Punitive Law Fails to get results - NCLB gets an F

Stories by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
Photos by Scott Buschman

No Child Left Behind was supposed to close the achievement gap and child succeed. But on both fronts, President Bush’s 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary EducationAct (ESEA) has failed abysmally.

In the four years since NCLB went into effect, the gaps between rich and poor, white and non white have actually widened in California, says a report from the Washington-based Education Trust.

A nationwide study by Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project, analyzing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), concludes that NCLB is failing to close racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps and has had no significant impact on reading and math achievement since it was introduced. If current trends continue, only 24 to 34 percent of students will meet the NAEP proficiency target in reading by 2014, and 29 to 64 percent will meet the math target. The law requires 100 percent proficiency by then.

NCLB was supposed to help underachievers, but instead it has caused them to fall further behind, says Lynette Henley, a member of CTA’s Board of Directors and its ESEA Workgroup. “It has become punitive, and in the process, it has backfired.”

NCLB encouraged parents to exercise “school choice” and gave them the right to remove their children from schools labeled as failing. In April, the federal Department of Education noted that very few eligible children were taking advantage of the opportunity.The reason, say some observers, is that parents don’t believe their local schools are failures.

Under the law, schools or districts that fail to improve for two consecutive years are required to start a Program Improvement (PI) effort. Sanctions can include hiring an outside organization or private company to run the school; reopening the school as a charter; firing the entire staff and “reconstituting” it; state takeover; or other major restructuring.

So far, about 1,750 U.S. schools have been ordered to submit to such radical restructuring after falling short in math or reading for at least five years straight. Schools in seven states — including California — account for almost 70 percent of those facing sanctions.

In California, 44 percent of all schools failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2005-06. The percentage of students that must be “proficient” rises each year under NCLB to 100 percent by 2014. That impossible target means that 100 percent of California schools are likely to be labeled failing schools.

If one subgroup of a school’s population falls short on just one of 40 indicators — for example, if enough special education students don’t pass the standardized test — the entire school fails. Many educators believe the true purpose of the law is to set schools up for failure.

One of the most ludicrous examples of how NCLB employs subgroup indicators is Escondido Elementary School in the wealthy communityof Palo Alto, a top-performing, diverseschool with an API of 886. The law says that if there are more than 50 students in a particular subgroup, and less than 95 percent are tested, the school is a failing school. In 2004, a Chilean family spending a year at Stanford University brought three children to Escondido and opted out of testing. For that, the school was “red-flagged.”

Many education experts blame NCLB for a narrowing of the curriculum that has hit poor and minority students especially hard. According to the Center for Education Policy, 71 percent of the nation’s 15,000 school districts have reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. Some schools in California have implemented double and triple periods of math and reading each day to boost test scores.

NCLB’s definition of “core academic subjects” includes the arts, but schools are cutting arts programs dramatically because of the law, according to the California Arts Council.

In addition, more than half of California school districts reviewed are giving students less physical education than the law requires, according to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

The National Association for Sport and Physical Education blames NCLB for increased obesity among youth.

Even recess is being left behind because of pressure to raise test scores in many schools, according to the federal Department of Education. In some communities, new schools are being built without play areas.

The drill-and-kill approach to learning is turning children off to school and offering no opportunities for students who might excel in other areas.

The lack of emphasis on science will give schools a new reason to fail by 2008 if the law is unchanged; by then NCLB will require all schools to start giving science exams.

“People think it’s funny when David Letterman asks questions about geography or U.S. history, and nobody knows the answer,” says Janice Steffen, president of the Hawthorne Teachers Association. “But it’s going to get worse. Because of NCLB, our kids won’t know any of the basics in history and science to serve as a foundation in later years because they won’t have been taught the basics in elementary school.”

Along with a narrowing of the curriculum has been the imposition of “scripted curriculum.” Pacing charts tell teachers what page they should be on at which time on what day.If students are unable to keep up, the constraints of the pacing guides keep teachers from going back over the material.

John Cromshow, a kindergarten teacher at Malabar Street School in Los Angeles, says the scripted program his district uses for NCLB’s Reading First program has taken the joy out of teaching and learning.

