"The Long Fight for Meaningful Assessment in Texas: From TAAS to HB 4 and Beyond" by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Long Fight for Meaningful Assessment in Texas: From TAAS 

to House Bill 4 and Beyond

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

House Bill 4 represents a promising and long-overdue step toward meaningful reform of Texas’ public school accountability system, which currently relies too heavily on the STAAR exam. The late Rice University professor, Dr. Linda McNeil, and I published on this very topic 25 years ago (McNeil & Valenzuela, 2000). 

I authored an anthology on this in 2004, published by the State University of New York Press (Valenzuela, 2004). We worked with former Texas State Rep. Dora Olivo, filing a bill on holistic assessment in the 2001 legislature. It actually passed out of the Texas House. This, despite personal phone calls from President George W. Bush to House members in real time. 

Rep. Olivo’s bill stood little chance. After all, "W" was on a mission to pass what would become the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping federal mandate that ushered high-stakes testing into every classroom and codified accountability as the cornerstone of public education policy.

Believe me when I say—I’ve given over two decades of my life to this struggle. My older daughter, then just an elementary school student, testified before the Texas Legislature about the harms of high-stakes testing. On the day she courageously refused to take the exam, she wrote a heartfelt letter to President George W. Bush, pleading for change. This fight is not just professional for me—it’s deeply personal. In fact, the very origins of this blog are rooted in that resistance.

By the 2013 legislative session, Dr. Linda McNeil and I had joined forces with Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA), standing alongside a growing coalition of scholars, parents, and advocates committed to transforming our state’s accountability system. Over time, that chorus of resistance only grew louder. I’ve been especially heartened to see Raise Your Hand Texas (RYHT) take a leadership role in this movement, and I’ve had the privilege of attending several of their events and press conferences that continue to shape the public conversation.

Several aspects of Raise Your Hand Texas’s 2025 report, “Assessment and Accountability: HB 4 Back in the Spotlight,” are especially noteworthy and speak to the significance of this moment (Raise Your Hand Texas, 2025).

First, with all the multi-year, RYHT efforts and data on public opinion on the Texas STAAR System of testing and accountability, House Bill 4, a bipartisan bill, died this legislative session, failing to arrive on the Governor's desk. It was a bipartisan bad idea to begin with.

Second, meaningful assessment was a priority of the entire Texas House of Representatives, as evidenced by the lower bill number, and it still didn't make it.

Last, and relatedly, the show of support by so many authors and co-authors is more than I have ever seen on testing legislation in the history of the legislature, and for that, we should be very encouraged.

Educators, parents, and students have long argued that a single high-stakes test cannot capture the full picture of student learning, school quality, or teacher impact. It's also costly and has filled the pockets of Education Testing Services and Pearson, Inc. to the tune of literally hundreds of millions, probably billions by now, over the past decades (e.g., see McGaughey, 2015).

As Dr. McNeil would often say, "Every testing dollar for the testing companies is one less dollar for public education in Texas."

In a political climate where entire diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and centers are being dismantled and faculty governance stripped away, one has to wonder: if the testing regime is so untouchable, then whose interests beyond the testing companies does it serve?

The truth is, the testing infrastructure is far from neutral. It operates as a powerful mechanism of control—determining what counts as legitimate knowledge, who is deemed successful or deficient, and which schools are rewarded or punished. It elevates compliance over curiosity, standardization over critical thinking, and reinforces a relentless hierarchy that ranks students, educators, schools, and, by association, entire communities as winners or failures.

So yes, we must ask—why not dismantle the testing regime too? In a moment when so much is being undone in the name of “reform,” let's turn the mirror on the system and ask who benefits from the tests, and who is harmed when they have an undue influence on our children’s future?

Enough is enough. For over two decades, we have fought against a testing system that punishes children for the conditions they were born into—a system rooted in racism and classism that reduces vibrant, complex human beings to numbers on a piece of paper (Valenzuela, 2004). 

How many more children must carry the weight of a single test? How many more will internalize failure as casualties in a testing system that is, at its core, both racist and classist (Valenzuela, 2004)? We must begin organizing now for the 90th Texas Legislative Session in 2027. The path to justice in education demands persistence, preparation, and the collective will to dismantle what never served our children in the first place. 

All told, a revised version of HB 4, passed unanimously out of the House Public Education Committee this session. It addressed concerns about limiting the weight of STAAR in A-F campus ratings and introduced more formative assessments that provide timely and actionable data. It also included innovative changes, such as updating postsecondary success indicators and launching local accountability pilot programs, allowing districts to design systems that reflect community values and student engagement beyond the classroom.

The bill’s pivot toward a student-centered accountability system—one that, in addition to academic performance, values growth, character, and civic engagement —is not just a policy shift. It’s a moral course correction. I commend Raise Your Hand Texas for its tireless advocacy in helping us reach this turning point. We now have every reason to be hopeful—and even more reason to keep pushing for a future where every child is seen, heard, and valued far beyond a test score.

References

McGaughey, L. (2015, May 19) Texas set to switch testing vendor, reducing role of British education giant: Pearson had held contract for 15 years, Houston Chronicle, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-set-to-switch-testing-vendor-drops-6271843.php

McNeil, L., & Valenzuela, A. (2000). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED443872.pdf

Raise Your Hand Texas. (2025, May 5). Assessment and accountability: HB 4 Back in the Spotlight. https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/assessment-and-accountability-hb-4/

Valenzuela, A. (2004). Leaving Children Behind: How "Texas-style" accountability harms Latino Youth. New York: State University of New York Press.

Five Issues That Will Decide If the Era of No Child Left Behind is Really Over

No Child Left Behind: What standardized test scores reveal about its legacy

By Valerie Strauss March 10

(iStock)

With
Congress now attempting to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law (the
current version of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary School Act), it’s a
good time to look at what NCLB accomplished and did not accomplish.
Here’s one attempt to answer that question,
and the post below is another, this one looking entirely at
standardized test scores and how “achievement gaps” fared during the
NCLB era.  This seems only fair, since modern school reformers have made
standardized test scores the chief metric of student achievement and
school effectiveness.

Since data is so important to school reformers today, here’s a look at some, by Monty Neill, executive director of  FairTest,
explains in this post. FairTest, or the National Center for Fair and
Open Testing, is dedicated to eliminating the abuse and misuse of
standardized tests.



By Monty Neill

No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) was signed into law in 2002, the latest version of the
long-standing Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Its
provisions, such as testing grades 3-8 annually in reading and math and
punitive sanctions, took effect over the next several years. The law is
more than seven years overdue for reauthorization by Congress. This
year, both the House and Senate are showing strong interest in voting
for a new version.

NCLB provided that the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) should be the primary means for evaluating
the success of NCLB.  (NAEP was long referred to as “the nation’s report
card” because it was the only measure of student achievement given
periodically to a sampling of students around the nation.) We can also
consider evidence such as scores on the SAT and ACT college admissions
exams and on the international PISA exams.

Here are key findings, comparing the rate of progress pre- and post NCLB for NAEP and recent trends on SAT and ACT tests:

• The
  rate of progress on NAEP at grades 4 and 8 was generally faster in the
  decade before NCLB took effect than since. That is a consistent trend
  both overall and for individual demographic groups, including blacks,
  English Language Learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities.
• Score gaps in 2012 were no narrower and often wider than they were in 1998 and 1990.
• The slowdown in math was pronounced, especially at grade 4.
• In many cases, the rate of gain slowed even more after 2007.
• Score gains slowed after NCLB for English language learners, while score gaps increased between ELLs and non-ELLs.
• In
  three of four grades/tests, scores for students with disabilities
  flattened or declined, while gaps with whites remained unchanged or
  widened.
• Scores for high school students have stagnated. NAEP
  scores were highest for blacks, and gaps the narrowest, in 1988.
  Hispanic scores and gaps have stagnated since NCLB.
• SAT scores declined from 2006 to 2014 for all demographic groups except Asians.
• ACT scores have been flat since 2010 for all demographic groups.
• PISA scores have declined from 2002 to 20132.

