CASES FROM CALIFORNIA: IS NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CREATING EQUALITY
IN EDUCATION?
Sonya M. Godinez
B.A., University of California, Davis, 1999
PROJECT
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS in
EDUCATION
(Curriculum and Instruction) at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2010

CASES FROM CALIFORNIA: IS NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CREATING EQUALITY
IN EDUCATION?
A Project by
Sonya M. Godinez
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Lorie Hammond, Ph.D.
Date: ____________________________ ii

Student: Sonya M. Godinez
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the project.
Rita M. Johnson, Ed.D.
Department of Teacher Education
, Associate Chair
Date iii

Abstract of
CASES FROM CALIFORNIA: IS NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CREATING EQUALITY
IN EDUCATION? by
Sonya M. Godinez
The project was an alternative culminating experience for a Master of Arts in
Education: Curriculum and Instruction with an Elective Emphasis on the Arts in
Education in the Department of Teacher Education. The project followed Pathway 5: Art educator as advocate and leader.
This study sought to challenge the mandates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), by examining if it created more equity in education, as its proponents claimed, or if it disproportionately affected poor and minority children by narrowing their education to only those subjects that are tested. The study was especially concerned with issues surrounding the elimination of arts education. Using the context of one California county, the study considered four schools, each serving a different demographic of students.
Through the use of teacher surveys and interviews, the study compared the income level of these schools with the instructional minutes allocated to different subjects. The study also measured teachers’ opinions on aspects of NCLB and its effect on their schools, especially in regard to arts education. By every measure, the study found that the school serving the poorest children had the narrowest curriculum. Its students received the least iv

exposure to the arts, science and social studies, while spending the most time on language arts and mathematics. This study provided evidence that while its stated goal is a quality education for all, NCLB actually exacerbates and perpetuates the inequities it claims to remedy.
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Lorie Hammond, Ph.D.
____________________________
Date v

DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this to Anders in the hopes that all schools will one day be worthy of his and all children’s attendance. vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first like to thank all of the educators who took the time to help with this project, the administrators for facilitating and the teachers for speaking honestly about their experiences. Second, I would like to thank Lorie Hammond for her support and encouragement throughout the entire process. I would also like to thank Eric for allowing me the time to see this through to the end. vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................. vii
List of Tables .......................................................................................................................x
List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1
Rationale ..................................................................................................................1
Goals and Objectives ...............................................................................................2
Brief Outline of Literature Review ..........................................................................3
Description of Context and Audience ......................................................................4
Procedure .................................................................................................................5
Terms .......................................................................................................................5
Limitations ...............................................................................................................7
Projected Products and Outcomes ...........................................................................7
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................9
Part 1: No Child Left Behind History and Criticism ...............................................9
Part II: A Case for the Arts in Education ...............................................................20
Part III: A Question of Equity and Democracy .....................................................24
3. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS ............................................................................28 viii

Setting ....................................................................................................................28
Research Practices .................................................................................................31
Teacher Survey ......................................................................................................32
Teacher Interviews .................................................................................................37
County Administrator Interview ............................................................................39
Results ....................................................................................................................40
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...........................................................................70
Reflections on the Process .....................................................................................71
Findings..................................................................................................................72
Conclusion .............................................................................................................79
References ..........................................................................................................................81 ix

LIST OF TABLES
Page
1. Comparison of Schools by Location, Percentage of English Language Learners, and Percentage of Students on Free and Reduced Lunch ...............................................4
2. Demographic Comparison of Schools ...........................................................................31
3. Number of Participating Teachers by Grade Level .......................................................41
4. Average Number of Years Teaching of Participating Teachers by School ..................42
5. Average Daily Instructional Minutes for Language Arts and Math by School .............49 x

LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1. Teacher Survey ............................................................................................................33
2. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in dance instruction per week by school ......................................................................43
3. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in theater instruction per week by school ....................................................................44
4. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in music instruction per week by school ......................................................................45
5. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in visual art instruction per week by school.................................................................46
6. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in science instruction per week by school....................................................................47
7. Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in social studies instruction per week by school ..........................................................48
8. Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: I am free to modify or stray from our adopted curriculum based on my students’ needs .......................................................................................................50
9. Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: My students receive a rich and broad curriculum ......................................51
10. Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: State mandated standardized testing has a positive effect on student learning in my classroom .............................................................................................52 xi

1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
These reforms express my deep belief in our public schools and their mission to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every part of America.
President George W. Bush (U.S. Department of Education, 2007, p. 3, ¶ 2)
Rationale
In January 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act
(NCLB) into law. As its name implied, and according the US Department of Education, the goal of this legislation was to ensure that all of America’s children received a “highquality education” (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). Eight years later, it was difficult for the average citizen to assess if NCLB had fulfilled its promise. While policy makers claimed that this legislation worked, there were many educators whose experience suggested otherwise. They claimed that NCLB was actually creating greater inequity in our schools. They argued that in an effort to adapt to the demands of NCLB and high stakes testing, schools serving poor and minority children had been forced to abandon what most would consider a well-rounded education in exchange for a narrow curriculum that did nothing more than prepare students for standardized tests. Teachers had been instructed by districts to eliminate the arts, science, and social studies from their curriculum. Schools for these children had become test preparation facilities rather than places that actively built skills and cultivated curiosity. At the same time, schools that served students at higher socio-economic levels, whose students had an advantage on

2 standardized tests based on culture and language, were free to continue with a rich and broad curriculum because they did not have to worry about test scores.
As subsequent administrations continued to grapple with the complicated issues of federal education reform, it was important and timely to examine its effects and ask some challenging questions. Did NCLB narrow the education of America’s poor children by eliminating the arts and other subjects that were not tested? If arts were being eliminated, what was the cost of their absence to America’s students? Did NCLB truly serve all children equally, as it stated, or were some children being denied access to opportunities created by a rich and broad education?
This study is a Pathway 5: Art educator as advocate and leader, an Alternative
Culminating Experience for a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis on Arts in Education, in the Department of Teacher Education.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of this study was to explore the questions surrounding the effects of
NCLB and equality in education. Using the context of one county in California as an example that can be extended to other locations, the research examined its effects on schools serving different populations of students. By measuring a number of factors, it aimed to illustrate if, as a result of NCLB, low-income and minority students were, in fact, receiving a much narrower education compared to their peers in more affluent districts. The research compared the income level of schools with the instructional minutes allocated to different subjects, and surveyed and interviewed teachers to gauge

3 their experiences and opinions about NCLB, its effects, and the state of arts education in their schools.
Brief Outline of Literature Review
A review of literature relevant to this topic included three main areas. The first area of focus was related to educational policy. It included a history of the politics and legislation leading up to NCLB based on Patrick J. McGuinn’s 2006 book,
No Child Left
Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 . This section also included, The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s
Public Schools , by David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle (1995) who disputed the charges that our public schools are failing which McGuinn demonstrated was the premise behind NCLB. Also discussed were criticisms of NCLB and high-stakes testing in general by Linda Darling-Hammond (2004), Alfie Kohn (2000), and a study published by the Harvard University Civil Rights Project (Sunderman, Tracey, Kim, & Orfield, 2004).
In the second section, a case was made justifying the importance of the arts in education. It includes Eliot Eisner’s (1998) book of personal essays,
The Kind of Schools
We Need , in which he advocated strongly for the arts in education based on their unique contribution to the development of mind. Also included was a group of studies, published in 2008, Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and
Cognition (Asbury & Rich, 2008).
The third and final section discussed issues of equity and democracy in education.
This included, An Unfinished Canvas , a 2007 study by Woodworth, Gallagher, and Guha,

4 that examined the state of arts education in California and provided some interesting insight into the issue of equity. It also included additional insights from Eisner (1998) and
Don Arnstine (1995), from Arnstine’s book Democracy and the Arts of Schooling.
Description of Context and Audience
This research focused on the effects of NCLB in four different schools in one
California county. The schools were selected from different communities within the county. Each community was demographically very different from the others. The names of the schools were changed to protect the privacy of their community members. The following table is a brief comparison of the schools’ demographics.
Table 1
Comparison of Schools by Location, Percentage of English Language Learners, and
Percentage of Students on Free and Reduced Lunch
Name of School Location % of English Language % of Students on Free
Learners and Reduced Lunch
43%
53%%
71%
90%
Thistle Elementary Rural
Urban Dandelion
Elementary
Poppy Elementary Suburban
Rose Elementary Suburban
Source: (http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us)
5%
38%
12%
78%

5
Procedure
Presented as case studies on each school, there were two main aspects to the research procedure. Quantitatively, the research included a teacher survey that measured the allocation of instructional minutes for the arts, science, social studies, language arts and math. The survey also measured teacher opinions on certain aspect of NCLB and its effects. Qualitatively, the research included interviews with teachers from each school site. The interviews focused on individual experience and perceptions of NCLB and its effects, and teachers’ impressions of the level of support for arts education at each school.
Additionally, an informational interview of the County Director of Curriculum and
Instruction was included.
Terms
Academic Performance Index (API)
A number score that summarizes a school’s academic performance and progress on statewide assessments in the state of California. The API also is used as an additional indicator for federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements.
(California Department of Education [CDE], 2010)
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
The minimum level of improvement a school and its student subgroups must achieve each year in at least reading/language arts and math. It also measures the progress of schools using other academic indicators, such as the graduation rate or school attendance. Each state has set its own definition of AYP and those have

been approved by the U.S. Department of Education and are available on the department's website. The definitions must reflect the objective of all students demonstrating proficiency by the end of the 2013-2014 school year (U.S.
Department of Education, 2004).
Highly Qualified Teacher
A highly qualified teacher is defined as one who has obtained a full state teacher certification or has passed the state teacher licensing examination and holds a license to teach in the state; holds a minimum of a bachelor's degree; and has demonstrated subject area competence in each of the academic subjects in which the teacher teaches (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). The requirements for being “highly qualified” in various situations have been raised and standardized under NCLB.
Program Improvement (PI)
A school is considered to be in “program improvement” when it has failed to make its AYP for two consecutive years (CDE, 2010).
Student Subgroup
Schools will receive their disaggregated AYP status for subgroups of students based on the following categories: racial/ethnicity, students with disabilities,
Limited English Proficiency (LEP), and economically disadvantaged (South
Carolina Education Oversight Committee, 2010).
6

7
Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Content Standards
Adopted by the State Board of Education in January 2001, the Standards describe the skills, knowledge, and abilities in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts that all students should be able to master at specific grade levels, pre-kindergarten through grade 12, in California public schools (CDE, 2010).
Limitations
There were three limitations that should be noted. First, time restrictions prevented the researcher from conducting classroom observations as part of the qualitative study. All of the data comes second hand from the teacher surveys and interviews. A second limitation was that the teachers who participated in the survey and those that participated in the interviews were only a sampling from each school. The study was unable to get one hundred percent teacher participation at any of the focus schools. A final limitation was that it is impossible to gauge the motivation of the teachers who volunteered to participate in the survey or the interview. It was possible that they were interested in the topic because of a particular bias.
Projected Products and Outcomes
As an Alternative Culminating Experience with an emphasis in leadership and advocacy in the arts, the research prepared this researcher to better advocate for change in public education. This goal was accomplished through systematic research, which reinforced informal perceptions about the inequality of arts education available to

students in different economic circumstances. This research provides a basis for further quantitative and qualitative on the equalizing or de-equalizing effects of NCLB.
8

9
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Part 1: No Child Left Behind History and Criticism
The 2002 passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act marked a major shift in the role of the federal government in public education. In his book, No Child Left
Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 , Patrick J.
McGuinn (2006) traced the history and events leading up to the passage of NCLB.
McGuinn (2006) asserted that although the foundation was laid in earlier legislation, “the addition of tough federal timetables and mandatory outcome-based accountability in
NCLB are so different and significant as to constitute a revolution in federal education policy” (p. 7).
According to McGuinn (2006), public education in the United States was historically a local issue handled by states and local communities until two important events occurred. The first event was the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of
Education , which established a role for the federal government in enforcing access to an equal education (McGuinn, 2006). The second event was the 1965 passage of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which targeted federal money to schools serving disadvantaged children and established the Title 1 program (McGuinn,
2006). These two events made it a responsibility for the federal government to promote
“more equal access to more equally funded schools” (McGuinn, 2006, p. 25).

