2008 Woodie Awards
Numerous Children Left Behind
Shoshana Flax
Issue date: 4/7/04 Section: Opinion
When I mentioned to friends that I was writing an article about the No Child Left Behind Act, several of them told me that their parents, who are educators, have had negative experiences with it. As elementary education majors, my classmates and I hear such stories constantly. The tales range from students' loss of recess to their being barred from graduation to the elimination of art, music, and other special departments from schools (along with the jobs that go with them).
The act, passed in 2001 as a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and currently being phased in all over the country, requires every state to evaluate the progress of all public school students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, with at least one additional assessment during grades 10 through 12. Science assessments will be added by the 2007-2008 school year. According to the US Department of Education's Website (www.ed.gov), "These assessments must be aligned with state academic content and achievement standards. They will provide parents with objective data on where their child stands academically."
"Evaluation" means testing. "Assessment" means testing. "Objective data" means testing.
I am all for accountability. It makes a lot of sense for someone to be checking up on teachers to make sure that a significant portion of a child's education does not rest in the hands of one person. But wait a minute. If it shouldn't all rest on one person, should it rest on one test?
The idea of "objective data" sounds great, but a myriad of factors can keep a test from giving each student an equal chance to show his or her knowledge and skills and his or her needs. For a level playing field to exist, there would have to be no students whose limited English proficiency or reading ability kept them from understanding directions or questions they might otherwise be able to answer, no students whose Attention Deficit Disorder kept them from focusing on the test, no students misunderstanding questions due to their own cultural backgrounds, no such thing as test anxiety, and no headaches or stomachaches on the mornings of tests. Cheating would have to be nonexistent (which is not the case). No student could receive any more encouragement from parents or teachers, or any more "teaching to the test," than any other student.
The act, passed in 2001 as a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and currently being phased in all over the country, requires every state to evaluate the progress of all public school students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, with at least one additional assessment during grades 10 through 12. Science assessments will be added by the 2007-2008 school year. According to the US Department of Education's Website (www.ed.gov), "These assessments must be aligned with state academic content and achievement standards. They will provide parents with objective data on where their child stands academically."
"Evaluation" means testing. "Assessment" means testing. "Objective data" means testing.
I am all for accountability. It makes a lot of sense for someone to be checking up on teachers to make sure that a significant portion of a child's education does not rest in the hands of one person. But wait a minute. If it shouldn't all rest on one person, should it rest on one test?
The idea of "objective data" sounds great, but a myriad of factors can keep a test from giving each student an equal chance to show his or her knowledge and skills and his or her needs. For a level playing field to exist, there would have to be no students whose limited English proficiency or reading ability kept them from understanding directions or questions they might otherwise be able to answer, no students whose Attention Deficit Disorder kept them from focusing on the test, no students misunderstanding questions due to their own cultural backgrounds, no such thing as test anxiety, and no headaches or stomachaches on the mornings of tests. Cheating would have to be nonexistent (which is not the case). No student could receive any more encouragement from parents or teachers, or any more "teaching to the test," than any other student.