Support for the principles, concerns about the practices

Murnane, R. J., & Papay, J. P. (2010). Teachers’ views on no child left behind: Support for the principles, concerns about the practices. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(3), 151-166.

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This research article focuses on teachers’ reactions to three aspects of No Child Left Behind:

1. The testing requirements and the rules determining Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under NCLB.
2. The sanctions imposed on schools that fail to meet AYP.
3. The requirement that all teachers of core academic subjects be “highly qualified” in their areas of teaching assignment.

Overall, this study found that teachers overwhelmingly support the principles underlying No Child Left Behind. How could a teacher really disagree that schools should be held accountable for educating children? However, accountability is not a synonym for punishment. Teachers in this study were concerned that the incentives born out of NCLB have also created practices that have reduced the quality of education for some children.

Findings:

• Teachers applaud states writing rigorous standards to guide teaching and allocating time to developing professional skills to address student deficiencies.
• Teachers are concerned with how much instructional time is being taken and used for test preparation. This practice leads to score inflation where students may seemingly be scoring higher on standardized tests but not truly developing underlying skills.
• Teachers are concerned with being pressured to focus on bubble kids more so than children who are very far behind in proficiency and students who are above average.
• Shrinking of the curriculum to focus solely on tested subjects and grade levels is a rising concern among teachers.
• Teachers frequently criticize the misalignment of incentives since AYP is not a valid measure of school success.

Though teachers support NCLB’s effort to raise the quality of education for students, they find that more often than not, practices used to enforce NCLB are harmful to public education.