Educated Guess

Finally, some sensible changes to the No Child Left Behind law. And once again, California won’t be able to adopt them.

This week, U.S. Secretary of State Margaret Spellings announced that states would be able to set priorities in dealing with the worst-performing schools. That’s a critical change - at the top of reformers’ list - because NCLB has dings all non-performing schools the same, regardless of how poorly students do. Schools in which all students fail miserably to meet their reading and math targets have the same sanctions as a school in which one subgroup - most often special education students - just miss. That’s why so many schools will be added to the “failing” list over the next few years, overwhelming the states’ ability to deal with them.

Spellings is proposing not a blanket change for all states but a pilot test for 10 states (the Feds can never admit they’re totally wrong). Those  selected would be able to target their attention to the lowest performers and choose among sanctions (including providing tutoring, freeing up students to attend school elsewhere).
But Washington also set some four criteria to be in the running, and California flunks one of them, so it can’t apply.

The issue is how it tests eighth grade students in math. California has set the respectable goal that all students take Algebra 1 in eighth grade. But not all do, and so it continues to test more than half of  eighth graders using tests based on sixth and seventh grade math standards. The Fed’s position, in a letter on Feb. 6, is that states should be testing to the standards that it sets. So if Algebra 1 is the standard, test all kids for it. (The state Department of Ed wouldn’t call me back on its response.)

California has high standards. With Algebra 1 for all students, it’s raising the bar. So now it has to meet its own expectations and walk the talk.

The state has known about the Feds’ objection for months. Spellings’ offer for flexibility over sanctions should prompt it to get serious about meeting it.

The reaction to Spellings’ proposal has been mixed. The National Education Assn. responded positively, but some advocates for minority kids said that flexibility would end up providing suburban schools, where there may be only small clusters of poor and minority kids, a free pass. Those schools will be able to hide behind average test scores, while urban schools, dominated by poor kids learning English, will face all of the severe sanctions.

There may be some validity to the argument that suburban schools may end up ignoring some kids, but states should be focusing their resources and attention on urban disaster zones. The Democrats proposal for renewing NCLB incorporates Spellings’ idea. But it’s stalled in Congress, so Spellings is making administrative changes on her own.