Does NCLB bite schools?

An article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out that, despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the No Child Left Behind law, the repercussions on schools have been mild, at least so far ("Education law lacks expected bite"). The most serious consequence of being put on the "needs improvement" list seems to be the resulting humiliation.

Both defenders and critics of NCLB are likely to take comfort from this conclusion: defenders because the sky has not fallen, critics because the sky has not fallen enough to cause real change. The latter, of course, requires those criticizing NCLB for doing too much to shift gears and attack for doing too little.

The harsh attacks on NCLB have encouraged its defenders to close ranks and deny the need for any improvements in the law. As presently written, schools identified for improvement overwhelmingly serve low-income students. A variety of models, often called value-added, have been proposed to account for the added challenges for schools serving those students. For an example of a rating system of schools that incorporates student poverty, see this article that used data from Milwaukee Public Schools. Other value-added ratings adjust for test scores of incoming students, but these are mainly applicable to middle schools and above since students are seldom tested before they start elementary school.

The use of poverty in rating schools has run into ideological opposition, notably from the Education Trust, who fear that such use would reinforce lower-expectations for low-income students.