More calls for NCLB changes

From the Education Policy Blog, an article on civil rights groups joining together to make a statement on NCLB. I've posted the first few paragraphs here; just click the title link to read the entire piece. Also of note: the National Conference of State Legislatures declared its opposition to national standards. Read about that at EdWeek.

No Child Left Behind, the title for which was stolen from the motto "Leave No Child Behind" of the Children's Defense Fund, has as a primary purpose to ensure that minority children and special education recipients receive full attention and opportunity to succeed - this is one reason the law requires the disaggregation of test scores by groups including race, Hispanic identity, and special education education classification. Thus when a common statement is issued by most of the important civil rights and disability organizations, it behooves to pay attention to their concerns. Yesterday a letter was sent to the House and Senate Education committees signed by more than 20 of such organizations.

The letter calls for the use of multiple measures both in assessing student learning and in evaluating school performance.

The letter, whose complete text can be read at the website of the Forum on Educational Accountability, was signed by the following groups, the list of which I offer first to make clear the widespread agreement on this issue:

ACORN
Advancement Project
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
ASPIRA
Civil Rights Project
Council for Exceptional Children
Japanese American Citizens League
Justice Matters
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Learning Disabilities Association of America
National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE)
National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian,Laotian, and
Vietnamese Americans (NAFEA)
National Coalition of ESEA Title I Parents
National Council on Educating Black Children
National Federation of Filipino American Associations National Indian Education Association
National Indian School Board Association
National Pacific Islander Educator Network (NPIEN)
National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA)

(and I note that ASPIRA is the education and leadership development of Puerto Rican and other Latino youth and ACORN is a community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.

....

They note that

A number of studies have found that an exclusive emphasis on (primarily multiple-choice) standardized test scores has narrowed the curriculum

and which indicated narrowing of curriculum both in increasing limiting of instruction to the subjects tested, reading and math, at the expense of other subjects, and even within those subjects narrowing instruction to the limited format (usually only multiple choice) and content of state tests which often over-emphasize low-level learning. The letter goes on to say

As reporter Thomas Toch recently stated, "The problem is that these dumbed-down tests encourage teachers to make the same low-level skills the priority in their classrooms, at the expense of the higher standards that the federal law has sought to promote." To succeed in college, employment and life in general, students need critical thinking and problem solving skills that the tests fail to measure, and they need a complete curriculum.