No Child Left Behind brings more testing, but not more money to Bozeman schools

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

The joke used to be that Bozeman was like Lake Woebegone.

When school test scores came out each year, the former school superintendent liked to say that all the children were above average.

Times have changed. Since Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, above average isn't good enough.

Today schools and teachers must strive for perfection. By the year 2014, every school in America is supposed to have 100 percent of its children up to grade level in the crucial skills of reading and math.

No Child Left Behind's bipartisan aim is that by third grade, every child should be able to read, and no child should be allowed to fail because they are poor, minority, or have a disability.

Schools that don't make progress every year toward those goals can be labeled failing and face sanctions. Parents can transfer their children to other schools or demand tutoring, and schools that continue to fail may be reorganized.

In Bozeman's schools, No Child Left Behind is having a broad impact, both positive and negative. For example:

€ Bozeman's federal dollars have held pretty steady, but can now be used in more flexible ways, which has kept two police officers in the local schools and supported the CAP mentoring and Parent Liaison programs that support local kids and families.

But there's been no additional federal money to pay for all the testing paperwork, detailed data analysis and reporting the law demands. And there's no additional money to hire more reading instructors to give kids more attention in small groups, which research says could raise their reading skills.

€ Teacher morale has taken some hits, when test scores or state lists of schools "failing" to make adequate yearly progress make the news. Teachers are also nervous that the pressure to score well on tests will rob their classrooms of creativity and the joy of learning.

€ Parents already had the option to enroll their children at any Bozeman elementary school, so long as there is room. And for many years, parents have been able to see Bozeman's district-wide test scores. But now scores are more readily available on the Internet, and are reported school by school.

€ The 5,187 kids in Bozeman's schools are spending a lot more time taking tests. Fourth-graders took a full week in March and another week in April for the tests required by the state and No Child act, on top of the writing assessments and other tests required by the school district and their own teachers.

While elsewhere the nation's largest teachers union, a handful of school districts and even the Utah Legislature have rebelled against the No Child act, Bozeman and Montana educators say they are trying to make the law work, and not lose sight of the larger goals of educating children.

"We're not going to start teaching to the test," Marilyn King, Bozeman School District assistant superintendent for instruction, said emphatically.

"A child is much bigger than one test score," King said. "(Education) is about their emotional and social well-being and growth, instilling lifelong skills for making good choices, being good citizens ... not just excellent test-takers."

As a university town, Bozeman has always put a premium on education. The school district has proudly reported test scores, which are perennially higher than the state and federal averages.

That's still true. However, under No Child Left Behind, public attention is shifting from the 79 percent of Bozeman fourth-graders who did well on last year's reading test, to the 21 percent who didn't.

All of Bozeman's schools, from elementary to high school, did make "adequately yearly progress" in 2004, as defined by the Montana state Office of Public Instruction and as required by the No Child law.

"We're doing very, very well," King said.

However, though parents generally view Bozeman's schools as excellent, the Bozeman elementary district is on the official state list of districts not making adequate yearly progress.

The reason: No Child Left Behind requires that test scores be broken out for minorities, low-income, special education, limited English-speaking, male and female students. If a single group isn't scoring well enough, the entire district can be labeled as failing.

In Bozeman, among fourth-graders with disabilities, 54 percent scored proficient or better in reading last year. The score was up from the year before, but still fell 1 percent short of the state target.

One good thing about the No Child act, King said, is that it has heightened awareness of disadvantaged students. Yet it's too soon to tell if the federal law is working -- actually helping children at risk of failing.

The No Child law is still fairly new, as is the statewide test given to all Montana students last year for the first time. So there's no long-term data.

"The jury's still out," King said.

Is 100 percent unrealistic?

Principal Robbye Hamburgh has a cheerful office at Emily Dickinson School, where the walls are brightened by poems by the school's namesake: "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul..."

No Child Left Behind has had one positive impact, with the change to the new Montana-based, criterion-referenced test, she said. "It's a very good test, it involves thinking, applying your knowledge."

For example, the old Iowa Test of Basic Skills might ask fourth-graders to figure out how many cookies are needed for a bake sale. The new CRT test asks students not only for the factual answer, but also says, "Show or explain how you know." Students may have to draw a chart or write an explanation.

"It's a much tougher test," Hamburgh said. She predicted it would have a positive influence on teaching. Kids can't just regurgitate facts and crunch numbers, but must learn to explain their thinking.

On the other hand, Hamburgh sees some real problems with the No Child act. She estimated the time kids spend on testing has "easily doubled, but probably more than that."

