Diane Ravitch on NCLB -- "Fundamentally Flawed"

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

For more on former Bush I Assistant Secretary of Education Ravitch's 
evolution on high-stakes testing issues, see her dialogue with FairTest 
Board member Deborah Meier at 
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/

GET CONGRESS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM
New York Times Op. Ed. Column -- October 3, 2007
by Diane Ravitch

Despite the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left 
Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, 
released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been 
modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put 
in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 
1998.

The main goal of the law -- that all children in the United States will 
be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 -- is simply 
unattainable. The primary strategy -- to test all children in those 
subjects in grades three through eight every year -- has unleashed an 
unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time 
available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law 
completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in 
the operation of local schools.

Unfortunately, the Congressional leaders in both parties seem determined 
to renew the law, probably after next year's presidential election, with 
only minor changes. But No Child Left Behind should be radically 
overhauled, not just tweaked.

Under the law, the states devise their own standards and their own 
tests. Based on the test results, every school is expected to make 
"adequate yearly progress" in grades three to eight so as to be on track 
to meet that goal of universal proficiency by 2014. Schools that do not 
meet their annual target for every group of students -- as defined by 
race, poverty, language and disability status -- are subject to 
increasingly onerous sanctions written into the federal law.

Schools that fail to meet their target for two consecutive years must 
offer their students the choice to go to a more successful public 
school; if they fail the following year, they must provide tutoring to 
their students. If the students continue to miss their target, the 
entire teaching and administration staff may be replaced, or the school 
may be turned over to state control, or it may be converted into a 
charter school.

Yet these tough sanctions thus far have been ineffective. Federal 
agencies report that only about 1 percent of eligible students take 
advantage of switching schools and fewer than 20 percent of eligibles 
receive extra tutoring.

In inner cities, where academic performance is weakest, only a handful 
of students move to successful schools because there are very few seats 
available to them. In rural America, choice is limited by the small 
number of other schools in the geographic area. Furthermore, neither 
research nor experience validates any of the "remedies" written into 
law. There is little evidence that failing schools improve if they are 
turned over to state control or converted to charter status.

No Child Left Behind can, however, be salvaged if policymakers recognize 
that they need to reverse the roles of the federal government and the 
states. In our federal system, each level of government should do what 
it does best. The federal government is good at collecting and 
disseminating information. The states and school districts, being closer 
to the schools, teachers and parents than the federal government, are 
more likely to be flexible and pragmatic about designing reforms to meet 
the needs of particular schools.

However, under current law, state education departments have an 
incentive to show that schools and students are making steady progress, 
even if they are not. So the results of state tests, which are 
administered every year, are almost everywhere better than the results 
of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the benchmark 
federal test that is administered every other year.

Many states claim that 80 percent or more of their students are 
proficient in reading or math at the same time that the federal 
assessment shows only a minority of students in those states reaching 
its standard of proficiency. We will never know how well or poorly our 
students are doing until we have a consistent national testing program 
in which officials have no vested interest in claiming victory.

Under current law, Congress now decides precisely which sanctions and 
penalties are needed to reform schools, which is way beyond its 
competence. The leaders of the House and Senate Education Committees are 
fine men, but they do not know how to fix the nation's schools.

The obvious solution is to reverse roles. Washington should supply 
unbiased information about student academic performance to states and 
local districts. It should then be the responsibility of states and 
local districts to improve performance.

Congress should also drop the absurd goal of achieving universal 
proficiency by 2014. Given that no nation, no state and no school 
district has ever reached 100 percent math and reading proficiency for 
all grades, it is certain that the goal cannot be met. Perpetuating this 
unrealistic ideal, however, guarantees that increasing numbers of 
schools will "fail" as the magic year 2014 gets closer.

Unless we set realistic goals for our schools and adopt realistic means 
of achieving them, we run the risk of seriously damaging public 
education and leaving almost all children behind.

Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University, was the 
assistant secretary of education for research from 1991 to 1993.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03ravitch.html