Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the annual convention of the Education Writers Association in Washington, DC Thursday night, and he said that the name “No Child Left Behind” has to go.
“The name ‘No Child Left Behind’ is toxic,” he said.
Duncan doesn’t want to scrap NCLB by a long shot, but he wants to see some changes, especially in how schools are evaluated. He called himself a big fan of value-added methods of judging school progress — in other words, looking at growth in test scores — rather than relying on a basic proficiency rate.
On testing, Duncan said he realizes the limits of standardized tests, but doesn’t want to get rid of them. “Test scores don’t tell us everything, but they tell us some things. We must use what we have until we come up with something better.”
One other indicator he wants to add to NCLB — or whatever it will be called — is a measure for high schools of how well they keep ninth graders on track.
6 thoughts on “Arne Duncan tells Education Writers Association: NCLB has to go (the name, not the law)”
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Agree with Duncan,Educational Establishment had an 8 year war with Bush administration,lets get rid of the names/titles etc. that trigger their hatred for the program.
Changing the name of the test is one, very minor but necessary change, but with the change Duncan seems to be saying that the AYP process will also change. He’s less, or not interested, in the labels of basic, or advanced, but on growth of test scores.
Keeping in mind that the reporter is interpreting Duncan’s remarks (and until I read his remarks themselves, I’ll remain skeptical of the reporter’s paraphrase), Duncan wants measures that key progress to individual teachers. That is the elephant in the room.
There is no, and never will be, a measure which fairly or reasonably measures the cause and effect of an individual teacher on student progress.
Larry:
This statement:
“There is no, and never will be, a measure which fairly or reasonably measures the cause and effect of an individual teacher on student progress.”
is simply not the case. There are several assessments that do just that, and are being used in schools today.
Whether there is an assessment to fairly and reasonably measure a teacher’s effectiveness is debatable. My experience with MMSD is that it doesn’t/wouldn’t matter, anyhow. More than one-third of the teachers, my children have had, would have been fired based on job performance in another profession. Many have been unable to teach, as they didn’t have enough knowledge of the subject. Some struggled due to inability to manage the classroom. For others it is apathy and the knowledge that they will retain their job whether they are effective in the classroom or not. My kids have, too often, been taught at home. One would have failed High School classes had we not had the ability to teach, as the teachers were unable or unwilling. They have spent entire years at the Elementary level where they learned nothing. In some cases, the material they learned in the prior grade was more challenging and advanced than the current grade. The intent of NCLB is good. I know that not all of the requirements are attainable, however. At the Elementary level especially, I have seen it used as a crutch. The sentiment is, “I can’t teach…because of No Child Left behind.” In regards to Phil McDade’s comment, maybe there are assessments being utilized. It’s unfortunate that there do not seem to be consequences for poor performance.
“There is no, and never will be, a measure which fairly or reasonably measures the cause and effect of an individual teacher on student progress.”
This belief, held by Larry, WEAC, DPI and liberal politicians goes to the very heart of the problem facing education today. Performance assessment procedures are in effect for all other occupations. The edu-estab has deluded itself into believing that teaching children is so mystical and special that it transcends the rules governing the rest of society.
As long as this naive belief is held by those in charge, no positive change can occur.
I am far from naive about testing and my position is not a belief, it is a fact!
The heart of the problem is that the public (formally educated or not) is so thoroughly ignorant that they are completely clueless about what it means to make decisions based on facts. To most, it seems, a fact is nothing more than an opinion on stilts; and further, that since everyone has a political right to an opinion, somehow every opinion is equal to every other opinion. Bolderdash.
Fact!
No test, for example TVAAS (Tennessee Value-Added Assessemtn System), now pushed by SAS, Inc one of their statistical modules called EVAAS can determine teacher effectiveness — but this is what is promised. And the public, ignorance always resoundingly in control, buys into this fraud.
Tests, whether EVAAS, WKCE, or NAEP, SAT, ACT, MMPI, or TIMSS measure, if useful at all, a very narrow set of skills/knowledge. But, the public will buy into the results as though handed down from the Mount, just as they do for NAEP, or WKCE, or any others. This is true regardless of what political spectrum they come from — but especially if the results match their prejudgments.
A multiple choice test measures something different than a fill-in-the-blank test, measures something different than essay questions written in a “blue book”, measures something different from an open book test, measures something different from a take-home test, measures something different from “write a 5-page paper on ….”, normalized tests measure something different than criterion reference tests, and timed tests measure something different from untimed tests.
Tests in education simply cannot and can never have the accuracy of, say, medical tests, or measurements in the hard sciences. Educational tests have very limited validity. The hard sciences can and do make progress because the physical world surrounding a test can be controlled, replicated, and the results are not affected by beliefs. The world of education cannot be controlled and subjected to the same or similar experimental designs.
It is impossible for a test to measure teacher effectiveness because of uncontrolled and uncontrollable factors.
1) student home environment
2) student’s personality
3) interactions of between and among students
4) size of class
5) preparation of kids coming to classroom
6) personalities of kids and teachers
7) school environment
8) interaction of a teacher with administration
9) curriculum
10) what the kids need
Teachers, like all of us, have differing skills and temperaments, and may do well, by some measures, in one environment but less well or poorly in another; can support and teach better some groups of students and not so well with another, or have particular classes where, because of the class makeup, are more or less effective (on average).
And, just because, on average, a teacher does well (or poorly) on some test of effectiveness, says nothing about their effectiveness for a particular student. I’ve seen it swing both ways, where some students find a teacher great, while others in the same class, find the teacher poor.
EVAAS and the like, at best, can detect the extremes of teacher effectiveness, given the kind of students and the environment they are teaching in. But, we don’t need an expensive battery of tests to tell us that! For the other 95% of teachers, EVAAS and the like is a complete waste of money and resources.
Simple minds want simple answers — everything needs to be black and white. As long as the results of testing are understood to measure only a small, and perhaps, insignificant aspect of the total picture that is needed to make informed decisions, then such tests are okay — worthless, money wasting but at least not otherwise harmful.
But, given the generally moronic nature of public discourse on these matters, it is best to avoid such testing.
Do I think the teachers and schools are doing a good job? No. Do I think it matters? No. Why? Because it doesn’t seem to matter how much education or the quality of education one attains. The moronic discourse on most issues are participated in equally by both the highly and the poorly educated.