The Education Sector

Updates, Analysis, and Commentary on Today's Education Issues

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An Industry in Need of Testing?

The following article is excerpted from "Margins of Error: The Testing Industry in the No Child Left Behind Era," by Education Sector Co-director Thomas Toch.

State standards and statewide testing have become dominant forces in public schooling under the No Child Left Behind Act.

By the time NCLB testing requirements are fully implemented this spring, states will administer 45 million standardized tests a year in math and science in seven grades to comply with the law. They are adding 11.4 million additional tests this school year alone under the law. And within two years they will have to administer 11 million more tests in three grades in science. Today more students are tested more often than at any time in the nation's history, and the consequences for educators are far greater.

Standardized test scores form the basis of NCLB's school reform strategies–school report cards, tutoring and school-choice options for students, and increasingly serious consequences for persistently low-performing schools. As a result, the content of statewide tests has become the focus of teaching and learning in public school classrooms throughout the nation. This is fine to the extent that tests are well constructed and aligned with state reading and math standards, but there is considerable evidence that they are not.

But the surge in testing has created immense challenges for both the industry that writes, scores, and reports the vast majority of the new statewide tests and the state agencies charged with carrying out NCLB's requirements. The scale of the NCLB testing requirements, competitive pressures in the testing industry, a shortage of testing experts, insufficient state resources, tight regulatory deadlines, and a lack of meaningful oversight of the sprawling NCLB testing enterprise are undermining NCLB's pursuit of higher academic standards.

While the law's requirement that states align their tests to challenging state standards is an important step toward clarifying classroom expectations, a significant number of states are constructing tests that don't fully measure student and school performance against state standards. Poorly constructed test items make their way onto state tests, undermining tests' ability to accurately measure student and school performance. "In many cases," say testing experts like Gary Cook, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin's Center for Education Research, "companies are putting test items on the street they shouldn't."

In addition, many states are using tests that meas­ure mostly low-level skills, tests that increasingly contain questions that require students to merely recall and restate facts rather than do more demanding tasks like applying or evaluating information, largely because it's easier and cheaper to test the simpler tasks.

The trend is encouraging teachers to make the same low-level skills the priority in their classrooms at the expense of the higher standards that NCLB has sought to promote. "Tests are focusing more and more on rote skills because it's difficult, given the demand that they be constructed quickly and cheaply, for anything else to happen," says H.D Hoover, a testing expert at the University of Iowa. "Writing items that tap higher levels of comprehension is really difficult. The problem is that tests of rote skills encourage rote teaching. It's not a good model for instruction."

Such tests also give a skewed sense of student achievement. Scores on reading tests that measure mainly literal comprehension are going to be higher than those on tests with a lot of questions that require students to evaluate what they've read by, say, reading two passages and identifying themes common to both. The same is true in math.

Yet despite the importance of testing, it's underfunded. States typically spend less than one-quarter of 1 percent of public school revenues on their statewide testing programs. Per-pupil spending in public education averages over $8,000 this year. But states spend between $10 and $30 per student on their testing programs, say industry experts. It's estimated that schools and school systems spend twice that amount on test-prep materials.

There are clear steps national policymakers can take to address these issues.

The Federal Government should:

• Increase the supply of testing experts; 1,000 specialists over next five years.

• Increase funding for statewide testing from $408 million to $860 million.

• Fund new research and development on testing.

• Establish a bipartisan presidential commission on standardized testing to study a wide range of testing issues, from funding, to test quality, and testing industry capacity.

The commission should establish an independent national testing oversight agency to independently audit state testing programs and the testing industry in the spirit of the Consumer Products Safety Commission and other federal consumer-protection agencies.

• Encourage the creation of state testing consortia by offering incentive funding to states that create consortia. States could create higher-quality tests at lower cost if they worked together to develop common tests.

• Begin the development of a single national testing system. Such systems already exist in many of the industrialized nations of Europe and Asia.

Because statewide standardized testing has such a strong influence on teacher and learning in the nation's classrooms today, it's critical that state build very high quality tests. Tests that deliver dependable accountings of student and school performance, encourage schools to aim higher, and supply teachers and principals with timely information on students strengths and weaknesses. Given the importance of improving student learning, even pretty good tests are not good enough.

Read Toch's report in full.

"U.S. School Test Rules Lowering Standards, Study Says," Paul Basken, Bloomberg, January 31, 2006

"Testing industry overwhelmed under NCLB," Greg Toppo, USA Today, January 31, 2006

"U.S. Should Do More to Aid States in Developing Tests, Report Says," David J. Hoff, Education Week, February 1, 2006 (subscription required)

NAACP Steps in to Defend NCLB

In August 2005, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education regarding enforcement of the No Child Left Behind Act. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had denied numerous Connecticut requests for waivers from various NCLB provisions, most significantly the requirement to test students annually in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

Calling the new tests an "unfunded mandate," Blumenthal alleged that the state would be "irreparably harmed" by Spellings' "arbitrary, capricious" decision that "annual" means "every year" and not "every other year." One suspects that Blumenthal, a Democrat, saw the suit as any easy political win, fighting alongside the teachers' unions against a law associated with the Bush Administration. But that simple storyline got considerably more complicated last week, as court papers were filed against the suit by the Connecticut branch of the NAACP.

