July/August 2003

Editor's Note

As the 2002-03 school year came to a close last month, the U.S. Education Department was giving final approval to state testing and accountability plans required under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. With those plans in place (online at www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/CFP/csas/index.html), schools that get Title I funds now face the task of fulfilling their state's promises or living with NCLB's sanctions. Standardized test scores and graduation rates will be the primary measures of "adequate yearly progress," though not the only ones. Attendance and retention rates, as well as participation in AP or college prep courses, will be secondary measures in some states. But standardized testing is literally the law of the land.

Meanwhile, a stagnant national economy is providing the pretext for teacher layoffs and cuts in education services, though some states (Mississippi, Idaho, Indiana) have recently increased education spending while making cuts in other sectors. The Bush administration has requested only modest increases in education spending the past two years, leading some critics to question its commitment to helping states effectively implement the new law. As Paul D. Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, told the Washington Post:"The administration likes to talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.... But what about the hard bigotry of high expectations without adequate resources?"

This issue looks at some aspects of how testing affects schools and districts. In the second installment of our new Teacher Research feature, Rebecca Wisniewski, who teaches in a diverse inner-city public elementary school, demonstrates one way educators can use test results to improve instruction. The tests, she writes, are often frustrating for teachers, but "a reality we must deal with." Action research allows teachers to "focus their energy in positive ways and to improve their own practices," which is how school improvement must begin: one teacher, one classroom at a time.

We're pleased to report that the essay "The Limits of 'Change'" by Faculty Editor Richard F. Elmore, which appeared in the Harvard Education Letter's January/February 2002 issue, has been named best editorial in 2002 by the Association of Educational Publishers.