Avoidable Student Losses Is The Consequence of No Child Left Behind Act

What does No Child Left Behind Act mean for the black community? We must dissect the consequences of this Act? According to a 2008 study out of Rice University, its genesis is Texas’ public school accountability system; the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act. Rice’s study cites the Act directly contributes to lower graduation rates, according to the research. Each year, Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation — a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language students.

By analyzing data from more than 271,000 students, the study found that 60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years. The researchers found an overall graduation rate of only 33 percent.

“High-stakes, test-based accountability doesn’t lead to school improvement or equitable educational possibilities,” said Linda McSpadden McNeil, director of the Center for Education at Rice University. “It leads to avoidable losses of students. Inherently the system creates a dilemma for principals: comply or educate. Unfortunately we found that compliance means losing students.”

The study shows a strong relationship between the increasing number of dropouts and school’s rising accountability ratings, finding that:

• Losses of low-achieving students help raise school ratings under the accountability system.
• The accountability system allows principals to hold back students who are deemed at risk of reducing the school’s scores; many students retained this way end up dropping out.
• The test scores grouped by race single out the low-achieving students in these subgroups as potential liabilities to the school ratings, increasing incentives for school administrators to allow those students to quietly exit the system.
• The accountability system’s zero tolerance rules for attendance and behavior, which put youth into the court system for minor offenses and absences, alienate students and increase the likelihood they will drop out.

The discrepancy between the official dropout rates, in the 2 to 3 percent range, and the actual rates can be attributed to the state’s method of counting, which does not include students who drop out of school for reasons such as pregnancy or incarceration or declare intent to take the GED sometime in the future.

Study: Avoidable losses: High-stakes accountability and the dropout crisis. (Linda McSpadden McNeil, Eileen Coppola, Judy Radigan, Julian Vasquez Heilig )

Reference: The SAS Education Value-Added Assessment System (SAS® EVAAS®) , No Child Left Behind Act