NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?

Utah Schools Fall Below the Mark According to NCLB and U-PASS Reports

By Tracy Medley, 10-02-06

The grades are in and things don’t look so good for Utah schools. According to Adequate Yearly Progress reports generated under the federal No Child Left Behind law, 18 percent of Utah’s schools failed to meet NCLB testing and attendance standards and 9 schools could face federal sanctions. In addition, Utah’s own U-PASS report offers only slightly better news.

NCLB laws, put in place by the Bush administration in 2001 are meant to keep schools in check and ensure that all students are excelling, with tests highlighting schools that aren’t quite up to par. The federally mandated tests which focus on Math and Reading are given to students each year, with the median score raised every two years, the intent of which is to improve the academic proficiency of all students by the year 2014. While NCLB was intended to safeguard education standards for all students, it’s not without its critics.

Educators and state legislators have long been critical of NCLB asserting that the law is too narrow in its focus on “Math and Reading.” Some suggest that while students in more affluent schools would still receive a well-rounded set of courses (art, science and social studies), others would be relegated to a second-class program and therefore miss out on a more complete education. With the pressure placed on schools to produce test results educators find themselves in the unenviable position of educating some children just enough to pass federal standardized tests.

John Erlacher, the principal of Mountain View Elementary told theDeseret Morning News on Friday, “It’s an essential frustration – we need to be accountable for the students in our school, and it’s causing us all to work on what needs to be done to wok on kids that need help, but it needs tweaking…and we need to figure out a better way to measure (achievement).”

There is also frustration with NCLB’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to education leaving little if no room for learning disabled or English-as-a-second language students. Expecting all students to excel at the same level presents a very sensitive dilemma for schools. Julia Lyon’s piece in The Salt Lake Tribune indicated there were some schools in the Jordan district that didn’t meet AYP standards due to the “low achievement of their special-education students.” Jordan’s assessment director told Lyon, “Those are the students we would expect to have the greatest challenge not meeting the goals.”

Socioeconomics are also disregarded under NCLB. With all children required to take the same tests, the burden and the blame falls on teachers; teachers who are underpaid and understaffed. Speaking to the D-News, Ogden School District spokeswoman Donna Corby said in defense of the teachers in her district, “A lot of the motivation for the teachers to work hard is intrinsic. They’re at inner-city schools because they are passionate…They want to do the best. They want to level the playing field for all children.”

While the Bush administration would be quick to toss out their line about the discrimination of “low expectations,” others would suggest that is not “low expectations,” but the acknowledgment of students as individuals with unique gifts and challenges that leaves educators uneasy with NCLB. Requiring schools to teach all students the same subjects in the same way leaves both students and schools at a distinct disadvantage.

What’s more, schools are promptly punished or “sanctioned” when school’s AYP reports fail to meet federal standards requiring school administrators to make major changes to their programs without adequate funds or resources.

In May of 2005 Utah became the first state in the nation to balk at NCLB when Gov. Huntsman signed a measure giving state programs precedence. Utah’s current report program, U-PASS is on the surface very similar to NCLB with two notable distinctions: proficiency is required in a myriad of disciplines; language arts, math, science CRT’s and a sixth and ninth grade writing test and U-PASS divides progress between two groups; white students and everyone else.

Darryl Thomas who is the assessment director for the Granite school district told the D-News, “I feel that the U-PASS reports are more fair than the NCLB report, because they do allow you to make progress.”

While U-PASS may seem fairer to schools, some argue that dividing children into the two groups is unfair to those students perceived as disadvantaged. Speaking to The Tribune Andrea Rorrer a professor at the University of Utah said, “Students of color are rendered invisible, not in the reporting but in accountability. It does a disservice because it doesn’t highlight where improvement can occur. There is no student in this state that is expendable, and the state should set expectations that schools and districts meet the educational needs of every child.”

Regardless of the fairness debate, the news is still bad. According to the state report 16 percent of Utah public schools fell below par and ranked as “need[ing] assistance.”

In the end are these results really so surprising in the state with the worst per-pupil spending in the nation? Maybe Utah’s children will succeed when the legislature puts its money where its mouth is.

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