Rewrite of No Child Left Behind Act Draws Criticism from Teachers' Unions

President Obama wants a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act. This eight-year-old legislation has come under fire as school districts limit curriculum and teach to the year end test. The new plan rewards high performing school, leaves average schools to find their own way, and puts strict guidelines on poor performing schools is drawing fire from teacher's unions.

Who is Unhappy

Two of the largest teachers' unions; the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, have been very public about their concerns with the proposed changes to No Child Left Behind Act.

The American Federation of Teachers criticism of the new plan is that teachers are being held completely accountable for student performance without having any authority. Obama's plan holds teachers accountable for student progress by changing the way states are allowed to pay teachers and principals. It sets up a performance based pay model. Teachers who do not consistently produce students who show progress can be financially penalized. The new plan focuses on student progress over time as opposed to relying solely on test scores.

Obama's plan focuses on funding and providing more money for charter and alternative schools. Financial rewards go to the highest performing schools. A main criticism of this comes from The National Education Association. According to a statement made to CNN, the National Education Association feels the new program is setting up another bad situation where states have to compete for critical resources. Hopes were that funding would become stabilized and distributed fairly among all states.

Measuring Student Progress

How will a student's progress be measured? By requiring students to take standardized tests. Herein lies the problem as it is a catch-22 situation. The only way to statistically judge any individual student's performance is to compare their progress to a set of standards. This is what current standardized testing does. It compares any given students score to what an average score would be for someone at their grade level. The score reports the variation from the standard, whether good or bad, as a percentage. If testing is eliminated, how do you measure student performance and progress? Under current law, low performing schools lose funding. Current No Child Left Behind regulations base performance on math and reading scores.

The current law encourages administrators to pressure teachers to teach the information on the test so that the students score well. This is known as teaching the test. Unfortunately many schools have focused so hard on getting the students prepared for the standardized test that they do not have the time or the resources to teach anything else. Science, art, music, and physical education curriculums have been cut or eliminated entirely.

The Solution

As long as monetary gain for states, schools, and teachers relies on test scores, teachers will teach the test. There are two solutions to the current scenario. Require standardized testing in every subject - such as yearly SAT or ACT for every child at every grade level. Another option is to design a method of accurately measuring student progress from year to year without using tests. Such a method must be easily reported on a federal level. Furthermore, this method must be consistent among all schools and the results of this measurement must be easily broken down into statistics for reporting and comparison purposes.

Sources:

CNN:Education Chief Pitches Rewrite of No Child Left Behind Act