Ten years ago Sunday, the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted, mandating the use of standardized tests to assess the academic performance of K-12 students to ensure that they performed on grade level.
But local educators say the act has largely been an impediment because North Carolina and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools already had measures in place to ensure student achievement.
“Every school that’s failing has their own story,” said Diane Villwock, the district’s director of testing and program evaluation. “And the punitive measures of No Child Left Behind don’t necessarily address that.”
She said state ABC standards, which were in place before No Child Left Behind, focus on student improvement year to year rather than proficiency level and are more useful.
Villwock said the most frustrating part of the legislation has been the corrective actions taken against some Title I schools, which have a large number of students from low-income families.
Title I schools that haven’t met Adequate Yearly Progress goals for more than two years in the same subject must allow students to transfer to a higher-performing school. If they fail to meet standards the next year, they must also offer private company tutors.
During the 2010-2011 school year, 114 students of 211 students at Frank Porter Graham Elementary — the only Title I school in the district required to offer the services because of test scores — used the tutoring.
But Villwock said people within the district who are more aware of individual students and teachers’ needs could have spent the money used on private company tutoring more efficiently.
“In an ideal world, you want the classroom teacher to meet with the tutor and help them identify what the students’ strengths or weaknesses are, but that’s not how this works,” she said.