Swift & Change Able

In Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Marshall Smith and Bruce Fuller write about the current state of NCLB.

It’s very challenging to do a comprehensive take on anything in the limited space of an op-ed. So we thought we would offer some expansions on the frequently valid, but incomplete, points made by Smith & Fuller.

Smith & Fuller: “Proponents of No Child Left Behind…received uplifting news last month: The nation’s fourth-graders had finally stirred on federal tests, showing gains in reading and math. Eighth-graders saw little progress in reading, but they did experience an uptick in math.”

Swift & Change Able: This is good news. And given that Smith and Fuller seem to be at the very least skeptical of NCLB, big for them to admit.

Keep in mind that the federal NAEP tests Smith & Fuller cite weren’t required until NCLB’s passage. More important, while the NAEP scores overall showed some improvement, there are also significant gains when one looks at the details, particularly with regard to closing achievement gaps.

The Education Trust digs a little deeper into the NAEP data: “Since 1996 [two years after the last reauthorization of the federal Title I law], the percentage of our nation’s fourth-grade students performing below the Basic achievement level in math has been cut in half, from 39 percent to 19 percent, with even stronger improvement among poor and minority students (from 73 percent to 37 percent for African Americans, 61 percent to 31 percent for Latinos, and 60 percent to 30 percent for poor students). At the same time, higher performers also posted significant gains, increasing the ranks of students at the Proficient and Advanced levels.”

Smith & Fuller: Some business groups side with Bush and [Speaker of the House] Pelosi, urging quick renewal and even tougher love for local educators, such as tying teacher pay to student learning curves.

Swift & Change Able: That’s an interesting rhetorical device, the use of the word “curves”. I haven’t done a word check, but I don’t remember seeing the word “curves” in the Miller-McKeon draft. There might be another pitching term other than “curves” that would aptly describe the use of that term in Smith & Fuller’s piece.

It’s not just “some business groups” (“some” being The Chamber of Commerce and The Business Roundtable) that support tying teacher pay to their qualifications and gains (or, “curves”, if you prefer) in student achievement. It’s civil rights and child advocacy groups like The Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, The Education Trust, and The National Council De La Raza.

Smith & Fuller: Politics aside, is this [NCLB] massive federal experiment boosting children’s achievement beyond the long-running benefits of states’ own accountability programs. Evidence to date suggests the answer is no.

Swift & Change Able: Before NCLB, states 1) did not even have to participate in the NAEP test that produces the data that Smith & Fuller use to make their case and 2) did not even have to publish data showing whether or not they were closing achievement gaps (a policy that, in recognition of the very large elephant in the room, was perpetuated by the Clinton Administration under the stewardship of the first author of the Smith & Fuller op-ed. See the Democrats for Education Reform NCLB Briefing paper for the history of accountability, disaggregation, and other issues in federal education law.).

Does NCLB improve state’s own accountability systems that existed prior to NCLB? Swift & Change Able thinks the answer is yes.

Smith & Fuller go on to do some data splicing of their own that is worthy of ESPN coverage of the MLB pennant race. And, to their credit, they endorse differential pay for teachers to get them into hard-to-staff areas. They also offer other food for thought in terms of other ways NCLB might be improved. While the federal government has to stop short of telling teachers to get plenty of exercise, eat their vegetables and drink eight glasses of water a day, their suggestions deserve further discussion as the NCLB debate continues.

Marshall Smith, the U.S. Undersecretary of Education from 1993 to 2000, directs the Hewlett Foundation’s education program. Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley, is author of “Standardized Childhood.”