Editorial: Progress Is Not Our Most Important Product

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Most people, when they take the time to think about it, would agree that, all in all, the world is improving and that our lives today are better than they were in the past for our parents and grandparents. We live much longer and enjoy better health. Technology has provided us access to each other and to information that was undreamed of a generation ago. If someone had tried back then to describe what Google provides at a touch of our fingertips, the response would have been disbelief. Diseases such as polio and rubella have been conquered. Research on human genetics will provide benefits across a broad spectrum. Socially, people in general appear to be more accepting of differences and ready to embrace diversity. Given overall trends, we are justified in a certain satisfaction about the human condition in general. However, it is also clear that progress does not move in a constant upward linear fashion, even if the overall trajectory is upward. There are peaks and valleys, starts and stops, breakthroughs and dead ends. The last century was the bloodiest in the history of humankind. The AIDS pandemic is threatening the fabric of some societies. Racial, ethnic, and religious hatreds threaten to explode into violence across the globe. The health of our children may be deteriorating, as evidenced by an upsurge in poor nutrition and obesity. Within the framework of education in general and education of deaf and hard of hearing children in particular, we still do not have any clear indication that the academic achievement of our children is better or worse than it was years ago. The U.S. Department of Education has issued positive reports that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) regulations have already resulted in documented improvement in academic performance. These claims are not supported by the results of the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a federally funded program. The NAEP data indicate little change over several years. I tend to give more credence to the NAEP results for one reason. The NAEP administers sets of tests at three different grade levels, with students in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and other governmental units receiving the same grade-level tests. Analysis can be made across time and across states, and can address numerous other factors. The NCLB regulations do not call for uniformity across states, but allow each state to develop its own rigorous tests at different grade levels. Results are not comparable; it would be like comparing apples and oranges. It is not helpful, for example, to learn that 31% of eighth-graders scored at the proficient level or above on the Rhode Island mathematics test and 72% of eighth graders scored at the proficient level or above on the Virginia mathematics test. The tests have different standards and share no common frame of reference. Readers of some of my previous editorials and other writing may be aware that I believe a major lack of NCLB is that it did not address special education, in particular education of deaf and hard of hearing children, a grave omission in light of the fact that the federal government data report a figure of 6,000,000 school-aged children identified as disabled. The rationale given for this neglect was that the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was being reauthorized and that it would follow the guidelines established by NCLB. Unfortunately, Congress did not pass the reauthorization, which was originally scheduled for 2002, until late 2004; and it was not signed by President Bush until January 2005, 3 years after he signed NCLB. It should be noted that one characteristic that NCLB and IDEA have in common is that they are both underfunded. When IDEA, then known as the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, was passed, President Ford hesitated to sign it because he believed that it promised more than it would deliver; specifically, federal support was designed to increase over a short period of time to provide 40% of all of the excess cost of educating each disabled child. …