Education professor Sarah J. McCarthey is an expert on language and literacy, and teaches graduate courses in children's writing and current issues in writing instruction, and undergraduate courses in language arts methods. Her research interests include literacy practices within current policy contexts. McCarthey was interviewed by News Bureau education editor Phil Ciciora.
What do you think of No Child Left Behind?
Most teachers would tell you that the intentions of the law - the narrowing of the achievement gap, ensuring that every child has a highly qualified teacher - were good. The major problem is that it's used to punish schools that are not performing well. This whole idea that we can have 100 percent proficiency in our public school system is an unrealistic goal and an artificial benchmark that doesn't accurately reflect if students are learning. Under the law, a narrowing of the achievement gap is not occurring. In fact, it's getting worse.
What should President Obama do with No Child Left Behind?
At minimum, it should be amended with considerations for English-language learners. That's already been proposed, but it hasn't been enacted yet. Most teachers who have non-native English speakers in class would tell you that they create an artificial drag on their scores, that it's not an accurate reflection of their teaching simply because the students haven't learned the language yet to the point where they're proficient. So the test scores are not an accurate reflection of their teaching ability.
They should also create more realistic goals for benchmarking schools, and reconsider the idea of punishing or restructuring schools if they don't meet the benchmarks.
Instead of saying let's close down every single underperforming school and send kids to other places, I would close schools only in extreme cases. When you start shuttering schools, that has an enormous effect on communities. They're not taking into account the enormous numbers of students and neighborhoods that closing a school affects.
I would also look at the schools that are underperforming and ask how we might help those students perform better. Let's think about putting some resources back in to those neighborhood schools, including getting them some highly qualified teachers.
A common perception is that "teaching to the test" is a bad thing. Why is that?
I'm not anti-testing, but the tests we have only test a narrow range of subjects - specifically, reading and math. In high-stakes testing, tests get used as the only way to evaluate students, and then that data is used to evaluate teachers and the effectiveness of schools. That's not an appropriate use of a test. It doesn't help students become better critical thinkers, better writers, or help their analytic skills. It's an extremely narrow view of education.
I think we've seen that there are so many problems in evaluating students only on their math and reading scores and how those scores are used that it doesn't make sense to say, 'Let's find these kinds of benchmarks and start scoring students on all these other subjects, too.'
Generally, the questions on standardized tests are multiple-choice, but in Illinois, the tests have an extended response section where the student has the chance to elaborate on their ideas and explain their reasoning. Teaching students how to craft extended responses can help students perform better on the math and reading sections of the test, but it does not constitute a writing program. Students need many opportunities to express their ideas, learn about genres, and write in many subjects throughout the day.
Why is writing instruction so important?
In our increasingly globalized world, it's especially important that students are able to express themselves and communicate in a written form. We know that there is a connection between reading and writing - a child's ability to express themselves well in writing can improve their ability to read. Cognitively, they're not the same, but there is a connection. So by marginalizing writing instruction, a student's ability to read and analyze a text is being impaired. Writing is an important means of increasing students' abilities to learn other subject matter as well.