NCLB’s
failure to even raise scores on other standardized exams should be
considered in light of widespread evidence of curriculum narrowing and
extensive teaching to the test. Other serious problems, such as pushing
low-scorers out of school and widespread cheating scandals, are also
part of the steep price paid for NCLB’s testing fixation.

The documents below present the evidence in detail.



NAEP Score Changes 1992-2003-2007-2013

http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2013/#/gains-by-group

NAEP
“Main” reports scores in reading and math every two years, including
national and state-level scores, as well as by demographic groups.

Overall:

Math results show an overall slowdown in growth under NCLB, while reading saw very modest increase in the rate of progress.

Grade
4 math: from 1992 to  2003 scores rose 18 points, while from 2003 to
2013 they rose 7 points, but only 2 points from 2007-2013, the period in
which NCLB and then Race to the Top/NCLB waivers became entrenched.

Grade
8 math: rose 18 points from  1992 to 2003, then 12 points from
2003-2013, though from 2007-2013 the gain was 4 points – again, an
indicator of a slowdown in rate of progress.



Grade 4 reading: rose 1 point from 1992-2003, then 4 points from 2o03-2013.

Gr 8 reading: 1992-2003 saw a 3-point gain, then a 5-point gain from 2003-2013.



Comparisons among White, Black and Hispanic Test-takers:

Here
are scores to compare whites, blacks, and Hispanics plus score gap
changes with whites in a table; size of gaps with whites are in
parentheses, and size of the group’s gain since previous test listed in
the chart is in brackets; with some notes especially looking back to
2005 and 2007.

Math grade 4	White	Black	Hispanic	Disability
1992	227	193 (34)	202 (25)	204 (23) {1996}
2003	243	216 (27) [23]	222 (21) [20]	214 (29) [10]
2007	248	222 (26) [6]	227 (21) [5]	220 (28) [8]
2013	250	224 (26) [2]	231 (19) [4]	218 (32) [-2]

Black: No gap closure since 2003; black gain was 23 points pre-NCLB and 8 points under NCLB.

Hispanic: Gap closed 2 points since 2003; gain was 20 points pre-NCLB and 9 points under NCLB.

Disability: The gap with whites has widened, while since 2007, scores have declined 2 points.

Math grade 8	White	Black	Hispanic	Disability
1992	277	237(40)	249 (28)	231 (46){1996}
2003	288	252 (36) [15]	259 (29) [10]	242 (46) [11]
2007	291	260 (32) [8]	265 (26) [6]	246 (45) [4]
2013	294	263 (31) [3]	272 (22) [7]	249 (45) [3]

Black: Gap has closed only one point since 2007; gains were 15 points pre-NCLB and 11 points under NCLB.

Hispanic: Gaps closed 1 point pre-NCLB and 7 points under NCLB; gains were 10 points pre-NCLB and 13 points under NCLB.

Disability:
Rate of gain slowed under NCLB, gap did not close. A look in further
detail shows students with disabilities scored 249 in both 2009 and
2013, indicating zero gain during the ‘waiver’ period.

Reading grade 4	White	Black	Hispanic	Disability
1992	224	192 (32)	197 (27)	176 (48) {1998}
2003	229	198 (31) [6]	200 (29) [3]	185 (44) [9]
2007	231	203 (27) [5]	205 (26) [5]	191 (40) [6]
2013	232	206 (26) [3]	207 (25) [2]	184 (48) [-7]

Black: Closure was 1 point pre-NCLB and 5 points under NCLB; gains were 6 points pre NCLB and 8 points post NLCB, 3 since 2007.

Hispanic:
Closed 2 points pre-NCLB and 4 points under NCLB, but from 2007 to 2013
there was a 1-point closure; gains were 3 points pre-NCLB and 7 points
under NCLB, but 2 points from 2007-2013.

Disability: Scores
declined markedly under NCLB after an initial rise so the 2013 scores
are back to 2003 levels (just at the start of NCLB). Gap is back to 1992
level.

Reading grade 8	White	Black	Hispanic	Disability
1992	267	237 (30)	241 (26)	224 (43) {1998}
2003	272	244 (28) [7]	245 (27) [4]	225 (47) [1]
2007	272	245 (27) [1]	247 (25) [2]	227 (45) [2]
2013	276	250 (26) [5]	256 (20) [9]	232 (44) [5]

Black:
Gap narrowed 2 points pre-NCLB and 6 points under NCLB; 7-point gain
pre-NCLB and 6-point gain under NCLB, but note that data shows 1 point
improvement from 2011 to 2013.

Hispanic: Gap widened 1 point
pre-NCLB, narrowed 7 points under NCLB. Gains were 4 points pre-NCLB, 11
points under NLCB, with largest gain from 2007-2013.

Disability:
Unlike grade 4 or both grades in math, scores rose more under NCLB
while gap closed very slightly. Scores went up 1 point in 2009 and 2011,
indicated only very small gains in later NCLB period.



NAEP Long Term Trend Scores For 17-Year Olds

Scores
and gaps are largely stagnant overall for 17-year olds on the long-term
NAEP. Long-term trend is a separate test from NAEP main. It has scores
back to 1971 in reading. The most recent report covers the 2012
assessment administration.



Reading:

• Black
  students high score was in 1988 (274), 5 points higher than in 2012
  (269). 1988 saw the narrowest score gap with whites (20 points), vs 26
  points in 2012.
• Hispanics’ high score was in 1990 (275), 1
  point higher than in 2012 (274). The gap was 22 points in 1990, the
  narrowest until it was 21 points in 2012.

Math:

• Blacks’ highest score was 289 in 1990, compared with 288 in 2012. The gap was 21 points in 1990 compared with 26 points in 2012.
• Hispanics’
  highest score was 294 in 2012, but scores have been essentially
  stagnant since reaching 292 in 1992. The gap was 21 points in 1992 and
  19 points in 2004 and 2012, again showing stagnation.

English Language Learner (ELL)

NAEP Main Results 1998 Reading/1996 Math through 2013*

http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2013/#/gains-by-group

Overall,
we see stronger gains for ELLs and greater gap closings with those who
are not ELLs prior to NCLB starting to take effect.



Math

Grade 4

1996 – 2003 +13; gap closed 1 point

2003 – 2013 +5; gap widened 2 points

No ELL gain between 2011 and 2013



Grade 8

1996– 2003 + 16; gap closed 9 points

2003 – 2013 +4; gap widened 4 points



Reading

Grade 4

1998 – 2003 +12; gap closed 8 points

2003 – 2013 +1; gap widened by 4, erasing half the earlier gain



Grade 8

1998 – 2003 + 6; gap closed 3 points

2003 – 2013 +3; gap widened 2 points



ELL Grade 12 Long Term Trend, 2004 to 2012 (most recent long-term trend)

Reading fell 7 points from 2004 to 2012

Math scores fell 9 points 2004 to 2012.



* The earliest dates for ELL trends in NAEP main are 1996 in math and 1998 in reading.

PISA Results Show Declines in Reading, Math and Science from 2002-2012



Researcher
Linda Darling-Hammond circulated a chart showing the decline of scores
on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams, given periodically to students in dozens of nations.

Source: http://dianeravitch.net/2015/03/04/a-stunning-graphic-on-the-failure-of-test-based-accountability/

Valerie Strauss covers education and runs The Answer Sheet blog.

115 education groups: GOP No Child Left Behind legislation is vastly underfunded

By Valerie Strauss February 12

(Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg News)

The Republican-dominated House education committee just approved legislation, H.R. 5, that is a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act with funding levels that critics say are inadequate to properly support K-12 public education. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate’s education committee, has released draft legislation that has been hit as well by critics who say the funding levels are below the fiscal 2012 pre-sequestration total and would harm efforts to improve student achievement.

