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Illinois School Board Journal
January/February 2004

Correcting conclusions about the NCLB Act

by William Schewe

William Schewe is superintendent of School District 45, DuPage County.

The time has come for someone to correct the flaws and the incorrect conclusions drawn by the media and the public regarding the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

NCLB is federal legislation, signed into law in January 2002. One of its basic premises is to protect certain subgroups of the student population who continually score below the "meets" and "exceeds" categories on state assessment tests in reading and math when scores are reported for an entire district rather than by individual schools or by subgroup. The subgroups as defined by NCLB are: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, Low Income, Disabled (Special Education) and Limited English Proficient (LEP).

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is a performance standard mandated by NCLB. In Illinois, AYP requires that in 2003 and 2004, 40 percent of the students in each subgroup must "meet" or "exceed" the state standards in reading and math for grades 3, 5 and 8 on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). In subsequent years, that percentage will continue to rise by 7.5 percent per year until 100 percent is reached in 2014.

In the November 5, 2003, issues of the Arlington Heights Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune, the headlines read "Accept low test scores as a challenge" and "44 percent of state schools flunk tests." These headlines show how badly this law is misunderstood and some of the major flaws in the law.

The greatest NCLB flaws are:

Criticism alone is never sufficient without suggestions for improvement. In addition to actively speaking to members of Congress and responding to inaccurate claims made in the press regarding concerns about NCLB, the following suggestions are offered for improvement:

I am not saying, in principle, that the state testing program and NCLB are not worthwhile. It is necessary and useful to require state testing at some grade levels. But is requiring testing every year in grades 3 through 8 really worth the time and money?

The assessments our district has developed at the local level and used over the years give us far more useful information to improve teaching and learning. The suggestions provided here (and to members of Congress) would considerably improve some of the greatest of the flaws in NCLB and the resulting misinterpretation made by our newspapers, other members of the media and the general public.


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