RCML Musings

December 2004
Implications and Consequences of the
No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is no stranger to math educators. Before taking a look at its implications and consequences, especially to math education, let us take a look at what the policy makers hoped to attain, as a result of the NCLB. The No Child Left Behind Act has laudable intentions:
1) Ensure every school going child in the nation performs to acceptable standards.
2) Close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
3) Have a teacher qualified to teach the subject in every classroom.
4) Hold schools and teachers accountable for students’ achievement.

Now, no right-thinking individual would have any disagreement with these avowed intentions. Don’t we want every schoolchild to achieve? Do we want children to go through 12 years of school, and graduate without even being able to write grammatically correct sentences, or know their basic facts and simple computations involving fractions, percent, and so on? And, given the disparity in achievement between, say, minorities and the more affluent children, and that America is the land of opportunity, doesn’t it make sense to close this gap?
Wouldn’t having teachers qualified to teach the subject be the ones teaching the subject, rather than just having a teacher teach, according to the vagaries of administrative expediency? Why, too, shouldn’t schools be held accountable for their students’ achievement? After all, isn’t that the charge of the teachers?

Let us now take a look at some of the consequences of implementing the NCLB (given the sometimes draconian disincentives and sanctions imposed on schools that “fail”). In order to gauge the achievement level of students, a standard has to be set. The standard has then to be assessed, usually througha standardized test or battery of standardized tests. The results of the standardized test are then used as
the criteria for evaluating whether the standards have been met, and a numerical score (1 to 10) is assigned to the school, with number 1 being ranked the lowest performing school (at least in California).

What are some ways to ensure all students achieve the set standards?

(1) Lower the standards to the “lowest common denominator.” (Many states have been doing this: even though the written standards may look very rigorous and impressive, the test items themselves may be considered “dumbed down.”)

(2) Enroll only students who have a reasonable chance of meeting the standards. That is, actively discourage the “weaker” students from enrolling in school or from taking the test, thereby further segregating schools. (And even if such active discouragement does not succeed, the students are supposed to be transported to schools having higher scores, thereby creating a logistical nightmare.)

(3) Teach to the test, and minimize time spent on “non-tested” subjects, such as Physical Education, Music and so on. (This practice is becoming commonplace.)

One direct implication of all these is that good teachers get discouraged from taking jobs in challenging classrooms, classrooms that actually are in dire need of good teachers. Good teachers, you see, generally do NOT teach just to the test, they teach the whole child, they “educate” the child, and they follow good pedagogy. And if they are urged/coerced by administrators that they have to follow a set, structured plan, with every child on the same page at any given time, so as to “cover” the syllabus and standards, sooner or later the good teacher is going to feel the strain of trying to reconcile what he or she believes is good pedagogy, and what he or she is expected to do by the school administrators.

Let me give you an example of how this affects the teaching of math, in particular. I was recently told by a high school principal that he is implementing, schoolwide, the “well-researched” Explicit Direct Instruction, (EDI) approach advocated by the DataWorks Educational Research group. According to him, this approach has been shown to give high achievement scores to students taking standardized tests. While this approach is somewhat reminiscent of Madeline Hunter’s approach, this seems much more “scripted.” For example, the teacher must write the math standards that the students are to learn for the day, and the lesson objectives that align with the standards. The students are then given a CFU (Check For Understanding) of the standards and objectives. The main (perhaps, the sole) way of CFU at this point is to first call a student by name, and then ask him/her a question such as, “What is the 1st Standard we are going to learn about today?” Such questions are then repeated so that at least 5 or 6 students have been asked to answer questions on the standards and the objectives. The next step is to “activate prior knowledge” and CFU for understanding of the prior knowledge. Then the teacher “explains” the day’s lesson, “models” his/her thinking, gives guided practice, conducts a “closure,” gives independent practice, and so on. What is emphasized throughout is the CFU through first calling out a student by name, and then giving the question. Indeed, many times, during the CFU, ALL students are supposed to hold up their answer (written on a standard-sized sheet of paper), so that the teacher gets immediate feedback as to how many students had “understood” what was being taught. (Whether the student was just copying the answer on to his/her paper fro another student did not seem to be of any concern.)

My concern is that such explicit instruction goes against most constructivist-based math teaching advocated by math educators. Additionally, so much of time is spent on regurgitating standards and objectives, that there is very little time to engage students in productive mathematical thinking. Such teaching, too, does NOT do justice to students of different ability levels in math, and may engender boredom for students, be they bright, or weak, mathematically speaking. I believe the principal is enamored of this approach because it might seem to work to raise test scores, at least in the short term. Indeed, test scores might increase, but at the expense of many students who may be completely turned off education in general, and math in particular. My example is, I am sure, one of many that others can attest to, where doing well on the tests seems to be the only raison d’etr for schools. If only the policy makers can be made aware of the dire consequences and futility of relying on an absolute score to decide on the fate of schools, teachers, and children!

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