Changes Proposed to No Child Left Behind

This year's Bracey Report begins and ends with the item that will continue to dominate education news: No Child Left Behind. TO PRODUCE last year's report required me to sift through 21/2 drawers full of materials. This year, there were 31/2 drawers. Attention is being paid to public education; much of it is not benign. On the education news front, budgets and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) dominated. Because readers certainly know the budget situation in their own states, we begin with NCLB, in two parts. NCLB: The AYP Trap Last year's report said of No Child Left Behind, [It's] a trap, a Trojan Horse . . . choose your metaphor. These days, Americans speak mostly in war images, so I now call NCLB a weapon of mass destruction targeted at the public schools in a campaign of shock and awe, which, given the incredible underreaction of educators, I must conclude is working. I first expressed that sentiment in an article that no one would publish in April 2002. (The article can be found at www.america-tomorrow.com/bracey/EDDRA.) No one seemed to believe it then. They do now. At the April 2003 meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), several employees of the U.S. Department of Education approached me to express dismay over NCLB and over working for an ideologically driven department. These are sad times, indeed. One career staffer declared that NCLB should be renamed: NCL-B.S. As all Kappan readers surely know by now, all schools must test all students every year in grades 3 through 8 in reading and math, with science to be added in 2006-07. Schools must demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP). For a school to show AYP, all ethnic groups, all major socioeconomic groups, English-language learners, and special education students must make AYP separately. Ninety-five percent of each group must be tested, and, if any one group fails to make AYP, the school as a whole fails. The official phrase is needs improvement, but headlines across the nation reveal how everyone actually thinks about it: Most Schools in Failing, Los Angeles Daily News, 24 July 2003; State Adds 544 Schools to Failing List -- for Now, Grand Rapids Press, 12 July 2003; It's Pass or Fail; All or Nothing, Raleigh News Observer, 13 July 2003. Schools must continue to make AYP until, by 2014, 100% of a school's students must score In last year's report, I contended that, while the law allowed each state to define proficient, that wouldn't last and that the NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) definition of would come to rule. I claimed that this would happen even though the NAEP achievement levels have been rejected as fundamentally flawed by everyone who has ever analyzed them. This includes the General Accounting Office, the Center for Research in Evaluation, Student Standards, and Testing (CRESST), the National Academy of Education, and the National Academy of Sciences. Even so, in his presidential address to AERA, Robert Linn, co-director of CRESST at the University of Colorado and UCLA, made no attempt to provide or use any definition of proficient other than that rendered by NAEP.1 Educational researchers now assume that proficient means NAEP proficient. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has said that he will use the discrepancy between the performance on NAEP and the performance on state tests to shame schools into better performance.2 Certainly those discrepancies will be there for Paige to point to, and in many instances they will be huge. To see why, we need only look at the Princeton Review's comparisons of performance on state tests with performance on NAEP.3 Ironically, the largest discrepancy is for Texas, the home state of Secretary Paige and President Bush. Texas declared 91% of its eighth-graders proficient in math. NAEP says only 24% of Texas students reach that level. Although there are some states where the differences are small and even four states that have tougher requirements than NAEP (Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, and Maine), the average difference is 23%, and for 22 states, the difference exceeds 30%. …

This chapter seeks to examine the impact of two federal policies, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), on educators in the USA during the past decade of reform. NCLB was signed into law in 2002 and is having a profound effect on the education of all students, including students considered at risk for academic failure, such as students with disabilities, students from diverse racial and ethnic minority groups, students from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, and students who are Limited English Proficient (LEP), better known as English Language Learners (ELLs). NCLB “moved the federal government’s role in education from being primarily a source of funding—now about 9% of every public school dollar—to being a major factor in shaping the substance of P-12 curriculum and instruction” (Lieberman, 2008: 1). The most central requirements of NCLB relate to accountability and raising academic expectations. This law mandates that all students (including those from the aforementioned groups) must make adequate yearly progress (AYP). The overall goal is that all students should be achieving reading and math at grade level by the end of the 2013–2014 school year. NCLB establishes that all students must be taught core academic content by teachers who are highly qualified. A 2007 report by the US Department of Education (USDOE) states NCLB requires states to set standards for all teachers to be considered