NCLB’s biggest problem is that it’s designed to help Washington politicians appear all things to all people. To look tough on bad schools, it requires states to establish standards and tests in reading, math and science, and it requires all schools to make annual progress toward 100% reading and math proficiency by 2014. To preserve local control, however, it allows states to set their own standards, “adequate yearly progress” goals, and definitions of proficiency. As a result, states have set low standards, enabling politicians to declare victory amid rising test scores without taking any truly substantive action.
NCLB’s perverse effects are illustrated by Michigan, which dropped its relatively demanding standards when it had over 1,500 schools on NCLB’s first “needs improvement” list. The July 2002 transformation of then-state superintendent Tom Watkins captures NCLB’s power. Early that month, when discussing the effects of state budget cuts on Michigan schools, Mr. Watkins declared that cuts or no cuts, “We don’t lower standards in this state!” A few weeks later, thanks to NCLB, Michigan cut drastically the percentage of students who needed to hit proficiency on state tests for a school to make adequate yearly progress. “Michigan stretches to do what’s right with our children,” Mr. Watkins said, “but we’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Today, evasion syndrome is epidemic. According to a report last month from the Institute of Education Sciences, a research branch of the U.S. Department of Education, while states are declaring success on their tests, almost none have standards even close to those of the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress — the so-called “Nation’s Report Card.” Almost all states have set their standards below NAEP’s “proficiency” level.
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Indeed MMSD develops programs that, as you said are “rather ambitious and considering District finances totally unrealistic” The devil is in the details. As a parent of a HS student and a MMSD employee I feel the frustration on both sides of these programs. District adminstrators, who spend no time in a school, develop plans in a conference room in the Doyle Building, that work mostly on paper. School people have way to much on their plates and indeed some things get dropped of it. My experience is that the majority of MMSD school staff work hard and do the best they can considering all the extra responsibilities that they given. Sadly this senerio is also being played out in State govt, the UW as well as in the private sector. Do more with less is the new theme everywhere I turn so I have readjusted my expectations that not all can be accomplished no matter how hard you try.