Education Week: Teachers Say NCLB Has Changed Classroom Practice

An article by Debra Viadero reports on a new study tracking the classroom impact of the No Child Left Behind Act in three states. The report rings true to those of us who go around and visit schools here in Oklahoma. Here are the first paragraphs of the article; click the link for the full article.

A new study tracking the classroom impact of the No Child Left Behind Act in California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania suggests that teachers are adjusting their teaching practices in response to the law—but not always in ways that educators and policymakers might want.

According to the three-year study, which is being conducted by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp., majorities of elementary and middle school science and math teachers in all three states report in surveys that they are making positive changes in the classroom by focusing on their states’ academic standards or searching for better teaching methods.

At the same time, though, sizable percentages of educators are also spending more time teaching test-taking strategies, focusing more narrowly on the topics covered on state tests, and tailoring teaching to the “bubble kids”—the students who fall just below the proficiency cutoffs on state tests.

....

The findings suggest that educators on the ground are viewing and
responding to the federal law in complicated ways. For instance, across
all three states, two-thirds or more of superintendents and principals
and 40 percent to 60 percent of teachers said that staff focus on
student learning had improved as a result of the new accountability
pressures, but many also agreed that staff morale had declined.