"Bubble Kids" Get Attention

While it is nice to have a hard data study to back up my notion, the effects of NCLB were not hard to predict. The linked study (thanks to David Hoff for the pointer), released by the American Enterprise Institute, focused on the Chicago Public Schools and found that under NCLB, kids in the middle had the greatest improvement under the testing regime. Gifted students and lower peforming students had mixed results or no significant change, respectively, in their test scores.

Not to rain on the author's parade, but duh!!!

The accountability structure of NCLB, with its focus on ever increasing rates of proficiency, meant that schools were not going to focus on the hard case, but on the kids where just a little intervention could make a difference. Essentially, the schools went after the low-hanging fruit-a logical and quite likely forseeable effect.

The problem was that while schools were focused on the low hanging fruit, they were not really looking for ways to go after and help the students who needed more help. Under NCLB, if you consider the intial focus on the "low hangers," the schools had between 2 and four years to really develop a plan to attack those parts of their student body who needed more help. Predictably that didn't happen and we are now stuck with the consequences.

While there are many people who love to point out NCLB's failures, the big failure of the sweeping law was not incentivizing states and localities to begin to really focus on the low achieving students. While the data reporting provisions helped shed real and bright light on the achievement gap, those same provisions are now showing that schools don't have a plan for those kids who aren't the low hanging fruit.

One of the changes to NCLB that should be included in the reauthorization is a provision requiring school districts and states to submit detailed, scientifically supported plans for raising the achievement of their lowest performing students. Failure to provide such a plan would result in loss of Title I funds, loss of other federal support and ultimately, states should threaten accredidation for the schools.