NCLB Commission Hears Connecticut Testimony

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

COMMISSION GETS NO-CHILD EARFUL
Hartford Courant -- May 10, 2006
by Robert A. Frahm

The No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping federal school reform law, has 
vastly expanded the testing of schoolchildren across the nation, but is 
it the wrong kind of testing?

Is the law too expensive?

Does it focus too much on reading and mathematics at the expense of 
subjects like history, art and music?

Those are some of the questions examined by a national panel that came 
to St. Joseph College in West Hartford Tuesday for the second in a 
series of hearings across the nation on the controversial law, the 
centerpiece of President Bush's school reform agenda.

Some of the harshest criticism of the law has come from Connecticut, the 
only state to sue the federal government over the law, contending it is 
too costly.

Leading government and education officials at Tuesday's hearing praised 
No Child Left Behind's goal of shoring up lagging student performance, 
but called for changes in the way students are tested and the way their 
scores are reported.

The independent, bipartisan Commission on No Child Left Behind will 
report its findings to Congress next year along with recommendations for 
change.

"I think Congress has got an appetite for making change because they 
have heard so much pro and con" about the law, former U.S. Health and 
Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said after listening to 
testimony Tuesday.

No Child Left Behind calls for a broad expansion of testing and a 
shake-up of schools that fail to make progress with all students, 
including low-income children, special education students and members of 
minority groups.

Despite the calls for change, "very few people say let's scrap the law 
altogether. I think that's a good sign," said Thompson, who co-chairs 
the commission along with former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes.

Several witnesses Tuesday suggested that the law should measure student 
growth by following the progress of the same groups of students as they 
move from one grade to the next. Currently, Connecticut and other states 
measure progress by comparing different groups - this year's 
fourth-graders against last year's, for example.

Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty J. Sternberg, who has opposed 
the expansion of statewide annual testing programs, suggested a 
different type of testing. She said schools would benefit more from 
periodic frequent classroom tests that would help teachers monitor 
individual progress - "testing that would improve student achievement 
and not just record it," she said.

For years, Connecticut has tested students in grades four, six and 
eight, but the federal law required the state also to test grades three, 
five and seven - an expansion Sternberg said was unnecessary.

After the federal government refused to grant Sternberg's request to 
waive the new requirement, the state sued the U.S. Department of 
Education, alleging that the government failed to provide adequate 
funding for the law, costing state and local taxpayers hundreds of 
millions of dollars. The suit is pending in federal court.

"You are our last best hope to make this [law] work and make Congress 
fulfill its promise. We are perilously close to failing in this 
program," state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told members of the 
national panel Tuesday.

However, James Peyser, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 
said that federal support for the expansion of testing has been adequate 
and that some of the extra cost is the result of state testing policies 
that go beyond requirements of No Child Left Behind.

"I can't, in good faith, argue that the amount of money we receive ... 
is out of line," he said.

Although some critics contend that No Child Left Behind causes schools 
to divert attention from subjects such as art, music or physical 
education, New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein told the 
commission that the federal law's focus on reading and mathematics for 
struggling students is crucial.

"I just found it most shocking to go to high schools and find thousands 
of kids in my city who cannot read," he said.

Following Tuesday's hearing, commission members visited classrooms at 
West Hartford's Webster Hill School, where some teachers said that the 
Connecticut Mastery Test and similar standardized tests ignore students' 
other talents. Others questioned how special education students should 
be tested.

 
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