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In the NCLB era, accountability has focused almost exclusively on basic academic skills. It is time, Mr. Rothstein and Ms. Jacobsen believe, to ask if the accountability system we have is producing the kind of graduates we want.
NO CHILD Left Behind (NCLB) holds all elementary schools, regardless of student characteristics, accountable for achieving proficient student scores in reading and math. By demanding that schools report achievement for racial, ethnic, and economic subgroups, the accountability system aims to shine a light on schools that "leave children behind."
At first glance, this approach seems reasonable. But few who debate the details of implementation have considered how this accountability system has begun to shift how we think about what schools should do. By basing sanctions solely on math and reading scores, the law creates incentives to limit - or in some cases to eliminate entirely time spent on other important curricular objectives. This reorientation of instruction disproportionately affects lowincome and minority children, so achievement gaps may actually widen in areas for which schools are not now being held accountable.
The shift in curricular coverage is also at odds with the consensus about the goals of public education to which Americans historically have subscribed. More surprisingly, it is also starkly at odds with the apparent intentions of school board members and state legislators, who are responsible for implementing the policy, and with the intentions of the public whom these leaders represent. We will discuss the evidence with regard to these intentions later in this article. For now, let us begin by documenting the goal displacement stimulated by NCLB.
The federal government's periodic national survey of teachers demonstrates the curricular shifts. In 1991, teachers in grades 1 to 4 spent an average of 33% of their classroom instructional time on reading. By 2004, reading was consuming 36% of instructional time. For math, average weekly time went from 15% to 17%. Meanwhile, time for social studies and science decreased. Since 1991, instructional time spent on social studies went from 9% to 8%, and time spent on science went from 8% to 7%.1
These seemingly small average changes mask a disproportionate impact on the most disadvantaged students. The Council for Basic Education surveyed school principals in several states in the...