In Education, What Is the True Measure for Success?
Feature Story by Lauren Marsh - 11/8/2006
Since its passage in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act has been controversial but has been opposed and supported by members of the civil rights and education communities.In a forum held by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) October 10, a panel of speakers discussed the successes and problems with the Act. They focused on a potential change within the Act - the use of growth modeling, or measuring the gains a school makes from year-to-year based on the results of standardized testing.
The speakers agreed that it is necessary to measure growth based on testing in order to evaluate the effectiveness of schools on a year-to-year basis, but they each also maintained that there are inherent flaws in using growth model measurement and expressed what they thought were the best ways to fix them.
One of the biggest issues that the panelists had with growth modeling was its lack of an absolute standard for progress to be based upon. Although NCLB does contain standards that schools are required to align their tests with, only 44% of schools follow these standards, according to a Paul Barton's report, "Failing' and 'Succeeding' Schools: How can we Tell?
Furthermore, alignment standards were not complete when NCLB was passed in 2001, so there was nothing done to prevent disparities in testing from occurring.
Without alignment and an absolute standard, speakers said that all that can be determined is the amount of growth a school has achieved from year to year. But these results provide no indication of where these schools stand compared to others.
Raul Gonzalez, legislative director of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) said that his organization has an "approach with caution" stance on accountability using growth models.
"If someone can come up with a growth model that more accurately measures how well schools are doing in helping students make progress while not lowering standards for certain children, including English language learners, we'd consider it," said Gonzalez. "However, no one has yet proffered such a system."
Gonzalez said he would like to see a system that has a uniform benchmark for every school to achieve, forcing schools and children that are trailing behind to aim high, rather than settle for lower standards.
Barton's report says that benchmarks should be established for how much improvement should be expected on a year-to-year basis in addition to setting standards for schools. Doing so would prevent schools that have made a lot of progress in the course of the year that may still have fallen slightly short of the set goal from being categorized as failing.
Another problem raised by the speakers is the focus that using growth models puts on the test itself. They argued that just placing the burden of achieving high test standards on schools is not enough to actually help these schools improve.
The speakers said that relying solely on standards takes the focus away from other important indicators of success. Factors such as course load, graduation rate, attendance, and the percentage of students moving on to college should also be taken into account.
They said that a test on its own does not provide enough information about a student's ability to learn.
