Unintended consequences of NCLB

This opinion in the WSJ is troubling, but anyone in education should already know the story. No Child Left Behind, like most laws, has good intentions, but good intentions alone will not educate our children.

One notable line from today’s opinion:

NCLB already allows each state to define proficiency as it sees fit, which has resulted in a “race to the bottom” as states dumb down standards to make children appear smarter than they are.

The intention of the law is to improve the educational system in America. It, however, has had the opposite effect. Why? Incentives to “dumb down” the curriculum, for one. Schools are required to increase their graduation rates every year, to take one example. Eventually, the graduation rate must hit 100%. These expectations are based not on reality but on a utopian vision of the lawmakers. Schools must, therefore, adjust to meet these unrealistic expectations, which, again, are heartwarming, but not practable.

One adjustment schools make to meet the graduation rate requirement is to decrease the expectations for graduation. Teachers are told not to fail students, and if they do, administrators can have grades changed. If a teacher fails too many students, such as those that don’t come to school or do any work, he or she can be reassigned, which is typically a move to the worst school in the district. A teacher’s job has stopped being to educate; his or her job now is to pass and graduate. Kids understand this. In fact, they openly tell teachers they won’t do their work, knowing such an act will have no impact on them passing the class and graduation. The end result is an education system that is worse than before.

We need legislation that is more mindful of incentives. Better, let’s listen to Milton Friedman’s ideas.

This entry was posted on September 28, 2007 at 9:35 am and is filed under General post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.