Arkansas’ education system has a new yardstick. Last week, Arkansans got their first outflow of data regarding schools under a new accountability system developed to replace Arkansas’ testing system under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act.
The No Child Left Behind standards advanced by President George W. Bush were well-intentioned. They promoted the idea that applies to all organizations: Goals are a critical component to improvement and measurement is a necessary tool to know how to address shortcomings.
Critics, however, argued the standardized testing at the core of No Child Left Behind encouraged teachers to “teach to the test,” an approach devoted to better test scores but questionable progress in student understanding and knowledge.
The new approach usessome of the same terminology, but in a much different way. It’s going to take the state a while to get comfortable with the system and to understand exactly how its results should be interpreted as some sort of gauge of educational success in the Natural State.
Readers, students, parents and educators really should devote time and energy to fully comprehending this approach. It is indeed confusing to make the shift from one way of measuring educational progress to a new method.
Last week’s release of data sounded damning. “Half of schools in state failing to achieve goals” was the headline in the statewide Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Anyone who only reads headlines likely would have had yet another “Thank goodness for Mississippi” moment.
Yes, the data show more than half the state’s 1,103 public schools fell short of achievement and graduation goals, but it’s notso dire. It means not that they’re failing schools. Rather, these schools now know in which subjects or demographics they are strong and which they are weak, and they have the opportunity to concentrate approaches to address those findings.
Schools might fall short because their entire student body missed a goal in some subject, or it might be that a subgroup of special education, poor or non-English speaking students missed achievement targets.
“Because a school may have a designation of ‘needs improvement’ - that does not mean it is a failing school,” said Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell. “As a matter of fact, it’s not in any way failing. It means that school missed a target.”
Kimbrell acknowledged what everyone knew - the No Child Left Behind standard of all kids and schools reaching 100 percent proficient by 2014 was not achievable. UnderArkansas’ new system, goals are tailored to each school, are achievable and more concentrated on specific issues at each school.
“If you tell me I have to jump six feet, I’m going to give up,” Kimbrell said. “This takes the place of an unachievable goal and gives you a goal that is achievable but also maintains a standard of continuous improvement.”
Perhaps the idea that “needs improvement” isn’t the same as “failing” will encourage educators and help them teach the subject matter, not the test.
We see real potential in this system, but it will take time to get comfortable with it. What we like is it appears to not treat every school the same, but gives each school the information needed to make progress toward improvement.
Time will tell whether that potential is real, but in an atmosphere that demands standards and measurement, the new system seems a step in the right direction.
Opinion, Pages 7 on 11/28/2012