P.P.S.: As a non-eduwonk, I would think if the NCLB were working we'd see the results by now in positive test scores--and if it isn't working, we should abandon the perestroika-like attempt to whip the education bureaucracy into shape with testing and "sanctions"--and move on to the dissolution of that bureaucracy through a proliferation of charter schools. But Eduwonk says, via email, that it's too soon to tell whether the NCLB will improve test scores, since the " law was passed in January of '02, states only had the testing really implemented last year and this year ..."
As I've said on innumerable occasions, policy is beyond me.
Nevertheless, there's something about the idea of moving to the dissolution of the edu-bureaucracy through a proliferation of charter schools that instantly and without further ado wins my vote.
two questions
What is the timeline on NCLB results?
Do we know?
And does anyone know whether we are or are not seeing significant improvement in 4th grade reading (largely "decoding") scores?
Hirsch thinks so.
Hirsch's take is that NCLB's Reading First Initiative has improved the teaching of reading, but reading comprehension scores aren't budging because schools are drilling a formalistic, how-to approach to understanding what you read.
That's what kids here in Irvingtonland have been doing for the past week. They've been taking sample ELA tests. The 7th graders have all finished the one book they were assigned to read this year (The Outsiders, reading level 5.1),* and now they're taking practice reading tests.
Today they're taking the real one.
Which makes it an excellent time to lodge my third request for gender subscores on last year's ELA!
Hirsch on NCLB & Reading First
Gary Ratner [audience member]: Gary Ratner, Citizens for Effective Schools.... Professor Hirsch, you noted that No Child Left Behind and the Standards Movement, both fairly recent policy initiatives have produced I think what you call “meager results.”
[snip]
....what would the panel think of a federal policy that would come in as an amendment to the elementary and secondary education at No Child Left Behind [indiscernible] just coming up with a re- authorization in which the federal government would say, would go beyond just saying the goal is academic efficiency? Would go beyond just talking about saying there should be a challenging curriculum[snip]
Frederick M. Hess [moderator]: [Audio glitch] arguably actually, NCLB does require that, of course, that states in submitting their compliance materials for No Child left Behind law are actually required to submit both assessments they use and standards that underlie them.
Gary Ratner [audience member]: But it is not being implemented. That is so far from the reality right now. There is no enforcement.
[snip]Eric Donald Hirsch: ....the one place where No Child Left Behind has succeeded, it seems to me, is fourth grade reading scores; those have benefited from the No Child Left Behind Act.
[snip]
...what it illustrates is that you have to pay attention to the nitty-gritty, and not just do some structural thing if you want the law actually to have some effect; and that was the area where they actually paid attention to the nitty-gritty. They said, “This program is phonics oriented and it is okay. This program is not and we are not going to fund it.” They were actually paying attention to a specific elementary reading or decoding program. Those programs themselves have flaws but they do very well in getting you up to speed in decoding which is why fourth-grade reading scores, by the way, are primarily fluency and accuracy of decoding. Later scores involved comprehension. That basically is one of the subjects of the book.
Abigail Thernstrom: Maybe Lynne will not agree with me on this, but the Feds have a really hard time monitoring quality. And let me tell you a story very briefly, a Massachusetts story. Somebody I know raises, gets from the federal DOE a pile of money for the instruction of teachers in better math education. These teachers are teaching math; they do not know math. They need to have math workshops and so forth. Raises federal money; raises some local corporate money. The superintendent of the district -- it is four specific districts – the superintendent in this district got this money in his hands. His staff goes to work in using it, and at the end of the day, forget it.
The money is just going down the drain. It makes you want to cry what is happening with this money, because it is nothing good. And the Federal Department of Education will never understand that this money has not gone to anything useful.
If makes you want to cry or, alternatively, it makes you want to make other people cry.
Like this superintendent, for instance.
He could cry.
Crying would be a fine thing in his case.
_____________
* Lexile puts The Outsiders at 7th grade, but seeing as how Christopher read the book last year for fun, I feel I'm on solid ground going with 5.1. Then there's this from K-8 resources for Struggling Readers, "The Outsiders," by S.E. Hinton...is one of many books written by Hinton with high interest but lower reading level."
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