THE
An e-mail newsletter of The Achievement
Alliance
Vol. 1 No. 4, May 9, 2005
|
IN
THIS ISSUE: MythBuster
– Not
everything you read about No Child Left Behind is true. It’s Being Done – At What’s
New –
Newsweek’s list of top high schools is out; What's
Old
– Way back in 1965, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was asking for some kind of testing
and reporting system to see if federal Title I money was being spent
effectively – it took almost 40 years before he got his wish. Other Voices – “Educating the neediest of our young
remains the civil rights issue of our time.” Why Schools Don’t Work for All Kids – A nationally renowned high school
doesn’t let all of its students share the wealth. |
It is commonly thought that No Child Left Behind prohibits schools
from providing instruction in social studies, science, or the arts – or,
really, anything except reading and math. This myth has become so embedded in
the national consciousness that it appears in the least likely places. In a
travel article about going to the most remote place he could find – an island
off
"The school used to offer half an hour
a day instruction in Siberian Yupik, the native language. It no longer
does. The rigorous course requirements
of the federal No Child Left Behind policy, [the principal] explained, simply
leave no more hours in the day to teach it.
The school does what it can [...] photos of the town's elders line the
corridors. Elementary essays, posted on
the walls, tell of a walrus hunt." (The Washington Post Magazine,
"Snowbound: At the end of the Earth, a traditional people pay the price of
modern times." May 1, 2005, p. 46.)
But the principal is mistaken.
To begin with, No Child Left Behind has no
course requirements, rigorous or otherwise. Schools, districts, and states set
their own standards and curriculum, which could include Siberian Yupik, dance,
or chess. No Child Left Behind merely says that schools must demonstrate that
their students meet state standards in reading and math, neither of which are
incompatible with Siberian Yupik lessons.
Not only that, but there is a specific
provision in No Child Left Behind that allows for teaching American Indian and
Alaskan native children their native language. It does not require it, but it
certainly allows for it.
Schools that teach a rich, broad curriculum
-- teaching way beyond such narrow goals as the state reading and math tests --
don’t particularly worry about meeting the requirements of No Child Left
Behind, and are able to offer all kinds of enriching academic and social
experiences.
At
No Child Left Behind doesn’t prohibit
schools from doing interesting, rich, creative instruction; but, unfortunately,
too few districts and states have provided teachers and principals with the
information they need to be able to provide the kind of instruction that will
help their children be well-rounded, educated citizens – and make Adequate Yearly
Progress under NCLB.
Five years ago, Dayton’s Bluff was known as the worst
school in St. Paul and
one of the worst in
out
of ten children could not read on grade level.
Dance class at
“The school was in chaos,” is the way one
teacher puts it.
Another teacher remembers that, for the
most part, teachers thought they couldn’t teach much. Most teachers would
excuse students’ low performance by saying that they came from families with
little education or money. They would often say about the students, “They just
need love,” she remembers.
Contrast that with 2004, when more than
eight out of ten students at
Perhaps most striking is that in math,
To understand how significant that is,
it is helpful to 
know that White Minnesotan elementary
school students outscore White children in the rest of the nation in math. But
African- American children in
“It is so important to dispel the myth
that these children can’t learn to high standards,” says the principal, Von
Sheppard, about African-American and Hmong children. “There’s a belief system
out there that they’re not as smart as White kids,” he says. “We’re on a
mission to conquer every myth and every test.”
To
read more about
“It’s Being Done” is a project of The
Achievement Alliance to identify and describe high-performing, high-poverty and
high-minority schools that have all met Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child
Left Behind. These are not definitive studies of the schools, which would
require weeks of study and interviews. They are more akin to scouting reports,
letting people who are interested know about the work some schools are doing to
make sure all our children are prepared to be educated citizens. This section
takes its name from the words of a principal who, when told that many think
educating all children can’t be done, said, “It’s being done.”
If you would like to
nominate a school, send an email to: kchenoweth@achievementalliance.org.
Newsweek’s
list of the
top 1,000 high schools in the country
is out. This list is a valiant attempt by Newsweek and author Jay Mathews to
measure high schools by whether they offer all students a high-level education.
Mathews’s “Challenge Index,” on which the list is built, is a ratio of how many
Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests students take in
relation to how many students are in the senior class. Since the list was first
inaugurated several years ago, it has made an important contribution to the
national discussion because prior to the Challenge Index, most high schools
were judged on whether a small handful of students made it into the Ivy Leagues
and whether the football team had a winning season. Through his Challenge
Index, Jay Matthews has encouraged many high schools to expand their
college-level offerings, which has helped kids.
Unfortunately, the Challenge Index fails to
take into account the practice some high schools have of expanding the number
of college-level courses but not the number of students who take them. Once the
exclusive province of juniors and seniors, some high schools now offer AP
classes to freshmen and sophomores. That is great for those students who
participate, and it improves the school’s standing on the Challenge Index, but
it does nothing to expand the percentage of students who are exposed to the
higher curriculum standards of AP and IB.
As a result, some of the schools on the list
have landed there by dint of focusing enormous energies and resources on only a
few students.
