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Jelani Taylor
November 19, 2015
Focused Inquiry II WI - University 112
Dempster
Twenty seventh, seventeenth, and twentieth, is where the United States ranked in math, reading,
and science according to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD 1).
ninth is where Global Finance puts the United States, in ranking the richest countries in the world “based
on the GDP (PPP)” (Pasquali). Why is a country that is one of the top ten richest countries in the world
ranking in the 20’s (below the average) in Education? The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the
current force behind the nation’s education system. A strong education system is the foundation of a
successful society if we can educate the future generations then we will be critically lacking in our ability
to be innovators in an ever changing world. NCLB has not been as successful as it was intended to be. In
the effort for educational reform can we use No Child Left Behind as a foundation to build off or do we
need to overhaul the system with a new Idea?
The act uses a test based accountability (TBA) system to hold schools accountable for student
performance. Test based accountability is based on the belief that there is a direct correlation between
high stakes exams and behavior changes in teachers and students. Supporters of accountability systems
believe that certain schools are failing to meet “core performance objectives” and that this shows “the
weak incentives and lack of accountability that [exist] among teachers and school administrators” (Dee
420). People opposed to accountability systems believe that schools “may respond to accountability
polices in unintentionally narrow or even counterproductive ways.” (Dee 420). When schools know that
they are evaluated based purely on results of standardized tests on the subjects of mathematics, reading,
and science then the school is going to focus its time and effort on those three subjects. This is to the
detriment of a holistic learning experience for students. Schools will also spend time developing test
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taking skills, ways to get the answer to a question even if you don’t really know the answer. This takes
time away from actually learning the answers to questions. The nature of the test themselves lacks real
world relatability. Real world relatability is what makes students interested and is the purpose of
education in the first place. This is evident in the PISA key findings for the United States it says
“Students in the United States have particular weakness in performing mathematics with higher cognitive
demands, such as taking real world situations translating them into mathematical terms, and interpreting
Mathematical aspects in real world problems.” (1). It is impossible to standardized someone’s education
so why are we standardizing test? Test are necessary for student evaluation but they should adapt to the
student as the student is taking it and it should also evaluate how the student can apply the learning to real
world problems and how the student can combine learning from multiple subjects to answer problems.
This creates such an individualized and broad test base that it is impossible to teach to the test and it will
promote innovation and creativity in teaching methods. The concept of test based accountability makes
sense however how we test needs to evaluated.
Adequate yearly progress, for most schools, is the most important concept of No Child Left
Behind. When a school or district is failing to meet the adequate yearly progress (AYP) line, determined
by results on standardized tests, accountability begins to come in to play. After the first year of not
making AYP students have the right to transfer from their school to a school that has been meeting their
AYP. If a school is continually not making its AYP then the school is supposed to be restructured.
Restructuring can consist of firing teachers and principals and sometimes giving the school away to
private educators. This is in an effort to have no tolerance for underperforming school. This creates a
“high stakes performance threshold” which can lead schools to focus instruction time and effort on
students who are “likely, with additional attention, to meet the proficiency standard” (Dee 420). This is
because the school and the teachers tend to “get credit only for the percentage of students crossing that
one line.” (Koretz 804). This is to the detriment of students who are performing well above proficient and
to students who are critically underperforming with little chance of meeting proficiency. When this
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happens two thirds of students are being virtually ignored. When students are ignored they feel as if they
don’t matter, when they don’t matter they don’t care about education, and when students don’t’ care about
education student performance declines. This will cause the over performing students to decline to the
area of barely above or below proficient where the attention is given and cause underperforming students
to accept their underperforming status and happily underperform. Now the school went from one third of
students meeting proficiency to two thirds of students meeting proficiency and the school will now likely
meet their adequate yearly progress, however the process has been detrimental not only to the students’
education but their psychology as well. The process Education is multi-dimensional just like student and
educator performance is also multi-dimensional. One statistic cannot determine the ability or
improvement of a student or teacher. Viewing students as “proficient” and not is a perspective that should
be reevaluated in reform discussions.
No Child Left Behind is great in concept but how we enforce and interpret it needs to be looked at.
We need to think about what we are doing and if we are setting students up to be successful citizens. Koretz
writes “the most fundamental problem of NCLB and the TBA programs that preceded it is that they have
not been based on rigorous research and development (R&D), and they have not been evaluated adequately
after implementation.” (Koretz 804). Whatever program is implemented or whatever system we adopt, it
needs to be constantly be reevaluated because the students to day will be different from the students of
tomorrow. Just like the teachers today will be different from the teachers of tomorrow. The problems each
groups face will change as well but there will always be problems. The world is an ever-changing place so
how we educate students to live in the world successfully needs to be ever changing. The economy and
social background of student is not only varied but in a state of flux. PISA found that “Socio-economic
background has a significant impact on student performance, with some fifteen percent of the variation in
student performance explained by this” that is a fifteen percent that must be accounted for. Albert Einstein
said that "The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates
problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them." We cannot build off No
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Child Left Behind because the thinking that created it has created some problems that this thinking can’t
solve. We need to change the way we think about education, how we view students, how we value teachers.
Creating a holistic education experience versus focusing majority of time on three main subjects while all
but ignoring any others. Viewing all students as unique, talented, and important versus Standardizing
students to reach a proficiency level in a subject that they don’t understand and forcing information that
will not be retained. Teachers be looked at as masters of a sacred craft sharpening and preparing the minds
of the next generation of human being that will inherit the earth versus expendable employees. Education
in itself changes the way we view the world, view each other, and view problems. What we need now is an
education on education.