The following essay is designed to articulate the National Council for History Education’s viewpoint regarding the NCLB situation.
NCHE and
NCLB
Many members of NCHE have
expressed strong concerns about the effect of the
No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) legislation on the
classroom. Not only has NCLB’s focus on the testing of
reading and math led to the severe reduction or shrinkage
of classroom time for history, but the entire enterprise,
based on multiple-choice assessments, has also encouraged a
kind of mindless "teaching to the test". No less troubling
is NCLB's shortchanging of the gifted student, who is
forced to conform to a test-driven curriculum and given
little room for imaginative growth. One of our members put
it bluntly: the effect, he said, has been to "dumb down"
all of education, and the only remedy might be something
like the National Defense Education Act that was the
response to Sputnik in the 1960s.
While specific opinions may vary, the overall unease with
NCLB is widely shared, and there have been no signs of
members supporting the legislation. The question is: what
can NCHE do about this? And the answer, if we are to be
realistic, has to take into account the political and
legislative world in which these decisions are made. Of
course, that is not how NCHE began. Its initial efforts, in
the early 1990s, were focused on the immediate needs of
classroom teachers. Emerging from the work of the Bradley
Commission on History in Schools, and also extending the
Commission's publications -- Building a History
Curriculum and Historical
Literacy -- into more detailed
guidelines for teachers, NCHE devoted most of its energies
to the development of effective mechanisms (notably its
Colloquia and Workshops) for bringing the latest ideas into
the History classroom. Soon, however, it became clear that,
to be true to our mission of promoting the importance of
History in schools and society, we had to address the
effect on curricula of the new educational initiatives that
were being undertaken in the 1990s by State Legislatures
and Boards of Education. Accordingly, NCHE undertook a
series of efforts, in states across the nation, to bring
its concerns to the attention of those who were devising
the new Standards, Curriculum Frameworks, and similar
regulations for schools.
Those efforts had varied results, but one conclusion was
inescapable: given the effects of such initiatives on the
classroom, NCHE could not afford to ignore what was
happening in the political arena. That arena widened
dramatically in January 2002, when President Bush signed
the Act that launched NCLB. This legislation marked an
unprecedented intervention by the Federal Government in
public education. Since NCHE had taken the view that the
welfare of History and its teachers required involvement
with State authorities, it had little choice but to grapple
with the consequences of actions now taken at the national
level.
Although the ill effects of the legislation are clear, it
has become equally clear that, simply to denounce NCLB and
demand its abolition is not the most effective way to
defend the interests of History -- let alone reverse the
dramatic reduction in classroom time for History that NCLB
has caused. The experience of the past 15 years or so has
demonstrated that it is only when one works with political
leaders, exploring their concerns and making them aware of
the problems policies have caused (often unintentionally),
that one can hope to have remedies adopted. That role, in
turn, requires expert help. NCHE has therefore hired
Christina Cocek Anderson as a part-time Legislative
Consultant, and she, together with various Board members --
most notably David McCullough -- have managed to bring our
concerns to the attention of those most closely connected
with the fate of the NCLB legislation.
In addition, NCHE has issued position statements on a
number of the issues, and these, together with an update on
NCLB, can be found at our website (http://www.nche.net). As will be evident there,
we have been heartened by signs that Congress is
beginning to recognize the seriousness of the curriculum
shrinkage caused by NCLB. A major effort has been
necessary merely to secure the admission that this
shrinkage, or narrowing of the curriculum, is a serious
problem. And we feel that there is even a chance for a
further step -- the demand by Congressman Miller, Chair
of the House Committee on Education and Labor (his
statement is available on our website), for broad
requirements that would expand the emphasis on reading
and math to include the liberal arts. In his words, this
would ensure "that all students in all schools have
access to a broad, rich curriculum." If adopted, his
proposal would be a significant advance indeed.
We have no idea how to predict the eventual outcome, either
of our efforts or of the wish by some lawmakers to expand
rather than narrow school curricula. A recent article in
the New York Times, suggested the high
likelihood that the regulations associated with NCLB
will be dramatically revised, if not abandoned, in the
next two years. Nevertheless, the emphasis on
accountability is unlikely to change, and for that
reason alone the connections we have established with
lawmakers may be important in ensuring a hearing for our
views on assessments, yearly progress, and teacher
training.
Thus far, the second major problem with NCLB -- the nature
of the tests themselves -- has attracted less
consideration, but we intend to continue to press this
issue, especially since the whole purpose of the
legislation has been to improve accountability and
proficiency. Our argument (outlined in the December issue
of History
Matters!) is that there is little point
in imposing assessments if they produce empty statistics;
it is essential that their results be acceptable as genuine
indicators of proficiency.
Those, then, are our goals: to reverse the narrowing of the
curriculum caused by NCLB and to support valid assessments.
We hope that our members will agree that, by bringing them
to the attention of policy makers, we are doing nothing but
extending the basic mission of NCHE. To the extent that we
all engage, as actively as possible, with the forces that
are shaping what K-12 students learn, we can only advance
our cause: to make an understanding of History an essential
part of American education.
This essay was written by Theodore K. Rabb, retired Professor of History at Princeton University who is currently serving a second term as Chair of the NCHE Board of Trustees, in consultation with a number of members of the Board of Trustees, and Christina Cocek Anderson, NCHE Legislative Consultant.