June 18, 2008

School-Accountability Laws Don't Seem to Help High Achievers, Report Says

High-achieving children have made much smaller gains than low achievers under the No Child Left Behind Act and various states’ school-accountability laws, according to a report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit research organization.

Looking at student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress from 2000 to 2007, the report says that the scores of the bottom tenth of students rose substantially on the fourth-grade reading and mathematics tests and on the eighth grade math test. But, the researchers say, students in the top tenth “have made minimal gains.”

(Although the No Child Left Behind Act was not signed into law until January 2002, the researchers saw 2000 as an appropriate baseline because schools were already responding to the likely passage of the act as it was debated in Congress in 2001. The general trends that the report documents hold true in the period after the measure became law.)

Based on an analysis of student performance on the national assessment during the late 1990s, the report says that high-achieving students made bigger gains than low achievers in states without school-accountability systems, but smaller gains than low achievers in states with them.

The report includes the results of a survey of 900 public-school teachers, large majorities of whom described low-achieving students as a bigger priority for their schools and more likely to get their one-on-one attention than high achievers.

The reseachers found that those low-income black or Hispanic students who posted high scores on the eighth-grade math test were much more likely than low achievers with such backgrounds to have teachers who had at least five years of experience and had majored or minored in math. —Peter Schmidt

Comments

1. This is no surprise. The school grading is weighted in favor of gains among the bottom quartile. The schools, worried about funding, obviously retool their curriculum and teaching talent to give extra care to the bottom level. That’s scary. What’s equally scary is when that same philosophy begins to invade the University. I see the University I work at bending over backwards to show some of the nation’s highest graduation and retention rates in order to win extra funding support from the state. Funding here is similarly tied to the relative successes of the bottom quartile. Somehow we’ve gotten ourselves into a situation where pandering to and churning through sub-par students bears a reward for the institution. The administrators call this a “student centered” philosophy, I call it another symptom of this decade’s cult of the amateur. Rather than expect more of students, faculty members are asked to demand less. Yesterday, the Chronicle aired a story about shorter lectures with “laughing breaks” including a popular Youtube video entitled “Do Not Fart.” The symptoms just keep piling on. The article devoted one or two sentences to the opposing viewpoint. Mediocrity and expecting less should not be legitimate survival strategies as a profession, but these ideas are pervasive in education today.

   — anon    Jun 18, 08:38 AM    #

2. I agree with the post above on all accounts. We seem to strive towards mediocrity at the expense of excellence.

   — MNM    Jun 18, 09:26 AM    #

3. Back to the issue of K-12 high-achievers making smaller gains, perhaps it is simply because they had a shorter upward leap to make.

   — deborah    Jun 18, 02:11 PM    #

4. “Based on an analysis of student performance on the national assessment during the late 1990s, the report says that high-achieving students made bigger gains than low achievers in states without school-accountability systems, but smaller gains than low achievers in states with them.”

   I don’t think it had anything to do with a “shorter upward leap.” The above paragraph suggests that the smaller gains among top students is an effect of the NCLB policy. My wife used to teach high school in Florida and, believe me, these schools attack the school grading game like a smart 18 year old attacking Ivy League admissions. They know where their bucks will pack the most bang where standardized tests and school grading are concerned. For schools looking to improve a grade or so, concentrating on the bottom level is the smartest strategy because of the learning gains formula. Not only is it weighted to give extra points when the bottom 25% makes gains, but those gains are easier to make quickly…improving the top 25% involves long-term nurturing and a commitment beyond a test prep blitzkrieg.

   — anon    Jun 18, 02:30 PM    #

5. This “news” is expected. NCLB explicitly focuses on lower-achieving students by insisting that all students acheive minimum standards. Increasing accomplishment of already high-achieving students isn’t an important part of the formula. Thoughtful observers noted years ago that higher-achieving students would make fewer, if any gains. (There’s no “shorter leap upward” involved.)

