NCC: 'No Child Left Behind' Act is leaving too many children behind
New York, November 28, 2005 - A National Council of Churches committee has
warned that the "No Child Left Behind Act" is leaving more children behind
than it is saving, especially children of color and poor children. Instead
of treating children "as unique human beings to be nurtured and educated,"
the statement says, the act has encouraged school districts to regard
children as "products to be tested and managed." Declaring that "Christian
faith demands, as a matter of justice and compassion, that we be concerned
about our public schools," the NCC Committee for Public Education has
issued ten "moral concerns" about the implementation of the act. The ten
critiques examine the effects of the law on students, teachers, schools and
their communities. The committee also faults Congress for appropriating
less federal funding than the law originally authorized for every year
since its passage. Today's statement decries the business-management
assumptions that are the foundation of many of the law's purported reforms.
"The No Child Left Behind Act approaches the education of America's
children through an inside-the-school management strategy of increased
productivity rather than providing resources and support for the
individuals who will shape children's lives," the statement declares. "As
people of faith we do not view our children as products to be tested and
managed but instead as unique human beings to be nurtured and educated. We
call on our political leaders to invest in developing the capacity of all
schools." The statement criticizes the federal education law in the
context of a 1999 NCC General Assembly policy statement that affirmed: "...
criticism of the public schools often ignores an essential truth: we cannot
believe that we can improve the public schools by concentrating on the
schools alone."Since the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in January
2002, the members of the NCC's Public Education Committee have met on
several occasions with members of Congress and policy experts on this law.
Among 65 national organizations the NCC has endorsed a "Joint
Organizational Statement on the No Child Left Behind Act." "Overall," the
statement says, "the law's emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions
for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities
accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student
achievement."Members of the NCC's Committee for Public Education and
Literacy represent: the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ; the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; the Episcopal Church; the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America; the Presbyterian Church (USA); the Progressive
National Baptist Convention; the United Church of Christ; and the United
Methodist Women.
Here is a pdf. copy of the statement. Contact: Jan
Resseger, Committee Chair (216-736-3711), (216-308-9611), ressegerj@ucc.org
NCC News: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2252, pjenks@ncccusa.org
202-544-2350, ltune@ncccusa.org
Ten Moral Concerns in the Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act
A Statement of the National Council of Churches Committee on Public
Education and Literacy
Christian faith speaks to public morality and the ways our nation should
bring justice and compassion into its civic life. This call to justice is
central to needed reform in public education, America's largest civic
institution, where enormous achievement gaps alert us that some children
have access to excellent education while other children are left behind.
The No Child Left Behind Act * is a federal law passed in 2001 that
purports to address educational inequity. Now several years into No Child
Left Behind's implementation, as its hundreds of sequential regulations
have begun to be triggered, it is becoming clear that the law is leaving
behind more children than it is saving. The children being abandoned are
our nation's most vulnerable children-children of color and poor children
in America's big cities and remote rural areas-the very children the law
claims it will rescue. We examine ten moral concerns in the law's
implementation.
1. While it is a civic responsibility to insist that schools do a better
job of educating every child, we must also recognize that undermining
support for public schooling threatens our democracy. The No Child Left
Behind Act sets an impossibly high bar-that every single student will be
proficient in reading and math by 2014. We fear that this law will
discredit public education when it becomes clear that schools cannot
possibly realize such an ideal.
2. The No Child Left Behind Act has neither acknowledged where children
start the school year nor celebrated their individual accomplishments. A
school where the mean eighth grade math score for any one subgroup grows
from a third to a sixth grade level has been labeled a "in need of
improvement" (a label of failure) even though the students have made
significant progress. The law has not acknowledged that every child is
unique and that thresholds are merely benchmarks set by human beings. Now,
four years into implementation, the Department of Education has stated it
will begin experimenting with permitting 10 states to measure student
growth. Too many children will continue to be labeled failures even though
they are making strides.
3. Because the No Child Left Behind Act ranks schools according to test
score thresholds of children in every demographic subgroup, a "failing
group of children" will know when they are the ones who made their school a
"failing" school. They risk being shamed among their peers, by their
teachers and by their community. The No Child Left Behind Act has renamed
this group of children the school's "problem group." In some schools
educators have felt pressured to counsel students who lag far behind into
alternative programs so they won't be tested. This has increased the
dropout rate.
4. The No Child Left Behind Act requires children in special education to
pass tests designed for children without disabilities.