highly qualified and districts to notify parents of students … if their child’s teacher does not meet these ­standards. The requirements apply to all teachers of core academic subjects: English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography and the requirements also apply to teachers who provide instruction in these subjects to students with limited English proficiency (LEP) and students with disabilities. (USDOE/www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/teaching/nclb/execsum.html)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS PREFACE: By What Means? The Devil is in The Details! (Fenwick English). INTRODUCTION: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, SYMBOLISM OR REALITY? (Frank Brown and Richard C. Hunter) PART I: EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AND NCLB. Fiscal Equity Under Title I and Non-Title I Schools in Local School Districts. (Jim Lyons). NCLB and Diversity in Schools. (Stephen B. Lawton). School Choice and Equity under NCLB In The Post-Brown Era. (Frank Brown). No Child Left Behind: The Balm of Gilead Has Arrived in American Education. (Philip T.K. Daniel). NCLB and the New ESEA Title I Program: Poverty and Education. (Richard C. Hunter). Reconceptualizing Accountability in Urban Schools. (Carolyn Talbert-Johnson and Charles J. Russo). The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and Charter Schools. (Preston Green and Joseph Oluwole). Struggling to Mend it or End it: Legal and Legislative Issues in the Brief History of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. (Saran Donahoo and Norman Greer). Title VII, Bilingual Education of NCLB and Immigrant Students in Urban Schools. (Reynaldo Contreras). PART II: NCLB AND PROCESS Accountability, High Stakes Testing and No Child Left Behind. (Linda Tillman). Resiliency Among African American male students. (Tawannah Alan). The Achievement Gap and the No Child Left Behind Act: Is There a Connection. (Mark A. Gooden and Teresa Y. Nowlin). Public Education in an Era of Neo-Liberal Globalization: The Broken Promise of No Child Left Behind. (Jite Eferakorho). Democratic Notions Informing Equity in Mathematics Education. (Lecretia A. Buckley). Public School Choice: The New K-12 Desegregation Model? (Dawn G. Williams). The Role of Parents under NCLB. (Richard C. Hunter). Educational Equity, Globalization, and the No Child Left Behind Act. (Frank Brown). Immigration, Urban Schools, and Accountability. (Xue Lan Rong). A Nation Still at Risk: No Child Left Behind and the Salvation of Disadvantaged Students. (M. Christopher Brown II, T. E. Dancy II, & Nicole Norfles).

Today's educators live in fear of draconian consequences of to make yearly under No Child Left Behind Act. Mr. Popham offers sage advice on how to comply with law and not get hurt. ONE OF B. F. Skinner's little-known principles of reinforcement states, If any organism, human or subhuman, discerns prospect of impending pain, that organism will attempt to avoid such This principle, often shunned by strict behaviorists because it seems corrupted by cognitive overtones, was first articulated in 1965 in an unpublished essay. The essay is known chiefly because of Skinner's concluding comment that inside every fat rat is a thin rat yearning for food pellets. Skinner's pain-avoidance principle was somewhat unimaginatively identified by Skinner as pain-avoidance principle. In referring to it, reinforcement theorists typically use its initials: PAP. Pain Potential of a Federal Law PAP, then, describes proclivity of organisms to avoid upcoming pain. And if ever there was a law that possessed enormous potential for inflicting pain, it is surely No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Signed into law in early 2002, this federal statute is thought by some analysts to be, in fact, an enormous pile of pap. The NCLB pain to be avoided, of course, is associated with formidable set of aversive consequences that kick in when a public school fails to get its students to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), as measured by improvements on approved achievement tests. At best, a school that fails to make AYP is merely regarded by public as ineffectual. However, those failing schools that receive Title I funds are placed on an improvement track that, in time, can improve a school right out of existence. In following analysis, I offer guidance to my public school colleagues who, yearning to dodge distress brought on by NCLB, sometimes operate solely on basis of PAP. First, I will identify a number of tactics currently being employed to escape pain of NCLB and then describe a set of tactics -- not yet widely in use -- that show considerable PAP potential. Following inspirational insight of Stephen Potter, who in 1947 introduced us to gamesmanship as the art of winning games without actually cheating, I shall refer to all of these tactics -- sometimes psychometric, sometimes psychological, sometimes psychotic -- as ploys. More specifically, I will dub them NCLB PAP Ploys. I won't spend much space on array of NCLB PAP Ploys that are already in widespread use. Clearly, word is getting around regarding which tactics can help evade AYP-induced failure. As more educators learn about these federally sanctioned schemes to avoid pain, we can safely predict that education profession's mimicry machine will kick into high gear. My chief purpose here is to introduce educators to a set of inchoate, innovative tactics that, if employed adroitly, will stave off a great deal of suffering. NCLB PAP Ploys Now in Use 1. Challenge chopping. Because a state's yearly NCLB tests must, by federal law, be based directly on a state's challenging goals, and because students' low scores on those tests will lead to AYP failure, some states have tried to minimize NCLB-induced casualties simply by lowering challenge levels of their state curricula. Many educators have already learned to their distress that -- from a public relations perspective -- such wholesale reductions in a state's aspirations must be labeled with consummate care. For obvious reasons, these sorts of endeavors should not be described as expectation lowering, standard softening, or dreaded dumbing down. Indeed, there is even some risk in referring to such an overhaul of state as curriculum revision. Revision, after all, could go either way. The best label for such challenge chopping currently appears to be curricular refinement. …

