Why Every Student Will Still Be Left Behind

"No Child Left Behind", they said. "Every Student Succeeds", they said.

Often it's hard to ignore the hype, but here we must. 

It's hard to believe that the rebranding of a catastrophic failure with a new name, along with some other minor tweaks, is really going to reduce the race and class based achievement gaps it once claimed it would solve.

Instead, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has created an education system defined by standardised tests and I for one am unconvinced that this new empty title, the “Every Student Succeeds Act,” is going to breathe any life into a policy that is, undoubtedly, dead in the water.

While the decision to expand access to preschools with $250 million in annual funding for early-childhood education is certainly a step in the right direction, the rotten core that brought NCLB to its knees still exists in the "Every Student Succeeds" Act (ESSA) that will likely be signed by President Obama today.

This rotten core is the heavy emphasis that is placed on standardised testing in education. Allegedly, this is how the government will ensure that there is greater "accountability" for student development in schools, which will in turn guarantee that all students are "college-and-career ready " by the time that they graduate.

Forgive me if I missed the memo, but since when was the quality of a student, let alone an education, evaluated by performance on standardised tests alone? 

There is no doubt that millions of students are suffering from this nationwide over testing addiction that policymakers possess. Most importantly, NCLB failed and the ESSA will continue to fail in its most important purpose, eliminating the stark achievement gaps that currently exist between different cohorts of students in this country.

"The gaps in math and reading for African American and Latino students shrank far more dramatically before No Child Left Behind—when policies focused on equalising funding and school integration, rather than on test scores. In the 1970s and '80s, the achievement gap between black and white 13-year-olds was cut roughly in half nationwide"  - Stanford CEPA

According to the Council of the Great City Schools, students now take an average of 113 standardised tests between pre-K and 12th grade.

Let's assume there are 40 weeks in a school year (20 per semester), 14 years between pre-K and 12th grade, plus 113 tests for the average student.

By my calculations, that's a test every 5 weeks... for 14 straight years. This raises the burning question: are teachers even teaching the curriculum anymore or are they just teaching the test?

This obsession with testing - the ESSA Act's rotten core - will prevent it from having any significant impact on reducing achievement gaps.

Why?

1. Approach is flawed, standardised tests do not tell the full story

Education is responsible for developing the whole person. It is holistic in nature and should be holistic in execution. Instead, this standardised test approach only measures cognitive achievement, which is often a poor predictor of success in life. Nobel laureate James Heckman argues that this is because these standardised tests fail to measure the skills that "make a person valuable in family life, community life and the workforce". We cannot afford to keep telling our hardworking educators that their students are failing to live up to expectations just because they are not consistently performing well on a test every five weeks.

There is certainly not such a narrow and naive focus on cognitive skill in the workplace; in fact employers pride themselves on creating a workforce that has more than just smarts, so why do we hold our students to different standards?

"... To succeed in his studies, one must have qualities which depend on attention, will, and character." (Alfred Binet, creator of IQ tests)

2. Policy is ineffective in nature and intervenes at too late a stage

These achievement gaps exist because the poorest children often start behind and therefore, stay behind in school. Often, education is perceived as this "great equaliser" whereby these huge achievement gaps can be overcome, but this is simply not the case. In fact, before even entering kindergarten, the average cognitive score of children in the highest socioeconomic status group are 60% above the scores of the lowest socioeconomic status group (Inequality at the Starting Gate, Lee). Furthermore, the least advantaged U.S children begin their formal schooling in consistently lower-quality schools, which only serves to reinforce these achievement gaps before school has even begun. 

To think that more standardised testing is the answer to truly understanding student achievement and closing these huge achievement gaps amongst different cohorts of the population is, quite frankly, just silly.

We must demand more from our policymakers and educators must stand up so that they can be heard. The reality is that the Every Student Succeeds Act will succeed (excuse the pun) little outside of allowing politicians to falsely claim that they are addressing the heart of the pernicious issue. 

If we want to see real, meaningful and effective change then we must:

1. Begin by first returning to a more holistic view of education that develops students' whole character, rather than just focusing on cognitive skill. 
2. Intervene earlier, before kids are even of the school age, if we are to have any chance of reducing these achievements gaps that are largely driven by outside of the classroom factors - let's put that $250 million to good use!

It is said that "Every Student Succeeds" will shift power to the states, when really, it needs to be shifting power to the educators. 

At this rate, all children are once again going to be left behind. So ignore the hype, face the facts and let's try to make a real, meaningful difference.

#ND Thoughts #EveryChildLeftBehind #StudentVoices