Take, for
example, Miami
Palmetto Senior High School, number 53 on the list. It is a diverse
school, with whites making up slightly less than half the students, Latinos 29
percent, and African Americans 16 percent. It gets a Challenge Index rating of
3.259, which is quite high. But a glance at how it does on
All of
which is to say that the Challenge Index is useful, and it has pushed schools
to offer more college-level courses, but many schools that score well still
have massive achievement gaps.
All
students may be take college preparatory classes in
Part
of the reasoning behind making a college preparatory the standard curriculum
for all students is that the coursework is necessary not only to go to college
but also for the increasing demands of today’s workforce which is expected to
be more knowledgeable than in the past.
Many states have complained that
they shouldn’t have to administer tests in English to students who have
recently arrived from other countries, often saying that No Child Left Behind
requires them to do so. But No Child Left Behind simply requires that they test
their students to make sure they are making progress. The law allows states to
administer tests in the students’ native language for up to five years, in
recognition of the fact that it takes a while to become proficient enough in
English to take a math test in English, for example. However, few states have
bothered to create tests in other languages for their newly arrived students.
Now, several school districts in
"What we ask for is
nothing less than what federal law requires: a primary language test for those
students instructed in that language; an English test constructed so English
learners understand the language in the test items if they are in English only
settings; and all of this included in the state and federal accountability
systems," said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, President of Californians Together,
in a news release.
What’s interesting is that
Way back in
the 1960s, one major prong of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s attack on poverty was to make sure that poor children had access to the same kind of high-quality
schools as other children. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of
1965 was the main vehicle for ensuring that, and Title I of ESEA was the main
way to get money directly to schools with large numbers of poor children. Although
it was very clear about the kinds of things Title I money could be used for,
ESEA required very little accountability for results. That is, schools had to
account for how they spent the money (it could be used on books and aides, for
example) but they didn’t have to demonstrate that it was effective in making
sure poor kids learned as much as other children.
Over
the decades, billions of dollars were spent with very little to show, and it is
interesting to see how this problem was anticipated by then-Senator Robert F.
Kennedy (D-New York) in one of the initial hearings on ESEA:
“I think it is very difficult for a person who lives in a
community to know whether, in fact, his educational system is what it should
be, whether if you compare his community to a neighboring community they are
doing everything they should do, whether the people that are operating the
educational system in a state or in a local community are as good as they
should be. I think it is very difficult for a citizen to know that. So you come
in and say, "We have a certain percentage of economically deprived
children in a particular district. We are going to put up $2 million there.
“Now, that $2 million, because of the kind of [school]
board you have there, might be completely wasted while $2 million in some other
community might be used to help a child tremendously. If I lived in a community
where the $2 million was being wasted, I would like to know something about
that. I would like -- I wonder if we couldn't just have some kind of system of
reporting, either through some testing system which could be established which
the people at the local community would know periodically as to what progress
had been made under this program. I think it would be very helpful to Congress
and I think it would be very helpful to people living in the states, and I
think it would be very helpful to people living in the local community.”
(January 26, 1965, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.)
Forty
years later, Senator Kennedy’s desire for a testing and reporting system to
ensure that the money is being used well is finally being implemented under the
latest authorization of the ESEA, otherwise known as No Child Left Behind -- legislation
that his brother, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), helped write.
(Thanks to blogger Jenny D. for posting this (and a lot more on RFK’s
perspective on ESEA), and Eduwonk for linking
to it.)
.Why Schools Don’t Work for All Kids
The high school, which is nationally recognized for its math and science magnet
program, brings White and Asian students from elsewhere in the district to
study advanced math and science in up-to-date computer labs with teachers and
mentors who help the students work on projects that can be submitted to
prestigious science contests.
Those advanced math and science classes
are nominally open to all students in the school if they have the prerequisite
courses leading up to them. But students who are not in the magnet program –
most of whom are African American and Latino -- have found it is easier not to
try. “I registered in the spring for one of the pre-requisites,” said one
student. “But when I got to school in the fall I was told the class couldn’t be
offered because there weren’t enough students.” After getting stuck with
leftover classes two years in a row, the student gave up and registered for
something else. And so did most of the other kids who are not in the special
program. It turns out that they are allowed to go to school with students who
are headed to MIT and Cal Tech, but they’re not really allowed the same
education.
“Why Schools Don’t Work for All Kids,” will
appear in every Alliance Alert, and is meant to be a counterweight to the
good-news stories in “It’s Being Done.” It is a reminder of why we need radical
and systemic change in our schools. Because we do not believe that public
humiliation is a good teaching tool, we will not name individual schools or
teachers. This practice will raise the issue in readers’ minds whether the
stories are true. We promise to be extremely careful to make sure our stories
are true, but if you find something unbelievable, please email kchenoweth@achievementalliance.org
and we will give any supporting information we can without exposing individuals
to embarrassment.
The
Achievement Alliance has as its purpose providing accurate, nonpartisan information
about student achievement and the No Child Left Behind Act, with particular
attention to children who have traditionally been left behind – poor children,
children of color, children learning English, and children with disabilities.
It is a project of the following groups:
Citizens'
Commission on Civil Rights
Just for
the Kids/National Center for Educational Accountability
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