[Paleopsych] Ed Week: The `No Child' Law's Biggest Victims? An Answer That May Surprise

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The `No Child' Law's Biggest Victims? An Answer That May Surprise
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/06/23/41delacy.h23.html?querystring=biggest%20victims&print=1&print=1
    Published: June 23, 2004
    Commentary

[This article mostly argues that NCLB funds are displacing programs for 
the gifted. My charge is that, by requiring State-wide curriculum 
standards, NCLB is distorting the curriculum itself away from the 
requirements for the gifted. How serious these displacements and 
distortions are, I wish I knew.

[Partisan passions are very large, with Republicans showing a "stand firm" 
attitude on NCLB and on just about everything else. This has, of course, 
its attractions, but there can be too much of it. One sign of a change in 
culture is that, from time to time, I'd share the elevator with 
Secretaries of Education. I'm thinking of Lamar Alexander, a Republican 
(and my favorite candidate among those with a reasonable "electibility" as 
being one who would quietly usher in a return of power to the States), and 
Richard Riley, a Democrat. Both loved random talks with employees. The 
next Secretary, Rod Paige, was generally invisible. But the current 
Secretary, Margaret Spellings, may think that all employees are liberals, 
obstructionists, and rent-seekers, which is in fact largely correct.

[Yesterday, the security guard pushed me off the elevator as I was trying 
to enter it when Secretary Spellings was inside waiting to be whisked to 
her office on the top floor. (Her eyes were downcast when it was taking 
place.) Of course, she has no idea who I am, one of about ten employees I 
have counted who are not dyed-in-the-wool liberals. (I have lots of ideas 
that could further her agenda, but she had no way of knowing that.) But it 
sure represents a change in attitudes, a polarization, from previous 
Secretaries of Education.]

The `No Child' Law's Biggest Victims? An Answer That May Surprise

There is overwhelming evidence that gifted students simply do not succeed on
their own.

    By Margaret DeLacy

    Since education is high on the national agenda, here's a pop quiz that
    every American should take.
    There is overwhelming evidence that gifted students simply do not
    succeed on their own.

    Question: What group of students makes the lowest achievement gains in
    school?

    Answer: The brightest students.

    In a pioneering study of the effects of teachers and schools on
    student learning, William Sanders and his staff at the Tennessee
    Value-Added Assessment System put in this way: "Student achievement
    level was the second most important predictor of student learning. The
    higher the achievement level, the less growth a student was likely to
    have."

    Mr. Sanders found this problem in schools throughout the state, and
    with different levels of poverty and of minority enrollments. He
    speculated that the problem was due to a "lack of opportunity for
    high-scoring students to proceed at their own pace, lack of
    challenging materials, lack of accelerated course offerings, and
    concentration of instruction on the average or below-average student."

    While less effective teachers produced gains for lower-achieving
    students, Mr. Sanders found, only the top one-fifth of teachers were
    effective with high-achieving students. These problems have been
    confirmed in other states. There is overwhelming evidence that gifted
    students simply do not succeed on their own.

    Question: What group of students has been harmed most by the No Child
    Left Behind Act?

    Answer: Our brightest students.

    The federal law seeks to ensure that all students meet minimum
    standards. Most districts, in their desperate rush to improve the
    performance of struggling students, have forgotten or ignored their
    obligations to students who exceed standards. These students spend
    their days reviewing material for proficiency tests they mastered
    years before, instead of learning something new. This is a profoundly
    alienating experience.

    Question: How well is the United States preparing able students to
    compete in the world economy?

    Answer: Very poorly.

    Of all students obtaining doctorates in engineering in American
    universities, just 39 percent are Americans. According to the Third
    International Mathematics and Science Study, "The performance of U.S.
    physics and advanced math students was among the lowest of the 16
    countries that administered the ... assessments."

    Question: What group of special-needs students receives the least
    funding?

    Answer: Our brightest students.

    And it's getting worse. For example, Illinois, New York, and Oregon
    recently cut all state funding for gifted programs.
      _________________________________________________________________

    Given these facts, why has a board commissioned by the National
    Research Council proposed to make things much worse? The board's
    report, ironically entitled "Engaging Schools: Fostering High School
    Students' Motivation to Learn," contains recommendations that amount
    to a recipe for completely alienating our most capable children. Based
    on old, discredited, and sloppy research, the committee, which did not
    include any experts on gifted education, recommended the elimination
    of all "formal or informal" tracking--even if participation was
    voluntary--in favor of mixed-ability classrooms.

