NCLB federal waivers: a path to further marginalization? by Nnenna Ogbu, Eryka Charley, and Jing Liu

Policymakers and practitioners alike express concern that NCLB’s new waiver requirements will overshadow the individual needs of historically disadvantaged students and draw attention away from the achievement gap (Dervarics, 2011; Fensterwald, 2011; Stokes, 2012). The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), has been unable to move through a stagnated Congress.

NCLB and ESEA were designed to respond to growing demands for accountability within the United States public school system, to move historically disadvantaged students from the margins of education institutions, and identify methods to promote academic achievement. The hope was that by identifying historically disadvantaged students – which includes economically disadvantaged students, racial/ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency – greater attention and resources leading to academic achievement would be given to these marginalized students.  Despite good intentions, both ESEA and NCLB have been unable to effectively close the achievement gap, but have made it a national priority to ensure that education leaders remain accountable for the academic success of all children.

In September 2011, President Obama announced ESEA Flexibility, a new public education waiver plan to grant state education agencies increased flexibility in meeting NCLB requirements. Under this plan, state education agencies would be granted flexibility in meeting certain NCLB requirements in exchange for “rigorous State-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction” (Department of Education, October 2011).The rationalization for the waivers is to alleviate the pressure on teachers of teaching to the test and to help schools avoid penalization for not reaching 100% proficiency by 2014 (Department of Education, 2007). The waiver requirements, however, could have negative repercussions. The requirements of the NCLB waiver plan raise some serious implications for these students that educators must approach with caution.

These requirements may appear to relieve educators of the pressures to achieve proficiency, but they also provide the opportunity for systemic exclusion which would further marginalize the needs of these historically disadvantaged student populations. The intended purpose for the accountability movement within the public education system needs to remain focused on promoting academic success for all students, especially disadvantaged students.

A Federal History of Education for All

Educational policy to promote social mobility and counter the effects of poverty became a central issue for the United States during the 1960s. This era included a national focus on race relations in America and public policies to promote harmonious relationships between Blacks and Whites. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration vowed to fight a war on poverty and promote the tenets of a Great Society. One way to fight against the effects of poverty and promote a greater overall society was to give additional aid to students most at risk for success in the education institution.

The purpose of ESEA was to give federal financial support to state and local governments educating poor students. As Kantor (1991) indicated, the significance of ESEA was twofold: (1) it characterized the federal role in advancing educational equity, much in the same merit as other Civil Rights laws; and (2) it institutionalized the federal role and influence in education policy. Kantor (1991) also noted that one of the major fears with ESEA was the idea that local education authorities would have little interest or initiative in using federal funds to support economically disadvantaged students.

In response to this fear, the authors of NCLB focused on ensuring that schools were being held accountable for disadvantaged student populations. Even though the concept of accountability is not new in some states, NCLB mandated a nationwide effort for accountability requirements. The law’s main purpose was to close the achievement gap with accountability, parental choices, and research-based reforms. To achieve this purpose the law established the following goals: (1) all students will attain proficiency or better in reading and mathematics by 2014; (2) all limited English proficiency students will become proficient in English; (3) all teachers will be highly qualified by 2005-2006; (4) all students will be educated in a safe, drug-free environments; and (5) all students will graduate from high school.

NCLB Waiver Rationale

President Obama (2011) supported the goals and ambitions of the No Child Left Behind Act, but stressed that there has been a failure to implement the Act, which has produced outcomes that are hurting our children and schools. The law’s requirements place additional demands on local districts and state education agencies without sufficient resources from the federal government to make the appropriate changes. Congress acknowledged these funding decreases and retroactively provided the funds to cover shortfalls, but without the guarantee of permanent aid. Furthermore, the sanctions delivered to schools that consistently failed to make AYP served to increasingly limit school resources.

In response to some of the law’s criticisms and the inability for Congress to approve reauthorization efforts, the Administration proposed a new NCLB waiver plan for states. Within the proposed NCLB waiver plan, a state must comply with three requirements to become eligible for the waiver. States must either adopt the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) or formulate a set of standards that are deemed “College- and Career-ready”; implement a plan to improve the lowest performing schools; and design an evaluation program for teachers and principals.

Waiver Requirement #1: The Common Core threat to marginalization

The first requirement relates to a state’s curriculum standards. The Common Core State Standards initiative is a set of education standards formulated by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. The Obama Administration has already been criticized for its endorsement of the CCSS within the Race to the Top Campaign, arguing that the CCSS will promote a national curriculum although it is explicitly presented as a “state” initiative. Nonetheless, 45 states have already adopted the CCSS, making it difficult to argue that it is not a top-down policy given its advocates (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012). Requiring states to adopt a centralized curriculum poses issues for marginalized, underrepresented populations since centralization opens opportunity for macro-level comparisons. This type of centralization moves attention away from the student and towards comparing states to one another.

NCLB forced states to take a closer look at the student populations that were being systematically underserved and make creative strides to close the achievement gap within the state. The waiver plan and its requirement for CCSS will refocus states’ attention on competing with each other rather than first ensuring that all of their own students are succeeding academically. This shift in focus creates a problem for certain subgroups, such as students with limited English proficiency or students from racial or ethnic backgrounds, because these individuals are frequently the ones on the lower grid of the achievement gap. States are not yet ready to move beyond educating their students at a local level, and the introduction of a national curriculum will take attention away from the achievement gap issues that still exists within schools.