Control over education is a power that the Constitution reserves for the states, not the federal government. But, for the reasons Ms. McColl explains in this article, answering the question she raises in the title is not such an easy matter. THE No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, has become a symbol of all things good and bad in education. While the basic concepts of the legislation -- accountability for results, research-based education programs, increased parental options, and expanded local control and flexibility -- have wide support, some critics have argued that NCLB has failed to deliver.1 Others have focused on how best to implement its provisions.2 Although this scrutiny of the requirements and outcomes of NCLB is crucial to the policy debate, the law has largely escaped a more fundamental review, and answers to the following questions are needed: Has Congress overstepped its legal authority with No Child Left Behind? Is NCLB a constitutional exercise of congressional power, or does it infringe on states' rights? What is the role of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in addressing ambiguities in the law? Answering these questions requires a close examination of federalism as it is expressed in the U.S. Constitution and interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. call to examine the law in this light comes with a warning: reaching conclusions about whether Congress acted within the limits of its constitutional authority may cause some discomfort. Liberals may find their customary inclination to favor a more expanded role for the federal government to be in conflict with their concern about the substance of NCLB. Conservatives may similarly find their general bias in favor of states' rights to be in conflict with their support for the accountability and school-choice elements of NCLB. And if the courts ignore, as they should, both the politics surrounding NCLB and its education reform goals, the results of a legal challenge could be interesting, indeed. A conservative Supreme Court may ultimately conclude that President George W. Bush's education agenda exceeds constitutional bounds. Is There Constitutional Authority for NCLB? There is little dispute over whether NCLB represents an unprecedented level of federal involvement in the affairs of our public schools. However, there is disagreement between the law's supporters, who hail this federal intrusion into state and local education as effective national reform, and its detractors, who argue that the intrusion consists of a set of politically motivated mandates that are detrimental to our schools. language of NCLB speaks to the sweeping authority intended by its passage: The purpose of the title is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. To accomplish this, NCLB sets extensive requirements for states, including establishing an accountability system and staffing schools with high-quality professionals. This level of federal intrusion into a domain typically under state control raises legal questions because Congress must act within the limits of federal authority established by the U.S. Constitution. Constitution reflects a careful balance between the powers of the federal government and those of the states. James Madison argued, The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.3 Constitution defines this balance in the 10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Past court decisions, most notably San Antonio v. …

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderPolicy Analysis1 Sep 2007Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind Inches Ahead Neil Snyder Neil Snyder Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.PA2.12132007.38 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is uncertain as Congress returns from its summer break, but legislators have made a preliminary move. On Aug. 28, Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Education and Labor, released a staff discussion draft of Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The draft was developed through input received at nearly two dozen congressional hearings and from discussions with many groups, including ASHA, about re-authorization legislation. The information, along with ASHA’s comments, can be viewed on the “Take Action” Web site. Comments were due by Sept. 5. The draft focused on Title 1, the core of NCLB, which includes assessment requirements, aggregated data, and other hot-button issues. NCLB, first passed in 2002, includes 12 titles. Some reports speculate that Miller will introduce a major re-authorization bill and move it through his committee as early as this month. ASHA is promoting several NCLB reforms, including greater access to professional development opportunities for members, public