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The unilateral repeal of NCLB and the 2012 election
The Obama administration's new waiver plan (officially here, and covered extensively here, here, and here?and elsewhere, I'm sure) doesn't officially repeal the No Child Left Behind Act, but it is tantamount to making large-scale amendments to it. Which it does unilaterally, without even a thumbs-up from Congress.
Though the specific conditions that the White House and Secretary Duncan are attaching to statewide ?flexibility waivers? are consistent with the Administration's long-standing ?blueprint? for reauthorizing NCLB, and also happen to be conditions that I think generally have merit, they amount to changing the law, not just waiving it. This raises Constitutional as well as statutory issues?though the administration's response, not surprisingly or implausibly, is that ?if a do-nothing Congress won't act to solve problems, we'll solve them ourselves as best we can.?
Yet the changes themselves?at least their timing and high-profile release?are motivated at least as much by election-year political considerations as by policy. This is not the first example, and surely won't be the last, of appealing to key constituencies by undoing, suspending, or waiving government practices that they find onerous and unpleasant. Consider the non-deportation of illegal aliens who haven't committed crimes. Hispanic (and other immigrant) voters will surely applaud this move and likely thank the administration in November 2012.
Today's announcements mean that teachers and parents (and school-board members and
The unilateral repeal of NCLB and the 2012 election
Academic growth of high achievers
Fordham's new report released on Tuesday, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top Students, examines individual high-achieving students to find whether the same students remain high-achieving throughout their school years, or whether the high-achieving ranks see lots of turnover. Over the last two days, we've examined two main findings: First, that three in five high-achieving students remain that way over time; and second, that most students coming in and out of the 90th percentile never fall below the 70th percentile overall.
As a group, however, high achievers will by definition always perform better than the vast majority of their peers. But do they further outpace their low- and middle-achieving students each year? Or do those students gain ground on high achievers? (Here we define high achievers as those at or above the 90th percentile; middle achievers as those between the 45th and 54th percentiles, inclusive; and low achievers as those below the 10th percentile.)
The answer: High flyers grew academically at similar rates to low and middle achievers in math, but grew at slightly slower rates than low and middle achievers in reading.
In other words, the gaps between low, middle, and high achievers remained relatively stable over time in math. But in reading, the gaps shrank between high achievers and their low and
Academic growth of high achievers
Fallen high flyers don't fall far
Yesterday, we looked at the first finding of Fordham's new groundbreaking study, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top Students, which examines the achievement of individual high-performing students?or ?high flyers??over time. The report found that a majority of high flyers?nearly three in five?maintained their altitude across grades. The converse, of course, is that around 30 to 50 percent (depending on grade range and subject) of initial high achievers ?lost altitude? (earning them the designation of ?Descenders?). But the high-achieving pool did not shrink with the loss of the Descenders. On the contrary, it grew, thanks to an influx of students ascending into the high-achieving ranks (earning them the designation of ?Late Bloomers.?
These trends beg the question: For those students who ?lose altitude? over time, how far do they fall? And for those who climb into the top tier, how did they perform academically in earlier grades?
The answer: The majority of students who attained high-flyer status at one point in time did not stray far from it.
In other words, most of the students who entered or exited the 90th percentile did so from not far below it. As Figure 2 shows, in elementary/middle school math, the average student who fell below the 90th percentile by eighth grade only fell as far as the 77th percentile. And the
Fallen high flyers don't fall far
A majority of high-flying students remain that way
Yesterday, Fordham released a groundbreaking study examining the achievement of individual high-performing students?or ?high flyers??over time. While accountability systems today have placed primary emphasis on the performance of low-achieving students, scant research has examined the progress of high achievers. This new study begins to fill that void by investigating whether high achievers remain that way over time; whether those students who fall out of the high-achieving ranks fall far below; and whether high achievers demonstrate more progress over time than their middle- and low-achieving peers.
Before we dive into the first of those questions, a little background on the methodology. We tracked two cohorts of students over time: an elementary/middle school group from third to eighth grades, and a middle/high school group from sixth to tenth grades. In each group, we defined high-achieving students as those who ranked at or above the 90th percentile, based on an external norm. In other words, the study sample (comprising the two cohorts) and the normed sample were separate, meaning that more or less than 10 percent of the students in the study could perform at or above the 90th normed percentile. We examined student performance in math and reading.
Now, the first question: Do high achievers remain high-achieving over time?
The answer: A majority of high flyers remain that way over time, but substantial numbers ?lose
A majority of high-flying students remain that way
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Michael J. Petrilli
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Mike Petrilli is one of the nation's foremost education analysts. As executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, he oversees the organization's research projects and publications and contributes to the Flypaper blog and weekly Education Gadfly newsletter.
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