Ever since the No Child Left Behind legislation passed, New Hampshire educators have been thinking about tests.
A few years from now, No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, will require students to take a test every year from 3rd through 8th grade in math and language arts.
Those test results will determine whether a school is doing fine, or must offer additional tutoring to students, reorganize its curriculum, or in a worst-case scenario fire all of its teachers.
With such high stakes, a significant issue has emerged- whether the test should measure how much students know at a certain point, or how much they?ve learned since the beginning of the year. In the third part of our series on No Child Left Behind, NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports on a new wrinkle in the debate over testing.
There?s one element of No Child Left Behind that draws the greatest support and the greatest criticism.
School?s that don?t make the grade potentially face severe consequences.
Susan Scolfoni with the federal Department of Education outlines what happens if a school falls short on annual exams for 5 years in a row.
5:23 ?the school opens with different staff, leadership, charter school or restructured curriculum, restructured governance, but something has to change significantly to ensure that the children who attend that school get the quality of education they deserve.
With such strong consequences, there is the familiar concern that the law puts too much weight on test results, alone.
But what many New Hampshire educators and lawmakers say is, ?ok, let?s judge schools on test scores. Let?s just make sure we are testing the right thing.?
In their view the right thing is testing how much a student learns in the course of the year.
Did they grow academically six moths worth, 12 months, worth, or one months worth?
That?s called a gains-based way of using test results.
Susan Romano, a science teacher at Thayer High School says that method helps her evaluate her teaching and curriculum.
And, she says, the gains-based approach recognizes students begin the year at different levels.
2:05 let?s face it, socioeconomic factors do influence how prepared a student comes into school. So if you have a student that comes from a background, where he or she has been read to and had lots of advantages, you are going to have a student who is more prepared to move on. So you can not compare to someone who needs remediation.
Former House Education Chair Republican Warren Henderson says, using a gains-based approach with test results makes for the best kind of public policy? common sense public policy.
4:16 it seems to me, you ought to be relying on the measures that allow parents and others to tell if their schools are making progress, not pretending that every single school can deliver the same education to every single kid.
But the whole purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act, is just that.
Leave no child behind.
Federal officials say the state must set a standard, or a bar of knowledge for every grade.
The goal is for students to clear that bar.
Let?s say a student named Sarah enters 5th grade way below grade level, and by the end of the year she?s reading at a little better than the 4th grade level.
Many in New Hampshire would consider that a solid step toward success...
?Still needing improvement?
?but certainly not something to be penalized for under NCLB.
Washington is not comfortable with that approach.
Susan Scolfani, from the US Department of Education, says Sarah?s improvement is good, but does little to help Sarah.
15:58 it says to Sarah oh, poor Sarah, started out so low, isn?t it wonderful how many gains she?s made. Of course she?s not going to be successful next year either, b/c she is still not at the 5th grader standard, which is the floor for all of the work in 6th grade.
The law is seeking more definitive results than a gains-based approach.
NCLB supporters say the purpose of the reform is to push schools to achieve a higher standard.
State and federal officials expect to find a balance between the two approaches.
That discussion begins at the end of this week when the state will submit some preliminary ideas to Washington.
Test taking is just one element of NCLB though, and it?s not new.
Nor is the public reporting of those results, as NCLB requires.
What is new about the legislation is something called adequate yearly progress, or AYP.
AYP calls on schools to steadily increase the number of students who meet state standards in math and reading.
Then the state, each year, reports whether schools have achieved those goals.
And by 2014 all students are required to meet that standard.
Given the steep slope of adequate yearly progress, many New Hampshire educators fear schools would be falsely labeled as failures.
That?s part of the reason why Thayer High English teacher Peter Isensteder questions the intent behind the reform.
Track 12
1:15 this is not supportive public education, this is a way to undermine certain kinds of schools, if they are failing, throw them overboard, don?t try to help them, don?t try to send in people, improve the staff, pay them anymore, don?t give them anymore, just throw them overboard, and send them somewhere else.
But to Federal Education Undersecretary Eugene Hickok that?s not what NCLB is all about.
Track 26
1:24 this is not about saying those teachers aren?t working hard, those students aren?t working hard, those schools don?t work. The issue isn?t what isn?t working, the issue is what are we going to do about it.
The issue that might decide whether NCLB is a serious effort at reform or a way to attack public schools could come down to money.
Completely apart from the concern over testing or AYP, is the debate over whether local school districts can afford the NCLB price tag.
For NHPR News, I?m DG.