10
Another major shift in federal education policy was marked by the publication of the 1983 study entitled A Nation at Risk . The report was the product of the National
Commission on Excellence in Education, a commission established by Regan’s education secretary, Terrell Bell (as cited in McGuinn, 2006). As McGuinn (2006) explained, the report “painted a dire portrait of the country’s public schools and highlighted how far
America’s students lagged behind their foreign counterparts on academic achievement tests” (p. 43). These findings alarmed the public and were used to make the case for more federal involvement in public education (McGuinn, 2006). As McGuinn (2006) pointed out, “The report’s title also emphasized the authors’ conclusion that although education had long been primarily a state issue, the dire performance of American students had become a national problem” (p. 43).
This perception that America’s schools were failing would be at the center of political rhetoric, and the basis for legislation in federal education policy leading up to the passage of NCLB (McGuinn, 2006). In a 1988 campaign speech, George H. W. Bush said,
Our schools are absolutely not as good as they must be . . .[and] to achieve quality results we must set and enforce standards, provide incentives, and permit the freedom and flexibility on the local level to experiment with new ideas. (as cited in McGuinn, 2006, p. 53)
During his presidency, Bush attempted to change the role of the federal government from one of simply spending more money on education to a national system of standards and

11 testing (McGuinn, 2006). Although his attempt to legislate such a change with America
2000 failed, his efforts began the standards movement that soon took over the American public education system (McGuinn, 2006).
The standards and accountability movement gained even more strength with the
Clinton administration in the form of Goals 2000 and the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA
(McGuinn, 2006). Goals 2000 created a voluntary system calling for states to create standards and testing to measure academic performance (McGuinn, 2006). The reauthorization of ESEA made this system a requirement in order to be eligible for federal funds (McGuinn, 2006). Clinton’s reforms, according to McGuinn (2006), “would later form the core of the 2000 No Child Left Behind Act – such as standards, assessments, adequate yearly progress, school choice, and corrective action” (p. 101).
In 2002, George W. Bush signed NCLB into law, and greatly expanded the role of the federal government in public education (McGuinn, 2006). McGuinn (2006) explained,
In essence, Goals 2000 encouraged states to create standards, testing, and accountability systems but NCLB requires it, and these requirements will have an enormous impact on how public schools are governed and what goes on in classrooms across America. (p. 182)
Specifically, NCLB required states to adopt academic standards and tests to measure student achievement. NCLB also required that states “make student test results publicly available and disaggregated for certain groups of students, including major racial and

12 ethnic groups, major income groups, students with a disability, students with limited
English proficiency, and migrant students” (McGuinn, 2006). Additionally, NCLB required states to set and meet annual benchmarks bringing all students to proficiency by
2014, or face increasingly harsh penalties (McGuinn, 2006). As McGuinn (2006) summarized, “The U.S. Department of Education now functions as a national schoolmarm, hovering over state school reform efforts and whacking those states that fail to record satisfactory and timely progress toward federal education goals with financial penalties and mandatory corrective action” (p. 195).
The passage of NCLB and the current culture of standards and accountability were based on the assumption that America’s public schools are failing, which was established with the publication of A Nation at Risk (McGuinn, 2006). As pervasive as this assumption has become, there are those who have challenged its validity. In their book,
The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public
Schools , David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle (1995) disputed the charges against the public schools.
One of the assertions made by A Nation at Risk was that American students are scoring lower on standardized tests (as cited in Berliner & Biddle, 1995). Berliner and
Biddle (1995) argued to the contrary. First, they examined SAT scores from the 1970s through the early 1990s. They argued that while aggregated data showed a slight decrease in SAT scores, to look at aggregated data alone is misleading (Berliner & Biddle, 1995).
When disaggregated, the data actually showed that the “average SAT scores were nearly

13 constant for white students, but the scores increased for every minority group during this period” (Berliner & Biddle, 1995, p. 20). Additionally, Berliner and Biddle (1995) argued that since the SAT is a voluntary test, taken by students who desire college admittance, the data actually reflected that more students from more diverse backgrounds had become engaged in higher education ().
A Nation at Risk also asserted that American students performed poorly when compared to students in other nations (as cited in Berliner & Biddle, 1995). Berliner and
Biddle (1995) argued that aggregated comparative data is not valid for several reasons.
First, they argued that the education systems of different countries reflect the unique values of those countries and are therefore incomparable (Berliner & Biddle, 1995). They explained,
For example, countries in continental Europe have traditionally used stiff national exams to sort out students at the end of primary or junior-high, and only those who pass such exams are allowed to enter specialized high schools, gymnasia , that prepare them for university entrance. Many Asian countries also use such examinations today, but the United States does not. Does it make any sense, then, to compare the average national achievements of high school students in mathematics, science, or literature from countries with such disparate systems of education? (Berliner & Biddle, 1995, p. 52)
Second, the authors argued that while American testing reflects the diversity of students in our schools, there is evidence that comparable tests in other countries may

14 reflect only a select group of their students (Berliner & Biddle, 1995, p. 54). Third,
Berliner and Biddle (1995) explained that there are differences in the schedule of the curriculum between different education systems. They cited scholar Ian Westbury’s analysis of The Second International Mathematics Study , a study conducted in 1982 by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (Berliner &
Biddle, 1995). Westbury found that Japanese students had exposure to Algebra two years earlier than most students in the United States, and therefore had higher algebra scores
(as cited in Berliner & Biddle, 1995). When Westbury compared only those students who had actually had exposure to algebra, he found that American students scored equal to or higher than their Japanese counterparts (as cited in Berliner & Biddle, 1995).
Perhaps America’s schools are not all doing so bad. Berliner and Biddle (1995) also cited a 1993 study by the National Center for Education Statistics by that found
“Americans are far more likely to complete higher education than are people in other western countries” (Berliner & Biddle, p. 61). That has to be an indicator that something is going right in our system. The authors point out, however, that our system is not equitable. While some schools are doing very well, some schools are left to fail. We have huge discrepancies in funding between the schools serving the poor and schools serving the wealthy (Berliner & Biddle, 1995). The authors made a number of recommendations for improving public education, for example reducing school size and providing more equitable funding for poor districts (Berliner & Biddle, 1995).

15
There are numerous researchers who have claimed that NCLB is not achieving its goals. Listening to Teachers: Classroom Realities and No Child Left Behind , a 2004 study published by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, challenged the effectiveness of NCLB and its mandates (Sunderman, Tracey, Kim, & Orfield, 2004).
The study asserted that NCLB is based on two main ideas. First, it is based on the idea that “external accountability and the imposition of sanctions will force schools to improve and motivate teachers to change their instructional practice, resulting in better student performance” (Sunderman et al., 2004, p. 10). Second, “that market mechanisms will lead to school improvement” (Sunderman et al., 2004, p. 10). Since these two assumptions targeted many of the reform efforts at teachers, the authors of the study surveyed teachers to see what they think about NCLB and it effectiveness.
The study surveyed teachers at schools identified as needing improvement and schools identified as making adequate progress, and the surveys revealed some telling criticisms of NCLB (Sunderman et al., 2004). First, teachers at both types of schools
“rejected the idea that the testing requirements would focus teachers’ instruction or improve the curriculum. Instead these reforms created the unintended consequence of narrowing the curriculum and focusing instruction on the tested subjects” (Sunderman et al., 2004, p. 35). Teachers also believed that identifying schools as needing improvement would cause teachers to transfer out the neediest schools (Sunderman et al., 2004).
Interestingly, teachers did not reject NCLB completely, but in general the teachers surveyed,

16
Accept the idea of accountability but believe it has been pushed too far and is being used in a counterproductive way that narrows education and unfairly burdens schools serving very poorly prepared students without requiring any changes in the conditions that make some schools profoundly unequal.
(Sunderman et al., 2004, p. 43)
Linda Darling-Hammond continued the criticism against NCLB in her 2004 essay, “From ‘Separate but Equal’ to ‘No Child Left Behind’: The Collision of New
Standards and Old Inequalities.” Her essay, published in a collection of essays challenging the law, focused on the inequalities created by NCLB. She reminded readers that NCLB was originally supported by civil rights leaders for its admirable goal to “raise the achievement levels of all students, especially underperforming groups, and to close the achievement gap that parallels race and class distinction” (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 3). Despite the stated intentions, Darling-Hammond (2004) argued that the law is actually harming those students it claims to help. She wrote:
As the evidence of NCLB’s unintended consequences emerges, it seems increasingly clear that, despite its good intentions and admirable goals, NCLB as currently implemented is more likely to harm than to help most of the students who are the targets of its aspirations, and it is more likely to undermine—some would even say destroy—the nation’s public education system than to improve it.
These outcomes are likely because the underfunded bill layers onto a grossly unequal—and in many communities, inadequately funded—school system a set of

17 unmeetable test score targets that disproportionately penalize schools serving the neediest students. (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 4)
Darling-Hammond (2004) further illustrated the inequities exacerbated by NCLB by pointing out that under the law a school can be labeled as needing improvement if one of its subgroups fails to meet its set target score on the standardized tests. This is a problem on a number of levels. First, it creates an absurd situation for schools serving
English language learners and students with disabilities. English language learners, or
Limited English Proficient (LEP) students and students with disabilities “are assigned to these subgroups because they cannot meet the standard, and they are typically removed from the subgroup when they do meet the standard. Thus these schools will not ever be able to meet the annual AYP” (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 10). Additionally, Darling-
Hammond (2004) described what some researchers have coined ‘the diversity penalty.’ It has been found that “schools serving poor, minority, and LEP students and those with a greater number of subgroups for which they are held accountable are disproportionately identified as ‘needing improvement’” (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 12). The more diverse the student population, the more likely the school will fail under NCLB.
Another researcher, Alfie Kohn further challenged the use of high stakes testing in his 2000 book, The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools . Kohn (2000) brought up a number of issues regarding the high-stakes testing. First, Kohn (2000) argued that test scores actually reflect the socio-economic status of students rather than their level of intelligence. Kohn explained,

