Published: July 13, 2008 01:21 am            

Time and money

In her state of education address on Tuesday, Sandy Garrett, Oklahoma’s school superintendent, questioned the amount of time that is being devoted to testing public school students. She also could have questioned the amount of money spent on the tests, even the tests themselves.

Much of the current list of tests is due to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which had — and has — admirable goals. President Bush and the act’s congressional sponsors hoped to not only raise performance among all American students, but particularly among those groups that traditionally scored the lowest in standardized tests.

But there are two main problem areas: the amount of time and money being used for testing; and recent studies that indicate the legislation is not having the intended effect, though it is still too early to say No Child Left Behind is failing.

Part of the time and money spent on the tests is simply to determine what the tests indicate. Because the questions change each year, and because some of the scoring is subjective, and because there are myriad sub-groups in larger schools and not many sub-groups in smaller schools, district officials either spend days interpreting the results or never really know what the scores mean.

As with most mandates from above, the root problem with No Child Left Behind is funding. The legislation either asks too much or doesn’t come with enough money.

And as has been shown countless times, that is assuring failure, no matter how good the intentions.

        

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