disclosure of professional qualifications of teachers and school-based SLPs and audiologists, the use of multiple measurements for assessing children with disabilities, and improvements to Early Reading First and Reading First programs. Although public sentiment supports re-opening and repairing the law, politics behind it may prevent a quick resolution. Nearly a dozen members of the House and Senate are running for re-election, and thus are focused on their campaigns. It may be impossible to pass a bill through two legislative chambers for signature by the president before the current administration ends in 2008. Education Programs Update ASHA is supporting H.R. 3419, the Reducing Barriers to Learning Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa). Loebsack’s bill would establish an Office of Specialized Instructional Support Services in the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and provide grants to state educational agencies to reduce barriers to learning. No position or office within the DOE is responsible for coordinating federal government efforts involving school-based professionals such as SLPs, audiologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers. In his bill, Loebsack cites “70% of children receiving services from speech-language pathologists make progress in emergent literacy skills, and 75% make progress in word recognition, an important component of literacy skills; over two-thirds of classroom teachers report that students receiving these services show improved reading skills in the classroom.” IDEA, last re-authorized in 2004, is not scheduled for another review until 2010. The Higher Education Act, already passed by the Senate, is in progress in the House. Visit the “Take Action” Web site to contact members of Congress or visit the ASHA NCLB Web site for more information. NCLB Web sites U.S. Department of Education Commission on NCLB House Education& Labor Committee, Democrats House Education & Labor Committee, Republicans Library of Congress, Thomas Legislative Information Author Notes Neil Snyder, director of federal advocacy, can be reached at at [email protected] or 800-498-2071, ext. 4257. Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 12Issue 13September 2007 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Sep 1, 2007 Metrics Downloaded 58 times Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2007 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Under Pressure: Job Security, Resource Allocation, and Productivity in Schools Under NCLB

THE National Education Association (NEA) has been asked whether we endorse petition (see page 273) being circulated by Educator Roundtable that calls on members of U.S. Congress to vote against reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The short answer? Absolutely not. While initiators of petition are well meaning and share many of same concerns NEA has about NCLB, petition does not represent our views. For example, it calls for dismantling of NCLB and does not propose any positive changes or alternatives, such as those articulated in our own document, ESEA: It's Time for a Change: NEA's Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization. The NEA agrees with many of 16 reasons articulated in petition that argue why law cannot be salvaged. However, association disagrees with petition's conclusion--that NCLB should be repealed. Instead, we believe that several substantive changes that overhaul statute would produce a far better result. In addition, there is no chance that Congress will repeal NCLB. Those who do not articulate a positive set of changes to law will simply not be at table in negotiating any improvements to it. Furthermore, NCLB is current version of Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), so it's not clear what repealing NCLB would actually mean. Eliminating ESEA and its important programs such as Title I? Reverting back to 1994 version of ESEA, which would eliminate key provisions added in 2002, such as strengthened rights for homeless children? Or eliminating law's negative features, such as adequate yearly progress (AYP) and annual testing provisions? Among positive provisions mandated by NCLB is disaggregation of student data. That requirement alone has highlighted deficiencies in educational opportunities for several groups of students. In addition, NCLB has good intentions--closing achievement gaps between various groups of students, raising overall student achievement (at least as measured on statewide tests in reading and math), and ensuring that all students have highly qualified teachers. However, NEA has long argued that law's good intentions have gone seriously awry. While Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has said that NCLB is like Ivory Soap; it's 99.9% pure or something ... there's not much needed in way of change, reality is that it is not working. Among its myriad flaws and negative outcomes are a narrowing of curricula and projection that virtually all schools will eventually fail to meet its one-size-fits all, all-or-nothing AYP mandate. There is also little evidence that NCLB has directly contributed to its own major goal--raising student test scores. In addition, law has significant flaws in how it tests and counts test scores earned by both English-language learners and students with disabilities. And its regimen of consequences, sanctions, and punishments has no research base and has not been shown to help close achievement gaps. Finally, NCLB is seriously underfunded--with cumulative shortfall between amounts actually appropriated and amounts authorized in law exceeding $56 billion over six years. The NEA is not alone in calling for fundamental changes in law. A coalition of more than 129 national groups--including NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People), Children's Defense Fund, National PTA, National Council of Churches, and National Alliance of Black School Educators--has called for 14 changes to law, noting that the law's emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making systemic changes that improve student achievement.(1) Let's take a look at some of these flaws and failures in more depth. …

