Joint Statement
Calls for NCLB Testing Reform
Signers of the
Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) agree:
Congress must make major changes to NCLB's testing provisions. The law
allows for some flexibility in kinds of assessments, but in practice it
has expanded the use of state standardized exams. These tests measure only
a limited slice of what students should know and be able to do, do not
assess higher order thinking and skills, and do not measure student
growth. High-stakes testing narrows curriculum, so students do not learn
many important things. This affects low-scoring students the most.
The Joint
Statement calls for the use of "multiple measures." These can include
classroom, school, district and state tests; extended writing samples;
tasks, projects, performances, and exhibitions; and collected samples of
student classroom work, such as portfolios. Gathering this rich
information would enable states, communities, schools, parents, teachers
and students to know more about student learning and better improve
schools. States should be allowed to test less frequently, as many states
did before NLCB.
The Statement
also calls for assessments that track student growth in learning. There
are many ways to measure growth over time, so states could try various
approaches.
Congress should
appropriate adequate funds to help states develop rich assessment systems
that not only measure student achievement growths using multiple sources
of evidence, but provide useful feedback to improve teaching and learning.
To contact your
member of Congress, go to
www.house.gov and
www.senate.gov
The Joint
Statement and the Forum on Educational Accountability recommendations for
NCLB are at
www.edaccountability.org. FEA is a working group of the signers of the
Statement. 121 national education, civil rights, religious, disability and
civic organizations have signed the statement as of April 23, 2007.