    Does tracking really harm students? Jeannie Oakes claimed that it did
    in a popular but, to my mind, poorly researched book called Keeping
    Track published nearly 20 years ago. However, a 1998 review of the
    evidence on tracking over the past two decades, done by Tom Loveless,
    the director of the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education
    Policy, found no consensus that tracking is harmful or creates unequal
    opportunities for academic achievement. This review was ignored in the
    NRC panel's 40 pages of research citations.

    Also missing was any reference to a 1993 report from the U.S.
    Department of Education, "National Excellence," in which
    then-Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley noted a "quiet crisis" in
    the education of top students, pointing out that "these students have
    special needs that are seldom met," and warning that "our neglect of
    these students makes it impossible for Americans to compete in a
    global economy demanding their skills."

    Although research on schoolwide tracking cuts both ways, research
    pointing to the importance of advanced classes and grouping for gifted
    students is overwhelming.

    A research review by Karen B. Rogers found that grouping gifted
    students produces big gains--sometimes exceeding half a year's
    additional achievement per year in school when curriculum is modified
    appropriately. On the other hand, she found that cooperative learning
    within mixed-ability groups produces no gains.

    In her 2002 book Re-Forming Gifted Education (also ignored by the NRC
    panel), Ms. Rogers noted that under the mixed-ability-group
    instruction recommended by the NRC, "few students, except those with
    exceptionally low ability, will benefit."
    Gifted students are truly our forgotten children. Neglected in our
    schools and ignored by our policymakers, they spend their days dozing
    through classes in which they aren't learning.

    A statistical analysis published in 1992 by James A. Kulik
    demonstrated that the benefits from advanced classes for talented
    students were "positive, large, and important" and said that
    [de-tracking] could greatly damage American education." Student
    achievement would suffer, Mr. Kulik maintained, and the damage would
    be greatest if schools "eliminated enriched and accelerated classes
    for their brightest learners. The achievement level of such students
    falls dramatically." He also found that students of all ability levels
    benefit from grouping that adjusts the curriculum to their aptitude
    levels.

    A study of intermediate students' math achievement published in 2002
    by Carol Tieso also found that differentiated instruction combined
    with flexible grouping improved academic achievement. Ms. Tieso
    concluded that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds made gains,
    and that students enjoyed working in differentiated groups and were
    more motivated than peers in a comparison group.

    Even the National Research Council board acknowledged that teachers
    would require a lot of specialized training to carry out its
    recommendations in "Engaging Minds." Differentiation is hard to do
    well. Teachers must know how to assess students who are years above
    grade level and then be able to rewrite the whole curriculum to
    address their assessed learning needs. Although the board members must
    know that this training has not been provided and is not going to
    happen, they went ahead and recklessly recommended a policy that will
    harm many capable, hard-working students in the hope that it might
    help some struggling students.

    They seem to be unaware of the daily realities affecting American
    schools. Studies by the National Research Center on the Gifted and
    Talented have repeatedly found that teachers do not make significant
    modifications to their instruction to accommodate gifted students.

    This past November, Seattle teachers issued a resolution protesting a
    directive requiring advanced instruction for highly capable students
    in their classrooms because they had neither the time, training, and
    class size, nor the resources necessary to carry it out. Ability
    grouping is significantly more cost-effective, requires less training,
    and is more effective in this regard than heterogeneous classes. Do we
    have education dollars to waste?

    Gifted students are truly our forgotten children. Neglected in our
    schools and ignored by our policymakers, they spend their days dozing
    through classes in which they aren't learning. Many suffer from
    depression. It is time to take them out of their holding pens and give
    them a chance to stretch and to grow.

    Margaret DeLacy is a board member of the Oregon Association for
    Talented and Gifted students and a past president of the Portland,
    Ore., school district's talented-and-gifted advisory committee. She is
    the mother of three.

    Margaret DeLacy is a board member of the Oregon Association for
    Talented and Gifted students and a past president of the Portland,
    Ore., school district's talented-and-gifted advisory committee. She is
    the mother of three.
    Vol. 23, Issue 41, Page 40