Teachers are concerned all the testing is taking away from real learning, said Marco Ferro, Bozeman teachers union president.

"It's like the rancher spending all his time weighing cattle instead of feeding them," Ferro said.

Hamburgh raised a more fundamental problem with the entire premise of No Child Left Behind.

It's not realistic, she said, to expect all special-education students to reach the "proficient" level, when the purpose of special-education is to help kids who work at a slower pace. Some face even more severe disabilities.

"We're expected to make adequate yearly progress with all children," Hamburgh said. "That is unrealistic."

As a result, she said, some states are setting their definitions of proficiency very low, or are concentrating on teaching what's on the test.

"My sister teaches in Texas, and everything is run by the test," she said. "She's a high school English teacher, and she hasn't taught a novel since January, because the test is coming up.

"Bozeman has kept some perspective. We haven't let the tests change teaching so we aren't doing quality teaching."

One veteran fourth-grade teacher, who spoke on the condition she not be identified, said because the No Child tests have started with fourth-graders, she knows of a few teachers have switched to other grades.

Last year, newspaper headlines said that the state had labeled a couple Bozeman schools as "failing."

"We all came to school with a sick feeling in our stomachs," the teacher recalled. "We all work hard every day. It felt like a low blow."

Later it turned out that one reason was that 94 percent of the school's students had taken the test, and that was short of the No Child requirement of 95 percent.

Jim L. Thompson, an English teacher at Bozeman High School, said he and his wife left Texas in 1992 and "one reason was to escape the insanity of testing."

Teachers there were getting busted for having answers to the tests, he said. Even teachers who didn't cheat felt they had to focus on teaching to the test.

"That's not what education is about," Thompson said. "What we're dealing with (in Bozeman) is not as bad. Not yet."

Extra costs

Cost has become a big target for critics of No Child Left Behind.

Last week the National Education Association joined school districts in three states in suing the U.S. Department of Education, charging it imposes federal mandates but fails to fund them.

The Utah Legislature then declared state schools should follow state, not federal, standards.

In Montana, federal funds have paid the cost of developing the new criterion-referenced test -- $2.5 million a year for five years, according to OPI.

The state also pays for the No Child tests given in the Bozeman schools, said Steve Johnson, assistant superintendent for business.

Bozeman schools have always collected and crunched a lot of test data, but now "it's a lot more intense," said Terry Baldus, Bozeman's curriculum director. She's the one in charge of running all the state tests, ensuring security and analyzing the numbers.

Bozeman schools also spent $10,000 for calculators needed for kids taking the test, and will spend another $20,000 next year, Johnson said.

Overall, Bozeman schools' federal funds have held pretty steady, at about $1.25 million the last two years.

No Child directs more money to high-poverty schools, which has hurt Bozeman's eligibility for federal funds. But Bozeman has been helped because its enrollment has remained pretty strong compared to most Montana districts, Johnson said.

The big expense will come if Bozeman schools ever purchase "data warehouse" software to compile and report all the data in the format required under No Child, he said. That could cost $150,000 initially and up to $75,000 a year to maintain.

"We're continuing to look," Johnson said, "because we can't fit it in our budget."

Are Montana teachers unqualified?

A greater concern than money for Montana educators is whether thousands of Montana teachers will be labeled as "not highly qualified."

No Child Left Behind requires that every child have a highly qualified teacher. The current definition is that each teacher must have a college major in the subjects they teach.

In a large rural state like Montana, that won't work, argues the state Office of Public Instruction. A Montana social studies teacher may teach U.S. government, European history, geography and economics. Special education teachers also cover many subjects.

OPI contends Montana teachers shouldn't have to go back to college to earn a separate major degree in each subject.

"That's just so not doable," Linda McCulloch, Montana's superintendent of schools, said last week, flying back from Washington, D.C. "It's something we just can't accomplish. Nor do we need to. Our scores are high."

About a week ago, Washington came out with an answer to Montana's year-old request to use its own definition of qualified.

"We think they're letting all our veteran teachers be 'highly qualified,'" McCulloch said. "It's the new teachers I'm worried about.

"I got a promise," she added. "They will review it and try to work something out with us."

It's hard to tell if No Child Left Behind is achieving its overall goals in Montana, McCulloch said. "Frankly, I think if we'd spent that money on reading programs," it would have done more good.

State Rep. Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman and a conservative member of the House Education Committee, said every time a reform bill comes up, No Child Left Behind seems to "trump whatever we're trying to do at the state level."