Here are letters written by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of some 115 national education groups, and sent to the leaders of the House and Senate education committees. They detail funding problems the committee has identified in both pieces of legislation, and included is a list of programs that would be affected if the legislation was approved as is.
The Committee for Education Funding was founded in 1969 with a mission to advocate for adequate federal financial support for the country’s public education system.  A list of its broad array of members — which includes universities, education advocacy groups, professional education organizations and more –  is at the end of this post.  

 

See letter to Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Scott here.

A list of members of the Committee for Education Funding:
Allegheny Intermediate Unit (aiu3)
Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE)
American Alliance of Museums (AAM)
American Association of Classified School Employees (AACSE)
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)
American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)
American Association of School Administrators (AASA)
American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU)
American Council on Education (ACE)
American Counseling Association (ACA)
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA)
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
American Institutes for Research (AIR)
American Library Association (ALA)
American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)
American School Counselor Association (ASCA)
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
American Student Association of Community Colleges (ASACC)
Apollo Education Group
ASCD
Association for Career & Technical Education (ACTE)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Association of American Universities (AAU)
Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT)
Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities (AJCU)
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)
Association of Public Television Stations (APTS)
Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO)
Boston University (BU)
California Department of Education (CDE)
California State University Office of Federal Relations (CSU)
Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Citizen Schools
Coalition for Higher Education Assistance Organizations (COHEAO)
Consortium for School Networking (COSN)
Cornerstone Government Affairs (CGA)
Council for a Strong America (CSA)
Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
Council for Opportunity in Education (COE)
Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS)
DeVry Education Group
Easter Seals
Education Industry Association (EIA)
FED ED
Federal Management Strategies
First Focus Campaign for Children
George Washington University(GWU)
Georgetown University Office of Federal Relations
Harvard University Office of Federal Relations
Higher Education Consortium for Special Education (HESCE)
indiCo
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research & Reform in Education (JHU-CRRE)
Kent State University
Knowledge Alliance
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
Magnet Schools of America, Inc. (MSA)
Military Impacted Schools Association (MISA)
National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE)
National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
National Association for Music Education (NAFME)
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS)
National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. (NAGPS)
National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)
National Association of Private Special Education Centers (NAPSEC)
National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP)
National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc)
National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE)
National Association of State Student Grant & Aid Programs (NASSGAP)
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD)
National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL)
National Coalition for Literacy (NCL)
National Coalition of Classified Education Support Employee Unions (NCCESEU)
National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP)
National Council of Higher Education Resources (NCHER)
National Council of State Directors of Adult Education (NCSDAE)
National Education Association (NEA)
National HEP/CAMP Association
National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA)
National Rural Education Association (NREA)
National School Boards Association (NSBA)
National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA)
National Superintendents Roundtable (NSR)
National Title I Association (NASTID)
Northwestern University
Penn Hill Group
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA)
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
State University of New York (SUNY)
Teach For America (TFA)
Texas A&M University (TAMU)
The College Board
The Ohio State University (OSU)
The Pell Alliance
The Sheridan Group
The Y (YMCA)
UNCF
United States Student Association (USSA)
University of California (UC)
University of Chicago
University of Maryland (UMD)
University of Maryland University College (UMUC)
University of Southern California (USC)
University of Wisconsin System (UWS)
US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG)
Washington Partners, LLC
WestEd

It's 2014. All Children Are Supposed To Be Proficient. What Happened?

It was a bi-partisan bad idea with flawed assumptions, beginning with the idea that we can use a limited instrument to measure "proficiency."  Quote from within:

The biggest downside of the law, she said, was the games that states played with the definition of proficiency.

"By letting every state set their own benchmark, define their own standard and use their own assessment, combined with the requirement of 100 percent proficiency, they basically incented states to keep dumbing down and lowering their cut score in order to get more kids across the bar," Weiss explains. "And that has done a huge disservice to our educational system. Huge."

True, but I think an even bigger downside was how the law was and is still being used to demonize public education, weaken the unions, and pave the way for the corporatization and privatization of all things education—a neoliberal agenda that is still getting fueled by this system.  If not an honest, we need a deeper, conversation and understanding of the devastating consequences meeted out to schools attended by low-income, children of color under NCLB.

-Angela

It's 2014. All Children Are Supposed To Be Proficient. What Happened?

by Anya Kamenetz

October 11, 201412:49 PM ET

 

i

President George W. Bush, seated, signs No Child Left Behind into law at Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio.

Ron Edmonds/ASSOCIATED PRESS 

 

Take yourself back to those highly emotional, patriotic months after the 9/11 attacks.
In the midst of war, terrorism, fear and mourning, one bill passed 87-10 in the Senate and by a similar margin in the House — with equal support from both sides of the aisle. It was signed into law in January 2002 by George W. Bush, with the liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, by his side.
The law set a simple if daunting goal: All of the nation's students would perform at grade level on state tests. Every single one. 100 percent. Or as the name of the law put it, there would be No Child Left Behind. Here's the formal language:

"Each State shall establish a timeline for adequate yearly progress. The timeline shall ensure that not later than 12 years after the end of the 2001-2002 school year, all students ... will meet or exceed the State's proficient level of academic achievements on the State assessments ..."

So here it is, 12 years later, 2014. And the law, NCLB, is still in effect. All children, under federal law, are supposed to be at grade level.

Spoiler alert: They're not.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the "Nation's Report Card," "proficiency" rates last year were below 50 percent for every racial and ethnic group, in both reading and math, in both 4^th and 8^th grade. The exceptions? Asians, in all subjects (51-64 percent) and whites in 4^th grade math only (54 percent).

So, what is proficiency, anyway? Did the 100% goal ever make sense? What were the impacts of setting such a goal, positive and negative? And where do we go from here?

Proficiency, as defined by the law, ain't nothing but a number. Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, calls it a "crude gauge of student performance."
It's a particular score on a particular test of reading or math given by states to students each spring in grades 3 through 12. Change the test, or the passing score, and you change the definition of proficiency.

"I've called proficiency a 'weasel word,' " says Andrew Ho at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "It inspires consensus where there really is none."

Did The Goal Make Sense?

Sandy Kress was a lawyer and school board president in Dallas, Texas in the 1990s when he got interested in the role of tests in ensuring educational accountability. As a top education advisor to President George W. Bush, he became one of the chief architects of No Child Left Behind. He says the inspiration for the 100 percent goal was simple.

"This was a bipartisan consensus. The Democrats, under [California Congressman] George Miller in particular, with involvement from the Education Trust, along with President Bush and Republicans, essentially asked themselves in 2001: What's our vision? Do we want to get a few kids performing better? Most kids? Which kids don't we want to get better? Which kids don't we want to make it to the bar of grade-level proficiency?"

It sounds convincing. Harvard's Andrew Ho says that's the problem.

"Leaving no child behind is the right rhetorical goal. It generally resonates with educators, students, teachers, administrators, and the public. We don't want to leave a child behind, and the standard we want them to achieve should be high."

The law required that states report more than just average test scores. It made them report, separately, the scores of traditionally disadvantaged subgroups: ethnic and racial minorities, disabled students, low-income students and English learners.

Ho, like most observers, agrees that this focus on the achievement gap is NCLB's most important and positive legacy.

But, he adds, "I think it's safe to say, and we anticipated this early on, that policymakers erred. They turned an aspirational goal that inspires support, into a target for accountability, meant for consequences."

Some of those consequences were intended, and others were unintended.

The reason we're still talking about No Child Left Behind is that it included an "or else." Schools that failed to make 'Adequate Yearly Progress' toward the 100 percent proficiency goal for each subgroup would face sanctions, such as reorganization or closure.

There were far fewer provisions for positive incentives, either to reward schools that did well or to help the students that weren't doing as well.

"We tried to push that, and it never really got done because I don't think anyone understood how the federal government could create carrots," says Kress, pointing out that the feds contribute a small portion, about 12 percent, of the public school budget. "That's a fair criticism of the law."

What Was The Impact?

