The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Apparently, I haven't ranted to you about NCLB enough. :P It is so seriously flawed, I'm amazed that anyone who has ever taken a math class can support it. We need a mass uprising of statisticians to help shoot it down.

You see, the law legislates that by 2014 or some such year, 100% of children will be at grade level, regardless of disability, race, or whether they even come to school (although we will also be penalized if they don't come to school, with no power to enforce attendance laws).

To that end, it bumps up the requirement of the percentage of kids who need to be at grade level by 5% each year. I think we're at about 60% this year, but honestly I don't remember.

I have issues with that in general, considering that you don't make kids get to grade level by legislating that they do so, and the law has no resources to help teachers or kids achieve the legislated requirements.

For example, our school has a student who is a 3rd grader, and who just moved to town in the middle of the year this year (so, we weren't even providing the education that was supposed to get him to grade level the other years). He has some sort of Downs Syndrome type disability, but he has not yet been diagnosed (we're working on getting that to happen). He does not yet recognize colors, letters, or numbers, you see. He can't write his name. But, according to NCLB, we have to give him the state reading and math test this year, because yippee, he's a 3rd grader. We get penalized, and could lose funding, if he (and others in similar, if not so extreme situations) don't pass the test. Did we get worse as teachers? No, but we can't control who comes to our school, and some of us teachers prefer to stay where we're needed instead of flying away to affluent schools where our test scores would make us look like better teachers.

But, the bigger problem lies with the testing results themselves. First of all, there is no national test, funding for testing, or definition of "grade level". That's up to the states. Texas, which sets the bar relatively low, for example, appears to be doing rather well at the moment. IIRC, their "passing" score was set at about the 31st NCE (more on that later).

Secondly, the test doesn't measure the same group of kids every year. This year, our school has 54 3rd graders, so our primary grades' improvement or lack thereof will be based upon how this group of 54 3rd graders compares with last year's group of 70-something 3rd graders. You're not even testing the same kids from year to year, so you can't really call fluctuations in test scores improvement. There is no procedure in the law to measure growth over time. Just a mandate that certain students be at certain levels, even if they just moved to your school 2 weeks earlier.

Also, "Grade Level" is apparently determined by states by setting a cut score, below which is not passing and therefore not at grade level. The cut scores are set by a committee by looking at test results and setting an arbitrary number that will result in x percentage of kids passing.

So, in Texas, "grade level" is at about the 31st NCE on a nationally normed test. However, since you're using a nationally normed test, that means that, statistically speaking, there HAS TO BE kids who score under the cutoff score. It's not statistically possible for 100% percent of kids to be at the 31st NCE or above. If they were, the test would be renormed until that was not the case.

In Oregon, here's the document explaining the new (toughened) cut scores for this school year- http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/standards/contentperformance/prelimstds_rms_12132006.pdf . How can we, as a state, expect to get to the point where 100% of students are on grade level, when measured by a test that is set so that 65-82% of kids pass (depending upon grade)? If we get better as educators, then the cut scores will go up. For example, at elementary school, a lot of kids have been passing, and at the high school level, many have been failing. So, they revised the numbers so that it's easier to pass in high school, and harder to pass in elementary.

If we have been doing better in elementary, the current law would not show it until this group of kids gets to the higher grades where current high schoolers are failing! Yet, kids are not tracked longitudianally, so we will never know. Instead, cut scores are reset every so often to make the bean counters happy.

In the short term, there have been some schools that have improved under NCLB. I think it's a good thing that schools have been required to ensure that their minority groups (race, SES, language learners, etc) are making progress. It's about fucking time. But, I also recognize that this was put in there as a smoke and mirrors campaign to make dems look bad if they didn't support the bill.

In the short term, schools with low performing kids, and schools who have been shortchanging some of their minority populations have had to scramble to put something together. This is a very good thing.

In the long run, I believe that it is designed with the intention of creating a nation of "failing" public schools. There are people who don't want to stop at charter schools and vouchers, but who want to destroy the public education system as a concept. This will be much easier to do if the public believes that our entire system of public schools is failing. Under NCLB as it is currently written, they will even have data that shows that (if schools stay exactly the same and no changes are made to test or cut scores) schools got further and further away (5% further away every year, as written in the law, heh) from having enough kids achieve the required test scores every year. Oh no! Clearly the public school system is FAILING! Whatever can we do to replace the system?

It's a house of cards. A ticking time bomb. I only hope we have the sense to get some significant changes made to this law before the music stops.

Good rant. I liked it. And felt rather informed by it.

I think I have thoughts on the subject, but I also think it's 3am here and I'm awfully tired. Later, perhaps.

...Has any pri/sec level standardized test ever been worth a thing, we wonder?

NCLB is one of those federal welfare state type of programs that should never have existed. It's part of Big Government(tm). These sort of matters should be left to state and local entities to decide. The feds have no business wasting tax dollars on stuff like this.

That being said, even before NCLB and it's flawed statistical model, our public school system was failing. It has been for at least the last 20 years or so. I've been witness to it firsthand here on the battlefields of Southern California. No, it's not because the teachers suck. It isn't because the American students suck. It's because the feds insist that we waste our time and money educating their next crop of illegal aliens who just crossed over from Mexico the summer before and can't even speak English.

The system wastes so much effort doing this that the other kids get frustrated, act out, and cause trouble. Of course, it does NOT help that their parents don't give a crap either. Which is the other part of the problem. Parents who don't give a crap about school or education produce kids who don't care. These people use public school as a glorified babysitting service.

No, the only true solution to this problem is for the federal government to get out of the scam of public education and leave it to the locals to deal with. The way it should have always been. Reagan had it right when he campaigned with the plank in his platform to abolish the Dept. of Education. He just didn't count on Congress essentially telling him to fuck off.