The achievement gap

Friday, May 1, 2009 | 2:08 a.m.

A federal report on student achievement brought good and bad news. The good: Minority students made dramatic gains on standardized tests over the past four decades. The bad: There has been little change in the achievement gap between white and minority students since the 1980s.

It is particularly notable that there was no reduction of the achievement gap from 2004 to last year, during the zenith of the No Child Left Behind Act. As the hallmark education policy of the Bush administration, the law was touted as a panacea for the nation’s education system, but it has failed to produce as promised.

“There’s not much indication that NCLB is causing the kind of change we were all hoping for,” testing expert G. Gage Kingsbury said in Tuesday’s New York Times. “Trends after the law took effect mimic trends we were seeing before. But in terms of watershed change, that doesn’t seem to be happening.”

The test results will frame a debate Congress is expected to have this year over reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the results show “we still have a lot more work to do.”

The law rigidly relies on standardized testing to gauge achievement, leading to an education system based on teaching to the test. As well, the law’s performance measures are convoluted and unrealistic.

President Barack Obama’s administration is planning to push for a new version of the law that would include tougher standards and more money to fund schools and education programs. The administration also wants to make sure highly qualified teachers are equally spread across poor and affluent schools.

Those would certainly be good additions to the law, but the No Child Left Behind Act requires more than a few modifications. More needs to be done to improve the education system and close the achievement gap. At minimum, Congress should completely overhaul the law before any more children are left behind.