An almost worthless report that cost approximately $1 million to conduct has determined test scores are up across the United States and that the embattled No Child Left Behind is part of the reason.
One thing that is not addressed in the report, judging from the Washington Post article, is the effect of states changing tests and how they are evaluated to make sure that higher percentages of students are shown to be proficient or highly proficient.
Many states that at one time held their students to a higher standard have changed that philosophy since it hurt their standing in the Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) area of No Child Left Behind.
Since all we have are 50 different testing versions, there is no way to actually prove if No Child Left Behind is responsible for anything.
The best bet would be to delay renewal of this law until a new president, whether it be a Republican or a Democrat, who is not as highly invested in the current failed version, can come in with a fresh perspective.
5 comments:
The typo is TOO funny...
Unfortunately, spellcheck does not check the headline and apparently, neither did I. It will be changed.
And thanks for letting me know about that.
Well, I figured you weren't one of the "left behinds." Have a good day, Randy.
Thanks, Randy. No one knows NCLB's effects. In its new report, Answering the Question That Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind?, the Center on Education Policy provides the obvious answer: No one knows. There is some evidence of increasing achievement on some [later: many state test] measures, but attributing that to NCLB is foolhardy.
With such ambiguous conclusions, this report will probably be spun harder than an Elvis single. The White House will somehow claim that it completely vindicates the No Child approach, some opponents of NCLB will claim that 5 years after passage, the lack of solid evidence in its favor should tip Congress towards repeal of the more forceful accountability provisions, and the rest of us will wonder why there's a press conference on a non-finding.
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