No Child Left Behind coincided with real gains on national tests. A widely cited NAEP analysis shows statistically significant gains in math attributable to NCLB, but no evidence for such gains in reading. According to other analyses, the achievement gap narrowed too.

Kress says he'll take those numbers "to meet my maker."

But the structure of the law, with an aspirational goal married to real punishments, brought with it a wide range of unintended negative consequences.

Here's a little thought experiment to illustrate:
Let's say, for some reason, you came to work tomorrow and were put before a group of 10 kindergartners. By the end of the month they all have to be playing the piano proficiently. No exceptions. Or you lose your job.

The kids are from a wide variety of backgrounds. Four of them come from families that struggle economically. Two of them are already Suzuki-trained, but others are far behind.

What do you do?

You could define "proficient" as playing a single scale with one hand.

You could ask that the slower kids be left out of the test.

You could spend all day, every day, practicing.

You could simply ask for more time to meet the goal.

The evidence shows that states and schools, to varying extents and in various ways, did all these things.

"At least in the academic community, it was well know that 100% proficiency wasn't going to happen without gamesmanship, and the amount of improvement that was needed in some states was not plausible," says USC's Polikoff.

In response, he says, schools gave more and more tests to prepare students to take the state tests. They practiced "educational triage," focusing more resources on students who were just below passing, to the detriment of both higher and lower achievers. They classified more students as disabled to get them out of taking the tests. In certain cases, they cheated.

As the years passed and the "adequate yearly progress" targets grew, he says, more and more schools in more and more states fell into the category of "failing" — 50 percent, 60 percent, even 70 percent. "By setting up an unattainable target, states stopped paying attention," says Polikoff. They just gave up.

Joanne Weiss inherited No Child Left Behind as chief of staff to President Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. The biggest downside of the law, she said, was the games that states played with the definition of proficiency.

"By letting every state set their own benchmark, define their own standard and use their own assessment, combined with the requirement of 100 percent proficiency, they basically incented states to keep dumbing down and lowering their cut score in order to get more kids across the bar," Weiss explains. "And that has done a huge disservice to our educational system. Huge."

By the time Weiss, Duncan and Obama arrived on the scene, NCLB was already overdue for reauthorization.

Political realities made passing any large piece of legislation through Congress difficult, so the Education Department came up with another solution. They would write permission slips, known as waivers, to each state that wanted to change their accountability formula. Essentially those states make up a new definition of "adequate yearly progress."

Where Do We Go From Here?

Almost every state is currently operating under an NCLB waiver.

They have constructed what Ho calls "Rube Goldberg" accountability formulas, specifying different targets for different groups. A big change seen in about half the states is a focus on growth — how fast test scores are moving and in which direction, not just how many kids have passed a specific score on the tests.

"If you focus on growth you can see which schools are improving," says Weiss, who is now an independent consultant. High-achieving schools won't stagnate. Schools full of poor kids won't be unfairly punished if they're making progress. "It makes sure the kids at the top are being served as well as the kids at the bottom."

Some states, such as Massachusetts and Kentucky, as well as the CORE group of districts in California, are including new indicators alongside test scores: graduation rates, college readiness and even school-climate surveys.

The other big change, of course, is the Common Core State Standards. In theory, by setting out a common definition of what students should know and be able to do, the Common Core takes some of the "weasel word"-ness out of proficiency.

Plus, states are using a smaller number of different tests: PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and a few privately created tests. This makes it easier to compare results.

But the "new accountability" lacks something No Child Left Behind had: simplicity.

"It's harder to have a clear easy talking point for people to rally around," acknowledges Weiss. On the other hand, this approach "acknowledges the complexity of the real world." And she says, it also allows states to experiment with different approaches to find out what works best.

For Sandy Kress, though, the loss of a clear goal brings a loss of urgency: "I feel very sad because rather than fixing and advancing accountability, we seem to be weakening and abandoning it."

Education Department’s obsession with test scores deepens

Geez, talk about experimenting with our children as though they were gerbils. In lieu of this blog's earlier posts discussing the "perversion of testing," how much is being invested in reducing success to a student's outcomes on a test? Sounds like more perversion at our children's expense. I'd like to see the media get a little more critical about these issues.

-Patricia

By Valerie Strauss | Washington Post
February 8, 2012

Apparently it’s not enough for the Obama administration that standardized test scores are now used to evaluate students, schools, teachers and principals. In a new display of its obsession with test scores, the Education Department is embarking on a study to determine which parts of clinical teacher training lead to higher average test scores among the teachers’ students.

This is explained in a notice placed in the Federal Register:

“Teachers who have experienced certain types of clinical practice features and who have completed those features are hypothesized to produce higher average student test scores than teachers who have not done so. Using a randomized controlled trial, students will be randomly assigned to a pair of teachers in the same school and grade level, one of whom will have experienced the type of clinical practice of interest (‘treatment’) while the other will not have experienced the feature (‘control’). Average test scores of the two groups will then be compared.”

The Education Department’s new study takes as fact the notion that standardized test scores tell us something important about how well a teacher does his or her job. They don’t, assessment experts say (over and over), but why let the facts get in the way?

This might seem like officials are about to take the use of test scores to extremes, but, actually, we passed extreme some time ago.

Let’s consider Tennessee as an example. Last fall the state (as did many others) enacted a new way of evaluating teachers that is heavily based on standardized test scores of students. But here’s one of the many problems with a system that relies on test scores: What do you do about teachers in subjects without standardized tests?

One way out of this dilemma is as obvious as it is horrifying: Create standardized tests in every subject. If you think I’m kidding, think again. This is where districts around the country are going with teacher evaluation. See this post by a student in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, where last year 52 standardized assessments were field tested on students as young as kindergarten. The student asked, “Why do I have to take a standardized test in Yearbook?”Why indeed.

But Tennessee has added a whole new level of creativity to solving this problem.

There aren’t any student test scores — yet — for over half of the state’s teachers, including those who teach kindergarten, first, second and third grades, and art and music. So teachers without a standardized test to call their own are being evaluated by the test scores of other teachers’ students in the school. As Mike Winerip of The New York Times recently wrote, amid a “bewildering” collection of rules on how teachers should be assessed, “math specialists can be evaluated by their school’s English scores, music teachers by the school’s writing scores.”

Really.

Things have gotten so out of hand that even Robert Scott, the Republican education commissioner of Texas who is not exactly the poster child for progressive education, recently called the nation’s testing obsession a “perversion” of a quality education.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called for a broad-based curriculum and said he doesn’t want schools becoming obsessed with tests. But his policies can’t lead to any other behavior.

Meanwhile, back to that new Education Department study, interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before March 27.

Here’s my comment: Please stop wasting our time and money on nonsense.

DISD Says It's Not Sitting on Federal Funds. It's Actually Trying to Keep From Wasting Them

Here's the TEA's response to DISD.

-Patricia

By Robert Wilonsky | Dallas Observer
Tue., Feb. 7 2012

We started this morning by noting Brett Shipp's piece from last night suggesting the Texas Education Agency is threatening to withhold Dallas ISD from close to $80 million in federal funds birthed by No Child Left Behind. The reason, says Commissioner of Education Robert Scott: Only 40 students out of an eligible 29,349 have gotten their after-school tutoring paid for. Which, on the surface, sounds just horrible.

But DISD says today that's far from the whole story. Like, very far. Like, not even half the whole story. More like a couple of chapters from a really long story.

As proof we were sent the January 27 letter interim DISD superintendent Alan King sent to Scott in response to his January 13 warning letter on which Shipp based his account last night. In the letter, which follows, King writes that the reason DISD hasn't spent the money is because while performing its annual audit the district discovered "potential irregularities involving invoices received from several vendors" -- all of whom, incidentally, are tutoring services approved by TEA. Writes King, who later outs the issue as one involving double-billing, "the district took immediate action by reorganizing the department in charge of oversight for the program and hired a forensic team to conduct further investigations into the program."

