New ESEA Extends Choice to School Officials

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CALL IT the bill people loved to hate. Some people, that is, like state legislators, governors, school administrators, conservative groups, and the National Education Association. This odd bunch shares a common dislike of the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). On the other hand, much less powerful interest groups, primarily advocates for poor children, found themselves on the winning side. In addition, the American Federation of Teachers swallowed its objection to the portion of the statute that demotes paraprofessionals in classrooms and went for the bill's emphasis on higher standards and testing. The most important power behind the revised ESEA was a Bush White House, which remains convinced that the miracle can be a revelation for the rest of the country. And the Administration was joined by Democratic leaders disgusted with the opposition of interest groups to accountability measures in public education. So we have an ESEA that accomplishes what a Democratic White House could never have done: create a much larger federal presence in education policy and funding and set the foundation for a national testing system. However, the legislation comes wrapped in several layers of exaggeration. All students are to be proficient in reading and math by 2013 - a statement that calls to mind the braggadocio of the first Education Summit's declaration in 1989 that U.S. students would be first in the world in math and science by 2000. The new ESEA promise of alternatives for students attending consistently failing schools rings hollow as well. The new ESEA will improve the education of students, its shapers declared, because of the mandate to test all students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 - the Texas model. In Texas, success is based primarily on student scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), and, as scores have risen, so have the plaudits for the public education system. There are serious flaws with the TAAS approach, however. A new version is in the works, but some comparisons of TAAS items with those in other assessments, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, have indicated that TAAS is a low-level test. For example, a study of middle-grade students in one urban district - declared a recognized district because it met all the objectives of the state's Academic Excellence Indicator System - found that one-third of the eighth- graders were below basic in reading skills and 44% were below basic in math skills when tested on NAEP items. Because the students were weak on higher-order skills, the researchers concluded (as have others as well) that Texas teachers were spending an inordinate amount of time on low-level skills and test preparation. States with much better-designed assessment systems have chosen other strategies, such as sampling student performance (Maryland) or testing in all core subjects but at different grade levels (Kentucky). Moreover, states with low-stakes tests tend to do better on NAEP assessments. Yet the new legislation requires all states to spend their funds and energy conforming to one set way of using assessments. Administration officials praise the reauthorization as a breakthrough in education policy. Actually, the 1994 reauthorization, which meshed ESEA with Goals 2000 and with the standards of the School-to-Work Act (as well as creating an Occupational Skills Standards Board), was a more sweeping change. …