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« Back to Is There a Worm in the Apple? main page    Transcript for: Is There a Worm in the Apple?Think Tank TTBW #1216 'Is there a Worm in the Apple?'WATTENBERG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. In 2001 the No Child Left Behind Act was passed into federal law. Supporters of the legislation hailed it as a much-needed injection of accountability into failing schools. But some school administrators resent the emphasis on National Standards testing and the threatened loss of funds if standards are unmet. Other opponents complain that congress has yet to fully fund the program. Is No Child Left Behind making kids smarter or is a one-size-fits-all approach asking too much of America’s schools? To find out Think Tank is joined this week by Andrew Rotherham, Sirector of the 21st century schools project at the Progressive Policy Institute and co-editor of 'A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom? Appraising Old Answers and New Ideas'; and Gary Galluzzo, professor of education at George Mason University and co-author of 'The Rise and Stall of Teacher Education Reform.' The topic before the house: Is there a Worm in the Apple? This week on Think Tank. WATTENBERG: Andy Rotherham, Gary Galluzzo, to both of you welcome to Think Tank. We are talking about this act of federal law called the No Child Left Behind Act. Perhaps you could both, maybe starting with you, Andy, give us a little background; what’s the purpose of the law. And then we’ll take it from there. ROTHERHAM: To really understand it all you have to go back to 1994, before George Bush, before the last election when Bill Clinton was President, and he and Secretary Riley pushed through the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act, NCLB’s predecessor. And what that law required, was that the states establish standards for what students should know and be able to do... WATTENBERG: And Gary, that included those infamous history standards which the conservatives and moderates thought were just outrageous. GALLUZZO: Outrageous because people like Harriet Tubman received six mentions and while Paul Revere received one. And that was the revisionist history that many conservatives and moderates did not like. ROTHERHAM: But it’s important to remember that these, the actual standards that both the previous law that I was discussing required and the No Child Left Behind requires, is that they are state standards. The federal government is not setting standards here, it is not dictating curriculum and content. It’s merely saying that states must establish themselves standards for at least math and reading what students need to know and be able to do at different grade levels. One of the problems with No Child Left Behind in terms of a lot of resistance to it is based on fundamental misunderstandings. There is a misconception that this is a federal law that is requiring states to use certain test, use curriculum, have high stakes testing. And actually the law requires none of those things. It is really, in some ways, a very flexible law about giving states latitude about how to adjust these problems. The option it does not give is to do nothing. WATTENBERG: So you think it’s a pretty good try and that it needs some tweaking but that it’s in the right direction? ROTHERHAM: Yeah, Ben, I think it’s important to take a long view on these things when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was first passed in 1965, it took about ten years to really start to get that right. Special Education, another major national education law was passed in 1975, a generation later we still don’t have that one right and we’re trying to work out the kinks. It takes awhile. I think on balance No Child Left Behind is a good step forward. Is it perfect? Of course not. What’s unfortunately happening is that some of the implementation issues and these imperfections are sort of being turned into sideshows to undermine it. WATTENBERG: Gary, my understanding is that you are not nearly as enthusiastic as Andy is on this? GALLUZZO: The standard’s movement is the right thing to do, the problem is when the states have gone to implement this law, they have all gone to standardized tests, which have historically had biases against certain classes of certain groups of children. And so what... WATTENBERG: So each state has to have its own set... GALLUZZO: There are 51 sets of standards... WATTENBERG: ...of standards? You say that there are standardized tests. I mean they buy them from the testing services... GALLUZZO: Testing companies, that’s right. WATTENBERG: And at what grades do the children have to take the tests? GALLUZZO: The federal law requires grades 3 through 8. States are at various... WATTENBERG: They have to take it every year or... GALLUZZO: Yes... WATTENBERG: And it’s in math and reading? Those are the two for the moment. GALLUZZO: No, most states they’re measuring language. It’s more than reading, it’s language arts, it’s mathematics, science, and history, social studies, which has remained controversial in many states. WATTENBERG: Which, you would say is controversial? GALLUZZO: The standards are controversial. Minnesota being the latest example of where this is not working well, and in fact, the Governor’s nominee for Commissioner of Education in that state just lost their shot at this because she has pushed so hard on history standards. ROTHERHAM: I think it’s important to remember that the law requires math and reading. It’s very important that when