Waiver Requirement #2: Averaging whole school performance instead of student disaggregation

The next requirement of the proposed NCLB waiver plan is that only 15% of the lowest performing schools be identified. It is yet to be seen exactly how states will choose to identify the lowest performing schools. This requirement poses a significant threat for holding states accountable to subgroup populations. It also nullifies the purpose of disaggregated data. State and school districts have consistently praised disaggregation because it focused attention on the poor performance of students who would have gone unnoticed if only general test data were considered.  Before NCLB, the only method used to measure student performance was in terms of school averages. Many have argued that the exclusion of certain subgroups in educational measurement can also result in exclusion of education policy reforms for that group (O’Neill, 2001). NCLB’s testing mandates and accountability measures were a way to promote educational equity for all student groups.

As President George W. Bush said, “we’re unwilling to accept the past, where everybody was just kind of measured all together….[W]e want to know specifically who is succeeding, and who is not” (2004, p. 21). The adoption of NCLB meant that state education agencies and local education agencies would be required to evaluate every school’s individual performance and make plans to rectify schools’ achievement gaps. The NCLB waivers take away that same accountability measure for the top 85% of schools. It would be erroneous to let the top 85% of schools, regardless of individual student performance, be immune to sanctions. Schools should not be striving to be better than the next school to avoid being in the bottom 15% percent. Schools should be striving to promote positive student outcomes for all of their students regardless of where the school falls in the performance continuum.

In a sense, the focus on only the 15% lowest performing schools will only return to average student performance, which overshadows underrepresented student issues. For example, the underrepresented students or certain subgroups which would normally cause a school to miss AYP will not count against the school in the same fashion because the school as a whole would appear to perform better than a school with a larger subgroup population not making AYP.

Waiver Requirement #3: Unspecified criteria for teacher and principal evaluation

Finally, the NCLB waiver plan attempts to encourage innovative teacher and principal evaluation. Such innovation is sabotaged by the waiver plan due to limited time and financial resources as well as little evidenced-based research to model. These limitations create problems for policy formation and implementation. Attempts to address teacher evaluation have lead to a dependency upon student test scores. The paucity in the literature has shown that the quality of teachers promotes academic achievement among marginalized students (Darling-Hammond, 2000), however evaluation and assessment of quality are still widely contested. The obvious problem with this type of teacher evaluation system is that it cannot measure proven teaching methods and practices; it is merely a measure of a student’s ability to take a test. This only further perpetuates the pressure for teachers to teach to the test. A teacher evaluation policy like this is predictable given that it would be the least expensive option. Since all students complete a standardized test each year, this might be the most attractive option to policymakers. For schools with certain subgroup populations the retention rate for teachers and principals is already low. Failure to produce an appropriate evaluation system may only increase teacher and principal dissatisfaction, thus, giving one reason to leave the profession, which in turn affect the academic improvements of marginalized students. A related problem, in regards to principal evaluations, is that very little empirical research is available regarding principal effectiveness. With little known about how to measure principal effectiveness, a framework to appropriately evaluate principals is nearly non-existent.

Conclusion

Federal NCLB waivers purport to solve the problem of institutional accountability at the state and school level. However, the problem with NCLB as it is currently enacted is not the accountability requirements but the measure used to assess accountability, high-stakes testing. NCLB has been lauded for its focus on data disaggregation (Koretz, 2008) and its refusal to overlook student achievement. In an effort to alleviate pressure for states and schools the NCLB waiver program, unfortunately, has the potential to hurt students,. Like most top-down policies, the implementation phase of NCLB has been problematic due to a major shift to testing standards required by site- and district-level educators as well as state departments of education. The adoption of the law shifted the focus to individual student performance, but the indicators used to measure performance are the actual problems. If the Department of Education would like to use NCLB waivers to solve this problem they should focus on producing multiple measures of student achievement, and stop proposing solutions that remove students from the equation by focusing the unit of analysis from students to schools. The NCLB waivers need to stay true to the mission of NCLB and ESEA, a commitment to actively identify and serve all children, especially students from marginalized backgrounds.

References

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Department of Education (October 2011). ESEA Flexibility: Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved February 24, 2011 from http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility/documents/esea–flexibility–faqs.doc.

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Koretz, D. (2008). The pending reauthorization of NCLB: An opportunity to rethink the basic strategy. In G. L. Sunderman (Ed.), Holding NCLB Accountable: Achieving Accountability, Equity, and School Reform. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 9-26.

Obama, B. H. “Remarks by the President on No Child Left Behind Flexibility.” The White House, Washington D. C. 23, Sept. 2011.http://www.whitehouse.gov/the–press–office/2011/09/23/remarks–president–no–child–left–behind–flexibility

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Stokes, K. (2012, February 2). Will ‘No Child’ waivers leave behind at-risk students. State Impact. Retrieved from http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/02/02/will-no-child-waivers-leave-behind-at-risk-students/