SLATE Update, December 2007

From the Editor:
AYP: Inevitable Failure Coming To A School Near You

by Fred Barton, Michigan State University, East Lansing
Chair, NCTE/SLATE Steering Committee

According to the National Association of State Boards of Education, 22,873 public schools failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) this year. That’s an increase of 1,699 schools over the previous year. In my state, Michigan, 42% of high schools failed to make AYP. Of course this made the front page, but I’m not sure it’s the story everybody thinks it is, because failure was the plan all along. AYP is the biggest dose of snake oil sold to the public since compassionate conservatism.

AYP is built on the irrational premise that by 2014 all students will be proficient, which, while a worthy goal, is hampered by the fact that proficient means able to pass a standardized test. English not your first language? Doesn’t matter. In Virginia the Department of Education sought an exemption, contending that giving a test written in English to students who are recent immigrants is unfair. The Federal Department of Education denied the request.

Have a disability? Too bad. Maryland students were asked to sound out some vowel sounds on one of the state tests. No problem there, except that these students all attended the Maryland School for the Deaf!

Closer to my home, Holt, a suburb of the capitol city of Lansing, failed because not enough poor students go there. This is a bad thing? Okemos, another suburb failed because they don’t have enough students with disabilities. Should they recruit?

Lansing city schools will spend $1.25 million over two years to hire a firm from Arizona to explain how to teach kids in Michigan. Actually, this comes closest to compliance with AYP which is basically a full employment law for consultants. How many teachers, books, computers and aides could 1.25 million buy?

The illogic of AYP is being noticed by other states. Nebraska has pulled out of NCLB altogether and created their own, more flexible assessment called STARS, which stands for School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System. Led by Doug Christiensen, the state commissioner of education, they have fought for and gotten approval from the federal Department of Education.

West Virginia is creating their own AYP system that “Attempts to show the whole picture of the school, not just test scores,” according to Priscilla Haden, state school board member.

Nine states have applied to the Department of Education to be allowed to use “Growth Models” which measure academic progress over time as a basis for determining AYP instead of one shot high stakes tests. Seven have been approved.

Does this mean DoE has finally awakened to what the rest of us have known for several years? Given this administration’s propensity for looking reality in the face and then walking away whistling the theme for Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I have my doubts. But what about Congress, you say. Didn’t we elect the Democrats to begin to clean up this mess? Sure we did, but Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the original forces behind NCLB, still seems to think the problem with the law is centered around funding, although he did recently say, "We need to focus on how to help public schools improve and not use this reauthorization to push an ideological agenda that detracts from this goal."

Well, that’s something, but if you really want to know what’s at stake, read Brian Davis’ First Person piece in this issue. It’s the cri de coeur of a teacher in the wilderness, at the same time hopeful and frightening. Hopeful because there are people like Brian who still teach for all the right reasons, and frightening because of the forces ranged against them, forces that are far more insidious that standardized tests. Brian is a National Board Certified first-grade teacher and team leader educated at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and New York University in New York City. He has been an elementary classroom teacher for 12 years, teaching all grades from K to 5. Currently he is involved in piloting an electronic portfolio project for his Southwestern Florida school district.

Of course NCLB isn’t the only dragon needing to be slain; Millie Davis’ Censorship Report informs us that there is a lot of work to be done protecting students’ right to read and teachers’ right to teach.

So the year ends where it began. These pesky democracies, always works in progress. Hope you all have a restful and rejuvenating holiday. From the looks of it, we’re going to need all our strength in 2008.