HEAD OF THE CLASS

English School Reform:

In my search for solutions to this problem, I found an interesting reform done in England that eliminated standardized testing. This article is about a reform of a public school in England that nullified their current standards for education and focused on a new approach they called “learning to learn”. This approach was their solution for rising their test scores and lowering the learning gap in students. 118 students were apart of this reform, 400 lessons were taught between grades 7-9. Of course not all the schools in England were reformed so 148 students from a non-reformed school were used as a control group. At the end of the 3 years, the reformed schools greatly exceeded the traditional public schools. More students were performing with exceeding test scores, even the achievement gap was recorded as going from 25% to 2%.



No Child Left Behind Program:

The No Child Left Behind Program was designed to hold schools accountable for student outcome. Its goal was to become more competitive with other nations. It was also created to close the achievement gap between the poor and minority students to their more advantaged peers. It put money into the sub-groups [Special Education, minorities, and low income students] of students who were already trailing their peers. It held schools accountable by creating a standard of measurement called the "Adequate Yearly Progress" or the AYP. This required schools to create a proficiency level, each state was responsible for making their own level. Funding can be taken away from schools who don't meet the AYP for two years in a row, as well other serious sanctions. The AYP is taken from each sub-group and is then compared to the "average student". Each group must be within the proficient range that was determined by the state. 

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