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NCLB: Equal Opportunity or Uniformity?
The media is filled with reports about the increasing problems for many schools caused by the No Child Left Behind Education Act. In fact, some states have taken action to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of the Act. That's a noteworthy action considering that they are risking the loss of significant funding provided by the federal government. Their arguments are basically that, while the government has mandated huge and costly programs, it has provided only a small portion of the funding necessary to implement those programs. The bottom line is that the states just don't have the money to implement those changes on their own.
I doubt that many would disagree with the stated goals of NCLB—to provide equal educational opportunity to all students, regardless of background or socioeconomic status (although there are significant disagreements about the meaning of the word "equal"). What many fail to realize is that one can agree wholeheartedly with a goal while vehemently disagreeing with the methods chosen to meet that goal. This logical flaw has been used to accuse those who criticize NCLB of dastardly deeds, such as not caring about disadvantaged students or simply being too lazy to carry out challenging mandates. Thus, there have been commentaries by everyone from newspaper editors, education media "experts," and the general public suggesting that the reason teachers are complaining about NCLB is that they don't want to be "held accountable" for their work.
One possible reason for this perception is that teachers haven't adequately communicated their concerns to the public. Many teachers still grumble among themselves rather than taking opportunities to explain to parents and their communities how NCLB and its obsession with standardized assessment impacts their ability to teach students in ways that have been shown effective.
Here is one example from my home state of Montana. For the sake of our international readers, Montana is the fourth largest state in the United States, covering an area larger than Germany or Ecuador. It is a mountainous and largely rural state with less than 1 million people. Only five other states have a lower average income.
Darrell Kipp grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwest Montana. It is an area where unemployment reaches 85% during the winter, and where ¾ of the children live in single family homes. Kipp was one of the determined ones. He not only graduated from high school, but went on to get a master's degree from Harvard. Kipp returned to the reservation and, in 1994, started a private, nonprofit school. There, K-8 students learn their lessons in the native Blackfeet tongue. The school has no administrators, no superintendent, no school board, and no principal. It also has no standardized tests. Yet when its graduates enter high school, they are well above students who attended the ‘standardized’ public schools.
Kipp suggests that the present U.S. public school standards and testing requirements are an "assimilation policy" similar to what the federal government did from the 1880s to the 1920s when it attempted to "civilize" Native Americans. The government forced American Indian students to attend white boarding schools and punished them for speaking their language. The present policy doesn't resort to corporal punishment. But it now affects not only Native Americans, but Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and any other group whose English is "non-standard."
Whether this is intentional or unintentional is another issue. But the result is that NCLB mediates against the very students it claims to be trying to help. The tests themselves are leaving "non-standard" students behind. Rather than recognizing and addressing poverty as a major factor in the learning of students, NCLB ignores it, insisting that teachers are accountable for making up any deficits with which students enter school. Proponents of NCLB argue that education is the way out of poverty, but isn't that similar to saying saying that wellness is the way out of illness? Obvious, yes! But when people are ill, can one mandate hold doctors accountable for wellness without addressing the causes of the illness itself?
Kipp argues that:
"‘Equality’ by itself is a very strong and beautiful word, but it has been changed to mean ‘sameness,’ or ‘uniformity.’ It's about control. The more uniform a thing is, the easier it is to control. Standardized testing focuses on conformity. In doing so, they take away the ingenuity that comes with diversity. If you go the other way, then you enliven diversity, and diversity is where creativity comes from. Sameness produces dullness. Diversity produces vibrancy and life. That's why we need true equality—education that's equal, but different."
Standard Tests for Diverse Students
The emphasis on diversity—using familiar student experiences rather than generic examples—has been successful in reservation schools. A typical science project might study the effects of heat loss and energy usage by comparing tepee, a long house, a kiva, or a sweat lodge. Standardized test questions about the R-value of insulation in the walls and ceiling of a home make little sense to students who live in homes where metal roofs are held in place against the wind by bald tires. Yet because they can't pass what might well be termed culturally biased tests, these students are deemed failures and their schools are subject to penalties.
The success these students have experienced using culturally diverse methods is now threatened because teachers are being pressured to "teach to the test." The government argues that states have a say in what is included on the tests. According to their spokespeople, there's lots of flexibility in NCLB because states make up their own standardized tests to suit the needs of their population. But here's the Catch-22. Because of it's low average annual income and small tax base, Montana is one of several states that don't have the money to develop its own tests. They are forced to purchase "canned" tests from testing companies to meet government demands for standardized testing.
What if the government provided funds for the development of unique and culturally sensitive tests? The Montana State Superintendent of Education points out that, even if they could afford it, no single test would be fair to all of Montana's students who range from children of university professors and ranchers to the students on the Blackfeet and other Indian reservations. A "standard" Montana student enters school with an English vocabulary of about 30,000 words. Coming from bilingual homes, Blackfeet students might use only 2,500 English words—and even those are not the same words!
Kipp explains that, although his students are every bit as "smart" as their "standard" peers, they don't share the same knowledge base. They speak English, but it's not the same as that of standardized test writer in Iowa or New Jersey. Here's an example. In preparing for a standardized vocabulary test, every 8th grade Blackfeet student missed the question on the word "awning." 
"Of course they missed it," the teacher said. "Nobody has an awning! The wind blows 70 miles an hour." If there ever had been an awning, she joked, it was flapping its way toward Iowa.
This country once prided itself on the diversity of cultures that created its unique perspectives. Yet now, the drive to "standardize" knowledge seems determined to wipe out that diversity. Rather than complaining that the government isn't providing enough money to do what they demand, perhaps we should be asking if it is really what we want education to do. Is it any wonder that many teachers balk at being held accountable for teaching impersonal and often irrelevant facts at the expense of what one Blackfeet teacher describes as "helping develop the whole person? "
Supporters of NCLB insist that these are isolated instances. They claim that the program is working. But working to do what? How does alienating non-standard students, which make up a growing segment of the school population, provide those students with "equal" opportunities? Aren't those "isolated instances" the very ones that NCLB is purported to prevent?
Each community is its own microcosm of culture and values within the larger society. Certainly, the values of that larger society play a part in what is taught in schools. But they must be balanced with the needs and values of students within individual schools and communities. Educators could take a large step in that direction by taking a step back and reassessing what is truly "essential" knowledge. The answer to that question will arise from a reevaluation of what kind of society we want and what role public education will play in developing that society. And that answer will differ from community to community.
One size will never fit all. Nor can schools limit their functions to the simplistic goals of the past. Big government will never take the lead in transforming education for the well-being of students. At the level of school and community, it is educators themselves who can take the lead in transforming education for the well-being of students—and the future.
For an example of how this task can be undertaken, you'll find an article on rethinking education here.
