"Now, I’ve heard them say, well, tests, we’re testing too much. If you don’t like to take a test, too bad. Because we need to know, we need to know whether you’re learning."
These are the words of President George W. Bush while speaking in Boston, Massachusetts, shortly after signing the "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB) in 2001. The NCLB is a proponent of standardized testing for K-12 children in the United States. It also introduces the concept of accountability for schools – with some pretty severe repercussions for schools that fail to deliver acceptable test results. Naturally, the schools feel that in order to remain compliant, they are better off to prepare students for the tests rather than teach them a curriculum that will cover what is on the tests. A standard, by definition, is a lowest common denominator. So, instead of teaching children in a diverse and nurturing manner, we are fine-tuning them to comply with the bare minimum. This commitment to mediocrity is not what you would expect from the world’s foremost super-power. Buckle up ladies and gentlemen; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Let us begin, like all good tales, at the beginning – or at least as far back as is relevant to the point. In April of 1983, a report called "A Nation At Risk; The Imperative for Educational Reform", put out by the U.S. Education Department, raised some very serious flags in regards to the quality of education being given to children in the United States. The report was quick to point out how children in the school system were lacking in some of the basic skills. The report went on to state that these kids are already behind the children in other nations. In 1989, President George Bush Sr. drafted a law that was later signed by President Clinton; it was called Goals 2000. It moved towards educational standards in 13 subject areas. Not without irony, congress rejected the notion of having the law’s implementation overseen by the federal government. They had little interest in administrating this initiative.
In January 2002, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act came into law. The Act had seemingly noble objectives; by 2014, all the school children in the U.S. were to attain 100% proficiency in mathematics and reading. The problem with the act is that the objectives come with some pretty serious repercussions for non-compliance. These repercussions range from some pretty stiff finger-waving as a warning to "improve or else", to getting rid of all the staff and turning the governance of the school over to the state, or a private administrator, in order to make improvements.
The baseline set of metrics for the act came from data culled in the 2001-2002 school year. Initially schools had two years within which to start showing marked improvement in the performance of the student body in the standardized tests. The label of "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) is applied to schools making the grade. Schools that do not make AYP are given the label of "In Need Of Improvement" (INOI). After the grace period, an INOI school is first mandated to provide tutoring to the students not making the grade in hopes of improving their test scores. Failing that, the school is to allow students not making the grade to transfer to a school that labeled as AYP. As if that weren’t enough, the INOI schools must also take money from their own budgets to provide transportation to the AYP School for the students that have been allowed to transfer. If a school continues to not make the grade, the final level of sanction is restructuring. Under restructuring, the school may have: most, if not all, of its staff replaced; the school shut down temporarily to open as a charter school; and/or have the school’s management turned over to the state. Given these strong repercussions, the schools are responding in what seems to be the most logical way; they are tailoring the curriculum to cover what is on the standardized tests.
The introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act leaves us with three major questions: "What will this do to our school system?" "What will this do to our children?" and lastly, "What will this do to our future?" If a large number of schools are choosing to focus their curriculum on the standardized tests rather than a more balanced education, we really are turning the nation’s schools into test prep centers; largely due to schools not wanting to avoid the repercussions of being an INOI school. If we are to project the problem out five years, the educational landscape starts to look quite scary. Gradually, we will be faced with a patchwork of schools, and school systems – some being run by the municipalities, some being run by the state and some being run by private firms. All this new administration of resources will mean a need for new infrastructure – or at least a lot of addition to the old one. With all these schools being administered by different organizations, we also run the risk of further stratifying the educational system.
In addition, the AYP schools will suddenly be faced with increasing percentages of their student body being made up of children that were failing in the INOI schools. Thusly, schools that were once labeled as AYP are suddenly in danger of becoming INOI as more of their resources – and attention – go towards making sure that the failing students improve their test scores to a proficiency level that is acceptable to the legislators. Otherwise, they too run the risk of becoming "In Need Of Improvement."
