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Alabama's children cheated by unreliable standards
The Pangloss Index, released in November, draws attention to the fact that state boards of education are misrepresenting academic progress in their schools. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), states were to establish criteria for academic proficiency and graduation rates. The objective of NCLB was to ensure that by the year 2014, 100 percent of students would be proficient in their core subjects and 100 percent would graduate. In order to continue to receive federal education dollars, each state is required to comply. When the U.S. Department of Education left it up to the states to define their own standards for proficiency, many states lowered the bar to the point of grossly misrepresenting actual academic proficiency. The Pangloss Index singles out Alabama as among the worst offenders. By manipulating the measurement criteria, Alabama made an unprecedented leap upwards in terms of academic outcomes for the students in our public schools. According to the report, "… even abjectly failing districts" are being reported as having reached the proficiency levels required by NCLB. For instance, the Birmingham school system -- one of the worst in the state -- meets Alabama's definition of "proficient." This rosy assessment is news to the more than 7,000 students who left the Birmingham school system because of poor academics, according to an article in The Birmingham News. Obviously, the parents who moved their children out of the Birmingham school system have a different definition of proficient than does the Alabama Department of Education. What exactly has the Alabama Department of Education reported? To begin with, the Alabama Department of Education reports that our statewide high school dropout rate is only about 10 - 12 percent when in fact it is between 35 - 40 percent. Some schools report dropout rates of over 60 percent. Another recent report, this one from Johns Hopkins University, classified 15 percent of Alabama public high schools as dropout factories. So how can the Alabama Department of Education report that almost 90 percent of our public schools are in compliance with NCLB? To make matters worse, the state is misleading parents and the taxpayers about what our children are learning. Based on the Alabama Department of Education's reading test results, 76 percent of Alabama fourthgraders are proficient readers. However, only 29 percent of our fourth-graders read at the "proficient" level, according to the 2007 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test which is widely referred to as the nation's report card. This whopping gap of 47 percentage points creates an even wider credibility gap. The 2007 NAEP scores represent a major improvement in fourth-grade reading proficiency. Alabama should be justifiably proud. Unfortunately, the Alabama Department of Education has created a "proficiency illusion" which misrepresents the quality of our schools. Given the NCLB fourthgrade proficiency percentage hype by state officials and media followed by all the hype about the improvement in the NAEP scores, isn't it interesting that few noticed that there was a huge discrepancy?
Alabama Department of Education officials have attempted to dismiss The Pangloss Index, but there are too many other highly reputable education research groups which have also exposed the truth about the state of education in Alabama. The Pangloss Index is just the latest of many reports to expose the real picture of our public schools to parents and taxpayers of Alabama. By setting the proficiency bar so low that it is no longer a reliable standard, the state is cheating the parents and children, the school systems and ultimately, the state itself.
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