Re: Questions about NCLB standards, assessments, and school improvement

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Note changed title for this note. The explanatory excerpts are from "Standards and Assessments Peer Review Guidance: Information and Examples for Meeting Requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," published by USDOE in April 2004.
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: shays@ccwebster.net
 To: arn-l@interversity.org
 Sent: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 7:10 AM
 Subject: Re: [arn-l] Strong Letter
 
 (1) Can the states set any standards that they want? Can they, for example, require that students understand some thing at some point between third and sixth grade [e.g., "When matter interacts with other matter under ordinary circumstances, it changes in various ways, but it does not disappear nor is it created; the amount of matter (mass) remains constant"], leaving it up to individual districts and/or sites to determine when to best teach that content/skill, or must every state devise standards that are grade level specific? Are states free to frame their standards in language of their own choosing, or is the argument between "students will understand" vs. "students will know" always going to fall to the latter because of federal testing requirements? 
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 States have to set two kinds of standards: content and performance. 
 
 "Under NCLB, States must develop challenging academic standards that have the following characteristics:   o?????? Be the same academic standards that the State applies to all public schools and public school students in the State; o?????? Include the same knowledge, skills, and levels of achievement expected of all students; and o?????? Include at least mathematics, reading/language arts, and, beginning in the 2005-2006 school year, science." "Academic content standards must specify what all students are expected to know and be able to do; contain coherent and rigorous content; and encourage the teaching of advanced skills." (USDOE Guidance on Stanards and Assessments). They may be "grade-level specific," but don't have to be. The performance standards are essentially the scores on the state assessments that defiine basic, proficient, and advanced achievement. NCLB does not tell states how to develop a curriculum in response to standards. Maybe it should have done so. 
 
 (2) Are the states free to create and/or purchase any test that they want? 
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 "...  assessments must be administered annually to students in at least one grade in each of three grade ranges--grades 3 through 5, grades 6 through 9, and grades 10 through 12. Beginning in 2005-06, the mathematics and reading/language arts assessments must be given in each of grades 3 through 8 in addition to one of the grades 10 through 12." 
  o Assessments must be valid and reliable for the purposes for which the assessment system is used and be consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical standards.
    o The assessment system must involve multiple approaches with up-to-date measures of student achievement, including measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding of challenging content. o Assessments must be valid and reliable for the purposes for which the assessment system is used and be consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical standards.  o The assessment system must be supported by evidence from test publishers or other relevant sources that the assessment system is of adequate technical quality for each purpose required under the Act.  o The assessment system must objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills without evaluating or assessing personal or family beliefs and attitudes, except that this provision does not preclude the use of constructed-response, short answer, or essay questions, or items that require a student to analyze a passage of text or to express opinions.  Assessment results must be disaggregated within each school and district by gender, major racial and ethnic groups, English proficiency status, migrant status, students with disabilities as compared to students without disabilities, and economically disadvantaged students as compared to students who are not economically disadvantaged. 
 
 The assessment system must provide individual student interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic reports that include individual scores or other information on the attainment of student achievement standards and help parents, teachers, and principals to understand and address the specific academic needs of students.
 
  (USDOE Guidance on Standards and Assessments).  
 (3) In identifying schools in need of improvement, are states free to use tools of their own device? Can they, for example, look at individual student growth over a period of time, or must they adhere to a formula that measures achievement against absolute standards in each grade level? Are they free to use multiple measures of student achievement to track improvement, or must they rely -- by definition imposed by the federal government -- on a single measurement tool? 
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 States have to identify schools for improvement on the basis of the tests used to assess students' mastery of the state content standards. The "formula" is the percentage of kids meeting standard in a particular year. Remember that NCLB requires states to set achievement standards that bring all kids to proficiency by 2014. The feds are allowing "growth model pilots" in some states, but the key is that the results of the growth models can not reduce the numbers of schools that would have otherwise been identified for improvement under the original rules.
 
 In fact, the feds require "multiple approaches" for the assessment system. 
 
 (4) If schools are in need of improvement, is a state free to support them by adopting a holistic, constructivist approach to instruction if it feels that is the best way to improve student performance? 
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 States are not supposed to base their improvement efforts on "feelings" about what is the best way to help students. States are supposed to base their improvement efforts on "scientifically-based research" and are responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of whatever course of action they choose.
 
 I would point out that this Administration does not give Title I money to anyone that chooses to do "anything differently" from the way that its experts say things should be done ...
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 This is complete nonsense as was most of the rest of what you said. 
 
 Art
   
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