The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which received bipartisan support for its passage in 2001, requires that states implement a variety of assessment mechanisms for students and teachers in order to qualify for federal education funding.  This federal act does not establish criteria to which all states must adhere; the means of assessment are left to each state to implement as it sees fit.  In January 2001, President George W. Bush said of NCLB, “’These reforms express my deep belief in our public schools and their mission to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every part of America.’” Calling it the “cornerstone” of his Administration, President Bush touted the various components of NCLB.

NCLB, at the time of its passage, was intended to provide “increased accountability for States, school districts, and schools; greater choice for parents and students, particularly those attending low-performing schools; more flexibility for States and local educational agencies (LEAs) in the use of Federal education dollars; and a stronger emphasis on reading…” The Act ties federal education dollars to performance on standardized testing.  In large part, this stipulation has been the foundation for continued criticisms of the program. 

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This past week, I was invited to participate on a panel at the Education Innovation Summit organized by ASU SkySong (affiliated with Arizona State University) and NeXtAdvisors.  The goal of the summit’s organizers is to “’curate’ an environment that provides the right mix of wild-eyed education entrepreneurs, value added investors, not-for-profit leaders, progressive policy makers, academic thought leaders, and forward leaning foundations, philanthropists and industry executives.”  Based on the attendees that I met as well as my fellow presenters and panelists, I believe that the organizers hit their mark.

Regardless of the speaker or panel topic, if there was an underlying theme, it was “America’s education system is broken.  There are many good ideas.  If we don’t implement them soon, our nation will suffer.”  Whether it was James Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, US Department of Education; Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University; Craig Barrett, retired CEO of Intel Corporation; or Joel Klein, EVP at News Corp and former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; all of them delivered the message that we need to reform our education system.  Dr. Crow talked about how the taxpayers of Arizona are paying twice for inadequately prepared high school graduates who have to take remedial math and reading courses when they matriculate in Arizona’s colleges.  Dr. Barrett listed the many policy studies beginning with A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform that identified the problems in our education system and yet little progress has been made.  Joel Klein said that the perverse incentives with K-12 leave little reason for striving for excellence in teaching and learning.

Despite the big issues that need to be solved, I think this nation has the ability to solve many of these problems.  I left the conference committed to not just focusing on higher education issues, but to see if there are ways that members of our institution can contribute to K-12 innovations and improvements as well.  We have reached the stage where it’s no longer appropriate to say that the problems are someone else’s.  Reforming education is all of our responsibilities and cooperation is needed if we want to improve the lives of the generations behind us.

I read an article by Motoko Rich in the August 29, 2009 issue of The New York Times that talks about the future of reading.  Rich writes about Lorrie McNeill, a middle school teacher in Jonesboro, Georgia who last fall turned over the reading assignments for her seventh and eighth graders to the students themselves.

Rich states that the approach, called reading workshop, is catching on throughout America’s public schools as a way to teach students how to enjoy reading rather than forcing them to read traditional tomes such as Toni Morrison’s  Beloved or Harper Lee‘s To Kill a Mockingbird, a selection that McNeill used to require her students to read.  Selected school districts in Chicago, Seattle, and New York are employing similar tactics, according to Ms. Rich.  At the same time, she states that none are going as far as Ms. McNeill who attended a seminar in Atlanta taught by Nancy Atwell.  Atwell and Lucy M. Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College have emerged as “gurus” of the reading workshop movement.

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Whenever I can find a good book or research paper on the topic of distance education, I will usually obtain a copy in order to see if there’s a trend or idea that is worth noting or pursuing.  For a few weeks, I had noted the ad in The Chronicle of Higher Education touting their new report, “The College of 2020:  Students.”  I had to pay for the report, so I’m sure that the Chronicle wouldn’t like it if I provided a blow-by-blow description of its contents.  However, I think that they would not mind someone touting the report on their blog, so my thoughts are summarized below.  (Those interested in purchasing the report can do so at the following site:  http://research.chronicle.com/asset/TheCollegeof2020ExecutiveSummary.pdf.)  

Chronicle Research Services released the first of a three part report last month that describes the characteristics they predict that we will see in college graduates of the class of 2020.  The fundamental themes of the report are that as the class of 2020 (today’s first graders) enter their college years, their demands on colleges and universities will be drastically different from what students have previously expected, forcing higher educational institutions to reconsider their curriculums, formats, and basic characteristics.

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McKinsey & Company released a report in April of this year titled, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools.”  The report identifies four aspects of the achievement gap in American schools: the international achievement gap, the racial achievement gap, the income achievement gap, and system-based achievement gaps.  The findings in the report are striking in their sense of urgency and are worth discussing.

The authors state that “the United States lags significantly behind other advanced nations in educational performance and is slipping further behind on some important measures.”  An interesting element of this particular analysis is that this international disparity in educational achievement affects every American student equally, regardless of race, income, or location.  Citing research published by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors provide some discouraging statistics.  For example, “American 15-year-olds are on par with students in Portugal and the Slovak Republic, rather than with students in countries that are more relevant competitors for service-sector and high-value jobs like Canada, the Netherlands, Korea and Australia.”  Additionally, the report finds that whereas 40 years ago, the United States was a world leader in high school graduation rates, today it ranks 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in this category.  Further, the report’s findings reveal that low-income students in the United States fare significantly worse than low-income students in other industrialized nations in educational attainment.

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The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by its Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development on Friday that confirm what online educators have known for years: “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” 

Online education has gained tremendous momentum in the last several years.  A November 2008 report titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008” published by the Sloan Consortium notes that during the fall 2007 semester, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one course online, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year.  During the same semester, twenty percent of all college students were taking at least one course online.  An Eduventures report from November 2006 predicted this growth; that report found that half of the 2,000 potential students surveyed indicated that they would be interested in completing a degree online.

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