Testing, testing, 1-2-3. Congress needs to fix NCLB

There has been a flurry of activity surrounding the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). It picked up steam this fall, when the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee released a "discussion draft." This document was only a starting point, but it did sharpen the debate.

The union continues to gather and present members’ opinions to Congress. Frontline members, part of the union’s Activists for Congressional Education program, have met with their elected officials. The union also held town hall meetings, distributed more than a million NCLB postcards for members to send to Congress, and generated more than 25,000 e-mails and messages to Congress.

Certainly, the union and its members are deeply troubled by many proposals in the discussion draft. Not only does it fail to address fundamental flaws, it also contains contradictory proposals that could place too much focus on testing. The public shares our concerns. A recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll reveals that most parents believe there is already too much testing in public schools.

Although NCLB has resulted in dangerous "teaching to the test," that problem is not addressed by the draft bill. It’s time for Congress to take our NCLB test.

Multiple measures

The idea behind multiple measures is simple—provide a clearer picture of how schools are doing by moving away from a single high-stakes test. Congress is considering plans that would change adequate yearly progress (AYP), NCLB’s accountability formula, to include multiple measures—but not in a way that provides that clearer picture. In fact, it could make problems worse.

When it comes to multiple measures, the AFT urges Congress to act carefully. New measures must be accurate, they must not take time away from learning and teaching, and they must be aligned to standards and curricula. Above all, they must not put pressure on schools to pull yet another exam off the shelf or encourage schools to teach to the test.

Growth models

Students and schools should receive credit for their progress. That’s why many groups have called for new formulas that allow schools to make AYP when their students are showing solid academic growth. But many ideas floating around Capitol Hill, including those in the discussion draft, offer only limited help.

Congress must overhaul AYP into a system that sets challenging, yet attainable, goals to measure student progress. And the growth model must maintain reporting without giving schools dozens of ways to be declared "failures."

Collective bargaining

The collective bargaining protections under current law wisely acknowledge that efforts to reform low-performing schools are much more likely to succeed with the input of teachers, paraprofessionals and other school staff who are in the classroom every day. These same protections should be extended to the rest of the legislation to ensure that staff have a say through their unions about the terms, wages and conditions of their employment. These areas are covered under state and local law, and the federal government should not intrude. NCLB should keep school employees involved at every stage and follow its own precedent by maintaining collective bargaining protections throughout the bill.

All of the above

The answer to fixing NCLB is: All of the above, plus many more improvements to the law that the AFT is working on every day with Congress. Lawmakers must finally deliver on funding promised when the law was enacted almost six years ago. They also must make sure that English language learners and students with disabilities are included appropriately in assessment and accountability. Above all, we are urging Congress to slow down and really listen to the people who learn and teach under NCLB every single day.