By Tom

It was bound to happen. Sooner or later, the worst law since prohibition was destined to swallow my school. It was like watching a slow, stupid goat thoughtfully and systematically eating the neighbor's zinnias. And now it's finally happened; the fun and games are over: my school failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress.

This is our first year, so it's not so bad. We're only "on notice." But if things don't improve by next year we'll have to send  letters home to the parents telling them how lousy we are, with suggestions as to which nearby schools they should send their children. That'll hurt. And in the meantime, we'll have to do something about our math and reading scores, which are apparently the only things that really matter.

The fact that my school didn't make AYP wasn't much of a surprise, actually. We barely scraped by last year, and since then the state raised the bar considerably. Passing this year would have been an incredible feat.

But we failed, and I'm left to describe how I feel. A little disappointed, a little discouraged, but mostly frustrated. Frustrated by the fact that our low reading and math scores belie the many great things about my school, a school that for two years running has received a cash award from the state in recognition of our progress in reducing the achievement gap. But somehow, our test scores don't mention that. 

Our school has students from literally every corner of the globe. In my class of 27 third graders, only eight came from families that have been in this country for more than a generation. We speak over 40 languages and celebrate our diversity with an enormous multi-cultural fair every spring. Our test scores don't mention that, either.

For the last ten years, we've focused heavily on character education, including an aggressive anti-bullying campaign that actually works. We were a finalist last year for the National School of Character, but our test scores don't mention that.

We have a rich arts program, including a drama club that presents a full-scale musical production every year. We have an annual science fair and we send kids to National History Day. Our test scores mention none of those things.

We have passionate, dedicated teachers, who don't whine in the faculty room. A third of us are National Board Certified. We form countless book studies, lesson studies, and learning teams. We examine data and act on it. We have a wonderful support staff, including an energetic, competent principal who truly understands how to get the best from his faculty. But you won't learn any of that by looking at those test scores.

My school is not a failure. It's a vibrant, dynamic place with great kids and hard-working, collaborative teachers. It's a long way from perfect, but it's a lot farther away from failure.

If you want to see what failure looks like, look no further than No Child Left Behind. Because that thing is truly a failure. At some point in the next two years, Congress is going to have to deal with the federal education law.  I don't know what they'll come up with, and frankly, after what we saw from those people this summer, I shudder to think what they'll do. They haven't asked my advice, and probably won't, but here it is anyway:

Give control over local schools back to the people who were elected to control those schools. Let school boards get back into the business of looking after schools. Let them decide when and if they need to fire a principal or "turn around" a school. Let school boards decide when a school is a failure and let them decide what to do about it. 

Now, I'm fully aware that the "good old days" weren't perfect. I know full well that the current law was a reaction to the fact that many school districts were providing substandard education to their poorest students.

But mine wasn't. Yet I remember clearly as President Bush pushed that bill towards law, promising it would "end the soft bigotry of low expectations." That was the slap in the face that still stings. Those of us in the classrooms know full well that you can "expect" until the cows come home, but at some point you have to loosen your tie, roll up your sleeves and actually "teach." And those of us with the loose ties and rolled sleeves can tell you that the students who come to school physically, mentally and emotionally ready to learn generally do better. It's been that way since Plato. 

But the law passed, all sanction and no support. And in the ten years since, the gulf between the rich and poor in this country has only grown wider, matching the gap in the achievement levels of their children. But no one bothers to address economic disparity as the underlying cause of the achievement gap. No, it's easier – and cheaper – to blithely blame the schools, oblivious to the fact that practically every "failing school" is in a low-income neighborhood. 

And in response, schools have bent the only thing they have that's flexible: time. Desperate to stay open, schools hit by NCLB's sanctions have resorted to focusing only on that which is counted: math and reading. Go into any sub-AYP school in this country and look around for the science projects, the social studies reports and the artwork, and what you'll find instead is extra time spent on "test-formatted" math and reading instruction.

Sir, there is nothing soft about that bigotry. At least in the good old days, the poor kids got to do poorly at more than two subjects.

If we've learned anything over the past ten years, we've learned that you can't effectively run schools in this country from Washington D.C. You cannot reduce a complicated organization like a school to a set of numbers. Yet here we are, about to double down on a failed policy, without applying anything we've learned. Secretary Duncan's plan is to modify NCLB by focusing on "growth" instead of raw scores and to let school districts choose from four "options" when that growth isn't what it should be.

It feels to me like the same hand-basket, maybe with better seats, heading toward the same netherworld, where the only things that really matter are math and reading scores. Frankly, I'm tired of this ride.

One of the things we do at my school – the school that is not a failure – is learn from our mistakes. When we try something, we pay attention to the results. And if the results are worse than when we started, we cut our losses, scrap the new idea, and go back to square one until we can think of a different plan.

It's time to go back to letting school boards control school districts and it's time to stop calling strong, successful schools like mine, failures.