Federal school report shouldn’t be alarming
The initial report is stunning — seven of Warren County’s 10 public schools have been targeted by the federal government for failing to meet requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
While that by no means sounds like positive news, it’s also somewhat deceptive. That’s because the criteria by which the No Child Left Behind Act measures student achievement can be somewhat deceptive.
Like the name suggests, the act spearheaded by President Bush intends no child to be left behind when it comes to education. Ideologically, that’s a powerful goal and one which would be satisfying to achieve. Realistically, however, it’s not possible for some children not to be left behind — especially when those children don’t even speak English.
All a school has to do to be placed on the target list is to fail to reach specific goals in any of nine tested groups of students. If just one of those groups doesn’t attain the goals, such as Hispanics, then the entire school fails because no child shall be left behind.
What’s important to remember is Warren County’s public schools do an admirable job of teaching our children. Warren County consistently ranks right near the state average when it comes to almost all testing.
Should we turn backflips about average test scores? The answer to that question is no. There is certainly room for improvement in our school system, just as there’s room for improvement in every school system in the country.
But to label a school as failing because it fails to live up to expectations that don’t seem attainable for every demographic is not the right thing for the federal government to do. It’s simply not accurate to say Warren County public schools are failing our children.
What is unfortunate is the fact that learning is now being gauged, more and more, by the results of standardized tests. Because of this, educators are now teaching specifically the information which appears on those standardized tests. And curriculums have been modified to make sure this material is hammered home repeatedly.
This does nothing more than skew the results of standardized testing. They are becoming less and less an accurate indication of comprehension, and more and more a gauge of how much information has been crammed into the heads of students in the weeks before the test.
If anything, that is what’s failing our public school system.