you discuss this law to disentangle what the law requires and what the states are doing on their own independently in terms of going beyond the law and doing different things. WATTENBERG: Now, Gary, I gather the teacher’s unions are in some way split about this, the National Education Association which is the biggest one is dead set against it. And the American Federation of Teachers which is a smaller but still a pretty big, close to eight, 900,000 members they would sort of take Andy’s position which is let’s fix it, let’s tweak it. Is that about right? GALLUZZO: That is very accurate. The NEA actively works against the law, on many dimensions, not just the standards piece, but on the implementation and the accountability, which is a piece of that assessment. And the AFT has said let’s continue to work the law to make it work for teachers. WATTENBERG: A lot of the critics of this program and any federal program to help education is that oh, the teachers and the unions just want more money. GALLUZZO: I think that on some level it probably is a money game. But my observation is that there is a huge disconnect between the national union and what happens locally. That the national union’s pronouncement and the teacher in the classroom are miles apart in terms of their views. That classroom teacher, I don’t think, thinks about this as a way to get more money. I think what they are looking at is, how do I accomplish the goals that they want me to accomplish. WATTENBERG: How much of the original appropriation or authorization for this bill has actually been appropriated to the schools? GALLUZZO: The money is dispersed. I can argue that it’s made it to the schools however. ROTHERHAM: Well that it’s going out to the states and a lot of the formulas drive it down to the school. In fact one of the real achievements of No Child Left Behind, it’s been unfortunately ignored, is that Senator.... and a few other senators fought very hard to ensure better targeting of federal dollars to make sure that rather than just sending the money far and wide, we’re sending to high priority communities. WATTENBERG: Is it realistic to say that a kid coming out of the barrio, or a kid coming out of the ghetto, the inner city ghetto, maybe out of a single parent family is supposed to score as well as a kid from an affluent suburb? I mean isn’t that... I mean it would be nice if it were true, but it’s... GALLUZZO: And periodically it happens. Sporadically it happens. But it’s not the norm... WATTENBERG: In certain schools... GALLUZZO: It’s never been the norm in this country. We have never left No Child Left Behind. WATTENBERG: Is it plausible to achieve that? GALLUZZO: Maybe not in the way we currently structure schools of single grade, age grade, single discipline and tests that are blind to the students. And it’s been a real standards based system, Ben, it would be more like your driving test that you took. You took a book test and then you took a driving test... WATTENBERG: Right... GALLUZZO: The problem is now the kids are shown the standards for these disciplines, but then they take a test that they don’t see in advance. They don’t really know on what they are going to be measured. ROTHERHAM: I think we before we go to far that we need to back up a little bit because Gary’s making some points I think are not quite a fair representation... WATTENBERG: Good then let’s argue... ROTHERHAM: We do only have, at this point, islands of excellence in terms of educating high poverty kids to a really high level. Systemically... GALLUZZO: Just an island... ROTHERHAM: But, we know, first of all we know that it can be done. And second it’s important to remember, no one is saying that every kid is going to be the same. No one is saying that every kid needs to reach the highest bar. These tests, and Gary has taken the position that 'Well, we’d probably shoot the messenger because we don’t like the message.' These tests are not perfect. The Bush administration has way underinvested in helping states develop quality tests. But at the end of the day these are tests of pretty basic reading and mathematics. These are tests that people like us would expect our children be able to pass and it’s unconscionable not to expect all children to have those same skills. WATTENBERG: One of the criticisms of the law is that it takes away control from cities. Is that valid? GALLUZZO: I think the question has to be asked of what happens, what are the implications, when localism has been removed. ROTHERHAM: But this is the problem, for a long time the states and the localities did do it and what we ended up with is a system with gross inequities for poor and minority children. GALLUZZO: The state policy should not dictate. It should facilitate. And that’s what we lost. State boards of ed are in control right now in this country, and now they have federal support behind them, and I think it’s moved farther away from what we thought schools were supposed to be doing for kids. WATTENBERG: One of the arguments made against the No Child Left Behind Act is that that kind of pressure on a kid that young can leave him sort of psychologically scarred. Is that valid? ROTHERHAM: Yeah, that kind of pressure. But it’s irresponsible to present an assessment of a nine year old in that fashion. Some of this has to do with how the adults in the system are presenting these things. No Child Left Behind does not mandate consequences, stakes, high stakes, whatever you want to call it, for children. WATTENBERG: Who gets the consequences? ROTHERHAM: The adults in the