Last week, I wrote: "Essentially, [the No Child Left Behind act] punishes schools whose improvement is substandard by removing funding and eventually shutting them down." Apparently, I am told, this is incorrect; my understanding of the act was flawed when I wrote the column. Mea culpa. Several eagle-eyed readers caught this and commented to that end on the article; thanks to "Kevin," "Jason" and "An Education Major" for setting me straight.
So, there's a distinct possibility that last week's analysis of NCLB is flawed, and that it does in fact present a viable solution to the problems of our education system. Though the argument was logically valid (and, strictly speaking, the deductions are true: it's also technically true to say, "If the sky is bright pink and had yellow polka-dots, elephants can fly), it says absolutely nothing if the premises are false. It's useless, like a chain that has no fixed end.
Let's go back and think a little harder about NCLB to see whether or not the conclusion last week was true. According to the White House's Web site, NCLB is based upon the notion that "an enterprise works best when responsibility is placed closest to the most important activity of the enterprise, when those responsible are given greatest latitude and support, and when those responsible are held accountable for producing results." Immediately following are the four pillars of the act: increase accountability for student performance, focus on what works, reduce bureaucracy while increasing flexibility and empower parents.
Increasing accountability involves rewarding achievement and punishing failure. How? The only stick and carrot the national government has here is money, so states that do not meet statewide adequate yearly progress standards for more than two years have portions of their education funding withdrawn, according to the White House Web site.
Individual schools that do not improve, according to the New Hampshire Department of Education, face increasingly harsh sanctions if they do not begin to meet standards after two years, ranging from being required to replace some faculty to instituting a new curriculum to restructuring the school to replacing all of the school staff to closing and reopening as a charter school. Meanwhile, schools and states that do meet the standards are given bonuses as accolades.
Failing schools must offer parents the option of moving their children to schools that do perform, at the expense of the school district (according, again, to the New Hampshire Department of Education's Web site). According to the Department of Education, public school choice is critical to NCLB because students must be able to attend schools that are not failing while their original schools restructure.
Let's step back and take a look at this legislation. Is it really an antidote to the problems facing our schools? NCLB seems to operate on several premises, both stated and unstated. For example, school choice assumes both that students and parents care enough to go to the trouble of moving schools and that a year spent in a failing school is not enough to have already seriously affected the child's education.
And what sort of logic underlies the assumption that if you hold schools accountable they will improve student performance? This premise simply begs the question: since when have schools had control over all, or even most, of the factors that influence student performance? Parental involvement, student attitude, local culture, even level of funding - these are beyond the school's control.
NCLB does not after all present a satisfactory solution to systemic problems that stem from poverty, apathy and urban blight. By exclusively targeting schools, the act essentially absolves students and parents of responsibility in education while ignoring the fundamental problems in the school system.
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