The onus of failure also sparked a shakeup at Shady Grove Middle School in Montgomery County. Three years ago, the school missed a test-score target. If just one more student from a low-income family had passed in reading, the school would have made adequate yearly progress, the label of success.What am I missing?
"We were stopped dead in our tracks," Principal Lance Dempsey said. "It was very crushing. And it was by one kid."
Dempsey launched a schoolwide literacy plan. She pushed teachers to learn techniques to integrate reading into every subject and gave them weekly training in reading instruction. Teachers started meeting regularly to identify students who were falling behind and to make plans to help them. Educators across the region are taking similar steps. Physical education and art teachers often weave math and literacy lessons into games and projects.
The result, Dempsey said, is a better school. "I think it gave us an opportunity to say, 'Whoa, we are leaving a few kids behind.' " In 2005, only two-fifths of students in poverty passed in reading. This year, almost three-fourths passed.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
In the Air and on the Ground
No Child Left Behind has become a non-issue on the campaign trail, in part because the politics are too complicated for both candidates, and in part because there are, frankly, more important things to worry about these days. Overall, there's a fairly solid elite consensus that the law is at best founded on smart principles but seriously flawed, and at worst a horrendous corporate conspiracy and/or prime example of Bush Administration malfeasance. Meanwhile, the Washinton Post looks at the data for local school districts in a front-pager this morning and finds that NCLB is...working exactly as intended. In nearly every local district, in both reading and math, the percent of non-poor students passing tests is going up while the percent of poor students who are passing is going up even faster, narrowing socio-economic achievement gaps. Schools identified as low-performing reacted to the so-called "label and punish" AYP system by...redoubling their efforts to not be low-performing. For example:
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5 comments:
I hope this is not the case, but since they are looking at the percentage of children passing the test as the measure, a lowering of the cut scores in these states could explain these results. Since more low-income kids would have been flunking the test with the previous cut score, a lowering of the standard would create the appearance of closing the gap.
What's missing is that this is one school. We've known for years--long before NCLB--that some schools respond effectively to accountability pressure. We've also known that many schools are not able to do so. NCLB has sharply increased the number of schools potentially labeled low-performing, and some are like Shady Grove. But NCLB lacks the tools to help schools that are not as capable of improvement as Shady Grove. Until we figure out what to do with all schools besides labeling them, we will continue to have achievement gaps.
Anonymous,
I'm not sure what you mean by "able"? Why, for example, would teachers in a school be unable to meet regularly to identify students who are falling behind and make plans to help them?
Perhaps you meant "willing"?
Kevin,
Teachers can make all the plans they want. But believe it or not, some teachers and schools are not able--yes, able--to teach all students to high levels. Those are the schools that often resort to test-prep, or else to what Dick Elmore calls "rain dances"--try anything in hopes that they can succeed. The answer is not just will.
Anonymous and Matthew are both correct. If you had ever taught, Kevin, you would know that many schools are "willing" and their educators are just as capable and dedicated, but they obviously are not "able" to replicate the success of a few outliers. We just aren't even close to having the required capacity. (last year, we hired a superintendent from Montogomery County who tried to implement their policies without having nearly the resources and by the time he was forced out of office, the district is in shambles. He was a graduate of the Broad School and he was a good person, but he just didn't know what he didn't know about education and the real costs of real progress.)
When you ask people to do the impossible, it is no surprise that they resort to "rain dances" or tricks to create the "appearance" of closing the gap.
In 2001, we could have debated whether the argument that data-driven accountability could spearhead improvements (not change or the illusion of change, but actually better education)was a theory or a hypothesis. You wouldn't be grasping at the straws of a success here, in one of the wealthiest districts in America, or occassional successes in magnet schools if the evidence of the last six years was that NCLB has been working.
Check out the preponderance of the evidence, and now you would have to agree that the argument that NCLB-type accountability can play a constructive role is just a hypothesis. Given today's fincances, we need some viable cost benefit analysis.
Compare the benefits of data-driven decision-making with the lousy track record of data-driven accountability. The idea that we can do both does not even rise to the level of a hypothesis.
I know this is a blog, but come on. Read the research. If you had the evidence on your side, you could cool the rhetoric. Its your blog, but why not devote as much space to research as you do music in Austin.
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