No Child Left Behind
Phi Delta Kappa International Conference
St. Louis, Missouri, November 21, 2003

Materials Prepared by Lowell Rose
Executive Director Emeritus, Phi Delta Kappa

NCLB: How it works:

• No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was signed into law on January 8, 2002.
• It is actually a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
• Put simply, NCLB requires that every corporation and every school in the United States be assessed for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) each year.

--  AYP is determined and must be announced for all corporations and schools.
--  Sanctions apply to Title I schools and corporations only.
--  Thirty percent to 40% of schools and virtually all corporations hold Title I status.
--  Offering parents the option of transferring their student to another school and mandated tutoring by an outside agency parents select are the best-known sanctions.
--  A school is required to offer the transfer option after failure to make AYP for two consecutive years. Tutoring is added after three consecutive years.
--  Sanctions progress steadily in severity and can lead to replacing all personnel, having the state take over the school, or closing the school.

• AYP was determined for the first time in most states under NCLB based on tests administered in the spring of 2003.
• Each state selects the test and determines the cut scores that separate passing and failing.
• AYP is based on English and math only.
• NCLB prescribes the process for fixing the goals that represent making and not making AYP.
• Three “ ifs ” determine whether AYP is made.
• If the passing percentages for the overall student group and each breakout on the state test reach the goals. Indiana's are 58.8% passing English and 57.1% math.

--  A breakout is required if 30 or more students in a specified group are tested.
--  The specified groups are whites, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, free/reduced lunch, special education, and LEP (limited English proficiency).
--  Each breakout must also meet the goals, i.e. in Indiana, 58.8% and 57.1%.

• If 95% of all students and those in each breakout take the English test and the math test.
• If the secondary indicator is met. The secondary indicator is:

--  Progress toward a fixed graduation rate for a high school.
--  Progress in relation to an indicator the state selects for all other schools.

• Eight breakouts mean 36 chances to fail, 18 on test results for the overall group and the breakouts and 18 on participation. A school can also fail on the secondary indicator. A single miss means failure to make AYP, i.e. "Miss by a little; miss by a mile."
• Starting goals must increase at an annual average that brings them to 100% of students tested passing in 2013-14. The average annual increase in English that must be demonstrated in Indiana, based on the initial goals, is 3.43%; for math, it is 3.58%.
• Five words condensing NCLB: "Good goals - flawed strategies - fixable."

How NCLB works in the real world:

• Wiley Township is a suburban corporation in Indiana. Its population is middle and upper middle class. It is growing because it is known for good schools and has housing at prices within the range of working class families. Diversity is increasing.
• The following table summarizes the state test data (ISTEP) for the 2002 testing:

*Figures in italics indicate the percent passing does not meet the goal.

• What the data tell us:

--  Wiley Township will have seven breakouts. This means 32 chances to fail to make AYP. ~ Blacks are 22.2% below the goal in English, 27.4% in math.
--   Hispanics are 13.0% below the goal in English, 23.7% in math.
--   Special educ. students are 29.6% below the goal in English, 28.1% in math.
--   LEP are 41.0% below the goal in English, 36.8% in math.

• Wiley Township will never make AYP and will be at the serious sanction level in four years. Given the numbers tested, each school could have a black, free/reduced, and special education breakout meaning that AYP will likely be out of reach for some schools.
• As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that the two high schools and the three middle schools will ever make AYP. Seven of the 10 elementary schools may make AYP in the first year .
• Indiana currently tests in grades 3, 6, 8, and 10. Testing expands to grades 4, 5, 7, and 9 in 2004. The number tested in Wiley Township will double at that time.
• Goals for English go to 65.67% in 2005, 72.54% in 2008, 79.41% in 2011, 86.28% in 2012, 93.15% in 2013, and 100% in 2014; goals for math go to 64.25% in 2005, 71.4% in 2008, 78.55% in 2011, 85.7% in 2012, 92.85% in 2013, and 100% in 2014.
• The question is not, "Will a school fail?" It is, "When will it fail?"
• Every corporation and school in Indiana will fail to make AYP in this 12-year period.

What do we expect NCLB to do?

• Whether NCLB will serve its purpose depends on what we believe its purpose to be
• Two hundred and thirty-one of the 292 corporations in Indiana will fail to make AYP immediately. These corporations represent all of Indiana' s diversity.
• Sixty-one corporations will make AYP. The 61 have the following characteristics:

--  Average enrollment of 970.
--  An average of 13.5% on free/reduced lunch compared to a statewide average of 25.1%.
--  An average of 1.8% minority enrollment compared to a statewide average of 19.9%.

• Are these the results we wanted from NCLB?
• Is putting every corporation on a fast track toward failing to make AYP useful?
• Is some purpose served by moving all the large and diverse urban schools into failing to make AYP at the beginning of the process?

