Educational Assesment Should No Child

Educational Assesment

Should No Child Left Behind be left behind?: An NCLB literature review

One of the most divisive issues in modern educational politics has been that of the 2001 federal legislative act No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In theory, NCLB is supposed to foster greater school accountability by providing a realistic assessment of what students know and what content areas require greater work within a particular school. However, Nicole E. Holland, in her 2009 article from The Educational Forum entitled "Refocusing educational assessments on teaching and learning," offers an eviscerating critique of the law's execution -- but one which is coupled with a strange reluctance to do away with widespread standardized assessment.

Holland writes that while in theory the act "requires the assessment of student learning in reading and mathematics in third grade through eighth grade and requires additional assessment in tenth grade through twelfth grade," because these standards are established on a state-by-state basis, they vary widely, and hardly provide a singular and objective statement as to what constitutes acceptable grade-level knowledge for all American children (Holland 2009). While "some states like Colorado and Texas have simple definitions for proficiency represented by a few levels, other states like California, Rhode Island, and New York have more detailed definitions represented by multiple levels and various definitions of student achievement" (Holland 2009).

Holland also decries the influence of professional testing agencies in the content, administration, and scoring of external assessments although she does believe that educational standardized assessment can and have provided a valuable tool for educators. However, previously helpful standardized tests were not punitive and used against schools. They were used, rather, to help teachers and schools, and were tailored for districts, rather than on a state level. Furthermore, instead of testing students on what they really know and what teachers are teaching, current testing agencies are dictating curricular standards: "Scholars have noted that high-stakes assessments frequently dictate and narrow the curriculum as determined by the external agencies that construct the assessments, rather than reflect the pedagogical and curricular needs of the students" (Holland 2009). Teachers are being deprived of the ability to individuate instruction -- in the name of improving student learning.

Administering the NCLB tests have proved to be exceptionally problematic. First of all, Holland notes that in many states there are admitted computing errors in the directions and even the scoring of standardized tests. This is an extraordinary statement, given the weight these tests have upon students' and school districts' futures. Even more shocking is the fact that that teachers have been found to have helped or even encouraged students to cheat on high-stakes tests, given the pressures upon their own careers and schools for their pupils to succeed on NCLB exams. The fear is that if the school is shown to be failing, it will lose valuable resources, endanger educator and administrator jobs, and perhaps make things even worse for students if they are forced to leave their school.

Assessments also create a climate of fear and frustration. Teachers feel they are being judged by individuals who do not understand their work, while students feel judged upon their competence. Teachers have their creativity as educators dictated and micromanaged by outsiders. Yet despite the many problems she identifies with NCLB, for some reason Holland cannot bring herself to call for an end to widespread standardized assessment or even more questionably the involvement of professional testing companies in administration and preparation of NCLB exams. In fact, she calls for more testing, but with more of an emphasis on helping facilitate the process of learning rather than upon the results in a punitive fashion: "assessments should not solely be given annually toward the end of an academic year, but should be administered throughout the school year when educators, who are familiar with the abilities of students, can use the data as a springboard for teaching and learning. This approach will provide teachers with an objective measure of what topics their students have mastered as well identify topics that may require corrective instruction" (Holland 2008).

Perhaps one reason some educators, even liberal educators like Holland, are so supportive of standardized testing, despite its many acknowledged problems is because of a report about underperforming schools entitled A Nation at Risk that alerted the public to the widening achievement gap between the nation's best and worst schools: According to Gabriel M. Della-Piana's 2008 article "Enduring issues in educational assessment" the "key recommendations" in the report A Nation at Risk called for standardized tests to measure "minimum competency" "at major transition points" to "certify the student's credentials; identify the need for remedial intervention, and identify the opportunity for advanced or accelerated work" (Della-Piana 2008). However, even for this early report, construct validity -- namely the question if the tests that 'raised the alarm' regarding student underperformance were valid -- was an issue. Tests that measure outcomes alone may not fully test necessary learning skills, like the ability to reason mathematically. But open-ended questions can be highly subjective in terms of grading. These were some of the problems critics had with the tests used in the report A Nation at Risk and continue to plague many NCLB tests in states all over the union.

For example, an essay written by a student can be eloquent, but contain many grammatical errors. Or, an essay might be grammatically acceptable, but show little complex thought. Both students may receive the same grade on a 1-6 scale, but the scores reflect entirely different deficiencies. And truly "measuring performance on open-ended cognitive processes and problem solving puts heavy cognitive and management demands on the teacher" to impart such skills (Della-Piana 2008). In direct contrast to Holland, Della-Piana suggests some harried teachers might welcome standardized assessment as a relief from the rigors of individuated classroom planning, but Della-Piana sees this 'relief' as compromising student learning.

Holland actively engages readers in the educational debate over testing, Della-Piana provides a historical overview, but Gail Hughes emerges with a strong, articulate and contrarian point-of-view regarding educational testing in her review of an alterative testing program at a Native American school. Her review is an overview of a book-length critique of standardized and assessment focuses on a school that is "is almost 100% Native American in a community with 75% unemployment and where approximately 70% of students score below the national average on standardized tests" (Hughes 2008). The school, to build confidence and teach critical skills, instead created an "evaluation of student portfolios" that Hughes believes "indicates that students are learning in richly connected ways often unmeasured by traditional standardized tests. In this school, students learn in an interconnected environment enriched by the tribe's native culture. Teachers support portfolio assessments because the evaluations 'mean something to our students. When they open it up, there's a meaning to that. When you fill in bubbles on a sheet or look at simply numbers on a page & #8230;the numbers do not have the same meaning or convey students' craftsmanship'" (Hughes 2008). Individualized instruction, in short, still matters and is what really encourages children to flourish -- a statement with which most educators are likely to agree, even outside of the specific context of Hughes' essay.