Six years after the No Child Left Behind Act became law, many states still haven鈥檛 completed one of its most important tasks: establishing a testing system that meets the law鈥檚 requirement that they track all students鈥� progress toward proficiency in reading and math.
Although the progress has been slow, U.S. Department of 91制片厂视频 officials and state leaders suggest that states have made adequate strides in meeting the formidable challenge of dramatically increasing the amount of testing and creating new exams that measure the success of students with disabilities.
鈥淪tates have been working very hard on this,鈥� said Kerri L. Briggs, the department鈥檚 assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. 鈥淪ome of it was tough work, and [some] need more time to get it done.鈥� The 91制片厂视频 Department has approved the testing plans of 31 states.
Another four states and the District of Columbia are making final changes that the department requested. Department officials expect those five plans to be approved by the end of this school year, Ms. Briggs said.
Nine states are revising their plans, but won鈥檛 be done until at least the 2008-09 school year.
The six other states and Puerto Rico don鈥檛 have approved plans and are unlikely to complete that task soon.
The department is negotiating compliance agreements with them that would include the steps they would need to take to comply with the law within two or three years.
鈥淲e鈥檒l have them on a good path to finishing their work,鈥� Ms. Briggs said.
One critic of the pace said that states should be much further along in complying with the testing rules. The 1994 version of the Elementary and Secondary 91制片厂视频 Act, of which the NCLB law is the latest version, required states to assess students in key subjects at least three times during their K-12 careers鈥攖hus pointing the way, that critic suggested, to the more extensive NCLB mandate.
鈥淭hat [1994 law] telegraphed the importance of this issue,鈥� said Christopher T. Cross, the chairman of Cross & Joftus LLC, a Bethesda, Md.-based consulting firm, and a former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush. 鈥淗ere we are now, 14 years later, and states are still working on it.鈥�
The approval status of a state鈥檚 testing plan has become especially important recently because a state must have such approval to participate in two federal projects intended to give states greater flexibility in implementing the NCLB law.
Stakes for States
Under the so-called , the 91制片厂视频 Department intends to approve all qualifying states鈥� plans to determine schools鈥� and districts鈥� accountability status based on the growth in students鈥� test scores. would allow states to differentiate the interventions they conduct in schools based on how far away those schools are from meeting their achievement goals under the law. (鈥淪tates Get Flexibility on Targets,鈥� March 26, 2008.)
For that project, the 91制片厂视频 Department will consider the applications of states that are on track to win approval for their testing systems by the end of the current school year, said Chad Colby, a department spokesman.
But it鈥檚 important that any state have completed all the work on its testing systems before it implements any plan under the new initiatives, Ms. Briggs said. 鈥淪tates need to have that structure in place to make this happen,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey need to do that work first before they can move to graduate-level accountability, as the secretary [of education] calls it.鈥�
South Dakota, one of the nine states that are working to win approval of their accountability systems in the 2008-09 school year, won鈥檛 qualify for the so-called 鈥渄ifferentiated accountability鈥� pilot project.
In announcing the project, Secretary of 91制片厂视频 Margaret Spellings lauded South Dakota as one of the 鈥減ioneers for reform鈥� based on the quality of its accountability system. But the state may have sacrificed the quality of its tests because it worked to implement the annual assessments in the 2002-03 school year鈥攆our years before the law required states to have annual testing in certain subjects and grades.
鈥淲e were moving quickly,鈥� said Rick Melmer, South Dakota鈥檚 secretary of education and the president of the Council of Chief State School Officers. 鈥淭he quality of our exam probably needed to be looked at more closely.鈥�
Mr. Melmer said the state must improve the rigor of its tests to ensure they are aligned with state standards before it wins the federal 91制片厂视频 Department鈥檚 approval for the assessments.
Tough Jobs
Although many states are struggling to complete their testing plans, Mr. Melmer and education leaders in other states say they have worked diligently to improve and expand their testing systems in the six years since the NCLB law鈥檚 enactment.
鈥淭here has been a great amount of maturity that is there now that wasn鈥檛 there five years ago,鈥� John R. Tanner, the director of the Washington-based CCSSO鈥檚 Center for Innovative Measures.
When President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, most states鈥� testing systems fell far short of the law鈥檚 requirements to test students annually in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Before the NCLB law, most states tested students at three points: once each in elementary, middle, and high school. Although the 1994 version of the ESEA required states to do that, not all had complied by the time of the No Child Left Behind law鈥檚 enactment.
In 2001, nine states had reading and math tests tied directly to their standards for grades 3-8, according to an 91制片厂视频 Week survey. An additional eight states gave norm-referenced tests鈥攚hich judge students against a national sampling of other students, not against state standards鈥攊n both subjects in grades 3-8. (鈥淭esting Systems in Most States Not ESEA-Ready,鈥� Jan. 9, 2002.)
Mr. Tanner of the CCSSO said that the biggest hurdle for most states has been establishing . Even though the 1994 version of the ESEA required states to have such tests in place, the federal government didn鈥檛 enforce that requirement.
Since the NCLB law took effect, all states have written new academic standards and created alternate assessments based on alternative definitions of proficiency. None of them had done so before.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been completely new territory for us,鈥� said Mr. Melmer.