18
Research has repeatedly found that the amount of poverty in the community where schools are located, along with other variables having nothing to do with what happens in the classrooms, accounts for the great majority of the difference in test scores from one area to the next…Only someone ignorant or dishonest would present a ranking of schools’ test results as though it told us about the quality of teaching that went on in those schools when, in fact, it primarily tells us about socioeconomic status and available resources. (Kohn, 2000, p. 7)
Another criticism Kohn found with high-stakes testing under NCLB, is that many of the tests are norm-referenced (Kohn, 2000). As previously noted, NCLB requires all students to be proficient by 2014. Kohn (2000) explained that this is an impossibility using norm-referenced test. Norm referenced tests are set up so that, “Exactly 10 percent of those who take the test will score in the top ten percent, and half will always fall below the median…A good score on a NRT means ‘better than other people’” (Kohn, 2000). On a norm-referenced test it is impossible for 100% of the students taking it to pass because it is by definition comparing and ranking students against the other students who took the test.
Kohn (2000) also asserted that high-stakes testing has “radically altered the kind of instruction that is offered in American schools, to the point that ‘teaching to the test’ has become a prominent part of the educational landscape” (p. 29). He argued that due to pressure from testing, teachers are forced to neglect the subjects that are not tested (Kohn,
2000). Kohn (2000) further claimed that this narrowing of the curriculum is further

19 exacerbated by a general decline in the quality of instruction. He explained,
“Standardized tests…tend to measure the temporary acquisition of facts and skills, including the skills of test-taking itself, more than genuine understanding” (Kohn, 2000, p. 37). Teachers focus their teaching on the skills that will allow students to perform well on the test. This results in a ‘dumbing down’ of the curriculum, for “the test essentially becomes the curriculum” (Kohn, 2000, p. 29). This is especially true in schools serving poor and minority children. Kohn (2000) explained,
To be sure, many city schools that serve low-income children of color were second-rate to begin with. Now, however, some of these schools, in Chicago,
Houston, Baltimore, and elsewhere, are arguably becoming third -rate as the pressures of high-stakes testing lead to a more systematic use of low-level, drilland-skill teaching, often in the context of packaged programs purchased by school districts…The more that poor children fill in worksheets on command (in an effort to raise their test scores), the further they fall behind affluent kids who are more likely to get lessons that help them understand ideas. And if the drilling does result in higher scores, the proper response is not celebration but outrage: The test results may well have improved at the expense of real learning. (Kohn, 2000, p.
38)
Although NCLB claims to promote equity in public education, it is obvious that it has fallen short on its stated goals. As Berliner and Biddle (1995) argued, the entire standards and accountability movement that has shaped the law was perhaps founded on

20 a false premise. No matter how it began, many researchers have shown that our neediest students are not being helped, but in fact under NCLB, public education in the United
States has become even less equitable.
Part II: A Case for the Arts in Education
NCLB and the current culture of high stakes testing have caused a severe narrowing of the curriculum in American public schools. Many schools, feeling the pressure to make their adequate yearly progress, have simply stopped teaching the subjects that are not tested. This means that many of our students receive limited or no instruction at all in science, social studies, and the arts. Central to the topic of this paper is the loss of the arts, and what that means for our students and our society.
In his book of personal essays, The Kind of Schools We Need , Eliot Eisner (1998) advocated strongly for the arts in education based on their unique contribution to the development of mind. The arts, according to Eisner, help develop sophisticated forms of thinking in several unique ways. First, the arts teach that there are multiple ways to solve a problem (Eisner, 1998). Eisner (1998) stated, “They celebrate imagination, multiple perspectives, and the importance of personal interpretation” (p. 82). In this way, the arts counter the one size fits all approach to education that exists today. Standardized education teaches students that there is only one correct answer. Life in the real world requires individuals to deal with others and think creatively to come up with solutions to the problems we are faced with. Creative problem solving is inherent to the arts, and necessary for the successful navigation of life.

21
Second, according to Eisner (1998), the arts teach that form is a part of content.
He said that in schools form is too often separated from content, and that we too quickly assign form to categories (Eisner, 1998). This categorization is undesirable because once something is categorized its subtleties are no longer perceived (Eisner, 1998). Eisner
(1998) explained, “when entities are assigned to categories, the exploration of their uniqueness stops” (p. 82). In Eisner’s view, the exploration of uniqueness is something schools should strive for not eliminate.
Next, Eisner (1998) argued that the arts develop an important flexibility regarding goals and outcomes. The arts teach “that being open to the unanticipated opportunities that inevitably emerge in the context of action increases insight; and that purposeful flexibility rather than rigid adherence to prior plans is more likely to yield something of value” (Eisner, 1998, p. 84). In the current climate of high stakes testing and content standards, rigidity to goals is encouraged over flexibility. Teachers and students are to stick to the standards or scripted curriculum without regard to where they actually are in their understanding and interests. Artists don’t know when they begin a work, what the final work will look like. Art is a process. Life is also a process; it requires flexibility and adaptation. As we gain experience our insight changes, and where we thought we were headed may need to be adjusted. Art, according to Eisner (1998), helps us develop this flexibility.
Finally, the arts foster discovery as well as expression (Eisner, 1998). It is commonly known that the arts are a place where what lives inside an individual can be

22 expressed outwardly for the public to view or experience (Eisner, 1998). Art also provides for discovery. “Discovery occurs as students learn through adventures in the arts something of the possibilities of human experience…In other words, the arts can help students find their individual capacity to feel and imagine” (Eisner, 1998, p. 85). Eisner
(1998) emphasized that this capacity for feeling and imagination, although discovered through the arts, carries over into other subjects and areas of the individual’s life. The arts are a vehicle for discovering ones potential to imagine what they can do or become.
Eisner (1998) built a strong case for the importance of the arts in education, but the benefits of arts education he describes are difficult to measure. Eisner (1998) acknowledged that he is continually asked to justify the arts as they relate to improved performance in other academic areas. His concern, however, is not how the arts can help students achieve in other subjects, but the value of the arts on the development of ways of thinking. He did not deny that the arts may in fact have a positive influence on academic achievement, but cautioned educators not to use this as a justification for arts education.
He warned that such justifications “legitimate the marginal position assigned to the arts by those looking for such justifications” (Eisner, 1998, p. 95).
Despite Eisner’s concern, there is a current body of research on the arts, cognition, and academic achievement that should be taken into consideration. In 2008, a group of studies was published called Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana
Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition (Asbury & Rich, 2008). According to its organizer, Michael S. Gazzaniga (2008), in his written summary “Arts and Cognition:

23
Findings Hint at Relationship,” this report was the result of three years of studies conducted by neuroscientists to examine the question of arts training and whether it
“changes the brain to enhance general cognitive capacities” (p. vi). While the studies did not completely prove direct causal links between arts training and other forms of cognition, they found enough evidence to merit the continuation of further studies, and much of what they found is relevant to this discussion (Gazzaniga, 2008).
Most of the studies found evidence of some link between the arts and other areas of cognition. One study, “Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems at the Foundations of Mathematics and Science,” conducted by Elizabeth Spelke (2008) of Harvard University, examined the effects of musical training on mathematical ability.
Spelke (2008) questioned if musical training activates the same brain systems necessary for mathematical reasoning. A link between musical training and mathematical ability was found. Spelke (2008) stated that in her study, “music-trained students outperform students with no music training on tasks that involve geometric representations and reasoning” (p. 46). Another study, “Training in the Arts, Reading, and Brain Imaging,” conducted at Stanford University by Brian Wandell, Robert F. Dougherty, Michal Ben-
Shachar, Gayle K. Deutsch, and Jessica Tsang (2008) discovered a “correlation between the amount of music training and the amount of improvement in reading fluency in children” (p. 58). Kevin Niall Dunbar (2008) of the University of Toronto at Scarborough found a link between training in the performing arts and the ability to generate novel ideas in his study “Arts Education, the Brain, and Language (Part 1)” (p. 90). A second

24 study at the University of Toronto, “Arts Education, the Brain, Language (Part 2)” by
Laura-Ann Petitto (2008) found that musicians had greater success at attaining a second language. Although each of these studies examines only a small aspect of the effects of the arts on other cognitive abilities, together they provide strong evidence that there is a relationship between training in the arts and greater academic performance.
Whether it is the immeasurable intrinsic value outlined by Eisner (1998) in the creation of more sophisticated forms of thinking, or the more concrete evidence described by the studies of the Dana Foundation, it is obvious that the arts have something important to contribute to the development of young minds. It should be equally obvious that the elimination of the arts from our public schools is at the very least limiting, if not outright damaging, to the students they serve.
Part III: A Question of Equity and Democracy
Despite its stated goal of a quality education for all students, it appears that NCLB has created just the opposite. High poverty schools face greater pressure to raise test scores than those schools serving students of lower poverty levels. In response to this pressure, schools serving low-income and minority students are forced to narrow their curriculum to the subjects tested, thus eliminating all other subjects including the arts.
The result of this narrowing is an educational system fostering greater and greater inequity.
An Unfinished Canvas , a 2007 study by K.R. Woodworth, H.A. Gallagher, and R.
Guha, examined the state of arts education in California and provided some interesting

25 insight into this issue of equity. The study found that despite the state adopting rigorous curriculum standards for the arts, many schools do not have an arts program that sufficiently and comprehensively covers those standards (Woodworth et al., 2007). The two biggest obstacles they found that schools face in implementing a comprehensive arts program are inadequate funding and pressure to raise test scores (Woodworth et al.,
2007). The study noted that this is especially true for high poverty schools in which little outside funding is available and the pressure to raise test scores is even greater
(Woodworth et al., 2007). The researchers found that “37% of high-poverty schools fail to provide a standards-based course of study in any arts discipline, compared with 22% of low-poverty schools,” and that, “nearly half of students (45%) attending low-poverty schools receive music instruction, compared with only a quarter of students (25%) attending high-poverty schools” (Woodworth et al., 2007, p. 12). After considering these facts and the important role that the arts play in the development of mind, the issue of inequity begins to become clearer.
Eisner stated that, “the use of mind is the most potent means of its development what schools allow children to think about shapes, in ways perhaps more significant than we realize, the kind of minds they come to own” (Eisner, 1998, p. 117). When students are given access to the arts they are given the opportunity to think of a diversity of things in a diversity of ways. The arts create opportunities for important ways of thinking.
Students develop minds and ways of thinking according to the opportunities they are given. By not having access to the arts, children are missing out on more than seasonal