Calling the suit "a waste of time and resources," lawyers working with NAACP noted that the state has among the highest achievement gaps in the nation for low-income and minority students. Said Scott X. Esdaile, president of the NAACP state chapter, "the concerns with No Child Left Behind shouldn't be used as an excuse to not provide equity in education to [minority] children."

The intervention marks a significant moment in the ongoing battle over NCLB implementation. NCLB opponents on the political left have painted the law as driven by conservative and business interests bent on privatizing public education.  But that idea has been undermined by the steadfast support of the law's core accountability provisions by liberal icons like Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, and groups like the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights (a participant in the NAACP action in Connecticut).  Instead of a corporate conspiracy, they see the law's insistence on holding schools accountable for the performance of long-neglected low-income and minority students as key element of the ongoing struggle for civil rights and education reform. There has been intense behind-the-scenes disagreement within the civil rights community about the National Education Association's aggressive tactics against NCLB. The NAACP action in Connecticut has brought those tensions clearly into the open for the first time.

As Education Sector's Thomas Toch notes in recent report, "Margins of Error," the U.S. Department of Education's somewhat cavalier attitude toward the concerns Connecticut and some other states have about watered-down test quality is disturbing. However, when the richest state in the nation chooses to defy the clear requirements of the law instead of focusing on the disadvantaged students it has long short-changed, actions like the NAACP suit make perfect sense.  As one intervening lawyer noted, "the 1964 Civil Rights Act was an unfunded mandate" too.

"NAACP Opposes State Lawsuit: Attacking Federal No Child Left Behind Act Could Harm Minorities, Group Says," Robert A. Frahm, The Hartford Courant, January 31, 2006

Connecticut v. Spellings

"Not Getting Left Behind," Washington Post editorial, February 5, 2006

"Margins of Error: The Testing Industry in the No Child Left Behind Era," Toch, Education Sector, January 2006

SMART, Science, and the State of the Union

The President's 2006 State of the Union Address contained a single K-12 education proposal, focused on boosting America's competitive position in science and math. It calls for training 70,000 additional Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate math and science teachers, bringing 30,000 new mid-career science and math professionals into high schools, and improving math instruction in elementary and middle schools. This comes on the heels of recently-passed federal legislation devoting $3.75 billion over five years to new "SMART" grants for lower-income college students who major in science-related fields. While both ideas have merit, they need to be matched by much more sustained and systemic school reforms.

The President's focus on high schools makes sense–as a recent Education Sector analysis shows, high schools are preparing only a small fraction of their college-bound students to succeed in college-level math and science courses. In a similar vein, the SMART program is limited to students who have completed a rigorous high school curriculum. But it's not yet clear where 100,000 new math and science teachers would come from, and the U.S. Department of Education faces some stiff challenges in defining what "rigorous" actually means. A survey to be released by Public Agenda later this month also indicates a communications challenge: while most parents agree with the general goal of increasing math and science preparation, they don't perceive problems for their children or in their local schools.

Real progress on giving more high school students the opportunity to choose math and science careers will take strong action at many levels, including teacher assignment, school funding, guidance counseling, differential compensation, curricular reform, and school structure. Add-on programs like the SOTU proposal and SMART program are a start. But the real heavy lifting lies ahead, and must be sustained long after this latest up-cycle in America's decades-old focus on international competitiveness inevitably recedes.

State of the Union: American Competitiveness Initiative

"The Gift Colleges Don't Want," Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Education, January 24, 2006

"High Schools Failing to Prepare Many College-Bound Students for Science Careers," Kevin Carey, Education Sector Chart You Can Trust, February 2006

Beltway Briefing

Last week's State of the Union address was dominated by national security and Iraq, but President Bush did touch on a variety of domestic policy issues, including education.

The main component of the administration's 2006 education policy agenda is an "American Competitiveness Initiative." The $5.9 billion package–which  also includes funding for research, job training, and business giveaways–would fund several new education initiatives, including $10 million for a National Math Panel, modeled after the National Reading Panel, to identify evidence-based strategies to teach math; $250 million for "Math Now" programs to support scientifically-based math instruction; and $90 million to recruit and train 70,000 new AP and IB math and science teachers (see the article above for further analysis). The administration is also trying to resurrect the high school reform initiative it proposed last year and, in addition, has proposed two small foreign language initiatives.

