The planned reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act next year is providing a fresh opportunity for exchanges on the pros and cons of the controversial legislation. An April forum at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., featured a panel of education experts who spoke frankly about the law and whether it helps or hurts America's students.
"Today, the once-tranquil consensus over the law has given way to bickering and fierce debate," said Frederick M. Hess, AEI's director of policy studies and moderator of the discussion. As the country heads into an election year, Republicans and Democrats have already begun sparring over whether NCLB is a long-term solution to finally closing the achievement gap or a failed experiment that extends federal government authority into issues best left to the states.
Not the Proverbial "Quick Fix"
“People need to understand NCLB,” said Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which advocates for school choice. According to Petrilli, the law has three main objectives:
- Closing the achievement gap.
- Helping school systems overcome challenges associated with economic disadvantage.
- Providing external incentive for intrastate change.
"NCLB is often misunderstood—what it requires and how it operates," Petrilli concluded in his opening remarks. "We need to increase the understanding of the law among the public."
The issue of NCLB's impact on states was a particular concern for a number of panelists. Eugene Hickock, former deputy secretary and undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education, said that the law was "one of the first national laws defined at the local level." The main benefit of NCLB, he said, is that it forces school officials to address the disparity among different students' academic performance. "If NCLB does nothing more than focus attention on the achievement gap, it's done a good job," he said. He added that the law represents a longterm solution, not a proverbial "quick fix" that would eliminate problems in schools over a few short years.
Lacking Full Funding
Other panelists expressed some less-positive views of the legislation. Alice Johnson Cain, Congressional education policy expert, spoke about funding problems associated with the law. "NCLB was signed in January of 2002, but the budget that went to Congress in February lacked the full level of funding" that many felt should have been required, Cain said.
Cain is senior education aide to Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, an original sponsor of NCLB, and now a frequent critic of how it has been implemented.
Cain summarized some of the flaws that NCLB detractors often point out:
- The law's goal of 100 percent student proficiency is impossible to meet. "Why set ourselves up for failure?" she asked. Yet if we accept that it is unrealistic to expect that all kids will be 100 percent proficient in reading and math (the two primary emphases of NCLB testing thus far) "which percent do we accept as being unreachable?" Cain wondered. Is proficiency the right measure? She said that NCLB needs to be implemented in ways that emphasize "raising achievement of all kids." She pointed out that fewer than half of African American, Native American, and Latino 4th graders read proficiently at grade level.
- NCLB's focus on reading and math testing takes time away from the rest of the curriculum. Critics of NCLB point out that the law crowds out other instruction and leads teachers and administrators to focus solely on material to be tested. Cain decried "teaching to the test," and noted that the practice is not tolerated in schools that have achieved some of the most dramatic results in closing the achievement gap.
Nonetheless, Cain said, debate during the NCLB reauthorization process should focus on promoting students' literacy. She called it the foundation skill: "If you ask people who grew up not knowing how to read what was the most important thing to learn, they all say it was being able to read," she said.
A "Partially Failed Experiment"
Other participants spoke directly against the law. “NCLB is a partially failed experiment,” said Joel Packer, manager of Elementary and Secondary Education Act policy for the National Education Association. “We fully agree with the goals,” Packer said. “It is when you move from the goals to 1,100 pages of federal legislation and thousands of pages of regulations that you start getting into problems.” He outlined the NEA's primary objections to the law:
- NCLB judges school performance on math and reading scores only. Effective teaching and learning in other subjects doesn't count when determining whether a school is making adequate yearly progress (AYP). "While I fully agree that reading is critical, as is math," Packer said, "educators believe, and I think most parents believe, [children should] have a comprehensive and complete education in history, civics, and other subjects."
- NCLB limits how test scores can be used. Packer said progress is not defined over a multiyear period that would allow schools to demonstrate improvement over time. Instead, it measures progress on an annual basis that requires comparing this year's students to last year's. The de facto goal becomes not one of learning but of "getting enough kids to pass" tests.
- NCLB is drastic with respect to how it measures "failure" in certain subgroups. Bigger school systems with more diverse student populations would be branded as failing if just one group fails to make AYP. Packer predicted that "75 to 90 percent of all schools will eventually receive a failure rating" under NCLB. "To us, that demonstrates that it is not a rational system."
He went on to outline the reforms the NEA would like to see in the 2007 reauthorization. A workable definition of a "highly qualified" teacher tops the list. "If state departments of education and the U.S. Department of Education cannot agree on what constitutes a highly qualified teacher, how can we expect schools to agree?" he asked. Packer argued that NCLB's voluminous regulations on teacher credentials have yet to have an effect on the quality of instruction in the classroom.
The NEA's other big concerns involve funding, Packer said. "NCLB is a measurement system. Schools that do not measure up need resources, but are those resources being funded?" Title I funding is being cut, he pointed out, and funds for professional development or the hiring of faculty to reduce class sizes are not being provided.
Wind in the Sails
Kati Haycock—director of The Education Trust, an organization that advocates for policies and practices that help close the achievement gap—defended the law, pointing out that NCLB is fundamentally about helping the "hidden kids."
"These are the poor kids, the ESL students, the underperforming kids who for years have been swept under the rug," Haycock said. She argued that NCLB "changed the rules. No longer is it good enough to send some of your kids off to fancy colleges. No longer is it good enough to have a high overall average underneath that very ugly gap between groups. Now, in order to be a good school you basically have to be good for every group of kids that you serve."
School officials who once accepted as a given that some students could not be helped "now care about those students because they have to," she said.
"We are asking people to change how they fundamentally think about their work," she said. Anticipating the debate that is sure to accompany NCLB reauthorization, Haycock urged educators and policymakers to keep their eyes on the ultimate goal: helping kids learn.
"The real issue here is, Are we going to keep going?" she said. "There are a heck of a lot of people around the country, leaders who are trying to bring about change and, yes, they do not like all the features of the law. But the law is putting wind behind the sails of the people who are trying to bring about change for all kids, and, surely, we do not want to take that wind away."
