Keep Your Eye on Texas and California: A Look at Testing, School Reform, No Child Left Behind, and Implications for Students of Color.

Abstract

This review looks at the reform movements in the nation's two most populous states-Texas and California. Both states are in a desperate pursuit to demonstrate student competency of standards and achievement by way of student performance on standardized tests to meet federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) compliance. In examining the accountability programs in California and Texas, the article looks at both federal and state legislation regarding testing and accountability, a history of testing programs used, the impact of NCLB and high-stakes testing on curriculum and instructional practices, and its impact on the achievement gap between students of color and White students. INTRODUCTION In an age of increasing student populations and increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms, standardized testing has become the panacea to rate student achievement and a major component of school reform in the U.S. While standardized tests may be useful in the sense that they can provide insight to diagnose weaknesses in student academic performance as a formative assessment, they are not useful in determining a student's overall academic capacity in terms of student learning, critical thinking, and higher-order reasoning skills. Performance is distinct from ability in that the latter puts a limit on what students are capable of, while the former gives students the benefit of the doubt, by distinguishing academic potential and cumulative knowledge attained from an isolated instance. A U.S. Department of Education study (Alderman, 1999) cited student participation in a strong academically focused curriculum in high school, such as one found in Advanced Placement courses, as being the strongest factor contributing to college success, even more significant than test scores or GPA. Similarly, Johnson (2002) found that the academic achievement gap decreased among students as the opportunity to take college preparatory courses increased. Instructional strategies to develop higher-order thinking and reasoning skills should not be compromised to teaching to the test. As increased disparities in student academic achievement abound in the U.S., the federal government's most recent response to increase accountability and efforts to boost achievement for all students has been the 2001 implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). With that in mind, this study will focus on Texas and California, the nation's two most populous states. Both of these states have initiated school reform efforts affecting not only the largest population of students in the country, but also, the largest population of students from diverse cultural backgrounds in the U.S. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). More importantly, as both of these states grapple with the achievement gap between students of color or historically excluded groups and White students, it has also been argued that each state's graduation test may actually increase dropout rates for students of color (Heubert, 2004). This is quite significant considering the fact that the National Center for Education Statistics (2004) counts 18,828,150 students of color, comprising roughly 40% of the 2002 United States total student population. Also, the total number of students of color in Texas and California in 2002 was 6,432,254, accounting for 34% of the nation's total number of students of color that year. With Texas and California having influence over the educational future of roughly one-third of the nation's students of color, it is critical for the rest of the nation to pay attention. Before looking at the impact of NCLB on students in Texas and California, the author will discuss the change in school reform historically in the U.S., including federal legislation and the political rationale, creating a shift toward measurement-driven instruction and increased school accountability. Next, the definition of tests in the context of how they are presently used for NCLB compliance will be examined, as well as a discussion on how the curriculum is delivered in the context of standards-based education. …

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