The U.S. Constitution leaves sole responsibility for education up to the states, he said.

"The idea of setting standards and school accountability -- measuring outcomes -- is a good thing," Koopman said. "But No Child Left Behind fails because they're trying to do it all from Washington, D.C., and they've created unfunded mandates and one-size-fits-all mandates."

Koopman also agreed that getting 100 percent of children to proficiency isn't realistic. If that happens, he said, it probably means the bar is set so low as to be meaningless.

While the ultimate impact of No Child Left Behind is uncertain, Bozeman teachers and students can be sure of one thing. More testing is on the way.

Last year, students in grades four, eight, 10 and 11 took the state's standardized tests in reading and math. Next year, it will be grades three through eight plus 10. And the following year, science tests will be added.

Each year, the state will raise the bar, requiring schools to raise all kids' scores toward the goal of 100 percent.

Politicians, parents, teachers, real estate agents and reporters all want to see test scores for schools -- even though they don't always show what people think they show.

People tend to think the test scores, reported publicly under state law and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, will show which schools are "the good schools."

But scores from standardized tests don't show how much progress kids have made or how effective teachers have been in raising their students' reading and math skills compared to where the children started.

And kids don't all start at the same starting line.

The scores don't show whether a school has a lot of parents who are physics professors or fry cooks, Ph.D.s or high school dropouts, immigrants just learning English, or single moms working two jobs.

They don't show whether a teacher is doing a great job teaching and accepting special-education kids who are autistic or dyslexic or have other disabilities, even though those kids may lower her classroom's test scores.

"Most research suggests that the inputs not controlled by schools (students' natural ability, home environment and community environment) affect the output, education quality, more than those controlled by schools," according to a report to 2005 lawmakers by two Montana State University economics professors, Myles Watts and Doug Young.

Test scores for every school and school district in Montana can be seen on the Office of Public Instruction's Web site (www.opi.state.mt.us/ReportCard/). To use the OPI Web site, it's necessary to click on a choice at each box (Report Type, Report Level, District, School and Grade).

For larger schools, scores are shown separately for children with family incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and children in special education.

Those are just two of the subgroups that No Child Left Behind requires schools to look at separately to make sure those children not being left behind. A school can be labeled as failing to make "adequate yearly progress" if any subgroup's scores aren't up to the target number set by the state.

The break-downs show, for example, that among fourth-graders in special education at one school, 33 percent scored "proficient" or better in reading, compared to 85 percent of non-special-ed students, resulting in an overall school average of 78 percent proficient.

Similarly, of low-income students getting free or reduced-price meals, 36 percent scored at their grade level, while students not qualifying for lunch subsidies score 81 percent, resulting in an overall school average of 63 percent proficient or better.

The 2004 Montana scores are from the new statewide test, called a "criterion-referenced test," which was tailored to Montana schools. It replaced an off-the-shelf national test, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, as the test used to meet No Child Left Behind.

Here are OPI's reports of 2004 scores for Bozeman's public schools, based on the tests taken one year ago by fourth-, eighth- and 10th-graders. The goal of No Child Left Behind is that all scores must be 100 percent by 2014.

The percentages of students who rated "proficient" and "advanced" have been combined, first in reading and then in math:

Montana fourth-grade average -- 65 percent reading and 45 percent math.

State target for Adequate Yearly Progress in 2004 -- 55 and 40 percent.

Bozeman fourth-grade average -- 79 percent reading and 57 percent math.

€ Emily Dickinson Elementary -- 78 and 56 percent.

€ Whittier Elementary -- 63 and 45 percent.

€ Irving Elementary -- 64 and 50 percent.

€ Morning Star Elementary -- 79 and 42 percent.

€ Hawthorne Elementary -- 94 and 87 percent.

€ Longfellow Elementary -- 84 and 60 percent.

Montana eighth-grade average -- 58 percent reading and 64 percent math.

State target for AYP in 2004 -- 55 and 40 percent.

Bozeman eighth-grade average -- 71 and 78 percent.

€ Chief Joseph Middle School -- 68 and 76 percent.

€ Sacajawea Middle School -- 74 and 80 percent.

Montana 10th-grade average -- 63 and 60 percent.

State 10th-grade target -- 55 and 40 percent.

€ Bozeman High School -- 73 and 72 percent.

Montana graduation-rate average -- 84 percent.

State graduation-rate target -- 80 percent.

€ Bozeman High graduation rate -- 87 percent (Bozeman school officials contend it's 96 percent).