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EDITORIAL: Bad Attitude Won't Help Scores

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

By The Wisconsin State Journal

Jun. 20--Students love to complain about tests.

An offending exam might be "too hard,""unfair,""worthless" or even "stupid" in their eyes.

Yet school teachers keep handing out tests because they need to measure student achievement and learning.

The federal government has taken a similar approach with its No Child Left Behind Act. The idea is to rate individual schools and school districts based on tests and other standards applied to more students in more grades.

The federal push for accountability makes some sense. Parents and taxpayers deserve an independent assessment of how well their schools are doing.

Where the federal law fails is in its rigid simplicity and punitive sanctions from on high.

The Madison School District, for example, has a growing population of students who enter school speaking little or no English. And close to 40 percent of all students in Madison public schools are from low-income families.

Those factors undoubtedly contributed to Madison's four main high schools -- as well as some schools in Stoughton, Janesville and Beloit -- being flagged for not making "adequate yearly progress." Ninety-two Wisconsin schools in all were similarly cited, almost twice as many as last year. Milwaukee accounted for more than half.

The federal law has helped show that some schools need more focus on reading while others need extra attention to math. Other schools, including some in Madison, simply need more students to take the tests in the first place rather than skipping school.

That information is valuable to the public and can help pressure schools to improve. State and local school officials should redouble their efforts to try to meet more of the standards of No Child Left Behind, despite its flaws.

Instead, too many school officials are grousing about their grades -- just as some of their students might do after a difficult algebra quiz.

A bad attitude won't help improve the scores. And while some of the poor marks can be explained, they shouldn't be explained away.

Congress should improve the law, which requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. But our Wisconsin schools flagged for various failings must try harder to improve as well.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wisconsin State Journal

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

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