Ch 20: The Law, Ethics, and Testing: No Child (Should Be) Left Behind and Other Very Interesting Stuff

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001

• Original Intent and Purpose: The primary purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act ($NCLB$) was to close the existing achievement gap through accountability, flexibility, and choice, ensuring that no child is left behind in the educational system ($NCLB, 2001$).
• Legislative History:
      * The act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in $2002$.
      * It was based on the foundations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of $1965$.
      * The document is extensive, spanning over $600$ pages and organized into $10$ distinct titles (sections).

Structural Breakdown of NCLB: Titles I Through X

• Title I: Improving Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged: Focuses on providing resources to help disadvantaged students reach state academic standards.
• Title II: High Quality Teachers and Principals: Concentrates on preparing, training, and recruiting high-quality educators and school leaders.
• Title III: Language Instruction: Specifically focuses on language instruction for students with limited English proficiency and immigrant students.
• Title IV: 21st Century Schools: Deals with a wide range of issues related to modern schooling, including guns and the necessity of parental consent.
• Title V: Choice and Innovation: Promotes parental choice in schooling and the development of innovative educational programs.
• Title VI: Flexibility and Accountability: Discusses the balance between providing states with flexibility and maintaining strict accountability for results.
• Title VII: Native Education: Focuses on the specific educational needs of American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native populations.
• Title VIII: Aid Programs: Outlines various aid programs related to education.
• Title IX: General Provisions: Contains general rules and definitions applicable to the act.
• Title X: Amendments to Other Statutes: Lists amendments made to prior legislation because of $NCLB$.

NCLB Assessment and Testing Requirements

• Primary Mission: The central goal stated by the act is for all children to meet or exceed their state's level of academic achievement on state-mandated assessments.
• Testing Timeline:
      * $2005-2006$ School Year: Mandatory math and reading assessments began for students in grades $3$ through $8$.
      * Prior Benchmarks: Students in grades $10$ through $12$ were already being tested in math and reading before the new requirements.
      * $2007-2008$ School Year: Mandatory science assessments were introduced for all students in grades $3$ through $12$.
• Participation Requirements: Participation is mandatory for all students, including those with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency.
• Data Reporting: Test scores are required to be reported and broken down by specific demographics, including race and income, to measure progress and identify gaps among specific groups.
• Standard of Success: Schools are judged successful solely based on these test score results.
• Final Proficiency Goal: The act set a target for $100\%$ of students to be at academic proficiency by the conclusion of the $2013-2014$ school year.

State Academic Standards and Compliance

• Requirement for Setting Standards: States must establish clear standards to assess educational outcomes.
• Adoption of Academic Standards: States are required to show the adoption of specific academic standards that will be utilized by the state, local educational agencies, and individual schools to gauge student achievement.
• Uniform Application: The same standards must be applied to every school and every child within the state.
• Subject Coverage: States must set these academic standards for every subject identified by the state as essential for assessment.

Major Objections and Criticisms of NCLB

• Unrealistic Expectations: Critics argue that requiring children with significant disabilities or low English proficiency to perform at grade level is unrealistic.
• Bias and Pedagogy: The law introduces concerns regarding potential bias in testing and encourages "teaching to the test" at the expense of broader education.
• Language Grace Periods: Non-English-speaking students are only given $3$ years before they are required to take state tests in English.
• Uneven Standards: Only public schools are held to these federal standards, while private institutions remain exempt.
• Funding Discrepancies: The bill was never funded at the levels originally proposed by the federal government.
• Incentive Deficit: Schools are not explicitly rewarded for high performance.
• Qualified Personnel Definitions: There remains significant debate and difficulty in defining what exactly constitutes a "highly qualified" teacher.

Transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

• Legislative Replacement: Due to the volume of objections to $NCLB$, it was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act ($ESSA$).
• Sign-off: President Barack Obama signed $ESSA$ into law in $2015$.
• Increased Flexibility: $ESSA$ provides states with more flexibility in setting their own standards for measuring school success.
• Support and Funding:
      * It provides more support for state testing and other administrative requirements.
      * Extra funding is available for programs and interventions specifically for high schools with the most need, such as those with traditionally underserved populations or low graduation rates.
• Testing Adjustments:
      * It relaxes the requirement about testing every single student; schools can choose a certain (small) percentage of students to exclude from testing.
      * However, the percentage is not large enough to exclude all students who might fail for reasons unrelated to actual teaching.

Diminishing Federal Role and Administrative Shifts

• Bureaucracy Reduction: In $2025$, the U.S. Department of Education announced interagency agreements aimed at reducing federal education bureaucracy and returning control to the states.
• Interagency Coordination:
      * Department of Labor: Focusing on elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education to align/coordinate with workforce programs.
      * Department of the Interior: Establishing the Indian Education Partnership.
      * Health and Human Services: Establishing the Foreign Medical Accreditation Partnership and the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Partnership.
      * Department of State: Establishing the International Education and Foreign Language Studies Partnership (specifically the Fulbright-Hays grant).

