November 2006 | Volume 64 | Number 3 NCLB: Taking Stock, Looking Forward Pages 48-52 A Firsthand Look at NCLB How has No Child Left Behind (NCLB) affected you, your students, or your school? Educational Leadership wanted to know, so we asked readers to tell us their stories. Some respondents question whether NCLB reflects the true purpose of education, many bemoan the seeming necessity of having to “teach to the test,” and others have surprising insights about how the law has led to improvements in their schools. For Want of a Lab In the rush to produce a standardized system of accountability, NCLB has neglected to address the fundamental issue of equity. This not only applies to socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicity, but also to issues of facilities and education resources. We live in one of the most prosperous nations in the world, but I have taught in a science classroom that had no hot water or lab tables and no funding to purchase badly needed equipment. If a student at one school has a well-funded and well-equipped science classroom and a student at another school has no lab tables or basic equipment to learn science effectively, then how can we hold all students and teachers to the same standard? —Michael A. Flake, science teacher, Indiana Making School Worthwhile I work with six socially alienated boys who are involved in a collaborative project in which they play the role of concerned citizens who see a need for a new school. They must name the school, create a mission statement, and define the kind of staff needed to carry out the state curriculum. One point in their mission statement was insightful. They wrote, “Students will receive a quality education where learning is fun, safe, and worthwhile.” Their choice of vocabulary provided a lot of insight into how they currently view school. To them, school is not fun, not safe from harassing people, and not worthwhile. NCLB is draining the fun out of learning. Education has become about “the test.” Students are not developing an appreciation for knowledge or learning, and pressures to cover the standards by spring test dates stifle our creative teachers. Even children see that there has to be just cause for productivity to occur. If legislatures really care about children becoming productive citizens, then the significant numbers are not in the test scores but in the unemployment rate, the Medicaid enrollment levels, the number of citizens on welfare, and the incarceration rate. What can we give our children so they value learning that leads to responsible citizenship? In the words of six intelligent 5th grade boys, we should provide learning that is “fun, safe, and worthwhile.” Education is more than a test score; it's about instilling a moral purpose that encompasses an November 2006 Page 1 of 5ASCD11/27/2006http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653f...appreciation for lifelong learning and societal responsibility. —Terese C. Benefield, school counselor, Georgia The Good, The Bad NCLB has focused attention on subgroups that previously were often not the school's priority—small groups of minorities, children in special education, and ESL students, for example. In the past, only those heroic teachers who actually worked with the subgroups really cared. Now principals, counselors, and mainstream teachers must all strive to help every child—what schools should have been doing all along. But NCLB has also narrowed the curriculum, focused too much on testing, created complicated accountability systems that the public doesn't understand, and turned off lots of students. By 2010, most schools in the United States will be “under improvement,” and once again public education will take a hit, despite the excellent work done under tough conditions with a continually changing student body. —Stephen E. Schwartz, former assistant superintendent, Delaware Speaking as a Special Educator No one seems to remember that we have always had to set a bar to measure school and student achievement. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was Goals 2000. George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, with congressional backing, devised a plan in which all students would graduate high school and be proficient readers by the year 2000. Guess what? We didn't make it. The accountability was less stringent, but curriculum audits foundthat we needed to hone, redevelop, and enforce more consistent, cohesive standards to better account for the disheveled U.S. public school system's failure to serve many of its students. Standards-based accountability and this stringent, bipartisan piece of education legislation is a step in the right direction. As a special educator, I find the guidelines and curriculum standards equitable, leveling the playing field for all students. Special education is doing better under the strict regulations of NCLB, and even with the legislation's problems, it's a great step toward the end we wish to attain: setting the next bar to measure our schools' and students' progress. —Robert Bassett, special educator, California A School Discredited NCLB has affected parents more than it has affected students. Failure to meet its standards resulted in our school having to send a letter home to parents declaring our school “a failure.” Along with three options offered to their children, one of which was “remaining at the failing school,” the letter included an array of confusing descriptions about the procedures and reasons for imposing NCLB sanctions. Some parents ended up missing the deadline for submitting their signed form [which indicated their preferred option] either because they misunderstood or because their child failed to bring the letter home. Adding to their confusion was the fact that our school had received an A on Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) every year, except for one. Parents were shocked to learn that we had failed [the state test] enough times to affect our Title I funding. That the state's FCAT program and NCLB didn't dovetail was no surprise to our teachers. The resulting mismatch served to discredit both programs' validity in many people's eyes. Whether or not NCLB has succeeded in achieving its goals remains to be seen. However, the controversy it has created locally seems to be its most dramatic accomplishment. Many educators see NCLB as a poor and ineffective attempt to cure achievement gaps that we know testing cannot cure. Any