   Re. post #1 and supporters. (Full disclosure: I work in administration.) “Rather than expect more of students, faculty members are asked to demand less.” I hear that on my campus, too, but it’s simply not true here — the administration has never asked for lower standards. I’d like to see hard evidence of administrators asking for this (e.g., a memo supporting grade inflation)? (OK, I’ve read the occasional news report where a dean raised a grade to avoid a lawsuit. That’s incidental, not systemic.)

   Ironically, on my campus, faculty complain that high standards will lower course evaluations and risk promotion. (Note: there is also some evidence that students give low ratings to Mickey Mouse courses.) But on my campus administrators never see student course evaluation data (strange, but true) and tenure/promotion recommendations come from faculty committees — so how is any pressure faculty feel on this score the administration’s fault?

   I’m unclear how a faculty member insistiing on the right to lecture and resisting pedagogical creativity is upholding “high standards.” So many of these discussions seem to confuse ends and means. It is one thing to ask faculty to employ best practices based on research into how people learn. It is another to ask that faculty reduce standards. When I teach, I try to be as creative as I can and engage students in as many ways as I can — it’s my JOB to teach, to engage, to get through, so students learn. But an incorrect answer is still an incorrect answer and if you earn a low grade, you get a low grade.

   — drj50    Jun 18, 04:37 PM    #

6. Actually, the overall data on NCLB show very little closing of the gap between what lower-income and racial minority-group students are achieving relative to the overall average. There have modest gains in both the average score and those of lower-income and minority students, but 1) these were under way before NCLB and 2) any narrowing of the gap has been modest. See:

   http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/esea/nclb_naep_lee.pdf

   So despite what this latest study mentioned in today’s afternoon update says, those who have historically been disadvantaged by the educational system have not been helped all that much. It may be that NCLB has stalled the achievement of top students, but let’s not kid ourselves that it has made much real difference for those it was supposedly created to serve.

   — John    Jun 18, 05:12 PM    #

7. NCLB has nothing to do with education … it’s a political slogan, part of the Bush legacy of contempt for public education, where the agenda has been and remains its marginiization. These folks specialize in relabeling issues in ways that mask their real intent. It’s too bad it’s taken this long to show what a sham NCLB is. The results of this study confirm what I’ve observed … a steady decline in both quantity and quality of top performers.

   — CW    Jun 18, 10:17 PM    #

8. The short leap comment is indicative of the greater problem. The assumption that our gifted children will just succeed. 20% of high school drop-outs are gifted and bored. Political correctness and the adherance to mixed classrooms keep high achieving and gifted children from what they need most – self contained classrooms that operate at their speed and desire for depth. Two cents for every $100 spent by the federal gov’t on education goes to the programs for high achievers. If we are to solve the world’s problems – we would be better served by an attitude in education that doesn’t shy away from giving advanced math to a 9 year old, or that resists grade or subject matter acceleration. Schools should return their purpose to that of educating not socializing. And that won’t happen in an America that insists only the best play varsity football but classrooms are best teamed by mixing abilities.

   — GCLB - gifted children left behind    Jun 19, 02:39 PM    #

9. My kid is now in private school because of this issue. He was an early reader is the #2 school system in our state. Reading was not to be taught until second grade. It was all count and color to the point of boredom.

   The 6 or 7 parents of similar children could not convince the teacher to have one of the three tables set up as a reading table and we all volunteered to be aides if that is what it took. No deal. Can’t have parents helping out the schools – just raise our budgets, thanks. Her being the campaign manager for her brother’s re-election might have had something to do with her desire to avoid parents seeing what she was doing all day.

   What did my son do? He was asked to help the slow kids try to catch up. This happened every day for an hour or more. While having a first grade TA might be a point of pride for some, I found this to be almost criminally negligent behavior on the part of the teacher. Blame Bush if you’d like but in this case it was a teacher without standards of prefessional behaviour.

   In our state the only money for gifted kids is in Special Ed, so the smartest kids get grouped with the ADD/ADHD and retarded kids. What kind of nightmare are we subjecting our best and brightest to?

   Recommended reading for anyone with even marginally gifted kids (top 10 percent):
   www.nationdeceived.org
   www.hoagiesgifted.org
   www.geniusdenied.com
   www.ditd.org

   — John    Jun 20, 07:17 AM    #

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