Is NCLB really raising student achievement as its proponents argue? Fuller et. al. report that test-score improvement among 4th graders in 12 states has fallen off in reading and slowed in math since the enactment of NCLB. Unlike a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, which found consistent and significant increases in state-test scores since NCLB became law in early 2002, this research study draws on data from both state assessments and the federally administered NAEP.
A link to the study, published in the July issue of Educational Researcher, can be found below.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
America Competes?
On August 9, President Bush signed into law H.R. 2272, the "America COMPETES Act" or the "America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act." This bill authorizes various programs at the National Science Foundation and the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Education intended to strengthen education and research in the United States related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This bill shares many of the goals of the President's American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), a strategy designed to maintain America's competitive position in the global marketplace by strengthening its scientific education and research, improving its technological enterprise, attracting the world's best and brightest workers, and providing 21st century job training.
This bill authorizes the President's Math Now proposal, which many have already disparagingly described as 'Reading First does mathematics.' Math Now focuses on the use of research-based instructional practices to prepare students for rigorous math courses in middle and high school, particularly Algebra I and II. Given appropriate allocations, Math Now will be implemented through federal grants that will flow to the states and then to local school districts to improve K-9 instruction.
While this focus on mathematics is certainly needed, I echo the concerns expressed recently by Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch (see link below to Beyond the Basics) that America's economic strength and innovation also spring from students receiving a rich education in other subjects, such as literature, history, and the arts: "America's true competitive edge over the long haul is not its technical prowess but its creativity, its imagination, its inventiveness. And those attributes are best inculcated not by skill-drill but through liberal arts and sciences, liberally defined."
This bill authorizes the President's Math Now proposal, which many have already disparagingly described as 'Reading First does mathematics.' Math Now focuses on the use of research-based instructional practices to prepare students for rigorous math courses in middle and high school, particularly Algebra I and II. Given appropriate allocations, Math Now will be implemented through federal grants that will flow to the states and then to local school districts to improve K-9 instruction.
While this focus on mathematics is certainly needed, I echo the concerns expressed recently by Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch (see link below to Beyond the Basics) that America's economic strength and innovation also spring from students receiving a rich education in other subjects, such as literature, history, and the arts: "America's true competitive edge over the long haul is not its technical prowess but its creativity, its imagination, its inventiveness. And those attributes are best inculcated not by skill-drill but through liberal arts and sciences, liberally defined."
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