King writes that district staff and TEA employees chatted about this in October, and that the result was an "action plan" that would resolve the hold-up. In the meantime, DISD continued trying to find out where the irregularities had come from -- inside 3700 Ross or with the contractors TEA had signed off on. Says the letter:

The initial concerns were that district employees were being paid by both the district and vendors for the same work or tutors were being paid by multiple vendors for the same time period. The District's Office of Professional Responsibility conducted a sampling of interviews with several district employees and found no indication of employee misconduct. The District, therefore, concluded that the apparent fraudulent activity was conducted by the vendors and the forensic audit team focused their procedures on these vendors.

Now here's where it gets really interesting ...

Not only is DISD concerned that those tutoring services are double-dipping from federal funds, but the district also doesn't think much of those tutoring services -- all of whom, you'll recall, are on TEA's list of approved vendors. This isn't easy to find. But there is a report, which you'll find here, that breaks down the services providers, which have names like Allegiance Learning Solutions, Cool Kids Learn, Cranium Maximus, Little Genius Private Learning, Orion's Mind and Sheila Williams Lyons: Acknowledge Me Now. According to the district, most of the 11,268 kids who enrolled in the tutoring services used Group Excellence (2,695 students), Apex Academics (1,593) or Tutors with Computers (1,129). And the district "funded SES at $1,490 per student," per the report.

But, says DISD's evaluation, it didn't appear to get much, if anything, for its investment. From Page 80 of the report:

For TAKS math vertical score means, SES eligible non-tutored students outperformed SES tutored students in the sixth grade by an average of 21 points. There was no significant difference between tutored and non-tutored students' vertical math scores in the seventh and eight grades. For TAKS reading, SES eligible non-tutored students outperformed SES tutored students in all three grades by an average of 17 points.

Eleven pages later, after a lot of data-crunching, the district determined:

In a broader sense, SES is a clear non-factor in helping students pass the TAKS that otherwise might not pass. When examining the rates between enrolled and non-enrolled (and tutored and nontutored), SES is not helping students who previously failed the TAKS test to pass this year, and there-in help schools make AYP. This is probably due in part to the fact that the majority of SES participants have previously passed the TAKS test and the fact that many providers are apparently not able to improve student academic performance.

Which brings us back to King's letter, in which he notes that the district's actually requested a waiver from TEA to "repurpose the mandatory set aside for SES services to a more productive initiative." Because, as the report notes, DISD doesn't think SES is very, you know, productive. Writes King:

The District will set aside approximately $10 million to hire teachers at Stage 2 and above AYP campuses in order to lower class sizes. Since all 26 campuses that meet this criterion are "school-wide", allocations will be distributed evenly across the affected campuses. Teachers will be hired according to the specific area of improvement of each campus. The improvement areas are math, reading, attendance and/or graduation rate. This proposal will allow the District to hire approximately 166 teachers or 6.4 additional teachers per campus.

TEA spokesperson DeEtta Culbertson says the agency is "assessing the letter" from King, but since there's an "ongoing investigation, there's not a whole lot we can say." But "the bottom line is," she adds, "we need to make sure the students in Dallas ISD are being properly served."

Lost Decade for Educational Progress -- NCLB 10th Anniversary Report

Here's the link to the Full Report

-Patricia

FairTest NationalCenterfor Fair & Open Testing

For further information:
Dr. Monty Neill (617)
477-9792

Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
For use on or after Tuesday afternoon, January 3, 2012


The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law “failed badly both
in terms of its own goals and more broadly,” leading to a decade
of educational stagnation. That is the central conclusion of a major
new report marking NCLB’s tenth anniversary. President George W. Bush
signed the program into law on January 8, 2002.

The report, “NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress,”
summarizes data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) and dozens of independent studies. It was written by staff of
the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest).

Among the report’s major findings:
- NCLB failed to significantly increase average academic
performance or to significantly narrow achievement gaps, as measured
by NAEP. U.S. students made greater gains before NCLB became law
than after it was implemented.
- NCLB severely damaged educational quality and equity by
narrowing the curriculum in many schools and focusing attention on the
limited skills standardized tests measure. These negative effects fell
most heavily on classrooms serving low-income and minority
children.

- So-called "reforms" to NCLB fail to address many of the
law’s fundamental problems and, in some cases, may intensify them.
Flawed proposals include Obama Administration waivers and the Senate
Education Committee’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
reauthorization bill

“NCLB undermined many promising reform efforts because of its
reliance on one-size-fits-all testing, labeling and sanctioning
schools,” explained FairTest’s Lisa Guisbond, the new report’s lead
author. “A decade’s worth of solid evidence documents the failure of
NCLB and similar high-stakes testing schemes. Successful programs in
the U.S. and other nations demonstrate better ways to improve
schools. Yet, policymakers still cling to the discredited NCLB model.”

“It’snot too late to learn the lessons of the past ten years.
Now is the time to craft a federal law that supports equity and
progress in all public schools,” added FairTest Executive Director,
Dr. Monty Neill. The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA), which
FairTest leads, is promoting a comprehensive plan to overhaul NCLB.
The proposal calls for using multiple measures to assess student and
school performance. It also targets resources to improve teaching and
learning. More than 150 national education, civil rights, disability,
religious, labor and civic groups signed theJoint Organizational
Statement on NCLB, which FEA seeks to implement.
- - 30 - -
- the NCLB 10th Anniversary report is posted at
http://fairtest.org/NCLB-lost-decade-report-home

State Challenges Seen as Whittling Away Federal Education Law

“States are going to sit and watch federal accountability implode. We’re seeing the end of an era.”

Go on wit yo bad self, Montana. Resist!! I don't know about you, friends, but I'm ready for the revolution. Rediculous to hear Duncan call NCLB a "slow-motion train wreck,” then turn around and propose an even more egregious system. The Blueprint is wack, don't believe the hype!

-Patricia

By SAM DILLON | NY Times
August 14, 2011

HELENA, Mont. — As hundreds of schools here and across the nation faced being labeled failures under the federal No Child Left Behind law, Montana education officials defiantly informed Washington this spring that they would stop raising testing targets as the law requires, despite warnings that doing so could cost the state millions of dollars in federal aid.

But in an agreement to be announced here on Monday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will allow Montana to keep most of the schools off the law’s blacklist, and the state will pay no penalty.

With several other Western states also rebelling against the requirement that 100 percent of American students be proficient in English and math by 2014, some education officials and experts see signs that years of federal dominance of public school accountability may be drawing to a close.

“Pretty soon all the schools will be failing in America, and at that point the law becomes meaningless,” said Larry K. Shumway, superintendent of public instruction in Utah. “States are going to sit and watch federal accountability implode. We’re seeing the end of an era.”

It is no secret that the Obama administration dislikes many provisions of the No Child law, which President George W. Bush signed in 2002 and vigorously enforced, in court and with fines against states — including Texas, his own.

Mr. Duncan has called the law a “slow-motion train wreck,” tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to rewrite it, and last week promised to provide waivers this fall to states that sign on to the president’s school improvement agenda, with criteria similar to those in his Race to the Top grant competition.

Mr. Duncan says he is still devising the new waiver policy, and his office denied waiver requests lodged by Arkansas and Kansas this spring.

But when officials in Montana and a handful of other states simply refused to follow the strictures of the No Child law in recent weeks, his aides quietly helped them find provisions in the law that avoided a public showdown, signaling a more profound shift.

Here in Montana, 158 schools were to be newly labeled failures. But that number fell to three when federal officials allowed the state to redraw its schedule of testing targets, a critical component of the No Child law’s ambitious approach to forcing all schools to show steady progress toward 100 percent proficiency.

“Secretary Duncan is disassembling what was a very strong federal role, and some states’ rights officials and governors smell blood,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written academic studies on the No Child law. “This is a big federalist chess game. Until now, Washington has had the stronger position. Going forward, states will be stronger.”

The uprising by states began in April, when Denise Juneau, Montana’s superintendent of public instruction, was calculating how many of her schools would not reach their targets this year.