Our children will also suffer. Sudden changes to a child’s school schedule can be jarring to say the least. Children – especially the younger ones – thrive on schedules that are more structured. If they are forced to suddenly change schools, or if their school is suddenly re-staffed, it will have an effect on them; an effect that may affect their test scores regardless of proficiency. A large number of schools have also begun changing the pedagogical styles being utilized in the classrooms more towards rote, as opposed to comprehension. Instead of teaching in a manner that is more conducive to the conceptual and logical understanding of a subject, students learn in a manner that is primarily based on memorization. Typically, when a person memorizes something, they are memorizing an instance of a concept. I.e. they are memorizing a particular version of a concept given certain variables. The problem arises when you change the variables involved. A "memorizing" person may not be able to abstract the necessary information to reformulate what they have memorized in a useful manner. Although that may sound trivial now, consider that in the future, today’s kids will be the people designing the cars we travel in, the buildings we work in, and the planes we so readily entrust with our lives as we cruise at 30,000 feet. Not so trivial now, is it?
If we consider that a teacher has the ability to give a more accurate assessment of a student’s abilities than any test, a test is then simply a snapshot of understanding and ability. What a test will not tell you is what may have been happening in that student’s life at the time of the test. They may be worried about their home situation; they may have not eaten anything that day – not out of not wanting to but perhaps out of not being able. A single snapshot in time does not give the same breadth of understanding that a moving picture does. A teacher would have a better understanding of the moving picture and therefore a better understanding of a student’s abilities. A child’s worries may have little context to us, but don’t forget that amongst all this learning, they are also trying to define how they fit into the world. By standardizing their learning and assessment, are we not also trying to standardize their place in the world? Some states are not allowing kids to graduate from high school unless they pass a standardized test. But, if we have failed in teaching them, how can we expect them to pass? While I agree that we should not give a high school diploma to anyone that shows up, I do believe that we if we will pass or fail a student based on their output, we should be more aware of the inputs we are preparing them with.
This leaves us looking towards the future. It is important to consider the future of education, as well as the future of our society. Education is, after all, building the world of tomorrow. One of the first things that comes to mind is what will happen once the kids of NCLB reach the post-secondary institutions. Will these children be prepared to suddenly follow a course of study that suddenly forces them to exponentially expand their scope of knowledge and understanding? Will the colleges and universities be prepared to deal with a student body that must switch to learning by concepts from learning by memorization? More students may choose to drop out because they’re just not "getting it", and society will suddenly be further stratified; much like the primary and secondary school systems will be through NCLB. Yes, indeed, it may very well be a bumpy ride.
The NCLB act is sending a clear message, "the primary goal of a school is to boost and maintain test scores. Do it, or else." As parents, grandparents and citizens we should be sending the legislature a message of our own: "The primary goal of education is to prepare the children of the future with the knowledge and means to run the world in an efficient, democratic and peaceful manner. Do it, or else." But none of this will happen unless we all choose to get involved. I don’t mean just signing your name on some form letter to your representative. I mean get involved with every facet of your child’s education at a personal, administrative, and legislative level. Get involved personally by taking more of an interest in what they learn and extending their learning activities beyond what school gives them. If you do not have the time to do this, then get smarter about the environment that you provide for them. I guarantee that a Leapster Interactive Learning System™ will be a better investment than a Nintendo GameBoy™. Immerse them in a passive learning environment so that learning is all around them. If you want to see the results of an immersive learning environment, read Cheaper By The Dozen" by Kenneth Galbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey – I assure you, it has much more depth than the recently released movie version. In the same way that you worry about what goes into your child’s mouth through nutrition, you should worry about what goes into their minds through education.
You can also make efforts to get involved in the administration and legislation of your children’s education. Get informed about the issues, talk to the teachers, and see how you can help them be champions for our children’s education. And then, sign your name on those form letters that go to the legislators. We must stop thinking of education as a short-run investment. After all, at some point, our very lives may depend on it. The alternative? We may face the world years from now, as it looks upon the state of our society and says, "Feel dumb. It’s Ok."
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DISCLAIMER: This blog is intended to house my opinions and observations on the world as I see it. Although my arguments may come from the more emotional realm I do try to apply as much fact as I have available to me at the time of writing. I am not writing an encyclopedia here, I am writing opinions. Av
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