Reliability of No Child Left Behind Accountability Designs

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to establish accountability systems that are both valid and reliable. If one follows the language of the law literally, there is no design that will meet both requirements. If one interprets the law more flexibly, it is possible to create such a design. States will need to approach the problem carefully if they are going to appropriately balance the various probabilities of making incorrect decisions about schools.     

What Does the No Child Left Behind Act Mean to Early Childhood Teacher Educators?: A Call for a Collective Professional Rejoinder

This article is a call to become more critically aware of the new law commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind Act, which was put into effect in 2002 in the United States. The article is also an invitation to early childhood educators worldwide to engage in a dialogue that raises several questions: (a) How does such legislation affect early childhood educators and teacher preparation programs?; (b) How might teacher educators react and respond to the new law as they continuously practice informed decision-making about teacher preparation that is socially responsible? In view of these questions, it is a hope that we can see the initiation of nationwide dialogue regarding the issue of the No Child Left Behind Act. Primarily, how does the new law affect teacher educators and teachers? It is inevitable for us to be united and politically informed to prevent further scrutiny of questionable politically and economically driven educational practices in the United States, not to mention “test-heavy” evidence-based education reform.     

从奥巴马政府修订NCLB法看美国教育均衡发展

2010年3月以来,奥巴马政府着手修订《不让一个孩子掉队》法,提出了一系列均衡发展美国教育的措施。这些措施既源自美国民众对教育均衡发展始终如一的追求,是美国政府因势利导的政策选择,又源自《不让一个孩子掉队》法没有完成既定目标,各州教育标准低下,教育差距在拉大,以及美国民主党的教育理念等。因此,推进教育均衡发展不仅应该有切实可行的目标,还要根据实际情况优先实施关键措施,缩减贫困地区学校班额,并为均衡发展教育提供持续的经费支持。     

The Anti-Black Order of No Child Left Behind: Using Lacanian psychoanalysis and critical race theory to examine NCLB

During a period in which institutions have been refashioned to meet the demands of a complex social and political economy, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has helped to alter the public educational system. As scholars and researchers examine the material effects of NCLB, efforts to improve the educational system and its effects must also explore the relationship between policy and racial ideologies including discursive fantasies. This article examines the relationship between NCLB and racial fantasies of Black youth as problematic others in order to help education reform scholarship and advocacy examine the violence of NCLB.     

Adding Design Elements to Improve Time Series Designs: No Child Left Behind as an Example of Causal Pattern-Matching

Abstract:

Some form of a short interrupted time series (ITS) is often used to evaluate state and national programs. An ITS design with a single treatment group assumes that the pretest functional form can be validly estimated and extrapolated into the postintervention period where it provides a valid counterfactual. This assumption is problematic. Ambiguous preintervention functional forms are common, as are other factors affecting posttest means and slopes. Using No Child Left Behind as an example, we demonstrate how adding multiple design elements to the basic ITS structure serves to promote causal inference by limiting alternative interpretations. No added design element is perfect by itself, but we argue that they collectively provide a strong causal warrant when the predictions they engender are complex, the results “cohere” with the predictions, and no alternative can fit the same pattern of predictions even if it can fit some of them.     

NCME 2008 Presidential Address: The Impact of Anchor Test Configuration on Student Proficiency Rates

Examined in this study were the effects of reducing anchor test length on student proficiency rates for 12 multiple‐choice tests administered in an annual, large‐scale, high‐stakes assessment. The anchor tests contained 15 items, 10 items, or five items. Five content representative samples of items were drawn at each anchor test length from a small universe of items in order to investigate the stability of equating results over anchor test samples. The operational tests were calibrated using the one‐parameter model and equated using the mean b‐value method. The findings indicated that student proficiency rates could display important variability over anchor test samples when 15 anchor items were used. Notable increases in this variability were found for some tests when shorter anchor tests were used. For these tests, some of the anchor items had parameters that changed somewhat in relative difficulty from one year to the next. It is recommended that anchor sets with more than 15 items be used to mitigate the instability in equating results due to anchor item sampling. Also, the optimal allocation method of stratified sampling should be evaluated as one means of improving the stability and precision of equating results.     

