As Martin West talks about in the end of Video 3, No Child Left Behind was set to expire in 2007, but was slow to be reauthorized in part because of a lack on consensus about what to learn from the various failings of NCLB. No Child Left Behind was originally passed in 2002 with overwhelming bipartisan support. While the initial utopian 'every child proficient by 2014' seems like it was a good 'shock' to the educational system as shown in the NAEP score increases immediately after (at least in math), obviously we are not to that utopia now that it is 2014. The overall NCLB vision of raising student performance is of course a worthy (and needed) goal, but the specifics of the original law need to be updated.
Pros/Cons & Possible Moves Forward...
* One major benefit from NCLB was a general increased focus on accountability and measuring performance. The videos mentioned how parents used to judge schools based on dollars spent per child, etc, and after NCLB, schools had to be public with their math and reading test scores. This transparency is definitely a pro that should be continued. Although how much the transparency actually affects school choice, especially for those most in need, is debatable. In previous weeks' readings, we've seen how families often choose schools by proximity, community, etc - not on test scores. Just being transparent is not enough.
* While accountability is good, we need to think more carefully about what schools are being accountable for. Having unattainable goals is not the way to go. NCLB wanted all students to be proficient by 2014 - but achieving 'all' of anything is often impossible. Also as the Prof Peterson pointed out, having everyone going for the same goal means that those who are most behind and most in need have the hardest time getting to the goal. Perhaps adequate yearly progress could be redefined not as how to get to 100% proficiency, but as adequate yearly gains given previous levels of performance. I don't think that it's necessarily unfair to expect schools with lower levels of achievement to have larger gains (given more resources) as gains may start to reach an asymptote where it's harder and harder to get gains, but unrealistic gains towards 100% in only a few years are unfair. Having more appropriate target goals, specifically around yearly gains not overall performance, would be needed in a new NCLB.
* Another issue with the original NCLB was that states were allowed to set their own standards of what was proficiency. This led to states having widely different standards, and the case where a student could be passing with flying colors in one state and failing miserably in another state. Also states could change their standards to make their numbers look better when reporting. Going forward, perhaps the minimums could be set nationally, with states allowed to raise their minimum above the national minimum if they'd like.
* Measurement is important, but accountability is not only about measurement - it's about what happens in response to the measurements. The NCLB accountability of what happens after a school fails were not very impactful - as the videos note, often only the principal changed or no action was taken even when a school had failed for five years. In how to improve this accountability, I always think of failure as feedback - schools that are failing should be helped to figure out how they're failing. Letting students go to another school or having extra tutoring doesn't help the school get any better (it may help the students which is important as well - although the evidence shows that many students did not leave or get the tutoring).
* Another large issue not mentioned much in the videos and only a bit in the readings is around whether NCLB focuses too heavily on math and reading, and on standardized testing - to the exclusion of other subjects and other evaluation methods. We don't want teaching to the test - we want students learning higher levels of thinking. Creating a national standard for other methods of evaluation in multiple subjects might be a tough task, but certainly a new NCLB could encourage states to use multiple measures.
Other interesting resources I found in looking more at the effects of NCLB...
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG977.pdf
http://www.ed.gov/blog/topic/esea-reauthorization/
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