The use of standardized testing as part of the accountability movement is a significant educational issue now. The federal No Child Left Behind mandate, as with any other initiative, has a group of supporters as well as a group in opposition.
Supporters of NCLB agree with the mandate for accountability to educational standards, and believe emphasis on test results will improve the quality of public education for all students. Proponents also believe that NCLB initiatives will further democratize U.S. education, by setting standards and providing resources to schools, regardless of wealth, ethnicity, disabilities or language spoken. Opponents of NCLB, which includes all major teachers' unions, allege that the act hasn't been effective in improving education in public education, especially high schools, as evidenced by mixed results in standardized tests since NCLB's 2002 inception. Opponents also claim that standardized testing, which is the heart of NCLB accountability, is deeply flawed and biased for many reasons, and that stricter teacher qualifications have exacerbated the nationwide teacher shortage, not provided a stronger teaching force. Some critics believe that the federal government has no constitutional authority in the education arena, and that federal involvement erodes state and local control over education of their children (White).
My position on the NCLB mandate is of the opponent. However, I don’t agree that education is not improving; rather, I believe that it is being curbed by tests. I am employed at a High impact school in Guilford County. On last week, we were told that we would go through a reform on next year, very similar to that of Oak Hill Elementary. The kindergarten through fifth grade classroom teachers will have to reapply for their positions after this school year because our students did not make AYP this past year or for the three years prior. My problem with this is that we made high growth last year in comparison to the three previous years, but due to the NCLB mandate, that means nothing. We had students that improved an entire grade level as measured by the EOG (end of grade) test. These students were behind 2 grade levels which means that after last year, they were still behind, but they made growth. In this paper I will show that the issue of accountability, where testing is concerned, should not be the only measure in our educational systems. I will show that reform has been halted by these standardized tests and suggest that maybe the NCLB act should be readdressed.
Most 8th grade math teachers make decisions about what and how to teach based on the content of standardized tests administered in their district, according to the National Center for Research in Mathematical Science Education (Romberg et al. 1989). Teachers align their curriculum with the test, but research has shown that the tests are not aligned with the future needs of the student. How can this be true if we don’t want children left behind?
According to Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, “To become mathematically literate, students must know more than arithmetic” (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1989, p.18). In grades 5-8, “a broad range of topics should be taught, including number concepts, computation, estimation, functions, algebra, statistics, probability, geometry, and measurement” (NCTM 1989, p.67). Although these statistics are coming from the late 1980’s, I see this same scheme today. NCLB was enacted in 2002. That is 13 years after the statistical reference was made. I am a parent of a first and a third grader who have their own individual strengths and weaknesses. My first grader has no problem with the abstractness of mathematics. She is even doing multiplication in the Montessori school setting. My third grader gets intimidated by tests (standardized or not). He can dictate to you everything he has learned, but when it is time to perform on a test, he freezes and does nothing close to what he actually knows. I contend that the majority of American students are not good test takers and the fact that the test will not foster the future needs of the student does not make it a logical solution to measuring what a student has learned over the course of a 180+ day school year.
Assessment and testing are bound to be more important at the beginning of this century than they have been, even in the near past. Politicians have embraced testing as a pillar of the educational edifice. However, we must bring interpretive intelligence to bear on the results of tests. For instance, what if standards implementation and high-stakes tests do not have their expected impact? Will there be a chance to consider another policy option? If not, that outcome spells trouble for the public schools and the inferences made about the effectiveness of recent reforms. If test results misrepresent the impact of reform, it is clear to see what will happen next to public education (Baker, 2001).
Thus is the case with Calvin Wiley elementary school, my employer. Now 16 individuals will potentially be out of a job next year if they cannot get their students to perform on the test so that the principal can see the scores and feel that this individual is a “score producer”. The climate at this school is such that school is the only refuge for most of our children. Many are raised by foster or grandparents. They have very limited resources and are growing up in neighborhoods that I am scared to be near after dark and I am a 32 year old, grown woman. So, these teachers are expected to break through all the baggage and stony walls in the course of 10 months that these children have taken years to build and produce test scores that will fall in line with national standards. This is a great challenge. What about educating the “whole” child?
This education plan that had the overwhelming support of Congress once it was passed is a disappointment to most teachers. It also seems that many people have lost sight of the true purpose and essence of what education really is. When I ask my children what they have learned from day to day, sometimes, they say “nothing”. And I have to inform them that they learn daily, whether a week/school day or on the weekend because the environment around them teaches them something. Some parents seem to believe that high test scores will turn into possible letters of acceptance into colleges or universities. For many people the purpose of education is knowledge to acquire money. It is my belief that school leaders and politicians are overwhelmingly responding to this philosophy of what education is and are turning our public schools into test preparation centers instead of institutions of learning. I will admit that education is a catalyst to prepare one for a career, but believe that we are looking at that as the sole purpose. This in turn will perpetuate society in such a way that people will only study to pass a test or to do something that will enable them to prosper financially. “If this is what education is reduced to, then our diplomas will be nothing more than degrees in ‘Thinkology’ (Desmond, 2002)”. This quote really stuck out with me because my question is what is it that we want students to “think”.
The premise on which public schools were founded was to allow individuals to lead meaningful lives. Education is thus a lifetime endeavor.