26 arts and crafts projects; they are missing important opportunities to develop more sophisticated forms of thinking.
While Eisner (1998) advocates for schools to be places that develop individual mind and thought, another author, Don Arnstine (1995), gave us some possible insight as to why schools aren’t. In chapter 1 of his book,
Democracy and the Arts of Schooling ,
Arnstine (1995) argued that schools have a dual role of not just education, but of socialization as well. He said, “To be socialized…is to become effectively adapted to the patterns of behavior, the customs, and the values of the social group to which you are born” (Arnstine, 1995, p. 5). In the past, socialization happened in the home and community (Arnstine, 1995). Societies are now more complicated and diverse than ever before, making informal socialization difficult (Arnstine, 1995). As a result, schools took on the formal socialization of the young (Arnstine, 1995).
According to Arnstine (1995), the aims of education and socialization are conflicting. Socialization “aims not to cultivate thought, but simply to adjust the young to their world, and it succeeds when the learner effectively acquires values and modes of action that are approved by society” (Arnstine, 1995, p. 9). The goal of socialization is conformity without thought (Arnstine, 1995). In contrast, “education, unlike socialization, aims at understanding and critical judgment. It succeeds when learners can find their own reasons for what they believe and what they think is worth doing”
(Arnstine, 1995, p. 10). The goal of education is not necessarily nonconformity, but the

27 development of critical thinking in the individual so they can make their own decisions
(Arnstine, 1995).
With accountability and high stakes testing dominating the curriculum, the arts have been squeezed out of our schools. This has resulted in a limiting of the kinds of minds children have the opportunity to develop (Eisner, 1998). Students are tested in reading and mathematics, so reading and mathematics have become the focus of some of our schools. Thinking, creating, and problem solving are nowhere to be found. If we want our schools to ready the next generation for participation in democracy, we need to bring the arts back into the classroom. We need all schools to produce independent thinkers, critical enough to solve our problems, creative enough to imagine the possibilities of our future and capable enough to make those possibilities a reality.
Arnstine says, “While socialization is expected of all children, history does not reveal any society that has tried to educate all of its children” (Arnstine, 1995, p. 10).
While NCLB claims to seek a quality education for all students, it appears to be perpetuating a system that educates some, while only socializing others. Under NCLB the schools in our more affluent communities provide rich opportunities to develop young minds, while the education of poor and minority children has been distilled down to the drilling of testable skills in limited subjects. As a result of NCLB, poor and minority children are being denied the opportunity to develop to their full potential. They are being denied an equal education. This is a shameful injustice.

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Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS
Setting
This study focused on four schools in one county. The selected county was a small, mostly rural county located in Northern California, with a few suburban towns and one urban community. The schools were selected from four very distinct communities within the county. One school is in an affluent university town, one school is in a small rural community, one school is in a small town, and one school is in an urban community. The schools were selected because of the diverse and contrasting student populations they served especially in regard to socioeconomic status. Pseudonyms were used for all names referenced in the study.
The first school was Poppy Elementary School. It is located in a small suburban town that was home to a major university. Many of the families in the community were somehow affiliated with the university. The community took a very active role in supporting and funding the local schools. A private foundation was created by parents to raise extra funds for the local schools in support of maintaining teacher positions and funding special projects. Each school site had a very active PTA that also raised additional funds for special programs.
Poppy Elementary is a kindergarten through sixth grade school that served approximately 570 students (Ed-Data, 2010b). It is an affluent school with approximately
12% of their students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (Ed-Data, 2010b). Two

29 subgroups were numerically significant and could be used to determine their AYP: White and Asian (DataQuest, 2010b). Five percent of Poppy’s students were considered English
Language Learners (EL) (Ed-Data, 2010b). The school had to meet 13 criteria in order to make their AYP and their API was 916 for the 2008-2009 school year (DataQuest,
2010b).
The second school was Thistle Elementary, located in a very small rural town.
The school served a greater community, which included several other small rural towns and the surrounding unincorporated areas. Most of the community was involved in agricultural work or employed by a nearby casino. The school also served a significant migrant population that came to work in the surrounding area on a seasonal basis.
Thistle Elementary is a kindergarten through 5 th
grade school serving approximately 488 students (Ed-Data, 2010d). It is a much less affluent school than
Poppy, with 71% of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (Ed-Data, 2010d).
Thistle had four subgroups that were numerically significant and used to determine AYP:
White, Hispanic, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, and EL (DataQuest, 2010d). Fortythree percent of the schools’ students were considered EL (Ed-Data, 2010d). The school had 21 criteria to meet in order to make their AYP, and their API was 739 for the 2008-
2009 school year (DataQuest, 2010d).
The third school selected for the study was Rose Elementary School, located in a small city that served the local farm area. This community is the county seat where much of the economy is centered on agriculture.

30
Rose Elementary school is a kindergarten through 6 th
grade campus, serving approximately 434 students (Ed-Data, 2010c). It was a low-income school with 78% of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (Ed-Data, 2010c). Rose had four subgroups numerically significant and used to determine AYP: White, Hispanic or
Latino, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, and EL (DataQuest, 2010c). EL students made up 38% of their student population (Ed-Data, 2010c). Rose had 21 criteria to meet for AYP and their API for 2008-2009 was 806 (Dataquest, 2010c).
The fourth school selected for the study was Dandelion Elementary School located in the county’s only urban community. This community’s major industries are retail, manufacturing, and shipping. It is a very culturally diverse city and home to many different immigrant groups.
Dandelion was a kindergarten through 8 th grade school, serving approximately
491 students (Ed-Data, 2010a). It was the lowest income school in the study with 90% of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (Ed-Data, 2010a). Dandelion had three subgroups that were numerically significant and used to determine AYP: Hispanic or
Latino, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, and EL (DataQuest, 2010a). Fifty-three percent of their students were classified as EL (Ed-Data, 2010a). The school had 17 criteria to meet in order to make AYP, and their API score for 2008-2009 was 688
(DataQuest, 2010a). At the time of this study, it was in its 4 th
year of program improvement (DataQuest, 2010a) (see Table 2).

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Table 2
Demographic Comparison of Schools
Community
% of Students on Free and
Reduced Lunch
Poppy
Suburban
12%
Thistle
Rural
71%
Rose
Suburban
78%
Dandelion
Urban
90%
% EL Students
# of AYP Criteria
Number of Subgroups
API Score for 2008-2009
5%
13
2
916
43%
21
4
739
38%
21
4
807
53%
17
3
688
Sources: http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ and http://www.Ed-Data.k12.ca.us
Research Practices
The main focus of this study was to see if NCLB promoted equity in education as it claimed to do, and to see if low-income and minority students were disproportionately affected by its mandates. As critics have argued, the system of high stakes testing created by NCLB has forced schools serving low-income and minority students to eliminate some subjects, especially the arts, and focus on tested subjects only. This study used three sources of data from each of the four schools: a teacher survey, teacher interviews, and one interview of a county administrator.

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The Teacher Survey
The purpose of the teacher survey was to collect quantitative data regarding instructional minutes at each school, and to get a measure of teacher attitudes regarding testing and their school. Surveys were distributed to all of the teachers at each school site.
Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The survey was made up of three main sections: questions about the teacher, questions about instructional minutes, and questions to gauge the attitude of the teacher regarding testing and the school. Since the study focused on the arts, there was additional space for teachers to detail any special activities or instruction students received in the arts. There was also a place for teachers to write their name and contact information if they were willing to participate in the interview portion of the study (see Figure 1).

33
Teacher Survey
1.
What grade do you teach? __________
2.
How many years have you been teaching? __________
3.
How many years have you been teaching your current grade? ___________
4.
Based on a typical school week , please indicate how many minutes per week your students receive instruction, from you or another teacher, in the following subjects:
Dance
No instruction Less than 30 minutes
Between 30-60 minutes
More than 60 minutes
Music
Theater
Visual Arts
Science
Social
Studies
5.
Based on a typical school day , please indicate how many minutes per day your students receive instruction, from you or another teacher, in the following subjects:
Language Arts: __________ Math: __________

34
6.
Please respond to the following statements:
Strongly
Agree
I am free to modify or stray from our adopted curriculum based on my students needs.
Agree Disagree Strongly
Disagree
My students receive a rich and broad curriculum.
State mandated standardized testing has a positive effect on student learning in my classroom.
7.
Please describe any special experiences your students had in the arts this year, for example field trips or visiting artists. Continue on back, if necessary.
***If you are willing to participate in a brief interview, please leave your name and contact information on the back of your survey. Thank You!
Figure 1 . Teacher Survey
The first section of the survey collected general information about each teacher. It consisted of three questions. Question 1: “What grade do you teach?” It was important to identify the grade level of the teacher taking each survey in order to identify any trends that might occur by grade level. Testing did not happen in every grade, so it is reasonable to assume that the effects of high stakes testing were different in grades that were not actually tested. Question 2: “How many years have you been teaching?” Some critics argued that one of effects of NCLB is that the most experienced teachers will transfer out

35 of the low performing schools, leaving those schools with the least experienced teachers
(Darling-Hammond, 2004). Identifying years of teaching experience at each school would show if that trend was evident in the selected schools. Question 3: “How many years have you been teaching at your current grade level?” The purpose of this question was to gauge the level of experience of the teacher taking the survey. A teacher new to a grade level may have felt the effects of high stakes testing differently from a teacher who was more experienced at that grade level.
The second section of the survey, questions 4 and 5, focused on measuring instructional minutes devoted to each subject.
Question 4 was in the form of a table that asked, “Based on a typical school week , please indicate how many minutes per week your students receive instruction, from you or another teacher, in the following subjects:
Dance, Music, Theater, Visual Arts, Science, and Social Studies.” For each subject there were four choices for the number of instructional minutes. The choices were: “no instruction, less than 30 minutes, between 30 and 60 minutes, and more than 60 minutes”.
Dance, music, theater and visual art were included as subjects because this study was especially focused on the elimination of the arts from public education. These were the four strands that were identified in the Visual and Performing Arts standards for the state of California (O’Malley, 2001). Like the arts, social studies was not a tested subject.
Social studies was included in the survey question because it was valuable to see how much instructional time each school devoted to subjects that were not tested. At the elementary school level, science was tested only in the fifth grade, based on fourth and

36 fifth grade standards. Science was included in the survey question because of its unique testing status. If in fact the curriculum was narrowing to cover only those subjects that are tested, it was reasonable to assume that different grade levels would devote different amounts instructional time to certain subjects.
Question 5 continued to examine instructional minutes, but this time on tested subjects: “Based on a typical school day , please indicate the number of minutes per day your students receive instruction, from you or another teacher, in the following subjects: language arts and math”. Blank spaces were left next to each of the two subjects for the teacher to write in the actual number of minutes per day. Language arts and math were included in the survey because they were the two subjects that were tested at every grade level. Question 5 specified minutes per day because typically teachers were required to teach those two core subjects for a specified number of minutes each school day.
Whereas question four specified minutes per week because those subjects, if taught at all, were generally not guaranteed minutes each day.
The third section of the survey focused on teacher attitude or opinion regarding their school and standardized testing. This section consisted of one question, with three statements that the teachers were to respond to. For each statement the teachers had four response choices: “Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.” The first statement was as follows, “I am free to modify or stray from our adopted curriculum based on my students’ needs.” The purpose of the first statement was to measure how much control teachers felt they had over what they taught. Critics argued that in an effort

37 to raise test scores, schools mandated teachers to adhere strictly to adopted curricula
(Darling-Hammond, 2004). This would undermine the professional capacity of the teacher to make curriculum decisions for her students. The second statement was, “My students receive a rich and broad curriculum.” The purpose of the second statement was to measure each teacher’s opinion on the scope and quality of the curriculum offered to their students. The final statement was, “State mandated standardized testing has a positive effect on student learning in my classroom.” The purpose of the third statement was to measure teachers’ opinions about standardized testing and their opinions on how it affected their students. All of these statements together reflected not only the attitudes and opinions of the individual teachers participating in the survey, but offered clues as to the climate of the school as a whole.
Teacher Interviews
The second part of the study was made up of teacher interviews. Teachers were self-selected in that all teachers were given the option to volunteer by indicating their willingness on the survey. The teachers who were interviewed were not only willing to take the survey, which was also voluntary, but were also willing to be interviewed confidentially. The interview consisted of seven questions specific to the teacher, and three general questions about the school.
The first seven interview questions were to get information specific to the teacher.
The first seven questions were:
1.
“What is your favorite thing about teaching?”

