Recently, The New York Times shocked America with the unthinkable -- American students ain't readin' and doin' math as good as the states say they are. A report found that "proficiency," as measured by the federal yard stick, shows most American students as "below proficiency level."
On average, the report found that many states are overstating their students' achievements to secure federal funding under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). There were, however, a few salient exceptions, perhaps too dumb to even cheat on their own tests: results from South Carolina, Missouri, Wyoming and Maine show the majority of their students as having the reading ability of a rubber eraser.
However, this isn't the first time that Americans were hit with the news that traditional American educational values are disappearing from our schools. Over the past several decades, Americans have grown more and more concerned about America's eighth graders being dumber than those of Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Belgium, Netherlands, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Slovak Republic and Australia. But don't fret too much. We still have a statistically insignificant educational lead over Lithuania.
Among other things, NCLB requires schools to raise student performance to be awarded funding. However, that performance is measured by state-dictated standardized tests. The NCLB fails for its two fundamental assumptions: that standardized tests can guarantee the academic performance of American school children and that incentives applied to schools can divert individual students from Spongebob Squarepants to study math.
I would not deny that there exist shoddy schools with irresponsible teachers, overcrowded classrooms and lacking curricula. In such cases, NCLB's design of holding schools accountable and injecting funds where needed would be a reasonable move in removing structural barriers in education.
Nonetheless, this should not replace the most obvious step in improving America's education -- namely, improving the curriculum being taught and how the content is delivered. Only by federally mandating what should be taught rather than simply measuring proficiency can a quality foundation be established for America's schools. A challenging national curriculum in primary education is needed to replace the vague and self-interested state standards currently in place.
But disparities in student performance cannot simply be explained away by poor public schools. As seen repeatedly, students, when presented with the same academic opportunities, make different choices. Nowhere is this more evident than in suburban public schools, where some students advance to higher education while others merge into America's low-skill job force without the benefit of a college education.
Take my alma mater: Glen A. Wilson High School, a mid-sized suburban high school in Los Angeles. Though it's difficult to quantify an "average American high school," everything from the school's per-pupil spending to its mean SAT scores points towards mediocrity.
However, a closer look at the school's state test results reveals shocking results that could not be explained by the NCLB's formula of accountability on a school basis. The state tests showed that the while over 80 percent of its Asian students scored "proficient" on a high school exit exam, only approximately 40 percent of its Hispanic students did so. Asian and Hispanics are the two largest minority subgroups at the school.
But the story doesn't end there. It is repeated in high schools all across America. Large disparities exist among ethnic groups in comparable academic settings. Under the mindset of acts such as the NCLB, these ethnicity-based academic fault lines can be predicted to persist. Legislations such as NCLB makes little, if any, effort to motivate individual students and or student groups, as they're mostly directed towards fixing schools rather than reforming students.
Next month will mark the four-year anniversary of the NCLB Act. But before lawmakers can stage photo-ops with local school children, they should take a longer look into the group and honestly ask: If we continue down the path of NCLB, how many more children will be "left behind"?
--James Lee is a freshman public health and economics major from Hacienda Heights, Calif.
