constitute a non-evidence-based leap of faith. Even worse, it would drive us toward abandoning our long-shared concept of education as a “common good” that we as a democratic polity have a collective responsibility to provide to all children. For almost two centuries, our country has served as a model to the world by striving to achieve that ideal through a shared societal commitment to publicly funded and locally operated schools.

“Although far from perfect and in need of constant re-evaluation and improvement, public schools and their legions of dedicated teachers continue to serve as critically important institutional forces in our nation’s ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunities for all citizens. In an age when so many economic and societal forces serve instead to increase inequality, now is no time for us to abandon that common commitment.”

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Supporting public schools

My Review of Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better.” No More Paywall.

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2018 //
21

I reviewed Harvard Professor Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade” in “The New Republic.” It was behind a paywall until a few days ago. The paywall has been lifted.

Here are the main points.

Koretz demolishes the test-and-punish regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. He says in no uncertain terms that they failed. He says they ignored Campbell’s Law, which declares that attaching high stakes to tests distorts both the measure and distorts the process they were meant to measure. The emphasis on testing led to inflation of scores, so any rise in scores as a result of pressure is of little or no significance and surely does not mean that students are better educated. I enjoyed reading the book, and my reservation is that Koretz is not at all sure what to do about accountability. I am not either. I wish that the leaders of Congress understood what a complicated subject of accountability is. I would like to see greater accountability at the top, where decisions are made about funding and autonomy. We have a wacky system where teachers, principals and students are held accountable without the power to change the conditions under which they Labor.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing
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