38
2.
“What do you find to be the most challenging thing about teaching?”
3.
“Have you worked at other schools? If so, how were they the same or different from your current school?”
4.
“Do you feel pressure from testing? How? Do you think others at your school feel pressure from testing?”
5.
“What are your impressions of NCLB?”
6.
“Are the arts supported at your school? If yes, how so?”
7.
“Are you familiar with the VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts) standards?
Do you use them in your teaching?”
Questions 1 and 2 were used to get the teachers thinking and talking about their teaching. They could also be used for comparison purposes between schools. It was worthwhile to examine the differences and similarities of the teachers’ experiences at each of the four schools because different teaching situations present different teaching rewards and challenges. Question 3 was used to determine if teachers had experiences in other schools and how those experiences compared to their current school. This question allowed us to gather multiple perspectives from each teacher. It also allowed us to find out if any of the teachers had moved from a low-income school to a higher income school or vice versa. Question 4 was used to measure the level of pressure that teachers felt due to high-stakes testing, and to determine if teachers serving low-income populations felt more or less pressure due to testing. Question 5 gauged teachers’ opinions of the law
NCLB. Through this question one could see how teachers viewed the law and its

39 mandates. This offered a contrast to the survey that didn’t mention NCLB but did ask about standardized testing. This showed teachers’ understandings about the law, and how much they thought it affected them and their students. Question 6 was used to measure how much each teacher thought arts were supported in their school and was used as a comparison between the four different schools. Question 7 was to measure the teachers’ awareness of and use of the VAPA standards. It was important to know if these standards were being used.
The last three questions of the interview were used to get specific information about each school. These were important details that helped build the profile of each school and further develop the context. The last questions were:
1.
“What are the adopted curricula for each subject at your school?”
2.
“Does your school have any specialists? If so, in what subjects?”
3.
“How are the ‘extras’ funded at your school, for example music programs, art, field trips etc.?”
County Administrator Interview
The Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the county office of education was also interviewed for the study. The purpose of this interview was to get a county wide perspective on the effects of NCLB and the state of the arts, science and social studies in the county’s schools. The first question was, “What is your job or role at the county office of education?” It was important to establish what this person’s role in the county was in order to better understand their perspective. The second question was, “Do you see

40 a narrowing of the curriculum in the county’s schools due the pressure created by
NCLB?” Working for the county office of education, the director was in a unique position to see what was happening in all schools within the county. If there was a trend between schools, he would be in the position to see it. The final three questions related specifically to the arts: “What is the state of the arts in the county’s schools?,” “Do all students in the county have equal access to the arts?,” and “What are the obstacles, if any, that schools face in implementing an arts program?” Again, his position in the county allowed him to be aware of the curriculum and programs in place in the county’s schools.
He would have a valuable perspective on issues of equity and of the state of art education in the county.
Results
Teacher Survey Results
Between the four schools, 44 teachers participated in the survey. Each school had different levels of participation. Ten out of 23 teachers completed the survey at Poppy.
Thirteen out of 19 teachers completed the survey at Rose. Five out of 19 teachers completed the survey for Dandelion. Sixteen out of 18 completed the survey for Thistle.
The first three questions of the survey provided information about the teachers who took the surveys. The results of question one showed that the study had teachers represented from each grade level. This was important when looking more deeply into the other responses, since different grade levels may have been affected differently by the mandates of NCLB. Two-thirds of the teachers who participated taught in grade levels

41 two through six which were grades that were tested annually. One-third of the participating teachers taught kindergarten or first grade which were not subject to annual standardized testing under NCLB (see Table 3).
Table 3
Number of Participating Teachers by Grade Level
Grade Number
Kindergarten
1 st
2 nd
3 rd
4 th
5 th
6 th
9
6
9
5
7
5
3
Questions 2 and 3 illustrated the experience level of participating teachers.
Responses showed both number of years teaching overall, and also the number of years each teacher had been teaching at their current grade level. Poppy had the most experienced teachers both in the average number of years they had been teaching overall and the average number of years they had been at their current grade level. Dandelion had the teachers with the least experience both overall and at their current grade level. Thistle

42 and Rose fell somewhere in between, with Thistle teachers having slightly more experience overall than the Rose teachers (see Table 4).
Table 4
Average Number of Years Teaching of Participating Teachers by School
Poppy
Years Teaching
20
Years at Grade
11
Thistle
Rose
Dandelion
18
14
13
8
9
6
The second part of the survey showed how much instructional time was allocated to each subject. Question 4 measured a range of weekly instructional minutes in the subjects that were not regularly tested: dance, theater, music, visual art, science and social studies. Question 5 gave an average of daily instructional minutes per school in reading and language arts, the two subjects that were tested annually.
Teacher responses to instructional minutes in the arts showed some interesting trends both among the schools and among the four art strands. Little instruction happened in dance or theater at any of the four schools. At least 50% of participating teachers at each school indicated that their students received no instruction in dance. At Dandelion this was the most extreme, with 100% of the participating teachers responding that their students received no dance instruction. All of the teachers in Thistle responded that their

43 students either received no instruction (63%) or less than 30 minutes (31%) of instruction in dance with the exception on one teacher. This teacher indicated that her students received more than 60 minutes of dance instruction weekly. She indicated on her survey that she had special training in Education Through Music (ETM), a program based on singing and movement, which counted as dance instruction.
Figure 2 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in dance instruction per week by school.
Theater was given only slightly more instructional time than dance at each of the four schools. The majority of teachers at all four schools indicated that their students received either no instruction or less than 30 minutes of instruction per week in theater.
Of all the schools, Poppy allocated the most instructional time to theater instruction.

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Figure 3 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in theater instruction per week by school.
Music and visual art each received more instructional time overall than dance and theater. Poppy teachers indicated that their students received the most music instruction with 70% of them responding that their students received between 30 and 60 minutes
(40%) or more than 60 minutes (30%) of instruction weekly. Dandelion teachers indicated the next greatest allocation of instructional time for music with 60% responding that their students received between 30 and 60 minutes weekly. Fifty percent of Thistle teachers indicated that the weekly instructional time for music was between 30 and 60 minutes (25%) or more than 60 minutes (25%). The majority of Rose teachers, 54%, indicated that their students received less than 30 minutes of instruction per week.

45
Figure 4 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in music instruction per week by school.
At most of the schools visual art received the most instructional minutes of all.
The majority of teachers at Poppy, Rose, and Thistle indicated that their students received between 30 and 60 or more than 60 minutes of visual art instruction each week.
Dandelion teachers indicated the opposite. Sixty percent of participating Dandelion teachers responded that their students received no instruction in visual art, 20% indicated their students received less that 30 minutes, and 20% indicated that their students received between 30 and 60 minutes of weekly visual art instruction.

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Figure 5 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in visual art instruction per week by school.
Science and social studies received more instructional time than the arts. The majority of teachers at all four schools indicated that their students received either between 30 and 60 minutes or more than 60 minutes of weekly instruction in each of the two subjects. Science received the most instructional time at Thistle Elementary with
100% of Thistle teachers indicating that their students received between 30 and 60 minutes (50%) or more than 60 minutes (50%) of weekly science instruction. Rose students received the least amount of science instruction per week; 8% of Rose teachers reported that their students received no instruction and 31% responded that their students received less than 30 minutes of science instruction each week.

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Figure 6 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in science instruction per week by school.
Poppy teachers indicated the most instructional time per week in social studies;
90% of their teachers indicated either between 30 and 60 minutes (60%) or more than 60 minutes (30%). Rose had the least amount of time spent on social studies with 15% of their teachers indicating that their students received no instruction in social studies, and
23% of their teachers indicating that their students received less than 30 minutes of social studies instruction per week. Interestingly, one first grade teacher at Dandelion wrote next to question four that she was instructed to not teach science or social studies due to
“low performing reading scores.” On the response table she indicated that her students received less than 30 minutes of instruction in either subject.

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Figure 7 . Percentage of teachers indicating the number of minutes their students received in social studies instruction per week by school.
Instructional time for language arts and math, both subjects that were tested annually, were reported by teachers as number of minutes per day for each of the two subjects. Poppy students received the least amount of instructional minutes daily in each of the two subjects. Students at Poppy spent almost 30 minutes less time on language arts each day than students at any of the other schools. Poppy averaged 86 minutes daily of language arts instruction, and 61 minutes daily of math. Dandelion had the most time each day allocated to language arts and math; their school averaged 134 minutes of language arts and 89 minutes of math daily (see Table 5).

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Table 5
Average Daily Instructional Minutes for Language Arts and Math by School
Language Arts Math
Poppy
Thistle
Rose
86
114
138
61
65
78
Dandelion 134 89
The last question on the survey measured the level of agreement teachers had to three different statements. The first statement was: “I am free to modify or stray from our adopted curriculum based on my students’ needs.” One hundred percent of the teachers at
Poppy either agreed (40%) or strongly agreed (60%) with this statement. At Dandelion, none of the teachers agreed with this statement. In fact, 80% of Dandelion teachers indicated they strongly disagreed with this statement, and 20% indicated they disagreed.
Both Rose and Thistle had a wide range of teacher responses, but the majority of teachers at each school, 77% and 69% respectively, either agreed or strongly agreed. There were no neutral responses indicated for any of the participating teachers.

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Figure 8 . Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: I am free to modify or stray from our adopted curriculum based on my students’ needs.
The next statement for which the survey measured the level of teacher agreement was: “My students receive a rich and broad curriculum.” 100% of the teachers at Poppy strongly agreed with this statement. Rose teachers also agreed that their students received a rich and broad curriculum; 77% of them agreed and 23% of Rose teachers strongly agreed. Contrastingly, 100% of the teachers at Dandelion disagreed with this statement,
60% of them strongly disagreeing. Thistle teachers were split: 69% either agreed (56%) or strongly agreed (13%), 6% indicated a neutral response, and 25% disagreed. No
Thistle teachers strongly disagreed.