This study examines an important but often overlooked aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that calls for school systems to be held accountable not just for test score performance but also for their high school graduation rates. It includes an analysis of NCLB's accountability provisions, a preliminary review of the states' accountability workbooks, an overview of state approaches to measuring graduation rates, and three alternative strategies for calculating a graduation rate that states may choose to adopt under NCLB. State-level graduation rates are then calculated for the high school class of 2000 according to each of the three methods using a single nationwide data source, the U.S. Department of Education's Common Core of Data. This study is also able to compare graduation rates for separate racial and ethnic subgroups using one of these measures. This indicator, the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI), was developed by Urban Institute researchers and may offer conceptual and methodological advantages over alternatives approaches.

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderASHA Convention Coverage1 Jan 2005Schools Forum at Convention Draws 400 Marat Moore Marat Moore Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.ACC2.10012005.2 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Members from across the nation shared challenges and brainstormed strategies on more than 40 topics in roundtable discussions at the 2004 Schools Forum. ASHA’s top leaders also addressed the group, announcing the breaking news of reauthorization for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Kathleen Whitmire, ASHA’s director of school services, served as moderator of the forum, held Nov. 18 at the ASHA Convention in Philadelphia. Leadership Reports “Schools are a priority for ASHA,” said President Larry Higdon as he welcomed the crowd. Of the 100,000 ASHA-certified SLPs, 56% are employed in the schools. Higdon outlined the Association’s ongoing program work through the 2004 Focused Initiative on school issues, including advocacy and training related to IDEA and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), ongoing literacy activities, promotion of a workload approach to caseloads, and the 2005 Schools Conference set for July 8–10 in Indianapolis. Celia Hooper, vice president for professional practices in speech-language pathology, listed the outcomes related to schools programs and services, which include: an increased number of states and districts that utilize workload models access to information on IDEA an increased number of states and districts that offer salary supplements for the CCCs support from the State Education Action Team to five targeted states consultations on workload to 25 districts and four states support to 38 districts in 14 states that gained salary supplements In the area of reimbursement, ASHA’s working group on Medicaid supervision developed a technical report and position statement on ASHA-certified SLPs providing supervision to lesser qualified personnel for Medicaid-reimbursed services in the schools. In 2005, ASHA’s focused initiatives include: personnel issues, doctoral shortage, reimbursement, and evidence-based practice. Catherine (Kate) Gottfred, vice president for governmental and social services, updated participants on IDEA reauthorization, the new schools finance committee, training materials and activities related to the No Child Left Behind Act, and the 2005 public policy agenda. President-elect Dolores E. Battle noted the “exciting time we’re in” related to the confluence of IDEA, NCLB, literacy, and workload. She spoke of the importance of accurate assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, and noted the development of new intervention models, evidence-based practice, and the ongoing personnel challenges in the schools. For CLD students, “there are issues beyond bilingualism. We all have a culture,” she said, stressing that children “need a chance to show what they can learn.” Ellen Estomin, a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Caseload Size, gave participants more background on the workload analysis approach, noting that training has been offered in more than 40 states using ASHA’s practice documents. ASHA has contacts in 25 districts and four states related to implementation of the workload approach. Former president Nancy Creaghead updated the group on literacy resources and initiatives, including practice documents, the online “ Literacy Gateway,” advocacy with the U.S. Department of Education, and other program activities in the National Office and liaison work with external organizations. Roundtable Discussions Break-out roundtable discussions drew enthusiastic responses and prompted intense discussions of dozens of topics. Those topics included: apraxia, AAC, autism, auditory processing disorder, cleft palate, cochlear implants, collaboration, assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse students, fluency, evidence-based practice, literacy, IDEA, Medicaid, NCLB, recruitment