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Educators see problems with law
By By: Susan Dage-Ruby
The premise of the federal No Child Left Behind Act is good but the report it generates is a cause for concern, said Elliott Asp, Douglas County School District assistant superintendent.
The federal law's aim is to provide adequate education for minority, disabled and non-English speaking students, he said.
In this state, Colorado Student Assessment Program scores are used to measure each school's progress toward a 2014 goal of 100 percent of its students performing at the state's target level, as required by the act.
The report includes levels of performance and participation in reading and math at several subgroups including Native American/Alaska native, Asian/Pacific islanders, black, Hispanic, white, limited English proficiency, economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities.
If there are 30 students or more in any of these categories they are included in the scoring, Asp said.
And there lies one of the report's problems, he said.
"Say we have 30 students who are Hispanic and for some reason only 28 take the CSAP test," he said. "The required participation is 95 percent of the students - that school would fail because participation would be 93 percent."
Failure in one category fails the school, he said.
It's an all or nothing scoring system, Asp said.
"If the school passes in the remaining 53 categories, it still fails," he said.
The result could show that a school which scores well on the CSAP test for reading and math, could do poorly on the federal score, Asp said.
Schools that receive Title I money would feel the biggest bite for failing, said Barb Kimball, school district grant coordinator.
In the 1960s, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided money for children in poverty areas to improve teaching and learning standards in literacy.
About every five to six years the act is reauthorized by Congress, Asp said.
The No Child Left Behind Law is the most recent reauthorization, he said.
If a Title I school fails two times in the federal report it would be required in the third year to provide the option of transporting children to a different school, Kimball said.
Each year the school fails another corrective measure would be added to the list to be paid out of the school's Title I money. The federal government would allow only a percentage of the Title I money to be spent on mitigation, Kimball said.
Non-Title I schools also would have to provide mitigation for failing scores, but would be monitored through the district, Kimball said.
Douglas County has seven Title I schools, she said.
But it isn't only individual schools that will submit to the scoring, Asp said.
Districts also will be accountable.
The district will face the same 54 targets each in elementary, middle and high school levels with the same all-or-nothing requirements, Asp said.
"The Douglas County School District could out-score every district in the state and still not meet AYP [adequate yearly progress] targets," Asp said. "What worries me as an educator, is that although schools and districts need to be held accountable, conflicting scores lower the district's credibility with the public."
There are some efforts to align the federal scores with CSAP, but it will take some time, Asp said.
Each year the goal is ratcheted up toward 100 percent of the students scoring proficient in English and math, Asp said.
"We predict that Douglas County students will fare well on almost every measure in this first year," Asp said. "But we foresee difficulty as the law ratchets upwards toward 100 percent of its students reaching AYP goals."
Scores were released to the district last week and will be released to the public later in the year, he said.
The federal law's aim is to provide adequate education for minority, disabled and non-English speaking students, he said.
In this state, Colorado Student Assessment Program scores are used to measure each school's progress toward a 2014 goal of 100 percent of its students performing at the state's target level, as required by the act.
The report includes levels of performance and participation in reading and math at several subgroups including Native American/Alaska native, Asian/Pacific islanders, black, Hispanic, white, limited English proficiency, economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities.
If there are 30 students or more in any of these categories they are included in the scoring, Asp said.
And there lies one of the report's problems, he said.
"Say we have 30 students who are Hispanic and for some reason only 28 take the CSAP test," he said. "The required participation is 95 percent of the students - that school would fail because participation would be 93 percent."
Failure in one category fails the school, he said.
It's an all or nothing scoring system, Asp said.
"If the school passes in the remaining 53 categories, it still fails," he said.
The result could show that a school which scores well on the CSAP test for reading and math, could do poorly on the federal score, Asp said.
Schools that receive Title I money would feel the biggest bite for failing, said Barb Kimball, school district grant coordinator.
In the 1960s, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided money for children in poverty areas to improve teaching and learning standards in literacy.
About every five to six years the act is reauthorized by Congress, Asp said.
The No Child Left Behind Law is the most recent reauthorization, he said.
If a Title I school fails two times in the federal report it would be required in the third year to provide the option of transporting children to a different school, Kimball said.
Each year the school fails another corrective measure would be added to the list to be paid out of the school's Title I money. The federal government would allow only a percentage of the Title I money to be spent on mitigation, Kimball said.
Non-Title I schools also would have to provide mitigation for failing scores, but would be monitored through the district, Kimball said.
Douglas County has seven Title I schools, she said.
But it isn't only individual schools that will submit to the scoring, Asp said.
Districts also will be accountable.
The district will face the same 54 targets each in elementary, middle and high school levels with the same all-or-nothing requirements, Asp said.
"The Douglas County School District could out-score every district in the state and still not meet AYP [adequate yearly progress] targets," Asp said. "What worries me as an educator, is that although schools and districts need to be held accountable, conflicting scores lower the district's credibility with the public."
There are some efforts to align the federal scores with CSAP, but it will take some time, Asp said.
Each year the goal is ratcheted up toward 100 percent of the students scoring proficient in English and math, Asp said.
"We predict that Douglas County students will fare well on almost every measure in this first year," Asp said. "But we foresee difficulty as the law ratchets upwards toward 100 percent of its students reaching AYP goals."
Scores were released to the district last week and will be released to the public later in the year, he said.
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