We can. This was, if I'm not mistaken, the fundamental idea behind NCLB. Schools had been hiding behind average test scores that obscured the fact that some kids were excelling while others were being shuffled along. So you test every student and grade schools on the absolute fraction that are hitting desired progress toward grade-level competency, not on averages or relative rates for different subgroups.
But schools and teachers hated the added testing, and hated being labeled as "failing" when they failed to get a substantial fraction of their students up to grade level. Parents hated their schools being labeled "failing" (and feared the corresponding property value hit) while their children were doing just fine.
So now we have waivers from NCLB and we're unsurprisingly back to the "soft bigotry of low expectations".
Sorry to sound cynical about this. Really, I wish the Federal government would get out of the local education business entirely, besides making sure civil rights aren't being violated. But if they're going to be involved, they should be pushing for exactly the kind of student-by-student accountability that NCLB (no doubt with many imperfections) tried to impose.
> Sorry to sound cynical about this. Really, I wish the Federal government would get out of the local education business entirely, besides making sure civil rights aren't being violated. But if they're going to be involved, they should be pushing for exactly the kind of student-by-student accountability that NCLB (no doubt with many imperfections) tried to impose.
The reason the federal government is involved in local education is that states do a terrible job of delivering uniformity in educational quality. White flight in the 1960's left urban school districts like Chicago as 85%+ low income and 90%+ black/hispanic. These school districts just don't have the property taxing power that homogenous suburban school districts have, and the federal government comes in to make up the difference.
But schools and teachers hated the added testing, and hated being labeled as "failing" when they failed to get a substantial fraction of their students up to grade level. Parents hated their schools being labeled "failing" (and feared the corresponding property value hit) while their children were doing just fine.
So now we have waivers from NCLB and we're unsurprisingly back to the "soft bigotry of low expectations".
Sorry to sound cynical about this. Really, I wish the Federal government would get out of the local education business entirely, besides making sure civil rights aren't being violated. But if they're going to be involved, they should be pushing for exactly the kind of student-by-student accountability that NCLB (no doubt with many imperfections) tried to impose.