system, and that’s what has been the problem for a long time. WATTENBERG: The adults, meaning the teachers? ROTHERHAM: Yes, for a long time, Ben, you have to understand that we have... GALLUZZO: ...And the parents... ROTHERHAM: We’ve had a system that’s worked very well for adults, but the kids have essentially been held accountable... WATTENBERG: But won’t the kids laugh at it, if they say 'Hey, I’m taking this test, but there is no real consequences for me whether I do well or not? GALLUZZO: That happens. You can read that, that’s what happened in Massachusetts, the kids actively chose incorrect answers just to play with the system. WATTENBERG: Let me ask you a question. I remember when this bill was signed. Senator Ted Kennedy and President George Bush had this big signing ceremony and there were all hugs and kisses and then, it seems to me, within a matter of weeks, certainly no more than a couple of months, everybody, particularly, I guess, Senator Kennedy and the democrats were criticizing the bill. Has politics come into this thing? ROTHERHAM: Of course it has, this is Washington. If politics were oil, we’d all be millionaires. But, it’s important to sort of look beneath the rhetoric, and I think this is kind of an underreported story. Democrats are being very critical about the funding levels for the legislation. The President has not funded it adequately. But Senator Kennedy... WATTENBERG: ...When you say the President has not funded it adequately, I mean you need a Congressional Appropriations Committee. It’s not just the President... ROTHERHAM: You’re right, if the President’s budget had been passed as it had been submitted, funding for No Child Left Behind would be 7 billion dollars less than it is now... GALLUZZO: Than it is now... ROTHERHAM: It really calls into question his commitment to the law. But what’s noteworthy, and what’s really underreported is that at every turn Senator Kennedy has resisted efforts to change the accountability provisions to weaken the provisions for holding schools accountable for improving student learning. He has complained vociferously, and I would argue rightly, about the funding issues. But he has not walked away from the fundamental premise of this law which is: basic common standards for all children, we are going to address this equity problem, and we are not going to tolerate what we tolerate now which is a nation that when kids finish high school, African American and Hispanic students are four grade levels behind white students. That’s unacceptable. GALLUZZO: It is unacceptable. On this point, Andy and I are in complete agreement. The problem is we have no alternative structures and no alternative methods to find out if they have the skills. Which they may possess, but cannot perform. How many students do we know that did, very well in high school, very poorly in school, but very well on their SATs and vice versa. And there is only one way to demonstrate, and my argument is that the local communities should know what it is that it wants students to be able to do, and make public, make accountability transparent. WATTENBERG: How does this law relate to the other two big issues that we read so much about which is school vouchers and charter schools? I know you have written a lot about charter schools. Is there some connection between that? ROTHERHAM: There’s a connect with charter schools very much in the sense... What Gary’s talking about...We need to not just think about how do we do more, we need to think about how do we do it differently. And one of the really great things about charter schools is that they are creating a space for teachers, for parents, for community groups to get involved in public education: open new public schools, try new things, and that’s very important in terms of what Gary’s talking about, trying new structures, trying new things. And No Child Left Behind doesn’t explicitly encourage that, it doesn’t explicitly prohibit it, but the push for higher standards, for better achievement for poor, minority kids is driving in a lot of communities for them to look and open charter schools... WATTENBERG: What does it do with teachers? Isn’t there something in the law that says the teachers have to be better than they are? ROTHERHAM: There’s a statutory definition, which namely for middle and high school teachers means that you have to have some sort of demonstrated expertise... WATTENBERG: And there are, I gather, only 50.000 teachers that reach that level out of three or four million teachers. Is that right? GALLUZZO: If you use the National Board for Professional Teaching standards... WATTENBERG: Which you work for... GALLUZZO: I was Executive Vice President. If you use that as the measure... Yes there are about 40,000 teachers in the country who have met that measure. There is the other board, the American board, but I’m not sure they have done... ROTHERHAM: The National Board is an exceptional measure for exceptional teachers. All No Child Left Behind is requiring is that middle and high school teachers have a demonstrated expertise in the subject they teach, namely by having a college major or being able to pass some kind of test. I think almost any place else but Washington, it would be pretty commonsensical, knowing how to teach is important, but you can’t teach what you don’t know in the first place. WATTENBERG: There’s this whole argument that there’s a great scandal in our teacher’s colleges that we teach someone to teach instead of teaching them something about history, or about math, or about how to