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Figure 9 . Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: My students receive a rich and broad curriculum.
The final statement teachers responded to on the survey was: “State mandated standardized testing has a positive effect on student learning in my classroom.” Teacher opinion varied the most broadly with this statement across schools. Each school had a small percentage of teachers who indicated neutral by not responding, writing NA (not applicable), or marking between the agree and disagree choices on the survey. All teachers who indicated neutral were kindergarten or first grade teachers, two grade levels that were not subject to the mandated testing. There was one exception, a second grade teacher at Rose also indicated neutral, even though second grade was required to test. The majority of teachers at each school disagreed with this statement, except for teachers at
Dandelion. Dandelion teachers were split: 40% agreed, 10% indicated they were neutral, and 40% either disagreed (20%) or strongly disagreed (20%). Thistle had the largest amount of teachers indicating disagreement; 31% disagreed and 31% strongly disagreed.

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State Mandated Testing is Positive
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Pioneer
Dingle
Elkhorn
Esparto
Strongly
Agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
Disagree
Agreement
Figure 10 . Percentage of teachers by school indicating their level of agreement with the statement: State mandated standardized testing has a positive effect on student learning in my classroom.
The last question asked teachers to describe any special experiences their students had in the arts during the school year. There were dramatic differences between schools in response to this question. Poppy teachers described many rich art experiences had by their students. Poppy students attended musicals at a local theater company. They visited art galleries and museums. They had art lessons from professional visiting artists. They worked with a professional musician to create an original musical performance. One class participated in a recycled art fair at their local farmer’s market, and another class had their sunflower paintings displayed at the local art center. Students attended choral concerts, and some had guest musicians play for them in their classrooms. Some studied a musical instrument and were members of the school orchestra. All primary classes

53 received weekly half hour music lessons funded by the PTA and taught by a “terrific credentialed music teacher.”
Contrastingly, Dandelion teachers described very few special art experiences. A blues group performed once for the fourth and fifth grade students. There was a school talent show. A kindergarten teacher referred to an art curriculum that she uses, and another teacher said that she took her class on three fieldtrips, but did not indicate where they went. She did say, however, that they had to raise the money themselves to pay for the trips.
Rose teachers described more experiences than Dandelion, but not nearly as many as Poppy. At Rose many of the students had university interns teach weekly art lessons for eight-week sessions. They attended plays at a local opera house. One class visited a museum. The school was also part of a grant that paid for school-wide dance and singing lessons. Students received ten hours of instruction, and then were in a performance. One teacher did art every Friday, and other teachers described how they regularly integrated art projects with social studies. A sixth grade teacher used pop songs to teach language arts concepts.
Students at Thistle had a similar variety of special art experiences. Thistle students attended plays at their local high school’s newly remodeled theater. Two plays were put on by high school students and two by professional theater companies. Some classes went to neighboring cities to see play performances. Several teachers brought in friends or family members to teach special art lessons like cartoon drawing. Fourth grade

54 students learned to square dance as part of a social studies unit. Two teachers incorporated lesson from “Education Through Music.” Four teachers went through a
Master’s program in the arts and have incorporated various things they learned into their classrooms. One of those teachers established a weekly first grade sing along for her thesis project. Special funding paid for a local sculptor to help all first through fifth grade students complete a ceramics project. Third, fourth and fifth grade students had the opportunity to participate in an after school choir that was funded by a local casino.
Teacher Interviews
Each of the four schools was represented in the teacher interviews. Eight teachers in all volunteered to be interviewed: three from Poppy, one from Rose, two from Thistle, and two from Dandelion. There was at least one teacher interviewed from each grade level, kindergarten through sixth grade. Summaries of the interviews revealed interesting commonalities and dramatic differences between the teachers and the schools in which they teach.
The first teacher interviewed from Poppy was Mrs. Green. Mrs. Green taught kindergarten, and had been teaching for 10 years. Her favorite part of teaching was the kids. She loved their personalities and the funny things they said. The most challenging part of teaching for her was keeping organized. She had always worked at Poppy, expect for one year of substitute teaching in a nearby city. Comparing the schools that she substituted in and Poppy, she said the biggest difference she saw was the high level of

55 volunteerism at Poppy, not only from parents but from the whole community. They often had college interns helping out in their classrooms.
As a kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Green did not feel pressure from standardized testing, but she did express some concern over NCLB. She noted that she didn’t feel she had first-hand knowledge of NCLB, but that her impressions were that it was punishing, instead of helping or supportive. She said it was “all whip and no carrot.” She also noted about Poppy,
We have high test scores, so they have never bugged us. So I am not worried about what might happen to me if I stay at this school. If I was at a school that was more struggling, I would be worried about someone always looking over my shoulder; maybe looking at things that aren’t necessarily good teaching but just test score things.
She added that she would be concerned that some teachers might be tempted to cheat on testing if their jobs or pay were on the line.
Mrs. Green believed that the arts are greatly supported at Poppy. The arts are part of the culture of the school. She said, “Our test scores are high, so we don’t feel we have to spend every waking minute drilling math or something.” She described rich art experiences had by her students. This included a special music teacher that was hired by the PTA to give weekly lessons to all primary classes. These lessons included singing, some percussion, and reading music. Field trips and art projects were paid for by parent donation or out of her classroom budget. She also said she could go to the PTA for any

56 other funding needs. She was familiar with the VAPA standards. She didn’t have them committed to memory, but was confident that they were being met.
Mrs. Carlson was the second teacher interviewed from Poppy. She taught 6 th grade, and had been teaching for 18 years. She couldn’t pick one favorite thing about teaching. She loved the kids and watching them grow. She loved collaborating with her peers. She loved working with families to make sure they felt like they were a part of their children’s education. She said, “I just never get tired of it.”
The most challenging part of teaching for her was policy coming down that didn’t match her educational philosophy. Before she taught at Poppy, Mrs. Carlson taught for 14 years in another city. She grew frustrated in her prior school because they began to
“determine success based on test results, and based on lots of worksheets.” She recognized that she would be teaching for many more years, and couldn’t see teaching there any longer. She gave up her seniority at her old district to work at Poppy because she felt at Poppy they valued education and the whole child. Her husband still worked at her old school, and he had been reprimanded that year for teaching with novels instead of their adopted curriculum.
A major difference she found between her old school and Poppy was the amount of support teachers had from families and the district. She said that the families were
“success motivated” and the kids all thought they were going to college. The parents were very active and supportive. When the district was going to have to cut teacher positions and eliminate class size reduction, the parents protested and raised the money to

57 avoid the cuts. Additionally, she felt she and her colleagues had the support she needed to help all students. She said that when they had struggling students the district offered support not blame. She felt no pressure regarding testing.
Her impressions of NCLB were mixed. She believed that the standards were good for education, but she felt it unfairly judged teachers. She didn’t think that a teachers performance should be measured by their students test scores. She said,
I want to work with the kids who struggle and I don’t want to not be O.K. because of it. I have worked with GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) kids, and I have worked with kids who struggle, and everybody in between. They are who they are. It’s not like I am a better teacher because I am working with the GATE kids and my test scores are great.
Mrs. Carlson believed that the arts were extremely supported at Poppy. In fourth, fifth, and sixth grades they had an art specialist who came in once a week and taught a 45 minute art lesson. They also had a music program. All fourth graders learned to play the song flute from their classroom teachers. Additionally, fourth grade students could learn to play a string instrument. Fifth and sixth graders could continue with string or switch to another instrument. The elementary music program prepared students for participation in the music program at the junior high and high school level.
According to Mrs. Carlson, funding for special activities came from the PTA.
They funded the school garden, sixth grade science camp, and the library. She also said that they had many specialists at her school including a science teacher. All fourth, fifth,

58 and sixth grade students received two hours and forty minutes a week of laboratory science from the science specialist. The primary grade had a PE specialist. Full-time parent volunteers ran many of the other special programs, including the school garden.
Mrs. Carlson was familiar with the VAPA standards. She said, “I have looked at them, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about them.”
Mrs. Baker was the final teacher interviewed at Poppy. She taught second grade, and had been teaching for 20 years. Like her colleagues, her favorite part of teaching was the kids. She loved to see their progress from the beginning to the end of the year. She said, “I love finding out what their particular uniquenesses are, building trust, and letting them grow and develop.” The most challenging aspect of teaching she felt was the politics. The challenge of meeting her students’ needs was “nothing big.”
Mrs. Baker used to work at a school in the same district as Dandelion. She said that when she started there in the 1990s it was a very innovative district, but they gradually became more “top down” in the way the district was run. They adopted
Open
Court
, which she described as a “horrible scripted reading program.” In that environment she said that teachers “really lost their ability to think professionally.” She felt that she was unable to use all of the things that she learned in school and what she knew about how kids learned. Teaching at Poppy was a completely different story. She believed that her students at Poppy got a rich education. She said,
Some might call it enrichment, but I call it what kids need. We have art, fieldtrips, and music. We have parent docents who come in and teach classical music

59 appreciation. We have a garden. We have so many opportunities for kids to do other than just reading, writing and math.
Mrs. Baker did not feel any pressure from standardized tests, and said that their testing week was, “kept very low key.” The principal doesn’t run around throwing stars at everybody. It’s just not a big deal.” When asked about her impressions of NCLB, she admitted to not being well versed in it. She did remember having to sign a paper saying that she was properly qualified. But for her it was just something to sign.
Mrs. Daniels was the only teacher interviewed from Rose Elementary. She taught
4 th
grade and had been teaching for 15 years. She was once honored as teacher of the year for her county. She said that her favorite thing about teaching was sharing her excitement and enthusiasm for learning with her students. The most challenging part of teaching for her was the amount of assessment required by her district. The district set benchmarks for language arts and math standards and all students were regularly assessed to see if they were meeting the benchmarks. This put a lot of pressure on her and her colleagues to teach at too fast of a pace, and had forced them to narrow their curriculum. She felt that her districts assessments were too rigid and did not leave room for a whole learning experience.
Mrs. Daniels had taught in other schools. She taught for several years at two schools in a larger city. Both of those schools focused on the whole child, and were very art centered. She compared that with her experience at Rose. She said that at Rose there was room for art, garden, and other special projects. But she added

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At Rose there is a real embracing of test scores as being a huge indicator of success that I find problematic. Because I am older and a veteran teacher, I think that I am given a little more leeway than other teachers.
She also said that despite that leeway, she has felt tremendous pressure from the standardized testing, and that at times she had experienced physical symptoms from the stress.
Mrs. Daniels thought that NCLB was “horrible and horrifying.” She said that it was the worst thing that she has seen happen in education. She thought that the benchmarks set by NCLB were unrealistic and unfair, not taking into account differences in the rate that children learn. She believed that as a result of NCLB, “Poor children and children of color have been robbed of a proper education.” She said that she thought “the whole thing is ridiculous.”
According to Mrs. Daniels, the arts were supported at her school. Different teachers incorporated the arts to different degrees, and the principal was supportive of the arts. Some things were funded by the PTA, but teachers wrote grants to outside organizations as well. Her school also had a longstanding relationship with a local university that placed college interns with teachers for special projects. Students also helped raise money. Last year her students sold nacho’s to pay for a class fieldtrip. They had a music program in the past, but it had been cut due to budget issues. Her school had a science specialist for the upper grades. She was familiar with the VAPA standards. But she said she didn’t use them, because she didn’t need them.