Special Education Law: PL 94-142 and IDEA

• Education of Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142): Established in $1975$ with four primary purposes:
      1. FAPE: To provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education.
      2. LRE: To place students in the Least Restrictive Environment.
      3. To protect the rights of children with disabilities and their families.
      4. To ensure all children with disabilities are educated.
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): Amended $PL\,94-142$ in $1997$ because previous programs were not meeting the needs of children with disabilities; it expanded the scope of services.
• Six Principles of IDEA:
      1. FAPE: Free and Appropriate Public Education.
      2. Appropriate Assessments: Used to help place the child; must be fair, nondiscriminatory, and unbiased.
      3. Individualized Education Plan (IEP): A tailored plan for each student's needs.
      4. LRE: Ensuring students are educated with their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate.
      5. Shared Decision-Making: Parents and students play an active role in the process.
      6. Parental Rights: Includes rights to mediation, arbitration, and formal notification.

Truth in Testing and FERPA

• Historical Context of Testing: Before $1979$, test publishers had minimal outside regulation, and issues with content or criterion validity were often not disclosed.
• 1979 Truth in Testing Law (New York): Requires admissions tests in New York state to:
      * Make content and scoring procedures available for review.
      * Release specific test items to the public.
      * Ensure due process for those accused of cheating.
• Challenges for Test Makers: Testing companies argue this violates copyright, increases costs (which leads to higher fees), and depletes the pool of usable test items.
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): Also known as the Buckley Amendment ($1974$).
      * Grants parents rights to their child's education records.
      * Rights transfer to the student at age $18$ or upon entering post-high school educational programs.

Ethical Scandals and the Development of Assessment Guidelines

• Historical Violations:
      * Tuskegee Syphilis Study ($1932-1972$): Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health.
      * Nuremberg Code ($1947$): Adopted following medical atrocities in WWII.
      * Secret Radiation Research ($1944-1980s$): Sponsored by the U.S. government on human subjects.
      * Willowbrook State School ($1956-1980$): Hepatitis experiments conducted by Krugman et al. on mentally disabled children.
      * Stanley Milgram Studies ($1961-1962$): Controversial psychological studies on obedience.
      * The Belmont Report ($1979$): Created by the National Commission to protect human subjects.
• Core Ethical Guidelines:
      1. No harm to subjects: Physical or psychological.
      2. Screen content: Avoid inappropriate or offensive material.
      3. Informed Consent: Must be given before testing (with special provisions for children).
      4. Reasonable Incentives: Compensation for time should not be coercive.
      5. Anonymity and Confidentiality: Data must be response-anonymous and kept strictly confidential.
      6. Access to Results: Participants should have access to results and, in some cases, explanations for those results.
      7. Validity and Reliability: Use appropriate techniques with established norms and no bias.

Significant Litigation in Assessment

• Larry P. v. Riles ($1979/1986$): A California judge ruled that intelligence tests used to place Black children in special education classes were "racially and culturally biased" and thus had a discriminatory impact.
• Regents of the U of California v. Bakke ($1978$): Alan Bakke sued after being denied admission to UC Davis medical school despite having higher scores than some admitted minority students. The Supreme Court ruled he should be admitted but allowed for the continued use of diversity considerations in admissions.
• Mitchell v. State (Nevada, $2008$): The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that a court-ordered compulsory psychiatric examination did not violate a defendant's Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, depending on the specific case facts.

Contemporary Issues and Controversies in Intelligence

• The Flynn Effect (Flynn, $1994$): Observation that IQ scores have increased globally over the past $60$ years.
• Teacher Competency: Measurement is difficult; some states seek to end tenure based on competency tests not originally designed for that purpose.
• 'The Bell Curve' (Herrnstein & Murray, $1994$): Controversial book suggesting $6$ assumptions:
      1. Individuals differ in basic cognitive abilities.
      2. IQ tests are the most accurate measure of those abilities.
      3. Intelligence, smartness, and IQ are synonymous.
      4. IQ scores are generally stable over a lifetime.
      5. Properly administered tests are not biased against any group.
      6. Much of intelligence and cognitive ability is inherited.
• The Mozart Effect: The hypothesis that listening to Mozart can raise IQ; many question if the results are too good to be true.
• Cyril Burt: Known for controversial twin studies on the genetics of intelligence and inheritance.

Important Reminders and Course Schedule

• Thursday, May 7th:
      * Final Exam Review session.
      * Deadline for extra credit submission is at $11:59\,pm$.
• Thursday, May 14th:
      * Final Exam will take place from $2:30\,pm$ to $4:30\,pm$.
      * Exam coverage includes Chapters $14$ through $20$.