read... GALLUZZO: Well, I guess that is my territory...Being in an ed. school. Yes there are methodology courses, but the norm now in this country, has become that you major in an academic discipline. The biggest issue... WATTENBERG: Why do you go to an ed. school, why then do you not take your courses in the history department? GALLUZZO: My argument would be, because there is a body of knowledge about teaching that makes someone more effective. My best representation of that would be that if all that mattered to subject matter teaching was possession of the discipline degree, those teachers are on the face of the earth right now and they teach in the liberal arts colleges on campuses around the country. And sadly, teaching is no better there than it is anywhere else. ROTHERHAM: I think most people would agree that it is important to know how to teach as well as knowing what to teach. The problem right now though is the system is, I would argue, too skewed towards knowing how to teach at the expense of content. The fact that No Child Left Behind put these standards in place, speaks to the fact that we have an enormous problem here. About half...In high poverty schools, often as many as half of the classes are taught by teachers who don’t know the subject that they are teaching. WATTENBERG: You say high poverty schools...Does this mandate exceptionally qualified teachers will get more money for teaching in these poor schools? ROTHERHAM: It allows it but it does not mandate it. GALLUZZO: It allows it but doesn’t mandate it. ROTHERHAM: And this gets back to these issues, there is all this resistance to the law, but people are unwilling to try things like that, which I would argue is a relatively elementary solution. Richard Ingersaw (sp?) from the University of Pennsylvania estimates that nationwide, high poverty children, about one in three classes for high poverty children are taught by uncertified teachers. Do you want to know why we have an achievement gap? It’s inequity... WATTENBERG: Uncertified, meaning what? ROTHERHAM: Meaning that they don’t have expertise in the subject that they are teaching... GALLUZZO: Or know how to teach... ROTHERHAM: For example if I someone like me having a social science background instead teaching mathematics. I’m not qualified for that. WATTENBERG: My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Rick Hessis (sp?), has just written something that has some numbers in it that I guess are pretty familiar, which is, that American schools, per capita, spend 66% more than Germany, 80% more than the United Kingdom, and 56% more than France on education. And yet on these international tests we don’t score as well as they do. GALLUZZO: The explanation that I like the most is the one that comes from the Third International Math/Science Study, which found that our teachers, our curriculum, they way we organize our schools is to expose children to as much content as possible. What we would say is 'a mile wide and an inch deep.' Whereas teaching and curriculum in these other countries tends to be an 'inch wide and a mile deep.' WATTENBERG: They are really teaching to the test... GALLUZZO: They may be teaching to the test, but they... WATTENBERG: I mean they have standardized testing... GALLUZZO: But they are teaching richer thinking, they are teaching for students to take ownership of content, not to possess the content, and to use it for things. ROTHERHAM: These comparisons are useful for researchers, and you can draw some inferences from them. But I think it is important to be careful how far we take them. I think what’s important, rather than looking abroad, you can look here in this country, you can look within states, in communities, and you see enormous achievement gaps between minority kids, poor kids, special education students lag behind other students. And so we don’t need to look away from our shores, we can look right here at home and see what the pressing needs are. And this law, is a very well-intentioned, and for the most part well-designed effort to force states and localities to confront these realities. Because this is not just an urban problem, these achievement gaps, particularly for minority kids, they occur in all kinds of communities and all kinds of school districts. And it’s important that we confront that, it’s a very fundamental equity issue, and I would argue that it’s the next step in the evolution after Brown. We won the access battle and don’t have segregation... WATTENBERG: Brown vs. The Board of Education, the desegregation act... ROTHERHAM: We don’t have legally segregated schools anymore, however we do have a duel school system in the sense that for a lot of people, a lot of people involved in this debate, their students are in very good public schools. Their students are doing well, however there is a subset of schools serving high poverty students... WATTENBERG: So, what would you do? Say so-called smart kids and so-called not smart kids have to be integrated in the same school even if it meant busing? Didn’t we have that fight once already? ROTHERHAM: And the busing...those days are over. The Dao (sp?) case of the Supreme Court...you know, those days are past. And, you know, we can argue about the virtues of integrated schools, I happen to think that there are many that are saying we should encourage. But what No Child Left Behind says is what’s more important is that regardless of the community where children live now, not where we’d like them to live, where they may live in a few years, but where they live now. We’re going to make sure that they are learning basic reading, mathematics, by the time they get out of high school. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask. WATTENBERG: Let me ask you a question. Some of the states have done things on their own before this No Child Left Behind act. I believe the one that comes to mind is what the other active Bush politician, Governor Jeb Bush in Florida. They passed something that if a school... how does that work? And how is that working out? ROTHERHAM: I’m glad you raised that. That’s actually an argument for No Child Left Behind. Florida had a ranking system; they ranked their schools A to F just like students would get a grade in a classroom. And they rated them on overall achievement. And what No Child Left Behind does is that it requires schools not only to look at overall achievement but to disaggregate the numbers and look at different subgroups of students in the school: minority students, poor students, students in special ed. And what’s happening in Florida is that a lot of these schools that were A schools, it turns out that there are enormous achievement gaps within the schools, that even though they are a highly rated school, black students for example or Hispanic students, special education students were lacking far behind... GALLUZZO: Federal law forced that to be confronted. There’s no doubt about it. The issue is what’s that school going to do for those one in three, the 34 percent of the students who are not achieving. More? WATTENBERG: Let me ask one other... GALLUZZO: And special ed. is implicated in there as well... WATTENBERG: Here we have all these problems in our education system. Everybody agrees to it. On the other hand we are the wealthiest country in the world; we are the most advanced technologically; we have the best state universities, et cetera, et cetera. How does that fit together that we are doing apparently everything wrong, and yet we end up doing better than anybody else? ROTHERHAM: There is a notion that sort of public schools have never done a good job and it is really inaccurate. Public schools have provided us the kind of students, the kind of citizens that we needed. In the old economy, basically, Hugh Price said this very eloquently, how strong your back was, was for most Americans more important than how strong your mind was. But those days fewer and fewer Americans are making their living by building things, moving things around, and so forth. They are making their living increasingly in professions, even in what we would consider sort of lower skilled professions, that still require greater intellectual skills. WATTENBERG: Sort of how to work a keyboard... GALLUZZO: Exactly. The disconnect that I think Andy is talking about is very real. We have an agrarian calendar for an industry model of schools in the information age. And we cannot make that transition. WATTENBERG: Let me ask a final question here. Here’s this bill that says it’s going to test individual kids in individual schools... What? Every year? ROTHERHAM and GALLUZZO (in unison): Every year in grades through eight. ROTHERHAM: And then in high school...Once in high school. WATTENBERG: This is a revolutionary change. My question, or questions, to get out and this time we’ll start with you, Gary, and then over to you, Andy, is, is this going to work and how long is it going to take for it to work? If you think it is going to work. GALLUZZO: Well, 2014 is when it is supposed to be... when we would know if it was working. So, I’m willing...I’m a researcher, I’m willing to let that roll out there. We are on the front end of something that I think is going to, in some ways, predict good performance, if we can understand this law, implement it well, fund it well, and leave some more opportunities for local communities to have some input into what they expect from their schools... WATTENBERG: ...You think it’s on the right track and the idea of testing kids, particularly young kids, every year, is a good idea. GALLUZZO: My preference is that I’d like to stop at the fourth grade and get everybody up to fourth grade reading, fourth grade math, and then change the assessments to be more like the countries that beat us on these international comparisons. WATTENBERG: But basically, the idea of testing kids early is a good idea? GALLUZZO: We should have always been doing it. We never have. WATTENBERG: How about you? ROTHERHAM: I’m optimistic, but I’m also a realist. You know. General interest reforms in this country are very difficult. This is a law that has real benefits for poor kids, for minority kids, and for the population at large. It is opposed by powerful constituencies that are organized. And as you know, that you want to look at agriculture subsidy reform, you want to look at tax reform, telecommunications; this is an old political story that reforms like this are very difficult. But I’ll tell you that if you care about public education you better hope that it works, because what’s going on here... WATTENBERG: Do you think it is going to work? ROTHERHAM: Overtime, I think it is going to draw... in terms if you want to look sort of if you want to look purely in terms of costs and benefits, I think the benefits are going to far outweigh the costs. WATTENBERG: Okay, on that note, thank you very much, Andrew Rotherham and Gary Galluzzo, and thank you. Please remember to send us your comments via email, it helps us make our program better. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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