The number of schools labeled as "failing" under the nation's No Child Left Behind Act could skyrocket dramatically this year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday.
The Department of Education estimates the percentage of schools not meeting yearly targets for their students' proficiency in in math and reading could jump from 37 to 82 percent as states raise standards in attempts to satisfy the law's mandates.
The 2002 law requires states to set targets aimed at having all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, a standard now viewed as wildly unrealistic.
"No Child Left Behind is broken and we need to fix it now," Duncan said in a statement. "This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed."
Duncan presented the figures at a House education and work force committee hearing, in urging lawmakers to rewrite the Bush-era act. Both Republicans and Democrats agree the law needs to be reformed, though they disagree on issues revolving around the federal role of education and how to turn around failing schools.
A surge in schools not meeting annual growth targets could have various implications. The most severe consequences — interventions that could include closure or replacing staff — would be reserved for those schools where students have been failing to improve for several consecutive years.
Duncan said the law has done well in shining a light on achievement gaps among minority and low-income students, as well as those who are still learning English or have disabilities. But he said the law is loose on goals and narrow on how schools achieve them.
"We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk," Duncan said.
Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute, said some states and districts have dug themselves into a hole by expected greater gains in the final years.
"The reality is coming home that you can't essentially demonstrate very little progress for ten years and then expect all of your progress to occur in the last two or three years," Whitehurst said.
He said some states believed improvement would accelerate as students advanced, creating a "snowball effect," while others put off the heavy lifting to avoid the consequences.
Daria Hall, Education Trust's K-12 policy director, said it was also important to distinguish between schools that don't meet the annual growth benchmark for one year, versus those who have failed to do so for two consecutive years and are labeled as being "in need of improvement."
Both distinctions could mean vastly different outcomes in terms of how many schools are subject to which interventions. The Department of Education was not able to provide data breaking down how many of the 82 percent would be failing to meet yearly goals for one year, versus consecutive years.
Hall said there are many ways states can meet their annual achievement benchmarks, and questioned whether the 82 percent figure took them all into consideration. Amy Wilkins, Education Trust's vice president for government affairs and communications, also noted that schools which are struggling are given various options — contesting Duncan's assessment that the law is tight on means and loose on goals.
"There is an objective finish line with annual finish line targets for everybody," Wilkins said.
Paul Manna, a professor focusing on education policy at the College of William & Mary, noted that while there are specified goals, what is considered "proficient" in math and reading varies by state.
He said the rising number of schools not meeting the benchmarks could become unmanageable.
"There's no way given the resources, the personnel available, to do what would be required, that they'd be able to do it," Manna said.
10 comments:
Lubbock is an example of trying to make their education non failing, but at what cost? The dreaded C-Scope has been introduced into LISD/FISD this year to help medium the teaching in each school. That way a student doesn't have to be worried if they switch schools mid year, because the new school will be at the same place in the teaching. Now this is good and bad, since teachers don't make their own lesson plans. But they have to teach from a script which only has "certain" information on it. Teachers will be either boosted if they suck at teaching, or they will be walled into a script if they are good. Its almost socialist. But Texas is shooting themselves in the foot, because now there is end of course exams. You can't tell me that those will help Texas education. I think it might boost the suicide rate, drop out rate, and violence in school instead of helping students learn. Education FTW
If 82% of schools are labeled as failing, the term loses the severity. The goals may be slightly far-fetched but it definitely calls to mind the necessity of a major change in the education system of the US.
The American public education system has many flaws in it and requiring No Child Left Behind was another blow to the system. Texas already had a testing program in place so the system in this state did not have to be overhauled much, but other states had to revamp their entire education system to allow for No Child Left Behind. The idea for the program looks and sounds good on paper, but in practice it does not work. The entire American public school system needs to be reorganized, I do not think this should be a national issue though, but done on a state-by-state basis.
I find it interesting that the obvious and innumerable flaws with the bill and its goals are only now coming to light when the achievement date for the aforementioned goals is in sight. It is as though the schools in question thought they could pull a rabbit of out a hat and meet the goals that, as logic would dictate, require a well thought out step-by-step plan spanning several years instead of a "snowball" effect. I find it absolutely appalling that the "great educators" of this nation would ever think that a "snowball" effect would occur in an education environment that, because of its very nature, prevents such an action from occurring. The mismatched education goals set by each state for each state also introduce a built-in insurmountable obstacle to the whole process because there is no agreement on what and how students should learn the curriculum. I am, by not means, stating or proposing that I could contrive a solution to this complicated problem, but I must assert that the problems that this bill created should have been foreseeable years in advance; and I am supremely disappointed that a solution to this bill has not already been put in to action. This is yet another example of why the political system should never be able to control the educational system because such combination will inevitably allow the at-risk and minority children to slip through the cracks.
I think it's mostly the goverment's fault. They enact all these rules but how do they expect teachers to follow through with all of these goals by a certain year? I know each state has different mandates, but i think some of the targets that are set are a little too quixotic. States really cant expect teachers to work harder than they already are to attempt to reach the benchmarks set. Not to mention that students really don't try half the time.
I think it's mostly the goverment's fault. They enact all these rules but how do they expect teachers to follow through with all of these goals by a certain year? I know each state has different mandates, but i think some of the targets that are set are a little too quixotic. States really cant expect teachers to work harder than they already are to attempt to reach the benchmarks set. Not to mention that students really don't try half the time.
In order to create an effective education system the government needs to put in place a standardized way of testing reading and math proficiency. Having each state create its own way of testing this make the failure rate inconsistent through out the nation. A nation wide test would fix these problems and also give the government an easier way to identify what is not being done since the curriculum will be the same nation wide.
The only way to make our testing system more effective is to standardize testing through out the nation. The current system allows each state to make its own test and set its own curriculum. This makes it extremely difficult for the government to monitor and determine where the problem areas are. A nation wide test and curriculum would solve this problem and give the government a way to meet its standards set in the 2002 law.
I definitely agree with Duncan and his thinking that the government is loose on goals and narrow on how to reach those goals. Another good point that was made was how the education department was going to come up with a way for the schools that are considered "failing" to pick themselves back up ad get back on track because not all of the schools are failing at the same rate. Focusing on the schools most at risk is probably the best starting point of helping schools succeed more in obtaining the goals that are set. As for now, the government is just gonna have to act and wait to see what happens because this is not going to happen overnight.
It's not really shocking that schools are doing so bad. It's clear that schools now focus more on shoving the material into student's minds anyway (calculators, computers, etc.) rather than teaching and letting them understand. The government's budget for schools is way too high. I like having a calculator to add my fractions but to be honest I think i need to remember how to do it without. this stuff is do-able. Why the calculators and high tech computers?
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