Should we expect much from these proposals?  Probably not. The high school reform proposals were D.O.A. in Congress last year, with even members of the President's own party opposing them. The language proposals may pass, but are far too small to have a meaningful impact–they would support programs in only 24 school districts and train a meager 1,000 foreign language teachers. Similarly, the $250 million for "Math Now" programs, although hardly chump change, is less than a quarter of the cost of the Reading First program on which the Math Now programs are based.

The administration can't propose bold new education initiatives at this point because it lacks funding for them. Instead, the administration has chosen to commit to tax cuts and the war in Iraq, plus there are the costs of Medicare prescription drugs among other big programs. Thus, the administration needs to find places to cut domestic spending, and new education proposals must be paid for by cutting existing ones. The administration's budget would cut or eliminate some 140 programs, including a number of education programs, and would cut overall education appropriations by some $7 billion dollars–from $70.8 billion in 2006 to $63.4 billion in 2007. While overall federal education funding will likely decline in 2007, most programs slated for elimination will probably survive, because members of Congress aren't eager to abolish programs that have constituencies, and the administration hasn't previously shown much political appetite for pressing them to ax programs.  

Even as the administration unrolls its budget proposals for the 2007 fiscal year (which begins in October), it's still wrapping up work on 2006, the fiscal year that started last October. Last week Congress passed, and the President is expected to sign, budget reconciliation legislation intended to save $40 billion over the next 5 years. Some of the savings come from changes to student loan provisions that would raise students' borrowing costs and curtail lender profits. The legislation also provides $3.7 billion in spending for supplemental Pell grants of $750 to $4,000 a year for students majoring in math, science, and specified foreign languages. 

In other Capitol Hill news, House Republicans last week selected Ohio Rep. John Boehner as the House Majority Leader, replacing Texan Tom DeLay. As of now, the most likely replacement for Boehner as chair of the Education and the Workforce committee is Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif.  While Boehner was best known for shepherding the No Child Left Behind legislation through the House during his tenure, McKeon is known for his work on higher ed issues.   

Further Reading:

"American Competitiveness Initiative," U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Department of Education Budget

"Budget Cuts Pass By a Slim Margin," Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post, February 2, 2006

"In an Upset, Boehner is Elected GOP House Leader," Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post, February 2, 2006

Quick Clicks

It's a Bargain!

Register now to join Education Sector and the Urban Institute at noon on February 28, 2006 for the release of "Collective Bargaining in Education: Negotiating Change in Today's Schools," (Harvard Education Press), a new book edited by Education Sector's Andrew Rotherham and Jane Hannaway of the Urban Institute.

Wisdom From the UK

Education Sector's Sara Mead interviews Sir Michael Barber, a leading architect of England's ambitious education reforms. Barber offers lessons from England for American reformers and shares his insights on No Child Left Behind, teachers unions, and how education policy compares to health policy.

A Double Feature

New York Post features a review of two new education books by Education Sector's Andrew Rotherham. He takes a look at "The Emergency Teacher," by Christina Asquith, and "Our School," by Joanne Jacobs.

Pyrrhic Victory?

Andrew Rotherham and Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute explain why school voucher opponents should take little cheer in the Florida Supreme Court's logic in overturning the state's voucher program.

More Groans Over Student Loans

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved $13 billion in student-loan cuts as part of its larger $39 billion dollar deficit-reduction package. Most of the cuts are in the form of higher student-loan interest rates and lower subsidies for private lenders that participate in the federal program. The savings will be, used to establish new grants for high-achieving students, to open new loan markets for distance education providers, and to reduce the federal budget deficit.

The Future of New Orleans

A new analysis from Education Sector Non-Resident Senior Fellow Paul Hill and Research Advisory Board member Jane Hannaway discusses the current and future possibilities for education in New Orleans. Taking into account such complex issues as the historic balance between public and parochial schools, as well as difficult-to-predict future demographic scenarios, the report is a rich source of thinking around an issue central to the revitalizing of the gulf region.

Talent Scouting

The Indianapolis Star reports that the local school board in Lawrence, Ind., is seeking to launch a charter school with an “early college” program for high school students. In a move with national significance for advocates of high-quality charter schools, the school district is hoping to hand oversight for the new school to an outside sponsor, most likely Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, rather than supervise the school itself. Peterson has created over a dozen highly regarded charter schools in Indianapolis. Earlier this year, Decatur, another Indiana town impressed with Peterson's charter record, signed him up to oversee a new charter school.  Perhaps this is the beginning of a trend: school districts handing authority over their charter schools to outside organizations with proven track records.

Let's Scale Blogback Mountain

Check out the latest education news and analysis on Eduwonk.com.  Read the latest on Bush and the nerd patrol, the real deal on the FY07 budget request and what it's like to be the best chef in England.

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