What is NCLB's true purpose?

• Some of its adherents will say directly that it is intended to send a wake up call to educators in a way that makes hiding the failures reflected in the achievement gap impossible.
• Some will say that NCLB is being pictured unfairly as being about "failing" when it is really about "identifying schools in need of improvement and then helping them."
• These two assertions raise what seem to be logical questions:

--  How does guaranteed failure for all corporations and schools serve as a wake up call?
--  Do the proponents of NCLB believe that school people have tolerated the achievement gap when they had the means and the expertise to close it?
--  If NCLB is not about "failing," why does it use punitive sanctions that fit the dictionary definition of, "The penalty for noncompliance specified by a law or decree."
--  How will a school found to be in need of improvement be helped by having its students transfer to other schools?
--  If NCLB is not about "failing," why does an early sanction call for, "Replace those relevant to the failure."
--  If NCLB is about improvement, why do we measure against a fixed standard? Should we not measure the group's progress from where it starts?
--  If NCLB is about improvement, why not use same-student comparisons?

Does NCLB rely, as its authors claim, on "scientifically-based research?"

• No research I know suggests that improvement can be mandated.
• No research I know suggests that unreachable goals provide an incentive for improvement.
• No research I know suggests that every student can demonstrate proficiency on a test geared to high standards ~ if you are willing to stretch five minutes to eight.
• No research I know suggests that those special education students placed because of impaired learning ability can demonstrate proficiency when tested against grade level standards.
• No research I know suggests that the kind of steady and significant improvement required by NCLB is possible. It does suggest that improvement comes slowly; that sharp increases, plateaus, and declines are the expected pattern; and that it must be measured over time.

What would it take to fix NCLB?

• Use 100% proficiency as a vision under girded by specific, attainable goals. Fix separate and realistic goals for special education students.
• Use the point at which a breakout group starts as the base for measuring improvement. Measure improvement using same-student cohorts.
• Require annual improvement at a level research indicates is achievable with stretching. Measure improvement over time.

NCLB — Aptly described through the words of others:

• "NCLB is unraveling in Washington, D.C. My fear is that the unraveling will damage the entire school improvement effort." (Paul Houston, AASA)
• "The law should focus less on punishing schools that fall short and more on prescribing specific steps that would help them succeed." (Roll Call and Citizens for Better Schools)
• "I thought we had a good partnership building with the federal government. I realize now that we are going to have to dilute KERA [Kentucky improvement plan] or find creative ways to get around NCLB." (Gene Wilhoite, Kentucky State Superintendent of Public Instruction).
• "But setting the standards bar at a uniform height and requiring everyone – individuals and schools – to jump over it or be declared defective is a game devised by fools or charlatans. Perhaps both. It's enough to make you wonder who really needs educating." (Bruce Smith, editor, Phi Delta Kappan)
• "These days, Americans speak mostly in war images, so I now call NCLB a weapon of mass destruction targeted on the public schools in a campaign of shock and awe, which, given the incredible under-reaction of educators, I fear is working." (Gerald Bracey)
• "If the law were designed to make significant progress toward this goal [ensuring achievement for all students], every supporter of excellence and equity in education would support it. However, for multiple reasons, the actual provisions of NCLB, particularly Title I of the Act, contradict its professed aims. This leaves advocates of high-quality education for all children with the complex problem of opposing the law without giving support to those who will seize upon its inevitable failure as a way of promoting privatization and continuing the push for high-stakes testing." (Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest)

What does the future hold?

• If improving achievement and closing the achievement gap are NCLB s goals, the steps needed to fix it will be taken.
• Failure to fix it will validate those who have said from the beginning that NCLB is nothing more than a stalking horse designed to promote vouchers and privatization.
• If not fixed, NCLB will self-destruct and, since its goals and AYP system are deeply embedded in state improvement plans, it is likely, as Paul Houston suggests, to take most of the school improvement effort with it.
• Some fear for the public schools. Such fears are understandable but unnecessary.
• The public schools are not fragile; they enjoy strong public support, and they will continue to thrive as long as those who live in the Mayberrys of our world are well served.
• The tragedy of NCLB is that it promises Mayberry for all of us; promises that the needs of those our schools have not been able to reach, those lacking the support and the advantages that make the difference, will be met; and promises that the achievement gap will be closed. It then reneges on those promises with an AYP system so flawed that it is self-defeating. On a recent visit to Kentucky, I listened to a non-educator say, ruefully, "We supported NCLB to get accountability. We now believe that NCLB will be the field on which accountability will die."
• The losers, if that happens, will be those poorly served students who stood to gain the most if NCLB succeeded.

L. C. Rose
November 2003