NCLB High-Stakes Assessments Deserve Failing Grade

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered testimony to Congress March 9 on proposed reforms to the law popularly called 'No Child Left Behind.' Duncan summarized the changes in three words: fair, flexible, and focused. The fairness prong aims to back away from proficiency assessment in favor of measuring individual student growth. But the assessment concept is problematic, regardless whether it's measuring student growth or across-the-board attainment of a numerical rating.

What's Behind the Assessment Movement?

Mandatory assessments are a means of channeling public funds to for-profit companies. The multinational conglomerates controlling academic testing are not accountable to the public. One of the top four came under scrutiny earlier this month when the New York Times revealed that Moammar Qaddafi's sovereign investment fund was one of its investors.

The tests' validity is open to serious question.

"There's very little oversight of the testing industry," Walt Haney, an education professor at Boston College told Rethinking Schools Online in 2004. "... there is more public oversight of the... food we feed our dogs than there is for the quality of tests we make our kids take."

Nevertheless, the U.S. spent an estimated $1.9 to $5.3 billion on assessments from 2002 to 2008.

While the U.S. spent more than 70 OECD countries on education in 2009, it turned out average readers and science students and below-average math performers. The American 15 years olds turning in those mediocre performances obtained most of their schooling under the rubric of NCLB.

My Kids' Experiences

Throughout my children's education, they have experienced NCLB-induced educational missteps. Relating to assessments, teachers:

* spent class time practicing filling out bubble answer sheets;

* designed vocabulary lessons around test-taking terminology;

* gave practice state assessments in class;

* taught words to a "pro-test" song whose tune is borrowed from a television show and whose first stanza is indicative of its educational value: "The papers are all passed out, the pencils sharp and ready, we're gonna take a fun test, it's called the MSA..."

* held pep rallies during school hours designed to generate enthusiasm for the test;

* created the false impression that assessments are critical to students' individual future opportunity;

* pressured children to perform, tagging them deficient for not reading in kindergarten, despite reading's description as an age 7 skill on developmental timetables;

* skewed resources away from average, above-average, and even extreme under-performers to focus on those just below passing;

* left capable kids to self-teach, while teachers exclusively taught under-performers;

* told eager students there's "no time" to cover interesting, educational material not on the test; and,

* used hand-held electronic grade recording devices purchased by the school system.

Many middle income families abandoned the public schools in favor of private schools during NCLB.

Duncan says about the approximate $10,000 per student per year America spends, "The real problem with K-12 spending in the U.S. is our low educational productivity. Unlike high-performing systems, we achieve less per dollar..."

Top-performing Finland spends $3000 less per student, and gets far better results with negligible testing and without pressuring kids. Its kids start school at age 7.

"It's the quality of the teaching that is driving Finland's results," Andreas Schleicher of OECD told Time Magazine. "The U.S. has an industrial model where teachers are the means for conveying a prefabricated product. In Finland, the teachers are the standard."

Where Duncan would re-allocate education dollars, I would advocate removing the testing profiteers from schools. Privately-developed and sold, high-stakes assessments and standards demand teaching to the test and stifling of inspiration.