FairTest offers alternative to NCLB

6/22/04 -- The first two years of implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) "have damaged education quality and equity because of the law's incorrect assumptions and arbitrary requirements," charges the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). The group's report, Failing Our Children, released May 27, outlines several basic flaws in NCLB:

• The law falsely assumes that boosting test scores should be the primary goal of schools. That approach has not improved education when implemented by individual states.

• Widespread school "failure" is an inevitable outcome of NCLB's one-size-fits-all design because of its rigid provisions on adequate yearly progress, which set unrealistic goals for academic gains, punish diversity, and ignore measurement error.

• NCLB's school transfer policy undermines ongoing reform programs and disrupts the lives of students and teachers.

• The requirement that English language learners achieve "proficient" scores on English exams is self-contradictory, as is the provision that most children with special needs demonstrate competency in the same manner as other students.

• Education is being damaged as students are coached to pass tests rather than taught a rich curriculum that will help prepare them for life in the 21st century.

"NCLB is based on testing, blaming, and punishing," says co-author Lisa Guisbond. "A more helpful accountability system would focus first on building the capacity of teachers, schools, and districts to ensure that all children receive a high-quality education that meets their individual needs."

FairTest proposes a fundamentally different approach to assessment and accountability which the report says would better promote school reforms than NCLB. It would include these elements:

• the use of multiple forms of evidence of student learning, not just test scores;

• extensive professional development that enables teachers to better assess and assist their students;

• ongoing feedback to students about their performance to improve learning outcomes;

• public reporting on school progress in academic and non-academic areas, including improvement plans; and

• the sparing use of external interventions, such as school reorganization, to give reforms an opportunity to succeed.

NCLB "is aggravating, not solving, the real problems that cause many children to be left behind," says FairTest Executive Director Monty Neill, the report's lead author.

"Assessment systems need to make public schools accountable to parents, students, and the local community rather than to distant government bureaucracies," Neill says.