No Child Left Behind has been a controversial subject since the act was passed by the Bush administration in 2001, according to professor Kevin Brady, but N.C . State has received a $1.6 million grant to troubleshoot the law’s shortcomings.
“NCLB has had huge impacts on certain populations, mainly special education students,” Brady, specialist in adult education, said.
The law demands an equally based education system created through standardized tests with each state setting its own testing requirements. Schools that meet state standards receive federal funding from the government.
A common complaint regarding NCLB revolves around children who have developmental disabilities are taking the same tests as students without these disabilities.
As a part of finding answers to these difficult questions, the U.S. Department of Education is providing $11.6 million over the next five years to create a National Center On Assessment and Accountability for Special Education. N.C. State, Arizona State University and the University of Oregon are all playing a large part in this research process.
According to the NCAASE, the two large goals are include understanding academic growth for students with disabilities and determining accountability mechanisms that work best when reflecting a school’s impact on students.
Ann Schulte, a professor of psychology, is the leader for the NCSU component of NCAASE. She plans to work closely with two psychology doctoral students, Natalie Murr and Kali Osbeck during the research project.
Schulte’s team will study data from the last decade reported through the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. The state of North Carolina has a significant amount of information to review, as it was one of the first states in the U.S. that performed the student-standardized tests.
Brady said he would like to see the government enact further separation between church and state.
“Public schools can receive financial assistance from faith-based organizations and academic assistance is not often being offered to the poor rural schools that need the money the most,” Brady said.
Some of the best-qualified math and science teachers do not apply to work for the low-income schools that could benefit most from their instruction, Schulte said.
“Holding teachers in schools accountable for children’s tests results is controversial. Teachers will feel they are being judged on things that they cannot control,” Schulte said.
The job of a teacher is to provide the tools necessary for their classroom to learn. There are circumstances that may challenge their goals that include school budgets, disruptive students or large classroom sizes.
Many teachers say that standardized test scores do not give an accurate representation of how the kids are doing or how the teachers are doing either.
It is possible that teachers may face losing their jobs if their students are not complying with the state’s benchmark for growth, also known as Adequate Yearly Progress.
”We want to have a system that rewards schools for the work that they do,” Schulte said. “It’s easier to produce growth in some populations than others.”
Schulte and her team of researchers know that there are examples where comparing test results from one cohort with the results from a previous cohort will provide an accurate picture of a school’s improvement. But the fact remains that there are many situations where it does not—specifically in cases that involve students with developmental disabilities, according to Schulte.
This research is some of the first regarding NCLB, according to Brady.