ups and downs of NCLB

The Ups and Downs of No Child Left Behind

By Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 11, 2003; 3:41 PM

People like me who support the No Child Left Behind law often say to critics, "Well, it might not be perfect, but you got any better ideas?" Sometimes we are not that polite, and if we hear suggested alternatives, we often dismiss them as the addled dreams of political innocents.

That is not very fair or useful. So I have invited several thoughtful and experienced critics of NCLB to present summaries of their ideas for taking our schools in a different direction. I told them their entries had to be short, practical, comprehensible and point toward the quickest possible lasting improvement in the reading, writing and math skills of the largest number of low-performing, low-income children. As a guide, I gave them my short summary of what current policy would sound like if I summitted it as my own idea.

Here we go -- first my summary and then the thoughts of these conscientious critics. I hope this will help all of us, particularly me, see what sense there is in doing something other than what we are doing.

Jay Mathews: The standards movement, exemplified by the No Child Left Behind law, would try to help low-performing students by testing them regularly and threatening schools with unattractive labels if they did not succeed in increasing students' reading, writing and math scores. Students in grades 3 to 8 would be tested once each year and high schoolers at least once before graduation. States would have the option of tying promotion and graduation decisions to the test results.

Schools that did not show steady improvement in overall test score averages, and in the average scores of subgroups like minorities and low-income children, would have to help parents transfer to other schools and/or get free tutoring. Teachers who had not demonstrated competence in the subjects they teach would be banned from the classroom. Schools shown to be unable to meet the standards would be entitled to more resources and perhaps forced to change staffs. The goal would be all students proficient by 2014

Strength: Focus on achievement of low-performing children.

Weakness: Dependence on test scores and fanciful goals.

---------------------------------

Kenneth J. Bernstein, social studies teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Greenbelt: You asked for "the quickest possible lasting improvement." A focus on "quickest" will at best achieve more effective prep for tests that indicate little beyond success on the tests.

To improve reading and writing, make both enjoyable. Give students books they can own. Many inner city kids neither have access to libraries nor do they have many books in their homes. And read aloud with them.

When I taught middle school (including teaching reading), I rewarded my students by letting them pick books to keep from a stash I created. I bought used books and dollar editions of classics. I wanted my students to see reading as a reward. We read things aloud, and acted them out, in reading and in history. When they read silently, so did I.

Let them write about things that interest them. Then show them how to improve their writing, using their own work. Devote enough resources to give children more attention and help on their writing, which can't happen in classrooms with 35 kids.

Most of all, don't use reading and writing as a punishment. Treat them to something wonderful and delightful.

Strength: Uses intrinsic reinforcement, builds life-long skills.

Weakness: More expensive than teaching to the test.

-------------------------------------------------------