5. The No Child Left Behind Act requires English language learners to take
tests in English before they learn English. It calls their school a failure
because they have not yet mastered academic English.
6. The No Child Left Behind Act blames schools and teachers for many
challenges that are neither of their making nor within their capacity to
change. The test score focus obscures the importance of the quality of the
relationship between the child and teacher. Sincere, often heroic efforts
of teachers are made invisible. While the goals of the law are important-to
proclaim that every child can learn, to challenge every child to dream of a
bright future, and to prepare all children to contribute to
society-educators also need financial and community support to accomplish
these goals.
"Too often, criticism of the public schools fails to reflect our present
societal complexity. At a moment when childhood poverty is shamefully
widespread, when many families are under constant stress, when schools are
often limited by lack of funds or resources, criticism of the public
schools often ignores an essential truth: we cannot believe that we can
improve public schools by concentrating on the schools alone. They alone
can neither cause nor cure the problems we face. In this context, we must
address with prayerful determination the issues of race and class, which
threaten both public education and democracy in America." -The Churches and
the Public Schools at the Close of the Twentieth Century, National Council
of Churches Policy Statement, November 11, 1999 * For an explanation of the
provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, consult: Using NCLB to Improve
Student Achievement: An Action Guide for Community and Parent Leaders,
Public Education Network,
http://www.publiceducation.org/pdf/nclb/nclbbook.pdf
"Most tellingly,
the schools that offer the least to their students are often schools
serving poor children, among whom children of color figure
disproportionately, as they do in all the shortfalls of our common life.
Indeed, the coexistence of neglect of schools and neglect of other aspects
of the life of people who are poor makes it clear that no effort to improve
education in the United States can ignore the realities of racial and class
discrimination in our society as a whole." -The Churches and the Public
Schools at the Close of the Twentieth Century, National Council of Churches
Policy Statement, November 11, 1999
7. The relentless focus on testing basic skills in the No Child Left Behind
Act obscures the role of the humanities, the arts, and child and adolescent
development. While education should cover basic skills in reading and math,
the educational process should aspire to far more. We believe education
should help all children develop their gifts and realize their
promise-intellectually physically, socially, and ethically. The No Child
Left Behind Act treats children as products to be tested, measured and made
more uniform.
8. Because the No Child Left Behind Act operates through sanctions, it
takes federal Title I funding away from educational programing in already
overstressed schools and uses these funds to bus students to other schools
or to pay for private tutoring firms. A "failing" school district may not
be permitted to create its own public tutoring program, but it is expected
to create the capacity to regulate private firms that provide tutoring for
its students. One of the sanctions provided is to close or reconstitute the
"failing" school or to make it into a charter school, but in many places
charter schools are unregulated.
9. The No Child Left Behind Act exacerbates racial and economic segregation
in metropolitan areas by rating homogeneous, wealthier school districts as
excellent, while labeling urban districts with far more subgroups and more
complex demands made by the law as "in need of improvement." Such labeling
of schools and districts encourages families with means to move to wealthy,
homogeneous school districts.
10. The late Senator Paul Wellstone wrote, "It is simply negligent to force
children to pass a test and expect that the poorest children, who face
every disadvantage, will be able to do as well as those who have every
advantage. When we do this, we hold children responsible for our own
inaction and unwillingness to live up to our own promises and our own
obligations." The No Child Left Behind Act makes demands on states and
school districts without fully funding reforms that would build capacity to
close achievement gaps. To enable schools to comply with the law's
regulations and to create conditions that will raise achievement, society
will need to increase federal funding for the schools that serve our
nation's most vulnerable children and to keep Title I funds focused on
instruction rather than on transportation and school choice.
Christian faith demands, as a matter of justice and compassion, that we be
concerned about public schools. The No Child Left Behind Act approaches the
education of America's children through an inside-the-school management
strategy of increased productivity rather than providing resources and
support for the individuals who will shape children's lives. As people of
faith we do not view our children as products to be tested and managed but
instead as unique human beings to be nurtured and educated. We call on our
political leaders to invest in developing the capacity of all schools. Our
nation should be judged by the way we care for our children.
National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy
For more information, contact:
Rev. David Brown (staff)
Jan Resseger (chair)
http://www.ncccusa.org/nmu/mce/educaministr.html#anchorwgpel
"Our nation's teachers are asked to change lives and solve problems with
resources nowhere near commensurate with the task while facing constant
criticism by politicians, the public and the press for their alleged
failures and inadequacies..." - National Council of Churches Resolution:
The Churches and Public Schools, adopted November 5, 2003
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