[nfbmi-talk] No Child Left Behind

[Fred Wurtzel]

Here is an interesting excerpt from a book by the former assistant head of
the federal Education Department.  If she thinks things are so bad for all
children, then, what is it like when blind kids are not being provided even
the minimum education in some schools.  

 

As a blind parent, school choice was virtually inaccessible since in
Michigan no transportation is available to or from the school.  We need to
get behind efforts to improve opportunities for kids whether it is the
Braille-a-thon or our NFB Youth Outreach.

 

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

By Diane Ravitch

Hardcover, 296 pages

Basic Books

List price: $26.95

Chapter 1

My support for NCLB remained strong until November 30, 2006. I can pinpoint
the date

exactly because that was the day I realized that NCLB was a failure. I went
to a

conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. — a
well-respected

conservative think tank — to hear a dozen or so scholars present their
analyses of

NCLB's remedies. Organized by Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Jr., the
conference

examined whether the major remedies prescribed by NCLB — especially choice
and after-school

tutoring — were effective. Was the "NCLB toolkit" working? Were the various
sanctions

prescribed by the law improving achievement? The various presentations that
day demonstrated

that state education departments were drowning in new bureaucratic
requirements,

procedures, and routines, and that none of the prescribed remedies was
making a difference.

Choice was not working, they all agreed. The scholars presented persuasive
evidence

that only a tiny percentage of eligible students were asking to transfer to
better

schools. In California, less than 1 percent of eligible students in
"failing" schools

asked to transfer to another school; in Colorado, less than 2 percent did;
in Michigan,

the number of transfers under NCLB was negligible; in Miami, where public
school

choice was already commonplace, less than ½ of 1 percent asked to move
because of

NCLB; in New Jersey, almost no eligible students transferred, because most
districts

had only one school at each grade level, and the state's urban districts did
not

have enough seats available in successful schools to accommodate students
from "failing"

schools. Julian Betts of the University of California at San Diego
questioned whether

choice was even a successful strategy, because his own studies found that
choice

had little or no effect on student achievement.

The scholars suggested many reasons why students were not transferring out
of allegedly

failing schools. In the first year or two, the letters informing parents of
their

right to switch their children to a better school were unclear or arrived
too late,

after the school year had already started. Even when the letters were clear
and arrived

on time, some parents did not want to send their children on a bus to a
faraway school.

In some districts, there were already so many public school choice programs
that

NCLB added nothing new. In others, there were far more eligible students
than seats.

But what was especially striking was that many parents and students did not
want

to leave their neighborhood school, even if the federal government offered
them free

transportation and the promise of a better school. The parents of
English-language

learners tended to prefer their neighborhood school, which was familiar to
them,

even if the federal government said it was failing. A school superintendent
told

Betts that choice was not popular in his county, because "most people want
their

local school to be successful, and because they don't find it convenient to
get their

children across town." Some excellent schools failed to meet AYP because
only one

subgroup — usually children with disabilities — did not make adequate
progress. In

such schools, the children in every other subgroup did make progress, were
very happy

with the school, did not consider it a failing school, and saw no reason to
leave.

Thus, while advocates of choice were certain that most families wanted only
the chance

to escape their neighborhood school, the first five years of NCLB
demonstrated the

opposite. When offered a chance to leave their failing school and to attend
a supposedly

better school in another part of town, less than 5 percent — and in some
cases, less

than 1 percent — of students actually sought to transfer. Free after-school
tutoring

(called Supplementary Educational Services, or SES) fared only a bit better
than

choice, according to the papers presented that day. In California, 7 percent
of eligible

students received tutoring; in New Jersey, 20 percent did; in Colorado, 10
percent;

and in Kentucky, 9 percent. The law implicitly created a "voucher" program
for tutoring

companies, a marketplace where tutoring companies and school districts could
compete

for students. Any organization could step forward to register with state
departments

of education to provide tutoring, whether they were a public school, a
school district,

a community group, a mom-and-pop operation, a faith-based agency, a
for-profit corporation,

a college, or a social services organization. Across the nation, nearly
2,000 providers

registered to offer tutoring to needy students. But no more than 20 percent
of eligible

students in any state actually received it, even though it was free and
readily available.

Why so little interest in free tutoring? The tutoring agencies blamed the
districts

for not giving them space in the public schools, and the public schools
blamed the

tutoring agencies for demanding space that was needed for extracurricular
activities.

The tutors complained about the cost of liability insurance, and the
districts complained

that some of the tutoring companies were ineffective or were offering
students gifts

or money if they signed up for their classes. It also seemed likely that
large numbers

of low-performing students did not want a longer school day, even though
they needed

the extra help.

As I listened to the day's discussion, it became clear that NCLB's remedies
were

not working. Students were offered the choice to go to another school, and
they weren't

accepting the offer. They were offered free tutoring, and 80 percent or more
turned

it down. Enough students signed up to generate large revenues for tutoring
companies,

but the quality of their services was seldom monitored. I recalled a scandal
in New

York City when investigators discovered that a tutoring company, created
specifically

to take advantage of NCLB largesse, was recruiting students by giving money
to their

principals and gifts to the children; several of the firm's employees had
criminal

records.

Adult interests were well served by NCLB. The law generated huge revenues
for tutoring

and testing services, which became a sizable industry. Companies that
offered tutoring,

tests, and test prep materials were raking in billions of dollars annually
from federal,

state, and local governments, but the advantages to the nation's students
were not

obvious.

At the conference, I was on a panel charged with summing up the lessons of
the day.

I proposed that the states and the federal government were trying to assume
tasks

for which they were ill suited. I suggested that they should flip their
roles, so

that the federal government was gathering and disseminating reliable
information

on progress, and the states were designing and implementing improvements.
Under NCLB,

the federal government was dictating ineffectual remedies, which had no
track record

of success. Neither Congress nor the U.S. Department of Education knows how
to fix

low-performing schools. Meanwhile, the law required the states to set their
own standards

and grade their own progress; this led to vastly inflated claims of progress
and

confusion about standards, with fifty standards for fifty states. Every
state was

able to define proficiency as it saw fit, which allowed states to claim
gains even

when there were none. The proper role of the federal government is to supply
valid

information and leave the remedies and sanctions to those who are closest to
the

unique problems of individual schools.

What I learned that day fundamentally changed my view of No Child Left
Behind. When

I realized that the remedies were not working, I started to doubt the entire
approach

to school reform that NCLB represented. I realized that incentives and
sanctions

were not the right levers to improve education; incentives and sanctions may
be right

for business organizations, where the bottom line — profit — is the highest
priority,

but they are not right for schools. I started to see the danger of the
culture of

testing that was spreading through every school, community, town, city, and
state.

I began to question ideas that I once embraced, such as choice and
accountability,

that were central to NCLB. As time went by, my doubts multiplied. I came to
realize

that the sanctions embedded in NCLB were, in fact, not only ineffective but
certain

to contribute to the privatization of large chunks of public education. I
wonder

whether the members of Congress intended this outcome. I doubt that they
did.

>From the book The Death and Life of the Great American School System

 by Diane Ravitch. Excerpted by arrangement with Basic Books, a member of
the Perseus

Books Group. Copyright © 2010.

 

Warmest Regards,

 

Fred