Of the state’s 821 public schools, 225 had already fallen short. If the targets, which the law calls annual measurable objectives, rose again as scheduled, that number would increase to 383, including many schools that Ms. Juneau said were raising student achievement.

In Bozeman, a university town where at least 90 percent of students scored above proficiency in reading this spring, 8 of the 10 schools would nonetheless have failed to meet rising targets.

On April 25, Ms. Juneau wrote to the education secretary asking for “some alleviation of the strict across the board, one-size-fits-all, absolute bar of 100 percent proficiency.” Six weeks later, she hosted a meeting of school chiefs from 10 rural states and passed around her defiant letter.

”We’re not asking for permission,” Ms. Juneau told the group. “We’re just telling them we won’t raise our annual objectives this year.”

Diane DeBacker, the education commissioner in Kansas whose waiver request federal officials had already denied, did not follow suit. “Kansas is just not that rebel a state,” she said in a June interview. But the superintendents in Idaho and Utah soon sent their own letters to Washington.

“It is our intention to not increase the annual measurable objectives for the 2011 school year,” Mr. Shumway of Utah wrote, bluntly.

“The current federal law has taken Idaho and other states as far as it can,” wrote that state’s superintendent, Tom Luna. “Idaho does not have the luxury of spending time and limited resources on meeting the rigid requirements of an outdated accountability system.”

Melody Schopp, South Dakota’s education secretary, followed a week later with a letter saying she, too, would not lift testing targets, because to do so “would inappropriately label schools as failing.”

Half a dozen other states have joined the chorus in recent weeks, using less defiant language but still asking for relief from the testing mandates, according to Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Others are broadly rewriting their school accountability systems and requesting a new contract with Washington that would give states a more dominant role.

It was in this context of educational insurrection by some states that President Obama and Mr. Duncan developed their waivers initiative. Critics have called it executive branch overreach, challenging Mr. Duncan’s authority to extend waivers, selectively, based in part on states’ approaches to lifting achievement.

But in dealing with Montana and the others, the administration seems to have been searching for pragmatic ways to defuse potentially embarrassing standoffs.

The law requires testing targets to increase at least every three years. Idaho and Utah both raised them in 2008. Michael Yudin, deputy assistant secretary of education, said that action enabled him to approve keeping both states’ targets steady for a third year.

Montana’s case was trickier because its targets had not risen since 2007.

On July 1, Secretary Duncan wrote to Ms. Juneau, warning that “Montana is now out of compliance,” and that the Department of Education could withhold millions of dollars in aid to disadvantaged students. He gave Montana until Aug. 15 to change its stance.

That warning notwithstanding, Ms. Juneau announced on Aug. 5 that she had held the state’s testing targets steady.

That put Montana on a collision course with Washington — until federal officials discovered that when the state rewrote its standards in 2005, it did not use an opportunity provided by the law to redraw its schedule of raising testing targets, said Justin Hamilton, a Department of Education spokesman.

Working with Washington, Ms. Juneau retroactively redrew the schedule. As a result, all but three of the 158 schools she thought were destined for the federal failure list could be spared.

“I consider that a win,” Ms. Juneau said.

Number of Texas schools not meeting federal requirements skyrockets

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS | Dallas Morning News
04 August 2011

The number of Texas schools failing to make adequate progress under federal law skyrocketed partly because the state eliminated a rule that allowed some students who failed state exams to be counted as passing.

The dramatic rise was also driven by federal standards that become more difficult to clear each year.

Texas schools failing to make “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind Act increased to 2,233 from 368 last year, according to preliminary results released Thursday by the Texas Education Agency.

Districts didn’t fare much better — 605 missed the standard, up from 250. That means 49 percent of districts are not in compliance.

The number of Dallas ISD nonqualifying schools increased to 83 from 30. Houston ISD increased to 75 from 20, while Fort Worth increased to 76 from 20.

Texas Education Agency officials said the elimination of the Texas Projection Measure probably played a big role coupled with the climbing federal standards. The projection measure gave schools credit for students who failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills but were predicted to pass in the future.

Last year, 78 percent of schools that met the federal standard benefited from the projection measure, said TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson. She added that student passage rates on state tests help determine if adequate yearly progress is met under the federal definition.

The required passing rates under federal guidelines this year were 80 percent in reading and 75 percent in math. Individual student groups, such as white, black, and Hispanic, also had to meet the requirements. Last year, the required passing rates were 73 percent in reading and 67 percent in math.

The law requires that 100 percent of students be proficient in both subjects by 2014.

Other factors taken into consideration include attendance and graduation rates.

Culbertson said that the basic federal standards this year are similar to standards required to achieve the state’s second-highest performance rating, “recognized.” But even some schools that did well in the state rating system this year did not meet the federal requirement, including Liberty High School in Frisco and Allen High School, which both received the state’s “recognized” rating last week but did not meet the federal standard.

Despite the increase in schools on the list, Culbertson noted that a majority of them met the federal standard.

“We still have two-thirds of our campuses meeting AYP,” she said.

Schools that don’t meet the federal standard and receive Title 1 federal funding are subject to corrective action, from restructuring and replacing staff to closure.

Campuses must meet the federal standard for two consecutive schools years to be considered making progress.

Dallas ISD Interim Superintendent Alan King said in a news release Thursday that the district makes no excuses for student performance under the federal guidelines. But he noted that 2011 TAKS results for DISD showed overall gains in math and a half-point decline in reading.

“The annual ratcheting up of standards is catching up with our district and does not necessarily reflect on the quality of teaching or opportunities available to students whose campuses did not meet AYP status,” he said.

Schools struggle to catch up to No Child rules

By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE | HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 4, 2011,

A record number of school districts missed federal standards as Texas continued its uphill march toward No Child Left Behind targets.

Statewide, 605 districts — or 49.3 percent - failed to make "adequate yearly progress" during the 2010-2011 school year as defined by No Child Left Behind, according to data released Thursday by the Texas Education Agency.

Houston and North Forest are on the list of repeat failures. Galena Park, Galveston, Pasadena and Clear Creek ISDs also failed to make adequate progress for at least two consecutive years.

Several districts, including HISD and Klein, failed because they exceeded a federal limit by testing more than 3 percent of special education students with alternative assessments.

"It is unfortunate that when the number of special education students reaches the predetermined cap, students beyond the cap are considered to have failed the test, even if in reality, they achieved a passing score," Klein Superintendent Jim Cain said.
Tougher to pass

The number of failing districts more than doubled since last year, when the so-called Texas Projection measure spared 175 districts. That growth measure, which credited students for expected future progress, was discontinued this year. Districts also faced tougher passing standards.

Eighty percent of students needed to pass the language arts test, compared to 73 percent in 2010. The passing rate for the math test jumped to 75 percent, from 67 percent in 2010.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned Congress earlier this year that 82 percent of schools nationwide were on pace to fail. In Texas, individual campuses fared better, with just 26 percent missing the mark.

Florida and New Mexico topped that with failure rates of 89 and 87 percent, respectively.

Other states had much lower rates: Only 11 percent of Wisconsin schools and 20 percent of Rhode Island schools failed to meet the standard.

Several HISD schools, including Jones, Lee, Westbury, Wheatley, Worthing and Yates high schools, face sanctions for the first or second year.

"We'll make sure we're in compliance with the requirements," HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said.

All students are expected to pass reading and math exams by 2014 under the federal law championed by former President George W. Bush in 2001. Schools are also rated either on attendance or graduation rates.

Scott Imberman, a University of Houston economics professor, called the goal unrealistic and the ratings meaningless.

"I personally just ignore them," he said, adding that a more accurate measure would include a student growth component.
'Eye-opening'

While parents would have a hard time using the ratings to judge schools, the focus on standardized testing over the last decade has had a tremendous impact on teachers and schools, said Melissa Pierson, associate dean for the College of Education at the University of Houston.

