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By Anne Hassler, Managing Editor In the midst of state assessment testing time at local schools, many teachers are seeing the culmination of months' worth of work preparing students for what has become a do-or-die situation - making adequate yearly progress (AYP). The quest for AYP typically comes with months of preparation and pre-testing for students. “We probably start in a couple of months before teaching students testing strategies and going online to take pre-tests,” said Washington Elementary Principal Sue Hosey. All of this time spent on prepping for assessments means less time for other areas of study. “We tend to focus on reading and math, the two subjects tested on and areas like science and social studies, which provide more opportunity for creativity, are typically being sacrificed,” said Craig Marshall, Eisenhower Elementary principal. While all schools in USD 418 made AYP last year, there is a stiff price to pay if AYP is not met. First, schools not meeting AYP are placed on a list maintained by the Kansas Department of Education. School's participating in Title I funding are identified for improvement when they miss AYP in the same area for two consecutive years. The list of schools and districts not making AYP is released to the public at a Kansas State Board of Education meeting and publicized on KSDE's Web site. “Way back when the idea of No Child Left Behind was first being discussed, they said school's assessment information would not be publicized. But then the Internet made it easier to get the information out,” Marshall said. While dissemination of this information helps keep parents informed and schools accountable, it also creates a pressure on teachers not to make “the list.” In extreme cases where AYP is not made for five consecutive years, NCLB dictates the school must be restructured, which means replacing staff or some other intervention. AYP is just one of the many criteria mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act which became law in 2002. NCLB was designed to establish rigorous academic standards, conduct annual assessments at specific grade levels with at least a 95 percent participation rate, collect data to determine a school's performance and establish new qualification requirements for teachers and paraprofessionals. Since becoming a law, NCLB has shown itself to be a piece of flawed legislation that most can agree needs some revision in its requirements, implementation and funding. Chief among those concerns are the lack of a standardized national test to measure AYP. Each state uses its own state assessment to measure a student's progress. One facet of NCLB that has set off concern is the mandate that 100 percent of students be proficient by 2014. “If we believe that by 2014 all students will be proficient on a state test, it would be like saying every doctor will never lose a patient,” said USD 418 Superintendent Randy Watson. In a May 24, 2007, article that appeared in “Time” it was found that in order to meet the 2014 decree, many states have decided to lower the standards by which the children are judged. One option for a country-wide standardized test is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is a much more rigorous assessment than the majority of states now implement. Another option would be to forego the standardized testing and use a growth model which tracks the individual progress of each student. In a recent Sentinel online poll, 38 percent of respondents indicated the need to factor a student's unique abilities into assessments. Using growth models, success is measured by a student's progress even if they don't test at grade level. Coupled with the fact that AYP measures the performance of the school by tracking a different set of students each year, true performance measures of a student's progress do not play a big enough factor in NCLB, according to local administrators. “Using that (a growth model) would help us track each student's progress better. The fact that we now test third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders gives us the ability to see how a student is progressing instead of only comparing one year's fifth grade to another's,” Hosey said. Congressman Jerry Moran is a vocal critic of NCLB and has introduced legislation aimed at correcting its flaws called the Practicality in Education Act. Moran's legislation would place special emphasis on individual student progress and give a more accurate picture of improvements and problem areas. It also allows schools identified as failing one additional year to improve before being labeled a failing school. Moran is in favor of a growth model approach of measuring progress and more continuity in measuring the same subgroup progress from year to year. It's clear there is no miracle fix to NCLB. The USD 418 School Board recently passed a declaration in support of H.R. 648, the house bill that would require more than 50 changes to NCLB which is supported by the National School Board Association (NSBA). McPherson is one of more than 700 school boards to pass such a resolution with more than 60 of them in Kansas. Where NCLB reform stands today According to NSBA, recent meetings with Congressional committee staffs indicate that both House and Senate committee bills to reauthorize NCLB could be introduced before the spring recess. Congressional support for NSBA's recommendations to improve NCLB continues to grow. To track reauthorization of the NCLB Act, visit www.house.gov or www.senate.gov. |
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