False Positives

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

From EdWeek
March 3, 2004
False Positives
By Thomas Newkirk

Overdetection of failure - or "false positives¹" - in our schools will lead to
a huge dissipation of state and local resources to deal with problems
that don't exist.

Recent education reports in my home state have come to resemble a good
news/bad news joke. The good news is that the 2002 National Assessment of
Educational Progress found New Hampshire to have the best reading and
mathematics scores in the country. But the bad news, reported on the same
day, was that almost one- third of its schools had been designated as
failing to make "adequate yearly progress," according to guidelines set
up in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Across the Piscataqua River in Maine, the same story played out.
One-quarter of its schools were designated "needs to improve," even
though students scored in the top 10 percent on the national assessment.
In some states, the situation was almost unimaginably worse: Ninety
percent of Florida's schools, for example, failed to meet the No Child
Left Behind benchmarks.

These figures point to problems in screening similar to those in medical
tests, which can fail in two major ways: They can fail to detect a
problem that exists, or they can detect a problem when none exists,
producing a "false positive." Overdetection may lead to unnecessary
breast or prostate surgery, and the acute anxiety that goes with it.

Overdetection of failure in our schools will lead to largely successful
schools' carrying the stigma of failure, and to a huge dissipation of
state and local resources to deal with problems that don't exist (this is
the true hidden, unfunded cost of the No Child Left Behind law).
Never before in American education has such a relatively small federal
outlay of money leveraged such extensive federal intervention in our
schools.

While adjustments in the required participation rate?now set at an
unrealistic 95 percent?may alleviate the problem in the short term, the
performance requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation create a
net of failure that more and more schools will fall into. If 30 percent
of New Hampshire's schools fail now, one can easily imagine?no,
confidently predict? that this number will rise to 50 percent or 70
percent as the law takes full effect. For no educational innovation has
ever been able to show the steady improvement for all students that is
required by this law.

Schools must ratchet up their scores, in all test areas and with all
subgroups, at least every two years. This is true even with special
education students, where the composition of disabilities can change
radically from year to year. It's a little like requiring that every
track-and-field record must be broken every two years. But as the testing
continues, there will be strong cohorts of students in some years which
will set levels that following classes cannot surpass despite the
diligent efforts of teachers.

Nowhere is the lack of realism more apparent than in the requirement that
100 percent of students in a school reach the "proficient" level by 2014.
At present, only 30 percent of New Hampshire students reach this level,
an increase of 5 percentage points over the past four years. It is simply
inconceivable that this figure will rise by 70 percentage points in the
next 10 years (and recall we are talking about the state with some of the
highest scores in the country).

Nowhere is the lack of realism more apparent than in the requirement that
100 percent of students in a school reach the ?proficient¹ level by 2014.
I realize that proponents of the No Child Left Behind law will accuse me
of defeatism and cynicism. They will claim that this 100 percent figure
suggests a goal, a vision for the future. There is a difference, however,
between visions, on the one hand, and practical expectations written into
law, on the other. I'm sure legislators would wish for a cure for
pancreatic cancer; yet they would not impose a timetable on cancer
researchers unless they had some reason to believe it could be
accomplished. The medical profession wouldn't stand for it. Teachers,
too, know a setup when they see it.

A real cynic might ask about the true purpose of this failure machine.
Who benefits from a bill that could target more than half of our nation's
schools as in need of improvement? Could it possibly be the charter
schools and private education firms that can draw students from "failing
schools"? A real cynic might also ask whether the concern for
disadvantaged students in this federal legislation is truly part of a
comprehensive plan to deal with the causes and effects of poverty in this
country. Or is this educational reform the single magic bullet to deal
with social inequalities?

There are, to be sure, failing schools in this country, and in my
experience this failure is tied to instabilities connected with poverty
and unequal funding. And there are racial gaps in performance that must
be addressed. The primary value in the new federal education law is the
increased awareness of these problems.

But the great story of failure engineered by the No Child Left Behind Act
is misleading as well. Who, after all, can deny the extraordinary
achievements of this country: our technical innovations, our
industriousness, our attractiveness (and openness) to immigrants? The
list can go on indefinitely. And where did the vast majority of these
workers and innovators get their education, if not in our public schools?
How can a system so riddled with failure produce such success?
Perhaps that is some good news to ponder.

Thomas Newkirk is a professor of English at the University of New
Hampshire, in Durham, N.H., and the director of the New Hampshire
Literacy Institutes.

The secret of education is respecting the pupil.

        - Ralph Waldo Emerson