Our View: No Child Left Behind needs improvement

In education circles, it’s high anxiety week. Today the state will release school results from last spring’s Washington Assessment of Student Learning. On Thursday the state will announce which schools are on the watch list under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

At that point, anxiety could shift to parents as they wonder why their children’s school is failing.

What’s important to understand is the education of children could be improving even as schools are judged to be faltering. The reason for that goes back to two absurd premises that undercut the effectiveness of school reform.

First, NCLB calls for 100 percent proficiency six years from now. That means all students are expected to meet standards in all subjects. If they don’t do so by then or along the way, federal sanctions kick in. Even schools that greatly increase the number of proficient students will be flunked if all students don’t make the grade. This is what educators mean by the law setting them up for failure.

Second, the law presumes that changes are only needed on the instructional end. All of the solutions to improving student performance are aimed at improving teachers and curriculums. The law ignores the long established connection between school performance and poverty. It fails to address the fact that children are less apt to learn if they come from unstable households.

Last week, parents of three Title I Spokane schools were notified that those schools would be placed on the watch list because special education students came up short in reading. Title I schools get federal funding because a certain percentage of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Because a small subset of students failed to meet ever-tougher standards in one subject, schools had to alert parents of all students that they could send their children to a different school.

What’s more, if parents choose the transfer option the district has to pick up the transportation costs. And “failing” schools must spend money on devising plans for improvement.

Once on the watch list, schools are given tools to improve, including funding for tutors and teacher training. But even this seemingly positive aspect of the law is flawed, because all of that help goes away when schools get off the list. At that point, districts have to either come up with the money to maintain what has worked or risk returning to the list.

Congress is debating reauthorization of NCLB. It should take note of how the expectation for perfection has created unintended consequences. The law isn’t a failure, but it definitely needs improvement.