Mandating the impossible

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Education officials who have been gamely contending with the flawed No Child Left Behind law are finding themselves frustrated once again.

Hardest hit are the officials in 23 states, including Nevada, who chose to move gradually toward the law’s ultimate requirement — that all students reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014.

For schools in these states, that meant adopting a plan that would result in each student group’s showing 3 percent or 4 percent increases in achievement on standardized tests. Student groups include Hispanics, blacks, whites, Asians, American Indians, Pacific Islanders, English learners and the disabled.

Many schools found even that rate impossible to achieve because the law was essentially an edict, with little funding or guidance provided.

It was smart at the time for school districts to adopt a gradual approach. That’s because the law took some getting used to. It soon enough came to mean rote learning, concentration on groups at the expense of individual students, sanctions against teachers and schools no matter their student demographics and other stifling measures that today are grouped under the heading “teaching to the test.”

But even a smart start carried a penalty not fully appreciated at the time. Because of the arbitrary 2014 deadline for “all” students to have made progress, schools in these 23 states are facing federal mandates to speed up — to begin showing 11 percent test score increases among the student groups.

A New York Times story on this forced increase highlighted an elementary school in California serving at-risk students that met its goals under the law every year. Now it is facing probation and federal sanctions. The California state school superintendent acknowledged going slowly at first because he felt sure the law would be overhauled before the statistically impossible leap in achievement would be required.

Despite a national outcry from educators and legislators, President Bush has refused to recommend the major changes the law needs. We hope the next president is not so foolishly stubborn in the face of obviously flawed legislation.