Bror’s Blog presents a great summary of how rules that seem reasonable have produced some very sad results. It seems pressure on administrators does not translate into better education for kids.

Within a year or two, retention rates in ninth grade skyrocketed in schools - as reported in the study, in one school from 25% of ninth graders in one year to more than 50% of ninth graders within two years, and overall withdrawal rates from high school leapt, e.g. from 19% of kids to 40% of kids in one school!

Can you imagine 50% of 9th graders are dropping out? Incredible. A system that purposes to improve graduation rates actually produces the opposite results.

It makes sense since the high-stakes exam is in 10th grade. Schools and administrators are highly rewarded or penalized based upon those exam results. So, the consequence is they limit access to the exam to those whom they know will do OK. That means some students spend a lot of time in 9th grade retaking courses they haven’t passed along with courses they have passed! How frustrating that must be for a teen!

Personally, I like the idea of having reasonable standards. It’s the way we teach our own kids at home. We don’t move on until we’ve mastered what’s before us. So, how do I know if my child has learned and understood? I have to assess that somehow. At home, it usually is some sort of discussion or narrative or seeing if all the math problems are correct. If some concept is not understood I can be very flexible. I can rework the unit on ratios but a student in a brick and mortar school has to retake the whole course in pre-algebra. How painful.

So, we’re back to the heart of the matter. How can we ensure that kids get a solid education? That teachers teach what’s important and not the latest fad?

We haven’t seen similar consequences on a national level as a result of NCLB. Yet. But, I see no reason it can’t happen in other states including Alaska.

Old Liverpool Elementary School, Valley City, Ohio

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The book opens with Tyler Heights scoring phenomenally and unexpectedly well in the Maryland School Assessment (MSA). Principal Tina McKnight is thrilled and very proud of her staff and students. The whole school rejoices but the question faces them… was this a fluke? The celebration is short-lived as they turn their attention to preparing for next year’s exams. Tested takes the reader through the day-to-day challenges and personal lives of staff and students as they work toward the MSA.

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• We should be glad that kids today for the most part do not have to sit for norm-referenced testing every year. Criterion-based assessments actually provide useful information to parents.
• I am not advocating that independent homeschoolers be held to state standards or NCLB. I am saying that for those of us who enroll our kids in a public homeschool program and have to take the Standards Based Assessments (SBA’s) required by NCLB can make good use of the information the assessments give.
• SBA’s essentially measure a student’s mastery of a subject or skill. Isn’t that what homeschoolers do? We don’t move on in a subject until our child has got it figured out. We don’t leave our own kids behind; hence the title of the post.
• It took an act of Congress to bring public schools to do what homeschoolers have done all along, mastery before promotion.

So, that’s it. That’s what I intended to communicate and still firmly believe.

• A student needed a required course to graduate, did not pass the course and, thus, did not graduate.
• She came back for a 5th year took the same course and failed again.
• For the spring semester she enrolled in the course again with the same teacher and she failed a 3rd time.
• The school’s administrators overuled the teacher, gave her a passing grade and she graduated. The teacher had meticulous records of the student’s failing efforts or, rather, non-efforts. The student had shown little interest and had even missed the final exam.
• The teacher has quit and moved.

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When we plan for the coming school year part of it includes being able to identify what standards we will cover and master. While that sounds very bureaucratic it’s really very easy.

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I grew up as most did in the public school system taking standardized tests. In Ohio, we sat at our little desks and penciled our way through the Iowa Basic. The California Achievement Test (TerraNova CAT/5) is the other ubiquitous standardized exam. How did the exam results inform your parents or improve your education? They didn’t. Those are norm-referenced exams; that is, they compare you to yourself, to other kids and your school to other schools in the state or coast-to-coast. Norm-referenced tests do not measure what you know.

NCLB has mandated standards-based or criterion-referenced testing. That means a kid’s knowledge and skills are required to be measured. Each state is now required to write standards for each level. Simply put, if the state thinks that a child should know the multiples of five after 3rd grade they will write a standard stating that and then write an exam question to measure it.

There’s a lot of quibbling and angst over the nuts and bolts of NCLB among teachers, administrators and parents. But, I submit that NCLB standards-based testing is, essentially, what homeschoolers do. We teach a topic or skill and make sure our child understands it before we move on. We don’t leave our own kids behind.

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