No Child Left Behind waivers—a good solution or not?
November 29, 2011
The federal law “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) required that ALL children must be proficient in math and language arts by 2014. It was a noble goal, but it was unrealistically naive. No doubt, legislators believed this goal would be amended or replaced by the next reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA); however, this has not happened.
In September 2011, the Obama administration said it would waive some of the stiff requirements of NCLB, including the requirement that students must meet math and language arts proficiency levels by 2014, and it would grant some flexibility in achievement goals and intervention measures for failing schools.
In exchange, however, those schools would have to adopt some of the Obama Administration’s education mandates. These would include aggressive intervention measures for low-performing schools and adopting guidelines for teacher evaluations which incorporate student performance data.
Here is an article on the Education Week blog site which explains some of the details:
Washington State has not applied for a waiver, at least not as of November 14, 2011. (See the Department of Education list . ) There is a second opportunity for states to apply for waivers in February.
States receiving a waiver must adopt the new “college and career” readiness standards, use assessments corresponding to those standards, adopt new accountability methods for the lowest 15% of the low-performing schools, and develop a teacher/principal evaluation system which includes student performance data.
For those interested, here is the manual specifying what the judges of the waiver applications want states to do.
What are the trade offs? Will the waiver requirements be worse than the disease?
Read the commentary by Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. He states that the “remedy” calls for even more testing, and that using such testing for evaluating teachers and principals is a flawed concept.
Who likes these new measures? This emphasis on testing will favor companies specializing in computers, online assessments, educational consulting, data analysis and storage, and similar services. It will also please school district administrators who don’t mind relinquishing education decisions to the federal government and number-crunchers in departments of education.
These measures will not make life easier or better for the students, their parents, or the teachers. It will put a damper on innovation and creativity in schools. The focus on producing high test scores will be intensified because teachers’ and principals’ jobs will be on the line. Remember that the standards and assessments, whether they are the new federal standards or the current WASL / HSPE / MSP standards still focus on process skills rather than knowledge. A good assessment score would mean the student has processed information the way the grading rubrics specify, not necessarily that he or she has acquired any knowledge.
Data collection and analysis will become the highest priority, and a predicatble consequence will be an erosion of data privacy.
Finally, there is a Constitutionality question. No Child Left Behind, as maddening as it can sometimes be, was legitimately enacted by Congress. Asking states to swap some measures of the duly enacted law with unlegislated Executive Branch mandates goes against the separation of powers. The Executive Branch is not supposed to make law; it is supposed to execute laws made by the Legislative Branch.
Tags: No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, assessments, federal
The federal law “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) required that ALL children must be proficient in math and language arts by 2014. It was a noble goal, but it was unrealistically naive. No doubt, legislators believed this goal would be amended or replaced by the next reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA); however, this has not happened.
In September 2011, the Obama administration said it would waive some of the stiff requirements of NCLB, including the requirement that students must meet math and language arts proficiency levels by 2014, and it would grant some flexibility in achievement goals and intervention measures for failing schools.
In exchange, however, those schools would have to adopt some of the Obama Administration’s education mandates. These would include aggressive intervention measures for low-performing schools and adopting guidelines for teacher evaluations which incorporate student performance data.
Here is an article on the Education Week blog site which explains some of the details:
Washington State has not applied for a waiver, at least not as of November 14, 2011. (See the Department of Education list . ) There is a second opportunity for states to apply for waivers in February.
States receiving a waiver must adopt the new “college and career” readiness standards, use assessments corresponding to those standards, adopt new accountability methods for the lowest 15% of the low-performing schools, and develop a teacher/principal evaluation system which includes student performance data.
For those interested, here is the manual specifying what the judges of the waiver applications want states to do.
What are the trade offs? Will the waiver requirements be worse than the disease?
Read the commentary by Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. He states that the “remedy” calls for even more testing, and that using such testing for evaluating teachers and principals is a flawed concept.
Who likes these new measures? This emphasis on testing will favor companies specializing in computers, online assessments, educational consulting, data analysis and storage, and similar services. It will also please school district administrators who don’t mind relinquishing education decisions to the federal government and number-crunchers in departments of education.
These measures will not make life easier or better for the students, their parents, or the teachers. It will put a damper on innovation and creativity in schools. The focus on producing high test scores will be intensified because teachers’ and principals’ jobs will be on the line. Remember that the standards and assessments, whether they are the new federal standards or the current WASL / HSPE / MSP standards still focus on process skills rather than knowledge. A good assessment score would mean the student has processed information the way the grading rubrics specify, not necessarily that he or she has acquired any knowledge.
Data collection and analysis will become the highest priority, and a predicatble consequence will be an erosion of data privacy.
Finally, there is a Constitutionality question. No Child Left Behind, as maddening as it can sometimes be, was legitimately enacted by Congress. Asking states to swap some measures of the duly enacted law with unlegislated Executive Branch mandates goes against the separation of powers. The Executive Branch is not supposed to make law; it is supposed to execute laws made by the Legislative Branch.
Tags: No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, assessments, federal