The History and Background of the No Child Left Behind Act: Part 3

The No Child Left Behind Act is not only costing money but also costing valuable instructional time, staff time, and administrative time. Students are losing out on valuable instructional time to allow not only for the actual testing but also for the preparation of the tests, administration of the tests, and scoring/shipping of tests. All this time could have been spent on actually “teaching” the students.

“One consequence is that the testing shifts the focus, for at least a month, from learning to testing. This plays out in many ways from the time actually spent testing to loss of guidance and reading specialist support to loss of administrative support.” (Zellmer, Frontier, & Pheifer, 2006) Wisconsin ASCD surveys questioned about the benefits of the No Child Left Behind Act. 17% of the respondents stated they saw no or little benefits; 21% stated they saw an increase in awareness of standards; and 20% had stated they saw an increase in awareness of the subgroups of students.

The survey also showed how many actual days were disrupted by testing for disadvantaged students. The days were averaged between elementary schools, high schools, and middle schools. Average days interrupted for special education students were 7.5; average days interrupted for Title 1 students were 7.53; and the average days interrupted for English language learners were 7.4 days. (Zellmer, Frontier, & Pheifer, 2006)

It seems to me that the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to the No Child Left Behind Act. I hold a strong belief that testing is not the “final answer”. Progressions should not only look into testing but look into report cards, grade point averages, honor role, honor society, etc. I also do not believe that every child does well on testing, even the brightest of children. For instance children may have test anxiety. If a child has test anxiety this can have a drastic effect on the test results. It has also been determined that minority children and children who come from economically disadvantaged homes score lower than Caucasian students. (Santrock, 2004)

I find that an assessment which may work much better than standardized tests for everyone overall would be a portfolio assessment. “A portfolio consists of a systematic and organized collection of a student’s work that demonstrates the student’s skills and accomplished.” (Santrock, 2004, p. 542.) In summary this is almost like a story which tells about the student’s progress and achievements over time.

Many different works can be included in the portfolio including writing samples, journal entries, videotapes, art work, test results, problem solutions, etc. “Effective use of portfolios for assessment requires establishing the portfolio’s purpose, involving the student in decisions about it, reviewing the portfolio with the student, setting criteria for evaluation, and scoring and judging.” (Santrock, 2004, p. 543.)

We will conclude our series in the next article by looking at other evaluation options for students.