of SLPs, rural challenges, salary supplements, severe disabilities, Internet treatment materials, voice disorders, urban challenges, and workload. The discussion on eligibility and dismissal issues drew such a crowd that tables had to be combined. When the discussion turned to funding, facilitator Tom Ehren pointed out that “the most important part of money is not our paycheck, but where the money comes from.” One participant noted, “In lots of schools, there are inconsistencies among SLPs about which students qualify and which don’t. A spectrum is OK, but too many discrepancies are a problem. It sends a mixed message.” Another issue raised in the group related to parents who did not want their children dismissed. Ehren said, “We talk about dismissal from the very beginning, and we celebrate dismissal.” In the roundtable on CLD students, clinicians spoke about the challenges of dealing with multiple languages and parents who juggle jobs and are often transient. One participant said, “Don’t forget about the older kids, the adolescents who are facing more academically complex challenges.” Another participant said that their staff gives parents of young children books in their native language. Other approaches in the group include after-school programs and homework clubs, and finding interpreters in the community to assist clinicians in the schools. President-elect Battle, who acted as facilitator, noted the importance of communication with middle school students. “How do you get that level of conversation with parents to help their kids in middle school?” she asked. “Often they will drop out or end up in the criminal justice system.” The group also addressed the issue of scoring tests, and the need to take the time to do comprehensive assessments. Author Notes managing editor of The ASHA Leader, can be reached at [email protected]. Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 10Issue 1January 2005 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Jan 1, 2005 Metrics Downloaded 56 times Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2005 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Public elite and specialized high schools in New York City have a very low enrollment of Black and Latino students. Project 2011 is an intensive preparatory instructional program to improve acceptance rates for Black and Latino children to the eight specialized public high schools in New York City. Initiated and funded by District 17 and 18 of the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) and supported by Kaplan K12 Learning Service, Project 2011 offers curriculum and training for the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), which is the only eligibility criterion for acceptance to New York City specialized high schools. Pre-test and post-test assessments that were administered to participating students indicated that the program significantly improved students' performance on a practice test. Implications for student achievement and factors that influence their scores on the SHSAT, standardized tests, and school work are discussed.Keywords: specialized high schools, SHSAT, high schools, high school admissions process, equal educational opportunityLITERATURE REVIEWSince the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling over half a century ago, concerns over equal educational opportunity continues to be widespread (Muller, Riegle-Crumb, Schiller, Wilkinson, & Frank, 2010). Many studies reveal circumstances that restrict access to education in academically competitive public high schools due to the use of a singular assessment to determine placement. New York City (NYC) Public School system's elite and specialized high schools are strongly impacted by inequality and access to education (Gootman, 2006; Mazie, 2009; Santos, 2012). The resulting impact on Black students is strongly evident in the research (Banchero, 2012; Deresiewicz, 2008; Muller et al., 2010).The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 addresses the issue of equal access to education and calls for a movement to increase academic standards (Mazie, 2009). In accordance with NCLB, many cities, like New York City, have been recognized for addressing the racial achievement gap in early education. However, they have not been as successful at the high school level, particularly at their top public schools, which require an entrance (Gootman, 2006). According to Dobbie and Fryer (201 1), exam schools make up over half of U.S. News and World Report's top 100 American high schools, and 20 out of 21 high schools designated as the 'public elite' by Newsweek (p. 1). Governments, such as China, Malaysia, Romania, Singapore, and Turkey, also use entrance exams to determine admission into their secondary schools (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011). The existence of exams schools in the U.S. has sparked intense debate on issues of educational inequality, particularly among political philosophers who are knowledgeable of public education systems and recognize the need to move beyond discussions of civic education to promoting educational parity (Mazie, 2009).Equal educational opportunity for all students is particularly important because research shows a direct correlation between academic success in high school and SES of future generations (Muller et al., 2010). Muller et al. (2010) recognized stratification in educational opportunity that extended beyond expected socioeconomic status (SES) differences to race. Specifically, the study mentions African American and Latino students' differential educational opportunities in comparison to their White counterparts. Furthermore, unequal public funds for education have always been a problem in the United States. Even private funds raised by the parent-teacher associations (PTAs) are impacted by the socioeconomic status of their communities (Mazie, 2009). Schools in lower SES communities are often deprived of basic and necessary educational materials. Compounding matters, Johnson, Richeson, and Finkel (2011) posit that students from lower SES environments, which are disproportionately Black and Latino, also encounter negative psychological influences. …