Many of the changes are beneficial - the high-stake climate is even prompting UH to raise admissions standards for teachers-to-be. Teachers must be able to produce results, she said.

"We need to be able to produce teachers who know how to use data and read data," Pierson said. "It's very eye-opening."

Districts have until Sept. 2 to appeal the ratings.

jennifer.radcliffe@chron.com

States Look at NCLB Test Exemptions for Disabled Students

Current policies that give states some flexibility in determining which students are exempt from NCLB-related tests need revision, critics say.

Education News
May 6, 2011

The U.S. Department of Education is cracking down on states’ use of an exemption, meant to apply only to students with most severe disabilities, to improve their adequate yearly progress rating, Education Week reports. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, some students may be allowed to take either a modified test or submit to alternative assessment process and, if they pass, have their scores count toward the district’s passing rate, assuming the proportion of such scores doesn’t exceed 1%. If the number of students taking the test exceeds the 1% cap, those scores must count as failing.

For years, the Education Department allowed some states to go over the cap. Shortly after NCLB went into effect, Montana, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia were all given such waivers. In 2007, the department scrapped the state waivers, but still allowed states to grant exemptions to individual school districts without first getting federal approval.

NCLB doesn’t contain strict guidelines dictating which students are allowed to take alternative tests. The 1% cap was implemented to give states the flexibility to make that decision on their own. Ricki Sabia, the associate director of the National Down Syndrome Society, is worried that this might give states too much leeway:

It’s supposed to be a pretty small, small group. We have to be very careful. Not only might [the cap] not go down, there could be a lot of pressure for it to go up.

Sabia feels that giving states too much power to grant exemptions and to make determinations about which students take which test will lead to some kids taking exams that are too easy and thus being denied a chance to get a regular diploma.

Duncan Issues Far More NCLB Waivers Than Predecessors

By Michele McNeil 4.22.11

Examples of waivers from this article:

"In Kansas, for example, a school district just this month got a first-of-its-kind waiver to use its own standards and tests, opting out of state exams for its oldest students. In Utah, the state in March won approval to let 12 districts use computer-adaptive tests for accountability purposes—a request rejected in 2008 by Ms. Spellings."

A lack of transparency on these is an issue.

Angela

6 D.C. schools to be overhauled after failing to meet 'No Child' goals

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

About 150 teachers at six low-performing D.C. public schools must reapply for their jobs under a shake-up announced Monday by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.

Three of the schools -- Ballou Senior High and Garfield and Stanton elementary -- are in Ward 8. The others are Davis Elementary in Ward 7 and two Ward 5 schools: the Hamilton Center for special education students and Luke C. Moore Academy, an alternative high school for those who drop out or have trouble adjusting to traditional schools.

One of the six, Stanton, will be operated beginning this summer by a Philadelphia-based charter school organization, Scholar Academies.

The changes are mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which gives Rhee options to address problems at schools that have consistently failed to make what the law describes as "adequate yearly progress" on standardized test scores. Overall, about 90 of the District's 123 schools are under some form of federal notice to improve.

The six schools cited Monday, with a combined enrollment of about 2,200, have undergone waves of federally mandated improvement and restructuring. Four of them -- Ballou, Stanton, Hamilton and Garfield -- have not met annual progress benchmarks for at least seven years. They will undergo what the law calls staff "reconstitution."

"At DCPS we know that all children can achieve at high levels," Rhee said in a statement released Monday. "Reconstitution is just one tool offered by the federal government for districts to use to equip schools with the necessary composition to meet high standards."

Last year, Rhee reconstituted six schools, Dunbar and Anacostia high schools, the H.D. Woodson ninth-grade academy at Ronald H. Brown Middle School, Hart and MacFarland middle schools and Ferebee-Hope Elementary School. In 2008, 17 schools were reconstituted. Ten received new administrators; seven underwent faculty overhauls.

Teachers who choose not to reapply or are not rehired at the schools facing overhaul this year will join an "excess staff pool."

Under the current contract with the Washington Teachers' Union, all "excessed" teachers are guaranteed reassignment in the school system.

But under a labor agreement expected to receive D.C. Council approval June 29, principals have expanded power to choose the teachers they want. Those who have received good evaluations and do not find jobs will receive a year's grace period with full salary to continue looking for a position. Or they could take a buyout or early retirement if eligible.

In the case of Stanton, Rhee has exercised her option under the law to hire an outside organization to take over a failing school. Scholar Academies operates Young Scholars, a charter middle school that serves about 200 low-income African American children in Philadelphia. According to its Web site, it uses an extended school day and school year to improve academic rigor.

Rhee said in the statement that the organization was selected after a "rigorous" application process that included a site visit to the Philadelphia school.

Three high schools were placed under outside leadership by Rhee in 2008. Dunbar and Coolidge were taken over by Friends of Bedford, a New York group. Friendship Public Charter Schools assumed control of Anacostia. Rhee has said that although major academic progress has yet to be made, all three have "significantly improved their school culture," including gains in attendance and school safety.

High court won’t take up No Child Left Behind case

Associated Press / June 8, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court yesterday turned away a challenge by school districts and teacher unions to the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The court said without comment that it will not step into a lawsuit that questioned whether public schools have to comply with requirements of the law if the federal government doesn’t pay for them.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and a federal appeals court split 8 to 8, leaving the judge’s ruling in place.

The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires tests on subjects including math and reading in grades 3 through 8, and once in high school. Schools that miss testing benchmarks face increasingly stiff sanctions, including the potential loss of federal money.

President Obama is proposing major changes to the law. Obama has markedly increased federal money for public schools.

Educational Triage in D.C.

By Jennifer L. Jennings | Ed Week Commentary
June 17, 2009

Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of public schools in Washington, has turned education reform heads across the country by arguing, often loudly, that our current education system puts the interests of adults above the interests of children. In December, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine in front of a blackboard, straight-faced, clutching a broom. The New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof labeled Washington as school reform’s “ground zero.” Yet in her own backyard, Rhee is making policy decisions that are explicitly designed to make adults look good, even as many children are left behind.

Read on...

The Schoolhouse Flunks

Wow, pretty big move!

-Patricia

Education Dept. Takes Symbolic Step To Reconstitute No Child Left Behind

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Seven years ago, a rally at the Department of Education promoted one of then-President George W. Bush's most significant domestic achievements -- the No Child Left Behind law. The backdrop: a red schoolhouse.

"We serve the ideal of the little red schoolhouse," then-Education Secretary Rod Paige said of the structure attached to the agency's main entrance on Maryland Avenue SW. "It is one of the greatest symbols of America -- a symbol that every child must be taught and every child must learn."

But now that symbol has been ripped down.

The Obama administration has made clear that it is putting its own stamp on education reform. That will mean a new name and image for a law that has grown unpopular with many teachers and suburban parents, even though it was enacted with bipartisan support in Congress.

"It's like the new Coke. This is a rebranding effort," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. "The feng shui people believe you need to take the roof off buildings to allow bad chi to escape. Let's hope this helps."

The 2002 law dramatically expanded the federal role in public schools. It mandates math and reading testing for millions of students and penalizes schools with too many youngsters who fail those exams.

During his run for office, President Obama said he wanted to change the law to do more to help schools, "rather than punishing them." Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called the law's name "toxic."

Toxic or not, is No Child Left Behind headed for extinction?

Lawmakers have yet to tackle an overhaul, and Duncan has not offered specifics on how he would like to see the law revamped. But the administration has said it will not back down from testing students or holding schools accountable.

Duncan has said he wants even higher standards that measure U.S. students against peers worldwide. But he said states and schools should have more flexibility in achieving goals.

Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said Duncan sometimes sounds a lot like former Bush education secretary Margaret Spellings. Like Spellings, Duncan has been promoting charter schools and merit pay for teachers.

"Other than kind of the aesthetics of it, it's not clear the schoolhouse represents anything more substantial," Hess said.

