Myth: Fixing No Child Left Behind means changing accountability systems to make them less onerous to schools and districts.

Here’s an example. The National School Boards Association has proposed 45 recommendations to fix No Child Left Behind, (click here to see them) one of which is that “students belonging to multiple subgroups should be counted in each subgroup as an equal fraction totaling one student for AYP determination.”
            The example given is that if a child is Hispanic, low-income, and has limited English proficiency, under the current AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) accountability model, that child is counted as part of three groups which “creates an unfair statistical bias in evaluating schools and districts that have many subgroups.” The rationale here is that “students identified for several subgroups tend to be academically challenged.”
            The remedy, according to the school boards association? Count such a child as 1/3 of a Hispanic, 1/3 of a limited English child, and 1/3 of a low-income child.
            The point here that school boards—the people who are entrusted with the responsibility of watching over the education of children—are saying that schools really can’t do much to help that kind of child, so the main thing to do is to keep that child from hurting the way the school is perceived. What the school board association doesn’t say is that if the school really focused on that child and got that child the instruction and help he or she needs to meet state standards, the school would improve in three categories in AYP determinations.
            And that is the real point. If, instead of endlessly wrangling to make sure the accountability systems are excruciatingly fair to adults (even to the point of dividing a child into three parts), the school boards were working to make sure that every child received a quality education with coherent curricula, good tests, and qualified teachers, we would be much further along in the goal of making sure that all children meet state standards.