Numerous researchers (e.g., Academic Pathways to Access and Student Success, 2006, ACT, Inc., 2009; Bragg, Kim, & Barnett, , 2006; College Board, 2010; Hargrove, Godin, & Dodd, 2008; Keng & Dodd, 2008; Morgan & Klaric, 2007) have concluded that participating in challenging high school curriculums such as Advanced Placement (AP) courses and exams positively contribute to students' college readiness, college achievement, and career success. Specifically mentioned in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) was the AP program as a college prep course (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). Moreover, Section 1702 (Access to High Standards Act) of the No Child Left Behind Act acknowledged federal confirmation of AP coursework as college prep curriculum and encouraged states and school districts to incorporate these programs as a means of elevating academic standards (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush thrust the AP program into mainstream education; accordingly, the national perception on AP program involvement increased (Klopfenstein & Thomas, 2009).In a policy brief for the Education Commission of the States (ECS), Dounay (2006) recommended an all-inclusive state policy on advanced placement. First, each state and school district should require a minimum number of AP courses to be offered. As a result, state policy would provide consistency in AP content and leverage AP curriculum offerings in low-income and high minority schools. Second, a state-wide AP framework would establish standards and opportunities for all students to gain access to college preparatory courses. As the result, the federal government, along with most states, and the College Board subsidizes AP exam fees for low-income students. In addition, most states (including Texas, New York, and Florida) provide additional incentives for students and teachers of students who achieve AP exam scores of 3 or higher (Holstead et al., 2010). In September 2006, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced that 33 grants in the amount of $17 million were awarded to increase the participation of low-income students in AP courses and exams. In 2006, an additional $5,867,284 was awarded to 26 states to fund AP exam subsidies programs (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).In 2012, Arne Duncan, the current Secretary of Education, announced that federal support of AP program incentives and exam subsidies were reinstated (U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Over $21.5 million was budgeted to subsidize AP exam fees. As the result of these financial awards, the federal government continued to acknowledge AP course and exam participation as curriculum of college readiness and success. Although funding for AP programs and exams was approved, researchers (e.g., Davis, Joyner, & Slate, 2011; Moore & Slate, 2008) have documented the persistent AP achievement and participation gaps among Black students in the United States. Specific to this study, few researchers (Davis, Joyner, & Slate, 2011; Koch; 2012) have investigated AP program involvement and performance of ethnically diverse, primarily lower socioeconomic, student groups across states.PURPOSE OF THE STUDYThe purpose of this study was to determine the cost effectiveness of covering AP exam fees by comparing the success value provided by overall AP exam outcomes to test expenditures for Black students in three researcher-selected states (i.e., Texas, New York, and Florida). According to the Centers for Disease Control (n.d.), cost-effectiveness analysis is commonly used in the health care industries to confirm if the intervention and the results desired validate the cost or investment. As it pertains to this research, cost-effectiveness analysis compares the costs of AP exam to the results or level of success on these exams. In addition, the cost effectiveness analysis evaluates the extent to which AP achievement can be regarded as providing value for the dollars spent (Davis, 2013). …

UNDER No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal government requires state governors, superintendents, and school principals, through a regime of annual testing, to demonstrate to the taxpaying public that education dollars are being used effectively to improve student achievement. Developing, administering, and scoring the required assessments call for highly specialized skills and experience that states often lack, leading them to hire outside testing companies and consultants. Student performance on these tests--given at the end of the year to all students in grades 3 through 8--determines rewards and sanctions for schools, teachers, and students. But these standardized tests were not designed for accountability purposes, and experience in isolating and measuring the effects that schools have on student learning is rare. This test-based accountability system is being controlled by people who may know how to develop standardized achievement tests but know very little about the institutional realities of