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Mrs. Paul was the first teacher interviewed from Thistle Elementary. Mrs. Paul had been a teacher for eight years. She taught fifth grade. Her favorite part of teaching was getting to now the kids. She loved seeing them have the “ah-ha” moments. The hardest part of teaching for her was the discipline. She had many students with emotional problems, and she believed that their behavior was not their fault. It was hard to help those students make progress, and she felt there was not enough support for meeting their needs. Other than her student teaching she had only taught at Thistle. Both schools were very similar.
Mrs. Paul said that she and her colleagues felt extremely pressured for their students to perform well on standardized tests. This was not as strong in the past, but new district administration looked at test scores not only by grade level but also by teacher.
She thought that this was unfair. She had three high-achieving students who did poorly on the test, and later she found out that they had raced each other to see who would get done first. She was very frustrated that she, or any other teacher, would be held accountable for students’ test scores. She felt it was ridiculous how much emphasis was being put on testing. The new principal even started a countdown to test week months before testing was scheduled to happen.
Mrs. Paul tried to avoid reading anything about NCLB because it made her so mad. She said, “It puts ridiculous pressure on schools to reach a goal that for the most part is unattainable.” She believed that the law was especially unfair for students who

62 were still learning the language, and that the law didn’t take into account different demographics at different schools.
She said the arts are somewhat supported at her school, more than some districts, but not enough. She said that the district did not do anything to support the arts, but that teacher organized art themselves. There was an after school choir funded by a special grant from a local casino, but she wished it could have been during school hours so all kids could have participated. There were no specialists at her school for any subject, and extras were funded by class fundraising, parent donation, or the PTA. She did use the
VAPA standards, but she tried to teach from multiple grade levels because she knew her students did not have those standards covered while in previous grades.
Mrs. Gomez was the second teacher interviewed from Thistle Elementary. She was a third grade teacher, and had been teaching for seven years. Her favorite part of teaching was helping her students to understand things they had never thought of before.
Her biggest teaching challenge was behavior. Last year she had six students in counseling, two with anxiety disorders. She also had two students with severe aggression issues. She said that having to manage all of the behavior issues took time away from teaching. Thistle was her first teaching position.
She said that she felt extreme pressure over testing. She stressed that there were never enough days to cover all of the material before testing every spring. At her school testing week took place two months before the end of the school year. The superintendent of her district pointed out grade levels whose scores had gone down at a district-wide

63 meeting at the beginning of the year. Mrs. Gomez felt that this was very unfair, and that the test did not measure individual student growth. When asked her impressions of
NCLB, she replied, “I’ve never been a big fan.” She felt that it put unnecessary requirements on teachers to pass more tests to be considered highly qualified. She went to school to be a teacher, and graduated with honors, but after graduating was required to pay to take multiple exams to prove she was qualified. She felt that NCLB just created more loopholes for teachers.
Mrs. Gomez felt that the arts were supported at her school. She said that there were many teachers at her school who were involved in the arts and brought their love of the arts into their classrooms. Many of the teachers had special training in the arts. She incorporated singing into her class everyday. She taught two patriotic songs a month, and one song from a program called “Teaching Tolerance.” At the end of the month, her class would visit the library and sing their new songs to the librarian, who was know for her love of music. Even though there was art at Thistle Elementary, she said that she would not enroll her own children in that district because there was not a music program. She explained, “We have no music program at the high school or the middle school. Music was a huge part of my life when I was that age. I can’t imagine what I would have done without it.” She used the VAPA standards regularly.
Mr. Castillo was the first of two teachers interviewed from Dandelion. He taught second grade and had been teaching for seven years. He said his favorite parts of teaching were seeing the progress of his students, their achievements, and accomplishments. He

64 loved seeing their self-esteem go up when they were successful. He also liked that each day was different from the last. The most challenging aspect of teaching for him was the administration, not just at the school or district level, but at the state as well. He felt that he had less and less flexibility as a teacher, and that administrative policies were unfair.
He explained, “We are being told how to teach, and then when our students don’t perform we are criticized for our performance.”
Mr. Castillo had taught in another district prior to teaching at Dandelion. The district was in a large city. He said that that school served a very similar demographic, but served them more effectively. He said his old school had a rich curriculum, and teachers could be creative to meet their students’ needs. At Dandelion the administration insisted on “fidelity to the curriculum,” and discouraged anything that deviated from their adopted texts. He said that after all the required instructional minutes in language arts and math, teachers had thirty minutes a day to try and do science, social studies, art, and physical education. This year his new principal encouraged them to do reading intervention during that “free” half-hour. He said he was so frustrated by the situation that he would have left the school, if he could have.
He felt a lot of pressure regarding test scores. He felt that this pressure was unfair, and unproductive. He explained,
If my students start the year below benchmark, I am already disadvantaged. I have to work ever harder, push them even further, and teach to the test—which is not

65 education. If we can’t take care of the child as a whole, no matter what we do during the year instruction-wise, they are not going to do any better.”
He went on to criticize NCLB. He felt it made no sense to expect that all kids everywhere can reach the same goal at the same time. He argued,
How can you do that when you know that kids are different in different neighborhoods? Like at our school kids come from single parent families. Many of them have parents who are incarcerated. They are living below the poverty line, and their parents are struggling day to day. Their parents, if they were born here, had a bad experience with education. They are coming in with all of that, but are going to be compared with kids who have none of those issues, kids who have intact families and parents who went to college. They get breakfast everyday, they are picked up, and they are loved. I don’t know how NCLB can expect that all kids are the same.
He felt that it was important to monitor all students’ progress, but that NCLB caused his students to become good test takers, leaving them unprepared for college or the workplace as adults.
He did not feel that the arts were supported at his school. There was a music room filled with keyboards for the older kids, but he was not sure how often it was used. His school had a library, and a computer lab. Teachers could take their kids to the computer lab or the library as long as it did not interfere with their instructional minutes, or if they

66 could prove it was being used for instruction. He is aware of the VAPA standards, but is unable to use them.
Mrs. Day was the final teacher interviewed for the study. She taught first grade at
Dandelion. She had been teaching for six years. She loved working with the kids, and especially the challenging kids. She said, “I choose to teach at the school where I work.”
She felt that helping her students to catch up academically with no support from home was the most challenging thing about teaching. She also expressed frustration at having an administration that did not recognize the unique challenges her students faced. She worked at one other school before Dandelion. It was a very large rural school. She said that the school was completely different. At her old school she had very few students with problems, and at Dandelion most of her students came to school with problems.
She said she and her colleagues felt pressure for testing results all year long. Their school was in their fourth year of program improvement, and they were tested all of the time. Her principal, the third one she had had in the same number of years, “came from business and loved data.” She felt that NCLB was very limiting because it did not take into account that every child is different and every school is different. She said that she was in favor of high academic standards but that the pressure of NCLB took the joy out of teaching. She said, “I have sacrificed a lot of my personal philosophy to succeed datawise.”
She felt that the arts were not supported at her school, and that nothing was supported or encouraged at her school except math and language arts. The whole day was

67 taken up by math and the reading program, Open Court . She said she did not have time for art, science, social studies, or even physical education. She was actually instructed by her principal to not teach science or social studies due to her students’ low reading scores.
Ironically, she was instructed to not take her kids to the library for the same reason. She snuck the library in anyway, because as she put it “Hello? Let’s enjoy some books!” She also snuck in art, but it would take her a couple of months to complete an art project because she would invite the kids come in early and work on their projects before school.
All of this made her very sad. She felt that her students were “already burnt out on school,” and they were only in the first grade. She was especially sad about the lack of physical education. She said that obesity was an issue at her school. She also mentioned that some teachers were allowed to take their kids out for PE because they had the data to show that their students were meeting the benchmarks.
Mrs. Day paid for her art projects out of her own pocket. She was familiar with the VAPA standards but did not use them. She ended the interview by saying,
I know in my heart what I want to do, and I am unable to. I am starting to question if it is all worth it. My kids are making academic progress on the measurable standards, but at what cost? The cost is too high to the whole child.
County Administrator Interview
Mr. Bell, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the County Office of
Education was interviewed for the study. As part of his job he assisted districts in selecting curriculum when new adoptions were available. He planned teacher and

68 administrator trainings. He also worked with schools and districts to improve instruction.
Additionally, he created a county visual and performing arts network, which provided teachers with art resources.
He said the pressure to narrow the curriculum, and teach to the test was present, although it was greater in some schools and districts than in others. He felt that it remained up to the administrator. For example, at schools where there was an administrator who valued the arts, the arts continued to flourish. At many schools, however, he observed,
The arts, science and social studies are living in the shadow of the two core subjects, math and language arts. This is true until fourth and fifth grade when science is tested, and then we see kids struggle with the test because they haven’t been getting enough science.
He felt that there were some very positive things happening in the arts at some county schools. He referred to Rose as a model school for the arts. He said that at Rose,
“They live in the reality of test scores, but keep the arts, and have shown consistent closing of the achievement gap.” All of their kids did really well, and they were able to maintain a well-rounded educational experience. He admitted that not all kids had access to the arts. This was due to many different factors including lack of administrative support for the arts, lack of funding, and teachers’ comfort levels teaching the arts. He observed that at schools where the administrator didn’t care, or there was a huge amount of pressure to teach math and language arts, the arts were not happening. He added,

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“Besides principals and teachers, the other champions are parents, because where there is a high community expectation, there will be arts in the school.”

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Chapter 4
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Reflections on the Process
NCLB and its far-reaching effects on American education make up a complex and controversial subject. Seeking to approach the issue in the simplest of terms, this study asked: How do children spend their school day? Do they spend their precious minutes engaged in a variety of rich activities that help develop their young minds? Or are they subjected to hours of pencil and paper practice sheets focused on honing their test taking skills? Most importantly, if the answer is both, then which children get what kind of school day, and why?
To answer these questions the study compared the amount of time schools serving poor children allocated to the arts, science, social studies, language arts and math with the amount of time affluent schools spent on the same subjects. The process provided both quantitative and qualitative analysis that gave a balanced view of what a school day looked like for four schools, each serving students of a different income level. The teacher survey began the story. A large number of teachers participated, and the surveys provided valuable quantitative data regarding teacher experience, how instructional time was spent in schools, and teacher opinions on important aspects of the law and its effects.
The interviews completed the story. Through the interviews, teachers shared in their own voices the immeasurable parts of their daily experiences.

