FAYETTEVILLE : UA speaker: Poll favors ‘No Child’ law
Posted on Saturday, September 8, 2007
FAYETTEVILLE — The majority of Americans want the federal No Child Left Behind Act renewed with few changes, a guest lecturer at the University of Arkansas said Friday.
William Howell, associate professor in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago, said on the Fayetteville campus a new public opinion survey shows 57 percent of Americans support renewing President Bush’s landmark education bill of 2002 “as is” or “with minimal changes.” Another 25 percent support renewing the act “with major changes,” leaving 18 percent who don’t support renewing the law.
The law is particularly popular among minorities, the survey shows, and is less popular among current and former school employees.
The survey Howell cites was conducted online by Knowledge Networks, a polling firm. The firm offered respondents free Internet and computer access to take the survey.
The poll, conducted in February and March, surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2, 000 adults.
Howell has an article in the current issue of Education Next discussing the survey results.
Americans also want more testing in schools, Howell said.
Standardized exams, and holding schools accountable for their results, is a key part of the federal law. The act requires states to test students in reading and math annually. It expects 100 percent of students to score at grade level in both subjects by 2014. Schools face severe sanctions if students do not meet certain performance goals along the way.
The survey showed that 73 percent of Americans prefer a single national exam over different tests in each state, 81 percent support requiring students to pass a test to move up a grade and 85 percent want high school exit exams.
Federal lawmakers should take note of these findings when they consider re-authorizing No Child Left Behind later this year, Howell said.
“While at the elite level, issues of accountability are highly controversial and polarizing, among the public there’s widespread consensus that accountability isn’t such a bad thing,” Howell said in an interview after his lecture. “The public wants their schools to be good, they want them to be rigorous and they equate testing with those qualities.” Howell’s findings, however, don’t mesh with a recent Gallup Poll commissioned by Phi Delta Kappa International, a nonprofit organization that represents 40, 000 educators.
That poll, released in late August, found 3 of 4 Americans believe No Child Left Behind is either making no difference in or hurting their schools.
Just 31 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the law, according to the Gallup survey.
Gallup polled a nationally representative sample of adults via telephone. Respondents were obtained from Gallup’s 48, 000-member household panel, which was recruited through randomdigit dialing selection methods.
Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for FairTest, a nonprofit organization that advocates for less standardized testing in schools, said in a telephone interview Friday that Americans embrace the key principles of No Child Left Behind — that all children should receive an equitable education and that poor schools must improve.
The problem, Schaeffer said, is that Americans recognize the mechanism of No Child Left Behind, standardized exams, actually undermines those goals.
“It narrows curriculum and turns schools into test-prep centers,” he said. “The more people know about No Child Left Behind, the less they like about it.” UA’s department of education reform sponsored the Friday lecture.
The department will sponsor at least 11 lectures between now and April. Other speakers include Ken James, commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education, and Susan Zelman, head of Ohio’s public schools. Jay Greene, head of the education reform department, said this year’s lineup of speakers is impressive. “It’s a major part of our mission to talk about the important issues in education reform today,” Greene said Friday before Howell’s lecture. All lectures are free, open to the public and include lunch. They usually are held at noon Fridays. More information is available at www. uark. edu / ua / der /.
To contact this reporter: jkrupa@arkansasonline. com
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