The U.S. Department of Education maintains that NCLB and IDEA work in concert to ensure that every child with a disability reaches high standards. Yet, despite the stated intent of NCLB to improve outcomes for all students, particularly those who have been historically neglected, educators and others may adopt a series of “gaming” practices in order to artificially inflate schools’ passing rates. Many different subgroups can be negatively affected by such practices, including those within the special education realm. In addition, some students are even classified as a special education student as one way of excluding them from high-stakes tests. Though NCLB principals hold schools and districts accountable for the performance of different subgroups, students are not equally valuable to a school’s test scores. If a particular subgroup does not meet a minimum size requirement they are not disaggregated. In addition, students are not counted at all in a school’s scores if they are not enrolled in a school for a full academic year. School systems have been extremely pressured to meet NCLB standards and ensure accountability for testing results. Consequently, teachers are dividing students into safe cases, cases suitable for treatment and hopeless cases and ration resources to focus on those students most likely to improve a school’s test scores. Schools face serious sanctions for failing to meet adequate yearly progress targets and gaming practices have been used by some school systems in order to ensure adequate test scores. I am very disheartened by the extreme focus NCLB has placed on test scores. Not every child tests well, and we are neglecting to spend instructional time on other valuable lessons such as life skills or social interaction.
Agree. Agree. Agree. I was talking to my aunt the other day about my little cousin who has been identified as MR, and she told me that when his mom was in school, she was also placed in special education based on her IQ score and what not. Somehow, and this was long before NCLB, she still look all the tests the other kids took. There was some kind of math exit exam she had to have to graduate. She took it 3 times (and she did graduate just like any other student!)and passed it on the 3rd. No one really knows what it was that changed--that is why testing should not be regarded, in my opinion, as the pinnacle of progress. She may have passed because of practice. She may have passed because she actually knew the material. She may have not done well the first two times because of test anxiety or being sick that day. This happened to me when I took my ACT in high school. I scored high the first time but wanted to go higher. The second time I took the test, I ended up being up sick the night before, and I scored significantly lower than the first time. The third time I took the test, I scored even higher than the first time. Those are two different stories from two different time periods, and yet, they seem to show at least a few very good reasons why we should not rely so heavily upon testing.
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