No child left behind: 3 years and counting

Three years ago, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law. Nearly everybody agreed with the bill's purpose--"to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to attain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments" (U.S. Congress, 2001), which was to be accomplished by shifting funding formulas and sending more federal resources to high-poverty and struggling schools. Despite its lofty goals, there was criticism of NCLB from the beginning, which was reflected in wordplays on its name, borrowed in the first place (some would say co-opted) from children's rights work. Robert Schaeffer of Fair test, for example, suggested the "no child left untested act" (Toppo, 2002), and some academics quipped that the bill should be labeled "no psychometrician left unemployed." In other circles, where there was concern that the emphasis on testing would narrow the curriculum and deprofessionalize teachers' work, the bill was referred to as "no teacher left standing," and many social justice advocates feared the bottom line would be "same children left behind." Underneath the wit and cynicism of these wordplays were serious concerns about the enduring impact NCLB would have on schools, teachers, students, families, and, in a larger sense, the American system of public education. This editorial focuses on how NCLB is being assessed 3 years later, contrasting the public conclusion that all is well with the conclusion of a number of other individuals and groups who, for very different reasons, assert that all is decidedly not well. The editorial suggests that three aspects of NCLB are particularly relevant to teacher education--stipulations regarding "highly qualified teachers" (HQT) and "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) and the bill's emerging consequences for minority students. Each of these has troubling--even dangerous--ramifications. 3 YEARS AND COUNTING At the time of this writing, NCLB was about to celebrate its third anniversary. It is an understatement to say that assessments of its legitimacy and success are conflicting. In testimony to the House Education and the Workforce Committee (Hearings on NCLB, 2004), for example, Republican chairman John Boehner announced that as a result of NCLB, test scores all across the country are rising and the achievement gap is closing. The assessment of the most recent report from the Education Commission of the States (ECS; 2004) was somewhat more modest and mixed, although the report concluded that "the overall picture is encouraging" (p. vi). The ECS report found that although all 50 states are on track to meet at least half of NCLB's requirements, only five states are likely to meet all of them. Similarly, the commission found that although many states are improving student achievement, few will be able to meet requirements concerning highly qualified teachers. Along similar lines, Education Week's survey of state education departments (Olson, 2004b), titled "Taking Root," concluded that despite problems and complaints from various groups, NCLB has "become implanted in the culture" (p. $1) of the American public school system. The Education Week survey indicated that nearly half the states now have testing programs in place in reading and math for third through eighth graders and high schoolers, as required by NCLB, and all states are now using test results to determine AYP. On the other hand, the report also indicated that the number of schools identified as needing improvement has doubled since last year, and some states now have both AYP annual reports and, at the same time, yearly report cards based on statewide systems for assessing the performance of their schools. It is an understatement to say that these dual accountability systems, with different criteria and sometimes conflicting conclusions, are engendering confusion among education professionals, parents, and the broader public. …