Let's fix what's wrong

By Sandra Feldman

Worried and angry—that describes the mood among many teachers and administrators as they ponder the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal education law signed last year and currently going into effect. There is even talk about mounting a campaign for its repeal. And it’s likely to get louder when the law’s accountability provisions kick in, and long lists of schools “in need of improvement” appear. But although there are some big problems with the law, dismantling it is not the answer.

We all need to take a deep breath and remember that what is being called No Child Left Behind is actually the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the law that contains Title I. And that it is thanks to Title I and the standards movement that schools educating our nation’s poorest children have been able to make a great deal of progress in raising achievement, especially given the limitations in funding. Having said all that, the law, in its current form, is still in need of fixing.

Budget shortfalls at the state and local levels have already led to cutbacks that threaten the progress we’ve been making, especially in urban schools. We’ve seen rollbacks of class-size reduction; cuts in after-school and summer school and other vital programs; not to mention the continuing failure to provide teachers with the curriculum and other materials they need. No Child Left Behind will make a bad situation worse by adding an accountability formula that will end up penalizing the very children who most need help.

You don’t hear a lot about this accountability formula—which is known as “adequate yearly progress” or AYP—because, frankly, it is very complicated and few people understand it. But it is the linchpin—land mine, really—of the standards, testing and accountability provisions of the law.

AYP requires that 100 percent of students, including youngsters in each of a number of subgroups —low income, racial and ethnic minorities, special education and limited English—reach a “proficient” level on tests of reading and math and, soon, science in grades 3 through 8 and at least one grade in high school. In many states, the proficiency level will be set very high, and all schools must reach it by 2014.

The amount of progress required to achieve 100 percent proficiency is based on a starting point that each state sets, following a formula determined by the law. Schools whose students are below the starting point will have to make more annual progress—both on average and with each of their subgroups—than schools already at or above the state’s starting point. Schools that are substantially below the starting point—and that means most high-poverty schools—will find themselves in a surreal situation: They’ll have to achieve a rate of academic progress that our most advantaged schools, even the so-called world-class school systems, have never managed.

Moreover, despite the word “progress” in “adequate yearly progress,” the formula does not necessarily give credit for progress. A school may make significant progress in a year—let’s say it gains six points—but if the predetermined target is seven points, tough luck. The school will be sanctioned instead of being praised—just like a school that made zero points.

Clearly, unless we have some changes, these provisions are a recipe for disaster.

Adequate funding is the first step. We and our allies are fighting hard to get Congress to come up with needed resources, and we’re working in the states, holding town meetings this fall about the effect of budget cutbacks.

As for AYP, the public and legislators who voted for it in good faith need to see evidence that it is unworkable, and we are joining with measurement experts to provide this evidence. We expect, through analysis of data from the states, to show whether a school is being identified as “in need of improvement” for genuine academic reasons or because of statistical anomalies.

Presenting this kind of evidence will help us to create a consensus for a change in AYP. This is much better than simply railing against the law or calling for its repeal—which is both unlikely and undesirable. Above all, we need to make sure that hardworking schools and students get credit for the progress they are making and are able to continue making it.

I’m thinking about the kind of progress recently reported by the Council of Great City Schools: Ninety percent of the urban districts that are council members reported increased math scores in more than half of the grades that had been tested—with about half of those urban districts showing greater gains than their state averages! And there were good, though smaller, gains on reading scores, as well.

Obviously much more needs to be done, and No Child Left Behind presents a challenge and an opportunity. For poor children especially, standards-based reform is a road to equity. So let’s fix what’s wrong and build on what’s right.

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