No Child logos on the Education Department elevators are being stripped. Official correspondence to states now refers to the law's original name, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

On Saturday in a steady rain, construction workers pulled down the schoolhouse and its No Child Left Behind sign. Instead, photos of students, from preschool to college age, are going up on 44 ground-floor windows, forming an exhibit that can be seen from outside. There are images of young people reading, attending science class and playing basketball.

In a note to his staff yesterday, Duncan said the photos should "serve as a daily reminder that our mission is about helping kids."

Matthew Yale, deputy chief of staff for Duncan, said the department is considering a contest to rename the law.

"We want to think about something that's forward-looking instead of something that seems to have a negative connotation," Yale said. "We want to think of something that talks about future and potential."

Education blogger Andrew Rotherham, a former member of the Virginia Board of Education, posed the same question a few months ago. He got a slew of answers.

Some were sincere: "Successful Schools for a Strong America Act."

Some less so: "Don't task, don't fail act"; "No nutty education reform idea left behind"; and "Caitlin. Everybody seems to be naming things Caitlin these days."

How the public school system fails boys

Philadelphia Examiner
June 17, 2009

There is much criticism of the No Child Left Behind Act. Some authors and experts are now calling the act No Child but Boys Left Behind Act. As a male teacher in the education system, I feel it is decidedly not male friendly. We can debate whether the gender bias is intentional later.

Richard Whitmore believes that as society and schools become more verbally oriented boys get left behind. This gap is often unaddressed and in the long run will lead to significant social problems.

Will women want to marry someone who is less well educated than they are?

What are the competitive consequences of fewer and fewer men earrning secondary degrees?

Peter West believes schools fail boys for many of the same reasons I see boys fail Boys are in perpetual motion. They are aggressive, even when young. Classrooms are not places of toleration for kinesthetic behavior. We expect even normal boys to sit still for long periods. Aggressive play is involved in young males sense of mastery, a critical part of their development. This is normal male behavior yet in classrooms there is little toleration for it.

When boys are boys we often tend to bring on the medication, not to address bahavioral deficits, but to handle our desire for sedate managed classrooms.

Judith Kleinfield of The Boys Project states that boys and girls suffer from problems characteristic of their gender. Boys are behind in reading and writing. Girls are behind in science and math.. The difference is that girls are slightly behind in science and math while boys are way behind in reading and writing.

In most education programs we learn about Gardiner's Multiple Intelligences. In short we humans learn in a number of different ways. After learning about multiple learning styles our teaching and testing utilizes only two at best. We teach about differentiated instruction which should enable us to accomodate boys learning styles better. But then we only use lessons that accomodate a couple of styles.

The problem is that most teachers when in a pinch teach just the way they were taught.. Most of those teaching are women who don't understand how boys learn anymore than I as a male teacher, could understand how girls learn except in an intellectual sort of way.

Many experts believe that we could begin to successfully close the writing and reading gap just by giving boys books to read that they find interesting. I might add in the classroom, my experience is that if you make written assignments for boys interesting for them they can be good writers.

In the classroom I have used film to teach literacy. I have used books that boys find interesting. I have seen this raise reading levels as measured by the Woodcock-McGrew-Werder mini-battery of achievement test as much as a couple grade levels in a years time. Writing is a little harder because of boys tendency to go fast leaving out words and parts of sentences because their brains race way ahead of their fingers when writing.

Unfortunately, The American Association of University Women has taken it upon themselves to say it all isn't so even our anecdotal classroom observations. The statistics I have seen coupled with the problems of the students I have seen in special education seem to make claims of schools failing boys irrefutable. When you get to colllege addmissions, some schools even have to use what would amount to affirmative action to get boys into college and make the addmission level seem roughly equal. That roughly equal number is something on the order of 60-40% girls.

We see gender gaps begin to emerge in elementary school. Even more unfortunate are classroom management techniques that seem to function as if boys main problems are that they need to be rescued from being male.

Because of single parent families, and the necessities for increased work hours to make ends meet many boys suffer from a lack of fathering, as in giving them positive role models of appropriate male behavior. To that end maybe one of the simplest ways we could begin to make significant changes in the quality of education boys recieve is that we need to recruit more male teachers. That would be a good place to start. Then we could expend the same amount of energy learning how boys learn as we have how girls learn and altering our curriculum accordingly.

Calif. towns challenge feds on military recruiting

This section of NCLB is problematic to begin with. NCLB should be creating a database that encourages colleges to recruit youth.

It's good to see communities contesting these practices.

-Patricia

By JULIANA BARBASSA – 2 days ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two towns nestled in the rugged coastline and the liberal politics of Northern California have fought the federal government by banning the U.S. military from recruiting minors within their city limits. Now the federal government is fighting back.

Arcata — a town known for taking a stand against the USA Patriot Act and repeatedly passing symbolic measures to impeach President George W. Bush — approved in November an ordinance that would limit Armed Forces recruiters' ability to contact people under 18. And so did nearby Eureka, the Humboldt County seat.

The Department of Justice took the towns to court in December over their Youth Protection Acts, alleging they were attempting to interfere with the government's ability to raise an army and protect the country. The department has said the ordinances are believed to be the only ones in the country with such blanket restrictions.

A federal judge is expected to rule on the case in coming days.

"We fully expected a challenge, and we got it," said David Meserve, 60, a builder of environmentally friendly homes and former Arcata City Council member who spearheaded the measure. "But more importantly, people are becoming aware there is a problem — and the problem is the recruiting of minors."

Although people must be 18 to enlist — or 17 with parental permission — recruiting manuals cited in the cities' court filings show that contact with much younger children is encouraged.

"You will find that establishing trust and credibility with students, even seventh- and eighth-graders, can positively impact your high school and post-secondary school recruiting effort," reads The Recruiter Handbook, published in 2008 by the United States Army Recruiting Command.

The push to reach the young makes sense. A 2007 Department of Defense study found that at 16 years old, more than 25 percent of students considered joining the Armed Forces. By the time they were 21, only 15 percent considered joining.

Towns and high school campuses around the country have tried to thwart the military's access to their underage students. Berkeley declared that recruiters positioned within view of its high school were "unwelcome intruders." San Francisco school board members moved to rid public schools of Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps but this week restored the program.

Counter-recruiters across the country have sought to inform students of their perspective on military service in times of war. They also tell parents how to opt out of having their child's contact information released to recruiters — a requirement for schools receiving federal funds under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Allen Weiner, a senior lecturer in law at Stanford Law School, said he knows of no other cities besides Arcata and Eureka that have passed ordinances banning military officials within their boundaries from initiating contact with minors with the intent of attracting them to any branch of the military.

The law is clear, Weiner said, that recruitment is under the purview of the federal government.

"As a legal fight, it's pretty clear to me who wins," he said.

Department of Justice officials did not respond to calls for comment. But in written arguments, government attorneys said the local measures violate the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, which establishes the Constitution, federal statutes and treaties as the supreme law of the land.

"State and local governments lack the power to regulate the activities of the federal government," said their motion to block the ordinances. "Even apart from this obvious constitutional flaw, the ordinances purport to legislate in a field that is committed to the sole discretion of the United States, namely, the Congressional power to raise armies."

Local advocates such as Meserve remain undaunted.

Meserve said he took up the fight one morning while sitting in a coffee shop and overhearing a National Guard recruiter giving three high school girls a hard sell. The sharply dressed young man bought them fancy coffee drinks and pitched the career opportunities, the scholarships, the camaraderie, while assuring them there was virtually no chance they would end up in a war zone, Meserve said.

This was in 2005, when members of the National Guard were regularly being sent to Iraq, he said.

He found a supporter in Brad Yamauchi, an attorney working pro bono on the case.

The lawyer argues the ordinances prevent abuses without interfering with the federal government's ability to fill the ranks of the military. Anyone, independent of age, can still reach out to the military, he said, and recruiters are free to contact adults.

"If they don't contact minors, they can still meet their goals," Yamauchi said. "We believe there are limits to the federal power to recruit children."