Thursday, October 18, 2012

Assessments for all; Education for none?


In 2001, President George Bush proposed the No Child Left Behind Act that created, among other policies, a method for basing school funding on student progress. The act mandated that every student in a state take the same state-created assessment to ensure that his or her rate of learning increases year after year, and ultimately, in 2014, all students are required to be proficient in reading and math. If students in a school do not improve their scores on the state assessments for 2 or more years in a row, the school is said to have not met “Adequate Yearly Progress” and faces sanctions, eventually leading to replacement of teaching staff and/or restructuring of the school. At first glance, the idea of holding schools accountable for their end product (e.g., a student’s education/mastery of skill) doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. Why shouldn’t we hold teachers and school administrators to standards of improvement? Anyone in the business world would agree that a company president would not be allowed to continue in his post if the company repeatedly failed to make a profit, and it only makes sense that we extend this same accountability to our schools. The problem is not that schools are being held to standards of achievement, the problem lies in the way it is being approached.
            The core problem with the No Child Left Behind Act is that it focuses solely on proficiency in reading and math. Schools are not held accountable for improvements in other subjects such as science, social students, the arts, etc. Rothstein argued in his 2006 article that “When we demand adequate math and reading scores alone, educators rationally respond by transferring resources to math and reading instruction (and drill) from [other subjects].” President Obama recently stated that due to No Child Left Behind and the recent economic crisis that forced significant budget cuts, “the child is not having the well-rounded educational experience I benefited from and most in my generation benefited from.”
            Another problem with the Act is that it requires proficiency for all students, including those with learning disabilities, cognitive impairments and those who are learning English as a second language. For these populations, it is of course desired that they learn to read and become proficient in basic math skills, but the rate at which this is achieved will not be comparable to other students at the same grade level. Also, students are not encouraged or allowed time to pursue their own academic goals. The requirement of proficiency for all students “neglects the authentic range of educational needs and desires among the diverse array of communities and young people within contemporary democratic states. Individual students with a diverse array of passions...may be prevented from developing their knowledge and skills because of the lock-step requirements imposed by [the Act]” (Levinson, 2011). Newly developed curriculi such as the Common Core State Standards are encouraging a broader focus of the curriculum by, for example, including literacy standards throughout other core content areas, but this is not going to solve the issue.
            The third major weakness of No Child Left Behind is the way in which proficiency is measured. By requiring all students to reach a minimum score on a test developed by the state in which they live, and then basing school funding on this achievement, we are “pervert[ing] incentives and distract[ing] educators and students from the real work and value of learning” (Levinson, 2011). Recently, there have been several high profile cases involving cheating on these tests by teachers and district officials. In Philadelphia, the presence of “suspicious erasures” on multiple student response forms caused a statewide investigation. In Atlanta, acclaimed student achievement was found to be caused by a conspiracy among a large amount of district principals and administrators. It seems we are encouraging a culture of dishonesty with this system. At the very best, Levinson argues that our testing system is “promoting compliance rather than educational improvement” (2011).
            A better accountability system will take a significant amount of planning and investment on the part of our government. Currently, two groups are working to improve the method of standardized testing to yield more quality information regarding student performance and achievement. They are focused on creating assessments to measure progress toward the Common Core State Standards, which measure performance on higher-order skills (i.e. critical thinking) required for success in college. One group is even creating a computer adaptive model, which will be responsive to student performance on the tests and tailor the questions to the individual students’ level in order to obtain more detailed information about their level of proficiency. However, while they are improved, these measures are still a form of standardized test.
Some alternatives to testing include the use of diverse observation teams who come into districts to assess the “quality of instruction” and the “quality of school-facilities” by observing “whether students are engaged in the kind of group activities likely to develop the teamwork so valued by employers” and “they should observe classroom discussions to determine if these are likely to develop the kind of critical thinking that leads to intelligent voters” (Rothstein & Jacobsen, 2006). However, “observations of student behavior are not as reliable as standardized tests of basic skills, so we will have to accept that it is better to imperfectly measure a broad set of outcomes than to perfectly measure a narrow set” (Rothstein, 2009).
The road ahead is not clear. But we do know that we cannot return to a narrow set of standardized assessments if we are to gain a clear picture of student performance and achievement. Talents necessary for success in the real word include critical thinking, interpersonal skills and a work ethic. Our educational system needs to also be held accountable for developing these skills in their students, in addition to basic reading and writing.
Sources
Rothstein, R., and Rebecca Jacobsen. 2006. The Goals of Education. Phi Delta Kappan 88 (4):   
264-72. [8]


            Rothstein, R. 2009. Getting Accountability Right. Education Week. [4]
            Levinson, M. 2011. Democracy, accountability, and education. Theory and Research in             
            Education 9(2): 125-44. [16]
            http://www.corestandards.org
            http://www.Wikipedia.org

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