Recognizing Problems in the Classroom
 
To the Editor:

Re: "No Child Left Behind? Hardly" (May 1):

Connecticut educators know we have an achievement gap.  Our statewide annual tests in Grades 4, 6, 8 and 10 have identified it.  Our most important task is finding a way to close this gap.

 We are not "trying to find a loophole" (as Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education, suggested in a PBS interview) to avoid adding tests in Grades 3, 5 and 7.  We want to decrease this gap most effectively by offering standardized, formative tests -- tests that give teachers immediate, frequent feedback so they can change instruction for each child continuously during the course of each year.  Our proposal for such testing, unlike the federal requirement of more standardized annual testing, is backed by research reported in the June 2002 issue of Phi Delta Kappan.

Formative tests help all students improve but are especially helpful for low-achieving students, thus closing the gap.  Rather than spending millions of dollars for more annual tests that do not give feedback for months and will not tell schools more than they already know about their students, we want to use a type of testing that "produce significant and often substantial learning gains" (Phi Delta Kappan, October 1998).  No research shows that annual standardized tests have that effect.

Dr. Betty J. Sternberg
West Hartford
The writer is the Connecticut commissioner of education.

To the Editor:

I seek to promote further work toward solutions in the No Child Left Behind Act.  As readers know, there is much that is good and right in Connecticut's schools.  The heights of student achievement in our state are among the very highest in the nation.  Those heights are a beacon, even a standard, for all students.

Yet the gap in achievement between white students and nonwhite students is large compared with that in many other sates, large compared with the potential of those nonwhite students, and large compared with the potential of Connecticut educators to reduce the gap

Indeed, there should not be an achievement gap by the racial or ethnic background of students, or their socioeconomic backgrounds.  The loss of talent and productive capabilities is incalculable, and certainly more than Connecticut can afford.

Across the country there is new awareness of achievement gaps that have been masked by averaging scores and highlighting successes.  We need to know where things stand, but we need more to press forward, with a sense of deep urgency for those students who are underperforming -- both nonwhite and white.  Connecticut can do better than it has, and can do as well as any state in the nation.

The standard is not what others have done but the potential of our children.  The challenge is for adults to lead for a common good, defined by a deep concern for other people's children as well as our own.

Betty J. Sternberg, the state's education commissioner, knows well that the achievement gap between white and nonwhite, wealthier and poor students is unnecessary, explainable but not excusable, and that it is harmful to all of Connecticut.  Her challenge, as well as that facing the school districts, is to make efficient use of limited resources.  I believe most Connecticut parents hope that a balance in policy, between the state and federal government, will be sought, one which benefits all schoolchildren and youth.

Eric J. Cooper
Stamford

The writer is president of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, a nonprofit organization, and a parent of two Connecticut public-school elementary students.

To the editor:

A letter to the editor (May 15) from a teacher in the Westport school system clearly demonstrates precisely why No Child Left Behind was enacted in the first place.  Incredulously, some teachers are all to quick to deny any accountability and responsibility for the performance of their students.  The fault always lies elsewhere -- funding, segregation, parenting, income-inequality, etc. -- in short, everywhere except in the classroom.

Teachers, according to the Westport teacher's own words, are mere "scapegoats."  While no on seriously argues that influences and factors outside the classroom have no bearing on student performance, it's nothing short of mind-boggling that teachers, those on the front-line of the educational system, are practically tripping over themselves in a race to toss accountability into the trash bin.

Somewhere in the past 30 years, teachers began putting themselves above the educational system, rather than at the heart of it.

No Child Left Behind is an honest, if less-than-perfect, attempt to correct that.

John S. Villanova
Stamford