November 2006 | Volume 64 | Number 3 NCLB: Taking Stock, Looking Forward Pages 8-13 NCLB: Is There Life Beyond Testing? Christy Guilfoyle Only multiple measures of achievement can provide an accurate picture of student learning and school success. If you asked a roomful of educators which word or phrase best sums up No Child Left Behind (NCLB), some educators would say accountability. Others might propose student achievement, proficiency, or raised expectations. But perhaps the most accurate word to encapsulate the United States' most ambitious federal education law—which proposes to close achievement gaps and aims for 100 percent student proficiency by 2014—is testing. Certainly, the focus on holding schools accountable for student achievement on standardized assessments sets NCLB apart from previous versions of the law. November 2006 Page 1 of 7ASCD11/27/2006http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653f...Page 2 of 7ASCD11/27/2006http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653f...NCLB is the newest iteration of a decades-old education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The original law provided funding to school districts to help low-income students. Today, NCLB holds Title I schools that receive this federal money accountable by requiring them to meet proficiency targets on annual assessments. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has called testing the “linchpin of the whole doggone thing.” The law requires tests in reading and math for students annually in grades 3–8 and once in high school. In 2005–2006, 23 states that had not yet fully implemented NCLB needed to administer 11.4 million new tests in reading and math. When science testing begins in 2007—one test in each of three grade spans (3–5, 6–9, and 10–12)—the number of tests that states will need to administer annually to comply with NCLB is expected to rise to 68 million. These tests carry consequences for the schools and districts that administer them. Schools that fail to bring enough of their students to proficiency face escalating requirements, such as having to offer public school choice or provide supplemental education services. If the school is considered “in need of improvement” for five consecutive years, it risks being restructured or taken over by the state. January 2007 marks the law's fifth anniversary, so the more severe consequences for schools loom just around the corner. Many educators are concerned that these sanctions and others, such as establishing a new curriculum, replacing school staff, or decreasing managerial authority at the school, have not been proven to raise student achievement. Others say that the need to comply with the law stifles innovation and that the limited focus on a small subset of subjects narrows the curriculum. Page 3 of 7ASCD11/27/2006http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653f...Secretary Spellings often remarks, “What gets measured gets done.” If nothing else, NCLB has launched an unprecedented focus on the reading and math abilities of previously marginalized students. By requiring the disaggregation of test scores by subgroups of students—such as English language learners, racial minorities, and students with special needs—NCLB ensures that schools don't bury these students' test scores in schoolwide and gradewide averages or gloss over the achievement gaps that those scores reveal. Teaching to the Test In this culture of “What gets measured gets done,” the question that begs asking is, What happens to what doesn't get measured? In an NCLB-driven world, the list of what's not measured far exceeds any list of what is measured. This list includes such subjects as history, art, civics, music, and physical education as well as intangibles like school culture and student health and well-being. Some of these factors are hard to measure, but they nevertheless have a large effect on student achievement and are a significant piece of what we want our students to know and be able to do well. Education sociologist David Labaree once posited that an overreliance on testing causes students to care only enough to ask, “Will this be on the test?” NCLB seems to have transferred this problem from students to teachers, who may well approach teaching with the same attitude: “Whatever is not on the test is not worth knowing, and whatever is on the test need be learned only in the superficial manner that is required to achieve a passing grade” (Labaree, 1997, p. 46). Under NCLB, teachers feel great pressure to focus their energies solely on preparing students to excel on standardized tests. But standardized assessments tell us only so much. The U.S. Department of Education claims on its Web site that annual testing helps teachers improve student performance and diagnose weaknesses, but assessment expert W. James Popham disagrees. Popham (2006) has found that most of the tests used under NCLB are “unable to detect even striking instructional improvements when such improvements occur” (p. 82). Fixing the Flaws Substantial problems exist with the NCLB testing and accountability structure. For example, researchers have identified work-arounds that states, districts, and schools can use to raise test scores without actually improving student learning. These methods cheat students by making changes at the state level (making test items easier, lowering cut scores); at the school level (excluding low-performing students, tutoring students just below the cut score who are more likely to move to proficiency); and at the teacher level (encouraging or discouraging certain students to attend on test day) that trick the accountability system. These work-arounds raise test scores but do nothing to help students (Laitsch, Lewallen, & McCloskey, 2005). Spellings has attempted to address some of the concerns about the way NCLB uses test scores to determine adequate yearly progress (AYP) by altering requirements and introducing new flexibility. For example, states can now count students in the English language subgroup for up to two years after they have attained proficiency in English, a move that cuts back on the instability of that subgroup. States can also create modified assessments for some students with special needs who are neither at grade level nor in the official category of significant cognitive