accountability--and even less about how to improve instruction in schools. For the most part, the assessments currently in use are not capable of accounting for the many non school factors that influence test scores, including student background, home environment, poverty level, and English-language proficiency. Such standardized tests are not always reliable measures of what is learned in the classroom, according to assessment expert James Popham. (1) And now NCLB has established these single, end-of-year tests as the dominant measures of school success or failure. HIGH-STAKES TESTING Tests used to make high-stakes decisions, especially in light of the fact that they are given only once or twice a year, necessarily have to meet a set of strict requirements. High-stakes tests must be sensitive--that is, they must be capable of determining changes in achievement related to instructional improvements. The validity of an accountability system depends on designing the right tests. These tests should meet the following criteria: (2) 1. Assessments used to measure student mastery of specific content must include clear descriptions--brief, jargon-free, and teacher-friendly--of what is going to be assessed. Classroom teachers need these descriptions to understand in detail what is expected of their students. 2. Effective assessments focus on a modest number of significant curricular aims, drawn from content standards. The selected content standards clearly must be of major importance. 3. An instructionally sensitive test to be used for accountability purposes must report student performance in a way that enables teachers to know what aspects of their instruction need to be improved and what aspects are working well. The tests currently being used to satisfy NCLB have been judged by the majority of teachers to be instructionally insensitive--incapable of measuring the effects of instruction on student performance. This can lead to tragic results because high-stakes tests can distort instruction and may encourage teachers to teach to the Teaching to a bad test and spending months on drill and skill may boost scores but surely ends up turning off students. The NCLB mandates for AYP (adequate yearly progress) and public reporting of results put enormous pressure on students, teachers, principals, and superintendents to raise test scores. This pressure can lead, in extreme cases, to cheating. The more general response is for teachers to practice on past (and even future) versions of the tests and to restrict instruction to just those subjects that will be tested; this is known as item teaching. These outcomes of high-stakes testing distort the traditional ideal of the teacher as one who makes every effort to achieve the goals of the curricula without regard to any particular test. The real blame for inappropriate forms of teaching in response to testing lies not with teachers but with state and national policy makers who create accountability systems centered on ever-higher test scores (AYP) with little regard for how these scores relate to better learning. …

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the policy process that led to the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in the United States and the Bush Administration's role in this process.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is historical and archival. A description of the NCLB Act is given and the major provisions and implementation are focused upon. How the Bush Administration helped create the opportunity to pass the NCLB Act by building coalitions, and how public opinion affected the evolution of the policy process is focused upon. Finally, a description is given on how policy ideas like the concept of “accountability” shaped the policy process, and both inspired and constrained the Bush Administration.FindingsThe paper argues that the Bush Administration helped create the opportunity to pass the NCLB Act by building coalitions, and public opinion affected the evolution of the policy process. Policy ideas like the concept of “accountability” shaped the policy process, and both inspired and constrained the Bush Administration.Research limitations/implicationsThe case is limited to the United States and NCLB, although those cases are particularly important in North America and in evaluation‐based research.Practical implicationsThe paper shows how a policy designer can be limited both by political initiatives and his or her own conceptual grounding.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to connect the policy process that guided President Bush's design of the NCLB legislation with the concept of “accountability”. Accountability is a foundational concept in the design of quality assurance systems.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (US Government, 2001), the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, makes it clear that states, districts, schools and teachers are accountable for the education of English language learners (ELLs), as well as all other students. To implement an accountability system, NCLB requires states to create content standards (a set of curricular goals and objectives) for English language arts, mathematics, and science. They must also develop and administer assessments that measure student progress toward mastery of these content standards. Finally, states, districts, and schools must demonstrate that they are making adequate yearly progress toward bringing all students to a previously established level of mastery of these standards (called Proficient) with the goal that by the year 2014 all students will achieve this level.