You Decide

… that thanks to NCLB, high-achieving students are now struggling?

A 2008 study by the Fordham Institute shows that in the NCLB world, while the needs of poor-performing students are being attended to so they can pass tests, high-achieving kids — the ones who normally have no trouble acing the tests — are getting left behind. Their scores are not rising at all and in some cases are completely flattening out.

Why? Classrooms that focus on the slowest learners end up leaving faster learners treading water. They are on their own to fill time and manage boredom. With dramatically overcrowded classrooms and teachers mandated to bring every child up to specified levels for given standards, there is little time to pay special attention to students who may need more of an academic challenge.

Many argue that gifted children have special needs just as do those who need lessons explained in different styles. In fact, a federal law exists to protect our high achievers as much as our slower learners. Tagged the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1994 (the Javits Act), the law was written to identify and support gifted children. Critics of NCLB argue that NCLB is eclipsing the Javits Act.

To ignore any child’s higher capacity to learn endangers their ability to succeed just as much as does ignoring a child who suffers from a short-attention span or dyslexia or any other concern that requires extra attention in school. Seventy-three percent of teachers believe that the nation’s brightest children are now under-challenged.

To make matters worse, with the budget constraints currently facing most states and the anxiety to make sure that all students are reaching the required proficiency levels, many districts are also pulling funding for gifted classes and funneling that money to tutoring for reading and math.

If our brightest are punished so that our slower learners can catch up, aren’t they then being allowed to be left behind?

… that the gap in achievement for minority and low-income students appears to be shrinking?

Since the early 20th century, education has been seen as the great equalizer, a dream woven into the American story: With enough schooling, anyone can rise to whatever future they imagine.

A recent study from the Center on Education Policy seems to credit the NCLB strategy with the great equalizer effect. It shows that the achievement gap between African American and white students has shrunk in 13 states since NCLB went into effect and the gap between students from low-income backgrounds and those from more affluent families narrowed in 10 states.

Advocates of the law say that before NCLB, schools had little reason to be accountable for the performance of their students. Why should they have been? Schools received federal funding based on the number of children in their buildings, not on whether those children are actually learning. And without holding schools responsible for the progress of their students — without a direct correlation between progress and budgets — many believe schools wouldnot make changes to a system so obviously not working for many.

But with the mandated testing across the country that is the result of NCLB, schools and students seem to be making headway. Students once left to stagnate are getting help, as states have developed tutoring programs and structured classes to help students reach higher proficiency levels. Advocates point to these trends as one sign that the law is working as intended — to have all students literate in reading and math, even pupils educators had labored with, to little or no avail. Given that these once disenfranchised students are now showing improvement, many argue that the law needs to be allowed to continue as written.

Think about it: Would you want to reverse a law that is helping students who are at the greatest risk for failure?