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The Effects of No Child Left Behind on Rural Schools

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Reprinted with permission from Rural Policy Matters: A Newsletter of Rural School and Community Action, Volume 5, No. 7 (July 2003), copyright by the Rural School and Community Trust.

The new federal law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is referred to as “No Child Left Untested” in a number of states that are looking at ways to undermine, ignore, refuse and otherwise defy the requirements for statewide testing of all children in grades 3-8. Many of these are characteristically rural states.

Many of these states have either already spent a lot of money developing their own testing programs that now must be eliminated, or they anticipate having to spend much more meeting the new federal mandates. Either way, they see massive new testing costs but little new federal funding. They are considering refusing the new federal money or finding subtle ways to take the money while continuing their own testing and

accountability policies.

The most diplomatic form of resistance, pioneered by Texas, is to simply “dumb- down” the tests and lower the passing standard so that nearly everyone passes, schools stay off the “failing” lists, and the money continues to flow. “NCLB is suicide for rural schools,” according to Jeanne Surface, assistant superintendent in Meeteetse, Wyoming.

Surface started last year as a principal, but when the school lost accreditation, her job became district rescuer. Now the small district of just 140 students has three full-time administrators; Surface is devoted full-time to getting the district off the failing list. Surface says that Wyoming has spent a huge amount of money and time to develop tests that are inline with their curriculum, have a high level of cognitive demand, and meet national standards. Not good enough. The state, struggling to comply with the demands of NCLB, is contemplating a new slew of tests.

The state of Wyoming is not alone. Colorado, facing a $1 billion shortfall in the general fund this year, considered scrapping all of their state mandated tests so that they could save some money and develop new tests for NCLB. First on the chopping block was an entire set of writing tests, which are no longer valued because they are not part of the NCLB required package.

Hawaii appears to be addressing the problem head-on with legislation that

expressly instructs the state department of education to “decline any further participation” in NCLB and “return all Title I program monies conditioned on the implementation of the act.”

New Hampshire has legislation under consideration that forbids the state from spending any state money to comply with NCLB, effectively disabling any efforts to adopt the new testing requirements.

But the Texas way is the more common resistance technique. It works because although the law says all students must be 100% proficient by 2014, it does not define proficiency or connect competence to a particular test. So the craftiest way to avoid the

mean side of the law is to make the test easier or lower the passing scores, or both. Either way, more kids pass.

Texas was a leader in the testing fever but has long been criticized for designing a shallow and easy test. A few years ago, the Lone Star State decided to respond by

developing tougher content tests. When field testing found that very few students were able to pass the new tests, the state responded by lowering the passing score. More students now pass the test without a dollar spent on instruction, facilities or materials. And struggling schools don’t find themselves on the “failing” list. Maybe this could be called “Leave All the Children Behind.”

Ohio has come up with a creative twist, one critics dub the “balloon payment.” Ohio says 60 % of students will be proficient by 2010—a 20 percentage point gain in seven years. By the 2014 deadline, Ohio says 100 % of students will be proficient. That's another 20 percentage point gain in just four years. Plausible? No, but Ohio expects that sometime before 2014 the law will become more reasonable and standards lower. Meanwhile the state will focus on improving minority and low-income students’ scores.

States that have invested heavily in locally designed standards and testing in which each district submits a plan with its own testing regimes and curricular paths are among the passive-aggressive resisters. The only statewide test in Nebraska is a writing test, which hardly fits the NCLB agenda. But Nebraska appears to be taking the “wine and dine” approach, inviting Secretary of Education Rod Paige to visit the state, publishing glowing reports of its accountability system and apparently expecting to be granted waivers to continue its unique, district-based policies. Whatever works. No strategy left behind.

Rural Policy Matters is published by the Rural School and Community Trust, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to enlarging student learning and improving community life by strengthening relationships between rural schools and communities and engaging students in community-based public work. Through advocacy, research, and outreach, the Rural Trust strives to create a more favorable environment for rural schooling, for student work with a public audience and use, and for more active community participation in schooling. Founded as the Annenberg Rural Challenge in 1995, the Rural Trust today works with more than 700 rural elementary and secondary schools in 35 states. The Policy Program of the Rural Trust seeks to understand complex issues affecting rural schools and communities; to inform the public debate over rural education policy; and to help rural communities act on education policy issues affecting them. Comments, questions, and contributions for Rural Policy Matters should be sent to:

Rural School and Community Trust, Policy Program, 2 South Main Street, P.O. Box 68, Randolph, VT 05060; Phone: 802.728.5899; Fax: 802.728.2011; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: www.ruraledu.org

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