January 2008
NCLB
Reauthorization Update
Improving Student Outcomes
Closing the Achievement Gap
Postsecondary Accountability
The big question about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) ever since it was implemented six years ago has been: How can it be changed? There now are two overriding other questions. When will it be reauthorized? And, will it ever become law again?
After months of hearings and debate, and mounds of recommendations from every spectrum of education policy, Congress abandoned attempts to pass a reauthorization in its 2007 session. Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, got as far as releasing a “conversation piece” proposal for renewal last summer. It didn’t win much support, particularly from teachers’ unions, which basically scotched the whole proposal because of the performance accountability measures it applied to teachers. The ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Howard McKeon, also from California, said he would not support any bill that did not have a majority of Republicans on the committee in favor. Apparently, Miller could not muster support. He turned his attention to work on a renewal of the Higher Education Act, instead.
In the Senate, Education Chair Edward Kennedy, who had been one of the architects of the legislation when it received bipartisan support in 2001, never introduced a proposed revision and also focused on higher education policies. His aides promised a “responsible reauthorization package” for NCLB early in 2008.
Some federal policy watchers predict that no action will be taken during an election year. None of the candidates in either party have shown any great enthusiasm for NCLB. Like everyone else who comments on the law, they favor its purposes but disagree with its use of test accountability as the single factor used to label schools as successful or “needing improvement.” Apparently, other components of the law have not resulted in the changes that reformers wanted. The requirement that every core subject be taught by a “highly qualified teacher” is not only being dodged by many state policies, but also not doing much to improve instruction, according to surveys of school administrators.
An interim report on NCLB, based on research by the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research for the U.S. Department of Education, found that states have complied almost fully with the test-based accountability systems required by the Act. That does not mean, however, that students in the lowest-performing schools are meeting performance targets. One-fourth of the nation’s schools in 2004–05 failed to make adequate yearly progress under NCLB, and among Title I schools, those identified as needing improvement increased from 12 to 18 percent in 2004–05 compared with the previous year. At the heart of the problem seems to be the lack of capacity of states to provide the help that chronically low-performing schools need, something not directly addressed by NCLB. The law requires them to take corrective action, but few states were using the options in the law with the 1,200 schools in the restructuring category.
For President Bush, NCLB represents his one clear domestic policy achievement, and he has urged its reauthorization. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings echoes the president’s sentiment—that the law has been a success—but she cites more modest goals than the original rhetoric. In a U.S. News & World Report interview, Spellings said that the law resulted in higher achievement for poor and minority students and provided information that was not available before. States need to use the data to make further improvements, she advised.
If reauthorization of NCLB is put off until 2009, its current provisions will stay in effect through 2008. One prediction is worth taking bets on. No matter who wins the White House, the next version of NCLB probably will not carry the name it has had under the Bush Administration. Many organizations have gone back to using its original moniker—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—and that is a more likely name than the current one. Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to want to be associated with NCLB.
The issue of the lack of capacity to improve student outcomes at school and district levels is found in another report, this one from the Center on Education Policy (CEP). Like the RAND/AIR report for the U.S. Department of Education, the latest findings from CEP’s annual surveys of state and district officials on the implementation of NCLB indicate that the number of districts with schools needing improvement has remained steady (almost half are urban districts).
The state respondents said the professional development, curriculum, and assessment materials provided by the Reading First program had been effective. District officials, however, rated their own efforts to increase student achievement as more effective than anything states were doing. Moreover, while they rated aspects of Reading First high, no district officials cited a federal policy that was effective in improving math achievement.
Districts viewed strategies to improve achievement proposed in NCLB as helpful, such as extending the school day, using new curricula, engaging in planning for improvements, and using outside experts for help. Many districts, however, do not have the resources to implement them. Almost all (97 percent), for example, said they did not have the money to extend the school day or year.
Even though NCLB requires states to set aside 4 percent of Title I funds to help schools needing improvement, this does not cover the needs of struggling schools. Also, because of a “hold harmless” provision, even this amount is not fully available to help schools in many states.
CEP recommends that funding to help schools needing improvement be a separate resource beyond the 4 percent set-aside, that states focus on schools with the greatest need, and that NCLB provide funds for outside entities to evaluate school improvement efforts.
(“Moving Beyond Identifica-tion: Assisting Schools in Improvement,” Center on Education Policy, www.cep-dc.org)
Depending on how you interpret statistics, there may be reason to celebrate the public schools’ efforts at closing the achievement gap. Or, there may be evidence of how hard it is to keep progress going.
According to a snapshot analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the latest “report card” from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows that black students have made significant progress in math and more modest progress in reading, since 1990. In fact, if the performance of white students had remained static, the white achievement gap in math would have been eliminated by 2007.
In 1990, black fourth graders scored 188 on the NAEP scale, or 32 percentage points behind white students. In the 2007 NAEP report, black students had increased their scores to 222, or 34 points higher than in 1990. In eighth-grade math, black students increased their average score from 237 to 260, an improvement rate pace that was greater than that of white students. Improvement rates in reading by black students in the fourth grade moved up from 192 to 203.
The angst over accountability that is so much a part of the K–12 agenda these days has higher education officials nervous. Enforced accountability has come to the campuses, and their leadership is frantically trying to avoid the kind of test-based or narrowly defined success that has engulfed the pre-college level.
The issue of assuring taxpayers that their funding of higher education is well spent surfaced publicly from a commission appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to look at college issues, especially outcomes. It called for accountability in higher education, and Spellings sought to further such an agenda by changing federal rules for the accrediting agencies that govern higher education accreditation.
College officials and accreditors could not agree, according to reports published by Inside Higher Education, and Congress insisted that the department stop its efforts until negotiations were completed for renewal of the Higher Education Act. Language appeared in both the Senate and House versions that said authority for setting goals and measuring success for student learning outcomes should be in the hands of individual colleges and universities. Lobbyists for the accrediting agencies, however, thought this went too far and managed to get the language stripped from the House bill, which the higher education lobbyists felt would open the door to alternative accountability measures like the federally imposed ones under NCLB.
While this debate continued, Inside Higher Education obtained a copy of a document prepared by higher education groups that attempts to set out a national statement on student learning and assessment. It endorses “gathering evidence” on student success that could be used for comparison purposes when appropriate, but asserts that the “primary responsibility for achieving excellence” is with colleges and not outside bodies.
While goals will vary by institution and student body, the draft document says, they should include “the enrichment of both our democratic society and individual lives through the study of science, so-cial sciences, the humanities, and the arts.” The idea is to have members of associations signing off on the document commit to a “compact” to carry out the goals. Those supporting the effort contend that it is better for the higher education community to set standards than to contend with federal intrusion.
While all this maneuvering is occupying lobbyists and officials concerned about what is happening in Washington, DC, an even more interesting challenge may be coming over the wall from overseas. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the international student assessment of 15-year-olds, has convened a group to study the feasibility of designing a common international system to measure the learning outcomes of college and university systems.
