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COMMENTARY No Child law still leaves behind many kids By Roger Takebayashi |
We could not agree more with The Honolulu Advertiser's recent editorial ("Despite higher scores, NCLB needs fixing," June 7) that wisely points out that while the recent increase in Hawai'i student math test scores is certainly good news, we should not equate these incremental successes with evidence that the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is working.
Far from it.
With No Child Left Behind facing congressional reauthorization this year, now is the time to look closely at what works, what doesn't, and how to make necessary changes in this far-reaching act and its dramatic (and, some would say, damaging) impact on Hawai'i.
The Hawai'i State Teachers Association is committed to seeing strong academic achievement for all children and to closing the achievement gap that exists in Hawai'i, especially between our "have" and "have not" schools. We are also striving for accountability and a system that ensures all children — including children of color, those from low-income families, those with disabilities and those of limited English proficiency — are prepared to be successful, participating members of our democracy.
And while we applaud the intent of NCLB to ensure all children succeed in school, we believe several significant, constructive corrections are necessary to make the act fair and effective.
Overall, the law's emphasis must shift from only penalizing schools for not meeting an inflexible standard to rewarding progress and holding states and localities accountable for making the changes needed to improve student achievement. Our specific recommendations follow:
Hawai'i, along with all other states, should be permitted to develop a research-based school accountability formula or matrix that considers multiple measures. These might include graduation rates (for high schools), attendance rates, school-level assessments, performance or portfolio assessments, and the percentage of students participating in rigorous coursework.
Every state — Hawai'i included — should be allowed to implement a transparent growth-model methodology that recognizes continuous improvement for all students, grants schools credit for improving student achievement at all points on the achievement scale and for improving student achievement over time.
NCLB now punishes schools for things that are often beyond their control, hurting all students, regardless of individual performance. If a school falls short in just one or two criteria, it would be required to develop and implement a targeted improvement plan for the specific subgroup of students. In short, we need to change NCLB's emphasis from punishing perceived failure to fostering success for all schools and their students.
Currently NCLB does not pass the "common sense test" when assessing and counting test scores from students with disabilities and ELL students. Instead, NCLB should be changed to allow teachers to determine the appropriate assessment and standards.
The research is clear: Smaller class size equates directly to improved student success. NCLB continues to ignore this fact, allowing the current situation to continue, in which as many as 30 children are often jammed into a classroom with only a single teacher.
NCLB keeps many highly qualified teachers out of the classrooms because of highly restrictive definitions that can easily be changed. For example, fully licensed/certified special education teachers should be deemed as highly qualified, and we must expand the flexibility provided for rural education teachers.
Further, all National Board Certified teachers should be considered highly qualified. Given Hawai'i's extreme, chronic teacher shortage, these changes would help us get more teachers into the classroom where they belong, helping our keiki learn.
One of the best ways NCLB can advance teacher quality at the highest-poverty schools (Hawai'i has several) is to provide the funding necessary to attract and retain quality teachers and improve teaching and learning conditions.
In short, we recommend NCLB be reauthorized, but only if critical components of the act can be changed. NCLB must be amended to ensure we stop using sanctions to punish schools, over-emphasizing standardized testing, narrowing curriculum and instruction to focus on test preparation instead of fostering richer academic learning.
Roger Takabayashi is president of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.
