Posted by FAY KELLE – While public debate has begun to swirl around whether to strengthen, maintain or weaken the provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the most consequential aspect of this re-authorization process will not be what is debated but what is not debated. What most debates about NCLB miss is the fact that when standardized tests are used as the primary tool to measure students’ progress and provide indicators of school accountability, it diminishes the goal of education in a democratic society and damages teachers’ ability to teach and students to learn the knowledge and behaviors needed for 21st Century global economic competitiveness and thoughtful, active democratic citizenship.
Too many involved in this debate overlook the fact that educators cannot separate what students learn from how they learn. We also can’t separate what students want to learn from what they will learn and use in the future. Based on evidence-based research on learning and social-emotional development, good educators know that meaningful learning can not be achieved or measured by students passively receiving information—no matter how valuable it is—so they can repeat it on a standardized test. It can only be achieved through active, authentic inquiry-based instruction, social-emotional learning, and performance-based assessment.
Even if NCLB were successful, because of its myopic vision and very limited results based on narrowly-based standardized test scores, it would not measure, indicate or encourage learning that would produce what America’s public school system should promise: economically competitive workers, equal opportunity for all regardless of race, class, gender or physical challenges; active, effective citizenship; and ethical, democratic leadership. Standards-based educational programs and mandates like NCLB not only fall short of these goals but actually sabotage educational efforts to achieve them.
To solve our nation and world’s complex problems, we do not need schools that teach to one-dimensional standardized tests that require one-dimensional thinking and rely only on cognitive or knowledge-based materials and instruction. We need schools that will teach complex knowledge, critical thinking, as well as complex human relations skills such as interpersonal communication, conflict prevention and non-violent conflict resolution. Unlike NCLB, we need fully funded education reform efforts that take into consideration that meaningful learning does not occur apart from students’ and educators’ quality of life inside and outside school walls, the amount of material and technical resources, class size, teacher pay and turnover, or, the students’ individual abilities, interests and other serious concerns in their lives.
The bottom line is that to measure progress toward America’s complex educational goals, we do need to hold schools accountable for student progress toward educational proficiency but not based on the myopic vision of school success based on high-stakes standardized tests. Educational proficiency should be measured by how well all citizens are learning to take full advantage of America’s promise of economic prosperity, self-government, equality, justice and freedom for all, and how well they are learning to build more peaceful homes and a more democratic, peaceful world. The education we need already exists: active, authentic inquiry-based instruction, social emotional learning, and performance-based assessment. This kind of active learning can be successfully employed in every school across America, but not through NCLB and other educational policies based on standards-based education.
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