Chip Taylor

No Child Left Behind

Article on NCLB in the New York Times.

I've been skeptical of NCLB since I'm predisposed to think that more federal involvement in education is bad, not good, and also that too much reliance on standardized testing can be counterproductive. If nothing else, schools can lower standards and improve scores.

I'd rather see the government's near-monopoly on elementary and secondary education broken up. Give parents more choices and trust them to monitor school performance. They know whether their child is doing well or not. Or should.

The article linked above notes that the ability of students to transfer from failing schools is largely hollow. NCLB has done little to increase choices, but maybe that's expecting too much. Perhaps it's been most useful in lighting a fire under complacent educators.

Speaking of education policy. Adora Cheung blogging at Beyond Stage One notes another Times article concerning the performance of charter schools. Adora notes that there may be selection bias. Parents with children doing well in school may be less likely to move their kids to a charter school.

What is needed is a study that compares the pre- and post-charter scores of the charter school students to same-time scores of students who didn't switch. That would tell you whether charter and non-charter students are starting from the same point and whether charter or standard schools are producing more improvement.

UPDATE: I see that Rod Paige has responded to the charter school article:

"The Times made no distinction between students falling behind and students climbing out of the hole in which they found themselves," Mr. Paige said.

"It is wrong to think of charter schools as a monolith,'' he added. "There are schools for dropouts, schools for students who've been expelled, schools serving the most economically disadvantaged families. Charters are as diverse as the children they educate."