The 10-year anniversary of President George W. Bush placing his signature on the No Child Left Behind education law passed Sunday with even more demands for its reform.
The law promised, Bush said, improved schools for poor and minority children, and students who were better prepared to compete.
However, the law Bush maintained was his major domestic accomplishment has become a symbol of bureaucratic bumbling and Congress’ inability to fix something that’s flawed.
While the law forced some local schools to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that many students simply were not learning, to many it has become known for its rigid emphasis on standardized tests and the labeling of thousands of schools as “failures.”
Some were failures when Bush affixed his signature to the document in a Hamilton, Ohio, ceremony. Unfortunately, too many remain failures because of a flawed premise based on a Texas school district where we suspect the administration cooked the academic books like an operator of a Ponzi scheme.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
We track state schools where 100 percent of the most recent graduates are required to take remediation courses when they enroll in two- and four-year colleges and universities. We still don’t understand how a student who is not qualified to sell hamburgers in a fast-food joint can obtain a high school diploma. Too many of those unqualified students are still graduating from schools in eastern Arkansas.
We keep waiting for a common sense overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act. Our idea of common sense means a cross between the U.S. Education Department plan, which still lacks details, and the proposed U.S. Senate bill, which lacks accountability. In this election year, bipartisanship is not in fashion despite widespread acknowledgment that changes in the law are badly needed.
The unrealistic expectations that put too much emphasis on tests for reading and math are folly. Can we expect all students to test proficient or advanced in all test subjects?
President Barack Obama told states last fall they could secure a waiver of the unreasonable proficiency requirements in exchange for taking steps his administration advocates. A majority of states, including Arkansas, have indicated they will go the waiver route, which is at best a temporary fix until Congress begins acting like a legislative body, not a partisan windmill.
Under the waivers, the 100 percent proficiency requirement would be eliminated, and most rules would focus on the lowest-performing 15 percent of schools. In the law’s current form, if one subgroup — minorities, poor or special-education students — does not make adequate progress, the whole school fails.
It happened in Jefferson County when five members of a “subgroup” failed to make adequate yearly progress in math. The school’s enrollment tops 400, yet when slightly over 1 percent of its student body fails to make sufficient progress on math, the school – not the five students – ended up on a failure list. The waiver would give subgroup scores less weight. While they are at it, the folks in Washington use terms like “subgroups” and “sub-populations” that we could do without. Congress must focus on students, not animals used in tests at the FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research, when it comes to describing worthy goals.
Good teachers and administrators are worth their weight in gold, yet their influence on improving our local educational systems often seem ignored.
The law did expose achievement gaps and fueled dialogue about how to close them, but the goal of holding all schools accountable for the performance of all students no matter their race, disability, family income or English-proficiency should be left behind.