Checker was right to skewer Michael Winerip for his grouchy piece, "A Pervasive Dismay On a Bush School Law," [see "The Law People Love to Hate - and Pretend to Love," http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=16#242It is always annoying when reporters proclaim that grumblings are the manifestation of a zeitgeist (it's also scientifically bogus).
However, I was surprised that Checker didn't bean Winerip for his gross misrepresentation of the accountability provisions of Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act. Winerip wrote "How do you defend a law that is likely to result in 85 percent of public schools in America being labeled failing based on a single test score?"
This statement is incorrect on four counts. First, the No Child Left Behind Act only mandates state testing for elementary and middle schools. This leaves out high schools. So Winerip's "85 percent of public schools" is misleading.
Second, this 85 percent figure is unsubstantiated. It seems he took an estimate given to him by one of the grouchy Vermont officials he interviewed and generalized it for the nation. The truth is, we simply do not know how many schools failed to make AYP yet. I've seen no studies that offer a figure.
Third, NCLB doesn't label any schools as "failing." If a school fails to show adequate yearly progress (AYP) in either math or English for two years, the school will fall into "school improvement status." If the school does not make AYP for three straight years, it then falls into "corrective action status." [See http://www.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA02/pg2.html#sec1111] Yes, this sounds like semantic quibbling but, after all, the Times is supposed to be the newspaper of record.
Finally, schools do not fall into "improvement" status based on "a single test score." Again, students must fail to make AYP for two years (that implies two tests at minimum). Moreover, AYP is calculated based on a number of factors, not just test scores.
Perhaps the Department of Education representatives that Winerip wrote about would face less flack if Winerip and other reporters more accurately reported the facts of the law to the public!
Kevin R. Kosar
Lecturer in Public Administration
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University