Worst of all, says Cromshow, NCLB doesn’t help students develop critical thinking skills. “Students are being taught to extract the right answers from reading material rather than to understand what they are reading.”

NCLB puts horrendous stress on teachers and administrators, says Raquel Flores, a second-grade teacher at Modesto’s James Marshall Elementary School, which is in year five of Program Improvement. The result at her school is a revolving door for administrators, which is typical of schools labeled underperforming.

“Each time a new administrator comes in, there’s a new vision and a new direction,” she says. But the inconsistency takes a toll.

Her school raised its API score by 30 points last year, but NCLB only rewards proficiency, not growth.

“Stress is a killer,” she says. “It’s really causing a lot of health problems. And it’s having an effect on kids. Behavior isn’t good, especially in the upper grades.”

Despite the challenges, says Flores, teachers are committed to staying. “We’re not here because we have to be here. We’ve chosen to be here. We’re here for the kids.”

In some cases, NCLB has forced schools to focus on “cusp kids” to avoid sanctions. Middle-of-the-road students who are on the cusp of meeting test requirements get much of the attention, according to the Los Angeles Times. Receiving far less attention are the lowest achievers, who have little hope of meeting proficiency standards, and the gifted.

There are fewer classes for gifted students at the elementary and middle school levels than a decade ago, reports the National Association for Gifted Children. The number of states reporting that 80 to 100 percent of their school districts provide services to gifted students is down to 22.

Most special education students are subject to the requirements of NCLB, and more of them are failing to make AYP than any other group.

NCLB was recently revised to allow up to 3 percent of students (up from 1 percent) in each grade level to take the California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA) and have their scores count. But with special education students making up 10 percent of the general school population, schools are still in a bind.

NCLB does not allow nearly enough flexibility for special education students, asserts Ed Amundson, chair of CTA State Council’s Special Education Committee. “ESEA says that every child must be at grade level by 2014. If that’s true, why does special education exist?”

NCLB also fails to provide enough flexibility for special education teachers to meet the “highly qualified teacher” requirement. A special education teacher in a self-contained classroom must be highly qualified in all the areas he or she teaches, says Amundson.

The California High School Exit Exam, which was implemented as part of NCLB proficiency standards, will apply to special education students next year. “Because of this, there are more barriers to my students being able to receive a diploma than there have ever been before,” says Amundson. “They are just not offering options for these kids. I have sophomores who have basically given up because they feel they have no hope of graduating.”

When it comes to English language learners and NCLB, the law has granted some flexibility; ELL students are not required to be tested if they have been in the country for less than a year. But a year is hardly enough time for students to become proficient in a new language, especially when it means they have to comprehend core subjects in English, says Theresa Montaño, who serves on CTA’s ESEA Workgroup and NEA’s ESEA Advisory Group.

“In reality, most of the ELL students who are struggling are not even necessarily newcomers,”says Montaño, a member of the California Faculty Association who teaches Chicano studies at CSU-Northridge. “Some are native, first-generation Americans who are the children of immigrants and speak Spanish in the home. They may have a surface knowledge of English, but not the deep content knowledge. These tests may not accurately measure what these students know about content.”

Most studies show that it takes years for students to become proficient in a second language, says Montaño, who would like to see ELL students have “multiple measures” to assess achievement rather than just one standardized test.

The new standards for paraprofessionals or classroom aides under NCLB, which require college degrees or proficiency tests without additional pay, are also having a detrimental effect on ELL students, says Montaño.“The law is pushing paras out of the classroom.”

Montaño, who trains future educators,says NCLB has had a devastating impact on those considering entering the teaching profession.“ There has been a decrease in teacher candidates throughout the CSU system. And I can’t tell you the number of prospective teachers who have come to me since NCLB and said they are looking for a new profession.They tell me they truly want to teach, not just teach to a test or have curriculum handed to them. They want to be creative. A lot of them are going into other programs.”

Montaño tries to persuade them otherwise. “I tell them to hang in there and hopefully it will change. I keep saying, ‘We need you.’ Some I convince. And some I don’t.”