[MUSIC] I think the impetus for No Child Left Behind, I think there were two, one sort of practical and one more ethical I guess. The practical idea I think, is that again, as a whole country, it is no longer enough for the top 25% of people to be able to be productive. To keep the country moving along. Information technology, all of the skills that adults need have changed and. So from a practical point of view, we need to make sure that all kids are meeting at least some minimum standards, if we want the country to be okay. The more ethical reason I guess, is when you look at some of the inequalities, that there are children who are better served by the education, than others. That there are divides because of social economic status, because of disability status, because of race, because of any number. Of differences, that there are inequities there. And as a country, who claims that we value the gifts of all individuals, we should not be allowing there to be systematic differences based on race, gender, disability status, or income. So, I think both of those the pragmatic one which said everybody needs to learn and the more ethical one which says you know we have educational outcome, and equities that we should be addressing. I think those were the main levers behind No Child Left Behind. And I do think, that it helped shine a light on some of those inequities, in ways that we hadn't done before. And I think, that is not a bad thing. It made Districts and States pay attention. To children who historically got lost, when you do an average. When you have an average somebody is doing really well, but typically somebody is doing not so well. So when you disaggregate and you pay attention to both who's doing really well and who's doing not, I think No Child Left Behind was helpful, and I think that is a legacy that continues, even if you are not being held as firmly responsible for all of your kids. I think the legacy of, we need to look all across the spectrum, I think, remains. Now, we run back into how is that measured? Well, it's measured on tests. A, are the tests the same across the country? Are the cut offs about what it takes to be called proficient across countries, across states, no. >> The way that it changed the nature of schooling, a lot of people saw it as very negative because you have a lot of schools. And especially the schools serving the students that are most in need of a good education, the schools that serve students that start far behind. It encouraged schools to spend time a lot of time on things like test prep, taking practice tests, learning test taking strategies. Things that aren't really helpful for students development as learners and for their for their future, and their actual understanding of academic skills. It's just designed to help them do well on the test. It also really narrow the curriculum again, down to just reading and math for students who may have the least exposure or diversity of environments, and experiences. There's a lot of concerns, that it actually increased in equality, even if it was intended to reduce in equality. >> We're just putting our focus as a country a little bit more sharply on this issue, that are we really providing equal opportunity and equal, like high quality reliable education for all of our students? And truth is we weren't and we're not. And as imperfect as it is and as it is was, in CLB, at least got us talking in ways that we weren't talking before. >> One of the other reasons that, I think it became a major concern is that >> The way in which people began to think about this notion of accountability in it was by testing people and evaluating them. Not necessarily trying to figure out how to help them, but determining whether they were good or bad. And if you were bad, then you were done and not if you were strong or weak, and whether your weaknesses could be improved. And so that ended up being a really sort of fundamental breaking point for No Child Left Behind. >> I think that teachers feel under attack. And I think they have felt that way since No Child Left Behind. Where the problems. That are, the children have, that are in a large part out of their control are they first of all schools are expected to fix them, teachers are expected to fix them and they feel that they're under-- I can't see it any other way other than teachers feel that they're under attack. That they are not necessarily respected. Even though they get teachers get a lot of positive feedback from parents and often from their principals. But there's a general narrative in this country, that says, that teachers are the problem here. And if we can fix teachers, we'll fix kids and every child will be successful. And anybody who's taught for any length of time, knows that that's simply isn't true and it's impossible, and that there are other issues that kids bring to school that are beyond their control. And so it's misguided yet, it continues to occur. And even policymakers now I think more and more are saying well we have to build respect for the profession. We have to do, so there's a lot of lip service to that, but the policies don't seem to change. So you have the No Child Left Behind where they say okay, your school had a number of teachers who are not qualified, then we have okay, the next big policy push is for teacher evaluation, and teacher evaluation is going to get rid of all these horrible teachers that are there. And that's going to solve the problem. It's just not a broad enough approach to a problem, that we have in this country. >> I think one of the biggest perils embedded in No Child Left Behind is the fact that, it made sacred and singularly, >> Salient, the standardized test score. And as the measure of progress, when the very, very best social scientists will tell you, that,that actually isn't the thing that is going to matter. What really matters is educational attainment, whether kids are persisting and completing school, entering post-secondary school, and completing post-secondary. Those are the things that lead to longer life span, greater earnings, going to prison less, having children with higher levels of educational attainment. So those are the things that matter and yet our government, our Federal Government then amplified, and reinforced by State level and Local level government. Became singularly obsessed with one metric to measure kid performance, teacher quality, schoolhouse quality, and district progress. [MUSIC]
