St. Michael-Albertville Schools Welcome Idea of Leaving NCLB Behind

If Minnestoa Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota state teachers' union has it their way, the federal No Child Left Behind program may be a thing of the past for state schools.

The governor announced last week that Minnesota would seek exemption from the law in favor of coming up with their own solution for increasing academic achievement and closing the achievement gap.

That's fine with St. Michael-Albertville's new head of schools.

“I support that they’re applying for the exemption,” St. Michael-Albertville Superintendent Dr. Jim Behle said, noting that this move will exempt Minnesota schools from the increases in the annual proficiency targets for the next three years, in order to give the state time to develop their own assessment and accountability model to replace the one the federal government has mandated.

“I think the Annual Yearly Progress targets have been a flawed process from the start, because they label schools as ‘failing schools.’ When, in reality, they might be achieving at a very high level and just have a small group of students who aren’t,” Behle continued.

For example, the entire school would not meet Adequate Yearly Progress if even one small subset of the student body, such as special education students, students on free and reduced lunch plans or English Language Learners (ELL) students do not meet yearly targets for improvement in either math or reading. According to No Child Left Behind, all schools should reach 100 percent proficiency levels by 2014.

“Relief from No Child Left Behind is necessary and overdue,” said Tom Dooher, president of Education Minnesota. “Minnesota challenges require Minnesota solutions. This waiver process is an opportunity for Minnesota to build on its nation-leading reputation for excellence in public schools.”

School administrators stressed that the district is not seeking relief from accountability, they would just like to see testing provide a benefit to teachers and students, which they do not feel the MCA tests provide.

“It’s important for stakeholders to understand that the proposal is not asking that the state be exempt from accountability,” explained St. Michael-Albertville’s assessment coordinator, Jim Pothoff. “It is merely seeking relief from a law that has not been successful and doesn’t accurately measure our state or district’s progress toward improving student’s academic achievement.”

In addition to MCAs, St. Michael-Albertville students also take MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) testing, which is funded by the school district. Although this creates additional test taking and additional cost, Behle said this test is well worth the investment because teachers and administrators can receive immediate and useful information on student progress, both on an individual and group level. They can then quickly act upon this information, if need be, to tweak curriculum or provide additional help for specific students. The MAP testing also tracks individual and group growth. By contrast, Behle said the data MCA yields is too little, too late: scores take a long time to process and the information is nowhere near as useful as the MAP testing.

Though Behle felt it was a positive outcome of NCLB to have schools increase their focus on reading, math and science, many state officials and education leaders, including the leadership here, feel  Minnesota can do a better job overseeing the education of Minnesota students than the federal government can.

“I think we can only improve,” Behle said. “Minnesota has a strong record of strong educational programs, and I think local school districts like ourselves have demonstrated the ability to be accountable as well as have rigorous educational programs and strong evaluation systems. I don’t see that changing, with or without No Child Left Behind.”