Something Got Left Behind
There’s nothing like an election year to force a little needed change. For more than a year, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige stood stubbornly by provisions of the federal education law that created unforeseen problems. While some of the preelection politicking against the No Child Left Behind Act was a mean-spirited attack to undermine a needed reform, the result was to push the administration into acknowledging that the law was unworkably rigid.
Most recently, Paige tackled one of its most troubling aspects: For a school to count as meeting goals, it had to test 95% of its students. That included 95% of the students within each subgroup, such as specific ethnic groups, special-education students and so forth. Whoever dreamed up this idea never spent much time in the classroom. Simple colds and flus keep out more than 5% of students on any given day.
Hundreds of California schools that performed up to the law’s ambitious standards in every other way were shamed as failing because not enough students in one subgroup or another showed up to take the test. In several cases, it was a difference of a student or two in an entire school.
Paige’s latest tweak to the law will excuse students who are absent for medical reasons from taking the test. In addition, schools can meet the 95% mark by averaging participation over two to three years. It’s a reasonable fix to what had been a thoroughly unreasonable rule.
The question in the minds of many educators, though, is how Paige managed the change. The law is quite clear about the 95% rule, and six months ago federal education officials were saying their hands were tied. With elections coming up, there is no political interest from either the White House or Congress for legislatively fixing the act -- and thus admitting it was flawed. It’s a lucky thing that election pressure can run both ways, creating the will to make regulatory changes previously declared impossible.
With this newfound feeling of power, Paige needs to work on one more aspect of No Child Left Behind: giving new flexibility to states such as California that have high academic standards. The law allowed each state to set its own standards for when a student was “proficient” in school, but then required all states to meet the same bar for how many students tested as proficient. Some states set the bar laughably low. Presto, instant proficiency!
California still needs the federal law. Even with its high standards, the state doesn’t do enough to require consistent improvement, especially among poor and minority students.
But Paige’s office should develop a system for crediting schools that make major improvements year after year, even if they don’t meet the precise federal bar.
Quick, before the election makes things impossible again.