The Effects of State Decisions About NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress Targets

The No Child Left Behind Act allows states to vary (a) the trajectories they select to move from the baseline percent proficient or above in 2002 to the 100% proficient goal in 2014, (b) the minimum number of students required for reporting of disaggregated subgroup results, and (c) whether or not they will use confidence intervals when determining whether or not an annual measurable objective has been met. We use data from Kentucky for the years 2003 and 2004 to explore the consequences of different design decisions. The effect of design decisions on number and percentage of schools meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP) is large, with important implications for education practice.     

Social Studies Education in the Age of Testing and Accountability

With 3 years and counting since its inception, the scope and impact of No Child Left Behind is now being felt in classrooms across the nation. Although some successes have been identified, concerns about the implementation and expectations of the legislation are emerging. As a result of the legislation's emphasis on the development of standards and assessment systems in reading, mathematics, and science, educators of other core and elective subjects are weighing the impact of being left out of the No Child Left Behind formula of testing and accountability. In an attempt to ascertain the perceptions and sentiments of social studies teachers concerning the impact of No Child Left Behind and the concomitant issue of state-level testing and accountability policy, a tristate study was conducted. The findings of this research indicate that although elementary, middle, and high school social studies educators recognize the negative consequences of being left out of No Child Left Behind, they are not convinced that being included would be better for them, their students, or social studies education in general.     

Dubious Sovereignty: Federal Conditions of Aid and the No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) represents the greatest extension to date of Federal authority over public school governance. In NCLB, Congress used its conditional spending power to push states and localities into enacting particular kinds of testing and accountability policies. This article places NCLB in the context of Congress's generally increasing willingness to exert itself via conditions attached to federal financial aid. It also analyzes the implications of NCLB for federalism and intergovernmental relationships in education governance.     

Classification System for English Language Learners: Issues and Recommendations

High‐stakes decisions for the instruction and assessment of English language learner (ELL) students are made based on the premise that ELL classification is a valid dichotomy that distinguishes between those who are proficient in the use of the English language and those who are not. However, recent research findings draw a vague picture of the term “ELL” and call for a more valid classification system for ELL students. Thus, the purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to reveal issues concerning the validity of the current ELL classification system based on the results of several empirical studies, and (2) to initiate a discussion on ways to improve the validity of the ELL classification system by proposing a system that uses existing multiple criteria in a stepwise manner. While the suggested system has its own limitations and controversies, we hope this discussion stimulates thoughts and brings much needed attention to this very important national issue.     

NCLB法案实施四年来美国公立学校的变化——来自美国教育政策中心的报告

《不让一个孩子掉队》(NCLB)法案到2006年为止已经实施了4年,在这4年中美国的公立教育发生了很大变化,同时NCLB法案也一直受到各界的质疑与非议.美国教育政策中心最近发布了一份报告,总结了NCLB法案实施4年来对公立学校的10大影响,比较全面真实地反映了美国公立学校的情况与问题.     

A Disability Studies Perspective on the Bush Education Agenda: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 1

Our educational system is undergoing great scrutiny. The success of our nation's schools and their students is under serious evaluation and interpretation. Currently, one of the most visible and pertinent “political products” impacting our schools and students is the federal legislation No Child Left Behind (2002) Cohen, M. 2002. Implementing Title 1 standards, assessments and accountability: Lessons from the past, challenges for the future. Paper presented at the Thomas B. Fordham Conference: No Child Left Behind: What will it take?. February2002, Washington, DC.  [Google Scholar]. Specific concerns arise around schools' ability to include students with disabilities, among other “disadvantaged groups,” in strategies for academic success. Disability Studies contends that the place and positioning of disability is fundamentally political. This article uses a Disability Studies lens to critique NCLB. The potential benefits, problematic areas, and dangerous aspects to schools, teachers, parents, students with disabilities, and the community at large are presented within this Disability Studies context.     

No child,no school,no state left behind: schooling in the age of accountability 1

Why and under which conditions do international student assessment programmes like PISA have success? How can the results of these assessments be useful for advocates of different, even contradictory, policies? What might explain different patterns of using assessment as a tool for school governance? Drawing on historical and comparative research, and using PISA as an example, this paper provides a frame for discussing these and other questions around the international rise of accountability as a key tool of social change. The basic argument is that even though accountability is a global phenomenon, the ways and means of enacting and encountering accountability are not. How accountability is experienced depends on deeply engrained ‘constitutional mind‐sets’, i.e. diverse cultures of conceptualizing the relation between the public and its institutions.     

Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea

In the twenty-first century, the use of standardized tests as the primary means to evaluate schools and teachers in the United States has contributed to severe dilemmas, including misleading information on what students know, lower-level instruction, cheating, less collaboration, unfair treatment of teachers, and biased teaching. This article provides reasons for the increased use in high-stakes testing and detail on the problems it causes. Also included are possible solutions to alleviate the concerns associated with high-stakes testing.     

从教育蓝图到教育立法--美国《不让一个儿童落后法》评述

本文对美国2002年1月8日生效的《不让一个儿童落后法》的核心内容及主要项目作了简要介绍,并从《NCLB法》增强联邦政府在教育事务中的作用、显示美国基础教育立法的最新发展及凸现美国教育中的存在问题3个角度,对《NCLB》作了意义评析。     

Instructional Tools in Educational Measurement and Statistics (ITEMS) for School Personnel: Evaluation of Three Web-Based Training Modules

In the current No Child Left Behind era, K‐12 teachers and principals are expected to have a sophisticated understanding of standardized test results, use them to improve instruction, and communicate them to others. The goal of our project, funded by the National Science Foundation, was to develop and evaluate three Web‐based instructional modules in educational measurement and statistics to help school personnel acquire the “assessment literacy” required for these roles. Our first module, “What's the Score?” was administered in 2005 to 113 educators who also completed an assessment literacy quiz. Viewing the module had a small but statistically significant positive effect on quiz scores. Our second module, “What Test Scores Do and Don't Tell Us,” administered in 2006 to 104 educators, was even more effective, primarily among teacher education students. In evaluating our third module, “What's the Difference?” we were able to recruit only 33 participants. Although those who saw the module before taking the quiz outperformed those who did not, results were not statistically significant. Now that the research phase is complete, all ITEMS instructional materials are freely available on our Website.     

美国LEP学生英语教育政策探析——以《双语教育法》和《不让一个孩子掉队法》为例

美国是一个移民国家,美国学校中有许多LEP学生,美国联邦政府为了处理LEP学生的英语教育问题而制定了一些相关的隐性的语言教育政策.这些英语教育政策主要体现在<双语教育法>和<不让一个孩子掉队法>中,对这两部法中LEP学生的英语教育政策的对比研究可以使我们更清楚地看透美国联邦政府英语教育政策的变化和宗旨,这对我国的汉语母语教育政策的制定和修改具有参考意义.     

“Para aquí today, para afuera tomorrow”: Uncertainty in urban bilingual paraprofessionals’ work in the age of NCLB

Urban paraprofessionals are often overlooked but key participants in the optimal functioning of schools. In light of the recent changes and increasing demands regarding paraprofessional qualifications stipulated by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), this study focuses on urban bilingual paraprofessionals and their beliefs about work in the context imposed by the law. The participants cite their own experiences with motherhood and insiders’ understanding of diverse communities as the most compelling skills they bring to their jobs, challenging NCLB’s requirements for instructional paraprofessional qualifications. Implications for policy-making that address the worth of “life experiences” as an asset for diverse settings are offered. Her research interests center on the possibilities and challenges that urban schools pose, on school reform approaches, on teacher preparation, and on effective educational approaches for low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse (LCLD) students.     

Raising standards in American schools: the case of No Child Left Behind

In January 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law what is arguably the most important piece of US educational legislation for the past 35 years. For the first time, Public Law 107–110 links high stakes testing with strict accountability measures designed to ensure that, at least in schools that receive government funding, no child is left behind. The appropriately named No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) links government funding to strict improvement policies for America's public schools. Much of what is undertaken in NCLB is praiseworthy, the Act is essentially equitable for it ensures that schools pay due regard to the progress of those sections of the school population who have traditionally done less well in school, in particular, students from economically disadvantaged homes, as well as those from ethnic minority backgrounds and those who have limited proficiency to speak English. However, this seemingly salutatory aspect of the Act is also the one that has raised the most objections. This paper describes the key features of this important piece of legislation before outlining why it is that a seemingly equitable Act has produced so much consternation in US education circles. Through an exploration of school level data for the state of New Jersey, the paper considers the extent to which these concerns have been justified during the early days of No Child Left Behind.