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While certain aspects of the impact of high-stakes testing were readily apparent in this study, more in-depth research would be necessary to achieve additional clarity. One challenge of the survey was inconsistent participation rates between schools. Teacher participation was voluntary. The study would have benefited from somehow soliciting the participation from more teachers at each of the school sites. A future study would also include classroom observations and interviews with school principals. These additions would have strengthened the study by providing an additional level of depth, quality, and consistency of results.
Additionally, it became evident through the results of the survey that teachers’ interpretations of certain terms led to inconsistencies in their responses. For example, it was unclear how each teacher interpreted the term “instruction.” It seemed that in music, for example, one teacher may have counted minutes of music instruction as the time her students spent singing a song while cleaning up the classroom. Another teacher might have only counted the time that her students spent receiving standards based instruction from a credentialed music specialist. These are very different interpretations. While having students sing during their clean-up time might have some value and make for a more delightful classroom environment, it was not intended to be counted as music instruction for the purposes of this study.

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Findings
General Findings
This study sought to challenge the mandates of NCLB, by examining if it created more equity in education, as its proponents claimed, or if it disproportionately affected poor and minority children by narrowing their education to only the subjects that were tested. This research has shown the latter to be true for at least one California county.
Indeed, by every measure the study found that the school serving the poorest children had the narrowest curriculum. The study clearly showed where instructional time was spent at each school, and confirmed the arguments of many NCLB critics. Compared to the other schools, the students at Dandelion had the least exposure to the arts, science and social studies, while spending the most time on language arts and mathematics.
Additionally, this study provided evidence that while its stated goal was a quality education for all, NCLB actually exacerbated and perpetuated the inequities it claimed to remedy.
As was found in An Unfinished Canvas , this research confirmed that the poorest students had the least access to the arts (Woodworth et al., 2007). Poppy, the school with the highest level of affluence, spent the most amount of instructional time in all four of the art strands. Poppy teachers described the many rich experiences their students regularly had in the arts. Dandelion, the school with the highest amount of poverty, spent the least amount of time on arts instruction. Teachers at Dandelion described very few experiences that their students had in the arts. One teacher even said that the only way

73 she could fit art instruction in was to meet with her first grade students before school.
Oddly, based on one section of the teacher survey, Dandelion appeared to have the second highest amount of instructional time in music compared to the other schools. All of the other factors in the study, however, indicated this to be improbable and it was perhaps a result of differences in teachers’ interpretations of the term “instruction.”
Science and social studies received more instructional time then the arts at all four schools. Rose teachers indicated the least amount of instruction in either subject, and
Thistle teachers indicated the most amount of time spent on each subject. Interestingly,
Poppy and Dandelion spent similar amounts of time on science. Poppy spent slightly more time on social studies than science instruction. Since science is a tested subject in the fifth grade, it fits with the findings of this study that it would receive more instructional time than social studies or the arts, and that is in fact what the study found.
The study also found that time spent on language arts and math was not equal between the schools. As one would expect, the tested subjects received the most amount of instruction at the schools serving the poorest children, and as Kohn (2000) warned, under the pressure of high-stakes testing, the test became the curriculum (p. 29). Thistle,
Rose, and Dandelion students spent much more of their school day focused on language arts and math. Dandelion students spending the most time of all. Both Dandelion teachers who were interviewed claimed they were pressured and instructed to focus their entire school day on those two subjects alone. Contrastingly, Poppy students spent the least amount of time each day on these subjects. This further confirms that under the current

74 system of high-stakes testing, poor children are receiving an education that has been narrowed down to the tested subjects when compared to their more affluent peers.
In addition to time spent on instruction, other areas of the study suggest that the quality of instruction was unequal from school to school. One example would be music:
Poppy was the only school with a comprehensive music program taught by credentialed music teachers. At each of the other schools music instruction, if it happened at all, was the responsibility of the classroom teacher. No matter how effective a classroom teacher is at music instruction, it is incomparable to the opportunities the children had at Poppy to learn a musical instrument and play in the school band. The comprehensive and systematic instruction of music throughout the grades at Poppy stands out as far above the quality of music instruction at any of the other schools. Additionally, Poppy’s use of a specialist for science instruction in grades four through six suggest another possible inequity in the quality of instruction between the schools. Individual classroom teachers may be excellent at teaching science in the context of their classroom, but the access that
Poppy students had to weekly laboratory science taught by a credentialed science teacher was not comparable.
Not only did the study find a narrowing of the curriculum for poor children, but the findings also suggest that this narrowing is a result of the pressures created by NCLB.
The survey measured teacher opinions on their curricular control, the scope and richness of their students’ education, and the value of standardized testing. The survey results were dramatic. All of the teachers at Poppy felt they had the freedom to adapt their

75 curriculum to meet their students’ needs. Impressively, they all strongly agreed that their students received a rich and broad education. None of the teachers at Dandelion felt they had the freedom to modify their curriculum, nor that their students received a rich and broad education. The majority of teachers at all schools disagreed to some degree that standardized testing had a positive impact on student learning with the exception of the teachers at Dandelion. About half of the participating teachers at Dandelion agreed that testing was a positive thing for student learning. This seems incongruous with the other responses from Dandelion teachers, and may be a result of a lack of understanding of the effects of such testing, or a measure of the level of buy-in some teachers have of the political rhetoric. One premise of NCLB was that high standards and accountability would raise the quality of education for poor and minority children, despite evidence to the contrary. Some teachers at Dandelion could have believed this to be true.
Similar to the teachers featured in the study by the Harvard University Civil Right
Project (Sunderman et al., 2004), interviews revealed that teachers at all schools held low opinions of NCLB, and believed that its effects were counter productive to the goals of education. Teachers at Thistle, Rose, and Dandelion all shared first hand experiences of feeling the pressures created by NCLB, and provided examples illustrating the narrowing of the education of their students to one degree or another. Dandelion teachers provided the direst and most dramatic evidence of this with their inability to teach anything outside of the adopted curriculum in language arts and math. Although the teachers at Poppy did not feel the effects of NCLB at their school, all of them recognized the inequities and the

76 unfair pressure faced by teachers at less affluent schools. Two of them had first hand experience with this, and left poorer schools to work at Poppy and avoid such pressure themselves.
Although the most striking comparisons came from looking at the richest and the poorest schools, the results from Rose and Thistle were an important part of this study.
They fell somewhere on the spectrum between the affluence at Poppy and most impoverished student population served by Dandelion. This study found that although the situation at Rose and Thistle were not as extreme as the dire conditions found at
Dandelion, they too had disproportionately suffered the effects of NCLB when compared to the most affluent school in the study.
Additional Findings
A number of additional findings emerged from this study. The first of these regarded teacher experience. As many critics argued, one possible effect of NCLB was that the most experienced teachers would move to the least struggling schools, leaving the neediest schools with the least experienced teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2004). The teachers in this study showed that unintended consequence to be true. Poppy had the teachers with the highest average years of teaching experience, and Dandelion had the teachers with the least experience on average. Additionally, two of the teachers who interviewed for Poppy admitted that they left poorer schools to teach at Poppy because of the pressures put on teachers at the poorer schools. One teacher at Dandelion even admitted that he would not have been at that school if he felt he had a choice. This was an

77 important finding because less experienced teachers might not yet have developed the confidence to teach as they believe, or, lacking tenure, may have been fearful of going against the school administration. These teachers might have inadvertently allowed poor educational policy to continue. Most significantly, teachers with less experience were generally assumed to have less expertise. Hence, if teachers were “trained” in poverty schools, then moved to affluent schools, the affluent schools would have better teachers.
While this trend may have been a concern prior to NCLB, since poverty schools were generally seen as providing more difficult jobs, it was possible that this effect had been increased since the laws passage.
Another finding of the study was that different schools faced different challenges, yet were all held to the same goals and expectations under NCLB. When asked to describe their most challenging aspect of teaching, teachers at the three schools with relatively high levels of poverty described dealing with student behavior as one of the greatest challenges. Teachers at those schools described many problems faced by their students associated with their lives outside of the classroom. In addition to teaching, the teachers at those schools had to deal with their students’ problems, often without any support from home or from the school. This contrasted greatly with the teachers at Poppy whose greatest challenges varied from the politics on campus to “keeping organized,” suggesting that student behavior was not one of their big issues.
Beyond the daily challenges of teaching, the differences that existed between the four schools made holding them accountable to the same test goals seem absurd. The

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“diversity penalty” referred to by Darling-Hammond (2004) was clearly visible (p. 12).
Poppy had the least number of subgroups at their school. Their EL population was too small to be considered numerically significant as a subgroup, and therefore not included when calculating their AYP. All of the other schools had more subgroups, and each had
EL populations large enough to count in their school’s scores. Many of the teachers pointed out the unfairness and questioned the validity of comparing schools with such drastically different populations. The school with the advantage of a student population for whom English is the first language enjoys clear sailing without NCLB penalties, while the other schools whose AYP reflects a student population struggling to learn
English are penalized for their diversity.
The final additional finding of the study was that some schools were able to maintain some of the arts despite the pressure from NCLB. They were able to accomplish this either through the hard work of individual teachers and administrators, the existence of community school partnerships, or a combination of both. Examples of the difference that the individual teacher could make were provided by Mrs. Day, who invited her students at Dandelion to come in before school to make art, or the example of one Thistle teacher who created a weekly first grade sing along. Teachers as individuals were able to do amazing things for their students when they brought their passion and expertise to their classrooms. This required great resolve when they were working against such a large and burdensome system, such as that created by NCLB. But the possibility embodied in these examples was heartening.

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Efforts to keep the arts were also successful when they were supported, often financially, by partnerships with organizations outside of the school. Esparto had a longstanding relationship with a local artist, who was committed to bringing ceramics to their students every year. This activity was funded partially by the school, but the artist himself regularly applied for grants to help cover the costs of the program. Another important community-school partnership existed at Dingle. Teachers at Dingle were connected to a program at a nearby university that sent college interns into the classrooms to teach art and other special projects. The study found examples at every school of outside support that had helped teachers to maintain some level of arts education at their school.
The study showed that individual teacher efforts and community-school partnerships were the most successful if they had the support of school administration.
Rose and Thistle teachers were able to maintain a richer and broader curriculum for their students because they had administrations that gave them the flexibility to do so. Despite the pressures of NCLB, the administration at those schools seemed to have maintained some level of trust in the professional capacity of its teachers. It appeared that this relationship did not exist with the administration at Dandelion, and that in fact the administration had become an additional hurdle for teachers to overcome.
Conclusion
Eliot Eisner (1998) said, “the use of mind is the most potent means of its development…what schools allow children to think about shapes, in ways perhaps more

80 significant than we realize, the kinds of minds they come to own” (p. 117). He argued that the arts were an essential aspect in the development of more sophisticated forms of thinking (Eisner, 1998). By eliminating the arts and other subjects from the curriculum,
NCLB has limited the opportunities of affected children to develop certain kinds of minds. While policymakers may have been well meaning when they created NCLB, its effects have been harmful and damaging to the poorest children in our country. Policy makers intended to raise the level of educational quality for all children by holding their schools and their teachers more accountable, but the unintended consequences have further damaged an already inequitable system. All children deserve a rich and broad education that includes the arts as a way of developing each individual student to his/her full potential. If average citizens understood the inequities this law perpetuates, they would be outraged. If they knew what the poorest children were being subjected to in the name of high standards and accountability, they would demand an end to NCLB.

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