There are lists, and then there are lists
Commentary published on Nov. 30 in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By John Oldani
How is my child doing in school? It is a question all
parents should continue to ask themselves and the teachers and
administrators at local schools.
Each year, we see a variety of lists relating to schools, from
those that earn top scores on state achievement tests to the
rankings of Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind
Act. And each year, schools often are judged on their placement on
such lists.
In December, Missouri will make public the results of school
districts' Annual Performance Reports — assessments of whether
school districts are meeting student performance standards. The
list of districts recognized for "Distinction in
Performance" — a top honor based on standardized test scores,
student dropout rates, attendance rates and other measures of
academic performance — emerge from these reports.
Yet some of the same school districts that earn "Distinction
in Performance" may well end up on the list of schools that
have failed to meet the federal No Child Left Behind progress
standards.
Confusing and sometimes contradictory lists notwithstanding, the
bottom line for parents comes back to that first question: How
is my child doing in school?
The expiration date attached to the No Child Left Behind Act offers
an opportunity to revisit the law. Right now, the assessments
follow grade levels, not individual students. For example, the
standardized test scores of this year's fourth-grade class will be
compared to those of last year's fourth-grade class — even though
those respective classes consist of different children. Such
comparisons do not measure, in other words, the progress of
individual students.
Yet keeping track of how a specific child does from one grade to
the next is more meaningful than looking at a group of
fourth-graders one year and comparing those students' test scores
to a different group of fourth-graders the following year.
If the aim of No Child Left Behind is to help real children, then
the law should be changed to reflect individual student progress,
not group progress or school progress.
When a new list marks the success of some quality public school districts in Missouri, we should celebrate their overall success, but we must not lose sight of the goal: creating school environments that benefit each individual child.
The real answer to the question, "How is my child doing?" includes much more than standardized tests. A student's success in school reflects parental involvement, community support, good attendance, high expectations of achievement, personal development, character education, classroom participation, homework monitoring, good school leadership, high quality teachers and more.
Collectively, these factors say a lot more about student progress than test scores, especially scores on standardized tests that do not measure the progress of individual students.
John Oldani is executive director of the Cooperating School
Districts of Greater St. Louis, Inc., an education consortium of 62
public school districts in Missouri and Illinois.
SPECIAL NOTE: This commentary
was published on Nov. 30 in the op ed section of the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch.
