Policymakers introduced the No Child Left Behind Act in an effort to improve the U.S. public education system through a nationwide accountability system that sets proficiency targets in math and reading each year.
Although each state has some variation in certain aspects of implementation, the basic premise is simple: Individual schools must meet these targets or face some combination of negative designations and sanctions.
With NCLB nearly a decade old, some data suggest the system has increased students’ test scores. However, other reports and research highlight a troubling trend of cheating among teachers and administrators.
Concerns over abnormal erasure marks on high-stakes tests have popped up in the local and national news during the past year. Atlanta and Washington, D.C., have been rocked with large-scale allegations of cheating by educators.
These reports add to a growing list of cheating scandals across the nation since the introduction of NCLB. Although it is easy to blame teachers and school officials, we must consider both the source of the problem and the meaning of the outcomes under such a narrowly focused system of accountability.
In the 1970s, prominent social scientist Donald Campbell warned of the dangers of placing substantial pressure on a single metric of performance.
It’s known as Campbell’s Law, and a number of researchers have applied this thinking to high-stakes accountability and argued that NCLB distorts the meaning of test scores. Research indicates that accountability systems that use test scores as the sole indicator of performance encourage teachers to concentrate only on the subjects that they are accountable for (typically math and reading), strategically focus on certain students who can realistically meet the passing score, and in the most extreme cases cheat.
Cheating scandals, such as those Atlanta and Washington face, should serve as an example of the serious unintended effects that can arise from such a narrowly focused accountability system. Reprimanding, suspending or firing individual teachers will not address the true source of the problem. NCLB has attempted to correct a litany of disparate problems plaguing the U.S. education system through one main metric: a test score.
Teachers and administrators simply respond to the increasingly intense pressure of their environment (the bar continues to be reset higher until it reaches a final goal of 100 percent proficiency in 2014). With money and jobs on the line, the individuals who are supposed to serve our children are increasingly forced to look after only themselves.
Although any adult who knowingly changes answers on a standardized test must be culpable for his or her actions, allegations of cheating are likely to persist until the root problem is addressed.
Thus, we need to rethink accountability in the education system and what is important in educating the children of our society. What does a yearly standardized test score really mean for students and teachers?
Should a passing test score be the primary focus of the education system? Teachers help socialize students for the adult world in a number of other important ways that aren’t easily measured on a standardized test. Students’ knowledge and preparedness for the world are more than just a number on a piece of paper. We should reward teachers for fostering critical thinking, emotional development, teamwork and creativity, among a myriad of other important skills. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among other organizations and researchers, is investigating better ways to evaluate teachers.
Policymakers should pay close attention to these results and be prepared to incorporate multiple measures of accountability to ensure that our students become well-rounded individuals and our teachers teach for them and don’t cheat (for) them.
S. Michael Gaddis, a graduate of the University of Georgia, is a Ph.D. candidate in education policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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