Face to Face with No Child Left Behind

Public school parents have a huge stake in their children’s education and therefore in the laws that govern the schools their children attend. As an engaged and concerned parent myself, I had the privilege of serving on my local school board in Richardson ISD (TX) from 1997-2006. 

It was the era of No Child Left Behind, following what was labeled the “Texas Miracle” –accountability based on state standards and a state-mandated test, followed by ratings for schools. Former Texas Governor and President George Bush took the Texas experience to Washington, D.C., and Congress authorized the NCLB Act in 2001. A new theme of accountability was ushered in, utilizing both federal and state measurements.

For local school boards, charged with implementing the new NCLB law, the water was murky and sometimes seemed to change to quicksand. Criticize the law, and you were tagged as not wanting to be accountable to the taxpayers for the money they invest in public education and for student learning. Defend the law, and you were accused of wanting to turn students into robots who could only take multiple choice tests as opposed to thinking critically and being creative thinkers and doers. Parents in my school district were mixed on the whole issue. They did not want schools to graduate robots, but they also strongly wanted the highest and best state and federal ratings for their schools. They wanted academic success as well as the prime real estate values that come from that success. 

Several other issues were stand-outs in the implementation of the NCLB law. For starters, it was another unfunded mandate from government. The requirements of the law called for the expenditure of more time, paperwork, record-keeping, and staff. And enter attorneys in order to interpret whether or not we were correctly following the law. Since the law did not come with the funds needed and promised, this became a huge issue in school district budgets.

The highly-qualified teacher portion of the law pitted younger teachers against veteran teachers, many of whom had to reprove their worthiness to teach –after years of having already proven it in the classroom. It wasn’t good for teacher morale. It would have been preferable to grandfather in those veteran teachers who had already proven their value over the years.

Another challenge was that the state and federal standards and assessments didn’t exactly fit like a glove. Schools that were at the highest state rating could fail to reach Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) at the federal level. Confusing to parents, community, and taxpayers? You bet, and the phone calls ensued to school boards, asking for an explanation. There was no explanation, other than the fact that state and national standards/measurements were in conflict.

But perhaps the biggest travesty of all involved the most challenged and vulnerable students in the school district – children with physical and mental disabilities – which in some cases included those who could not even sit up. Sure, there was a provision in the NCLB law that allowed districts to exclude a certain percentage of special education students. But it had no relation to the number of special education students in the district. As a result, some children had to take the test who should have never been required to. It was cruel and unusual punishment. And it should never have happened.

As we come to the time that the NCLB law can be revisited and changed to reflect the things we have learned, some questions bear asking. Education Secretary Duncan and Congress, are you listening? 

If Congress requires school districts to operate under NCLB, they should allocate the money to do it. It’s not fair for districts to have to use their basic budget when it’s needed to pay teacher salaries. And the law should clearly do nothing to alienate teachers –we have enough of a shortage without that.

State and federal standards and ratings should be reconciled and relieve the conflict between them. Otherwise, the public will have no confidence in either system.

We should all be for accountability. It doesn’t make sense to take taxpayers’ money and then not tell them the results. But we don’t have to graduate robots in order to be accountable, and someone needs to figure this out. Graduates of the 21st century need to be able to think critically and adapt to constant changes. They need more exposure to foreign languages and the arts. We must find appropriate ways to measure the attributes of the graduates we want.

And for goodness sakes, please figure out which students should not be required to take mandated tests. We do not have to test overly vulnerable children in order to show we’re doing the job.  We can certainly be accountable and show progress without resorting to what amounts to a traumatic experience for some children.

Is it too much to ask the law to live up to its worthy name?