What 'No Child Left Behind' Left Behind
The metamorphosis of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is being hailed as a historic triumph of bipartisan compromise (HTBC). Why, we haven't seen such lopsided approval votes in Congress since... well, since Democrats and Republicans put aside their petty differences and agreed by overwhelming margins to let Bush invade Iraq.
All right, fine. I'm not suggesting the new education law is analogous to that -- or even that it merely trades one Orwellian legislative label for another. ESSA does represent a substantive shift: It returns a fair amount of control over education policy to the states. This has led to celebration in some quarters and worry in others. I believe both reactions are misconceived, or at least overstated.
Let's start with those who are worried. Their argument is that NCLB put equity on the agenda, calling our attention to the inexcusable inadequacy of the schools attended by most poor kids of color and forcing states to do something about it. That federal oversight is now being dialed back.
To which I'd respond: While the inadequacy and inequity were (and are) certainly inexcusable, NCLB was never a reasonable response. Indeed, as many of us predicted at the start, it did far more harm than good -- in general, and with respect to addressing disparities between black and white, rich and poor, in particular.
Standardized testing -- especially when it's done to every child every year, and when bribes and threats are employed to coerce better results -- was never necessary to tell us which schools were failing. Heck, you could just drive by them and make a reasonable guess. (The eminent educator Nel Noddings once called that "the windshield test.") For years, I've been challenging NCLB's defenders to name a single school anywhere in the country whose inadequacy was a secret until students were subjected to yet another wave of standardized tests.
But testing isn't just superfluous; it was, and remains, immensely damaging -- to low-income students most of all. As I argued 15 years ago, standardized exams measure what matters least about learning and serve mostly to make dreadful forms of teaching appear successful. Pressure to raise scores has driven out many of our best teachers and many of our most vulnerable students. It has taken second-rate schools and turned them into third-rate test-prep factories.
What's true of testing is, not surprisingly, true of the law that should have been called the Many Children Left Behind Act. Tests constitute not only its enforcement apparatus but its very definition of success and failure). As no less a champion of What 'No Child Left Behind' Left Behind | Alfie Kohn: