Survey reports increase in student achievement and narrowing of achievement gap since NCLB was signed
Student achievement has increased and test score gaps between white students and black and Hispanic students have narrowed in many states since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) in 2002, according to a new survey of state scores in reading and math. But the study, released by the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent Washington group that closely monitors the law, cautions that “it is difficult if not impossible to determine the extent to which these trends in test results have occurred because of NCLB.” In the decade before the law was passed, many states had adopted policies aimed at raising achievement, like broadening access to early childhood programs, that could also be responsible for gains. The study also acknowledges that the increases in achievement recorded by many state tests have not been matched by results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), nationwide reading and math tests administered by the federal Department of Education. Despite its caveats, the new report is likely to be closely studied as Congress debates whether to reauthorize the law this year, partly because it may be the most comprehensive study of state test scores in many years.
Merely collecting the test data proved to be a complex and frustrating task because many states’ education departments are overworked and their test archives are flawed by missing or inconsistent data, the report said. Those and other limitations notwithstanding, Jack Jennings, CEP’s president, says state test scores “remain a more accurate barometer of what kids know” than the NAEP. Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has compared state and federal achievement scores, says the report “displays methodological weaknesses which lead to exaggerated inferences” about student progress. He says the researchers appeared to have eliminated testing periods in some states that showed predominantly falling scores after 2002. Robert L. Linn, an education professor emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a frequent critic of the law, served on a panel of five prominent testing and educational policy experts who advised CEP on the study. “I was a little surprised that things were generally as positive as they were, so it may be that I would say that NCLB is contributing more positively than I had given it credit for,” he says. But he urges readers to pay attention to the report’s many caveats. “There are so many other factors that could lead to rising scores, including state efforts to raise achievement, and also, some of these gains may be artificial,” he says. “So my worry is that people who come at it and don’t read the caveats will come away with an exaggerated impression.”
New York Times
By Sam Dillon
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: The report, below, comes hard on the heels of a Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University survey, reported in the news article below, that found that 23% of American adults want NCLB renewed in its current form, 14% want it abolished, 49% want it amended, and 14% are undecided. NSBA’s BoardBuzz blog criticizes hasty attribution of the test score gains to NCLB. Time magazine’s cover story on “How to Fix No Child Left Behind” asserts that one of the key questions about the act is “Can we trust the states to set standards?” and cites arguments that states have watered down standards in response to NCLB. More on the prospects for NCLB’s reauthorization and on NSBA’s recommendations is available starting from the last link.]
[CEP report]
Knoxville News Sentinel
By Thomas Hargrove & Guido H. Stempel III
[Full story]
[BoardBuzz on CEP report]
Time
By Claudia Wallace & Sonja Steptoe
[Full story]
[NSBA School Law pages on NCLB reauthorization]