Can we also find money to
help our states educate our youth
to match our increasing expectations for achievement
as measured against the rest of the world? 
[We can call it a "war" if we must!]

The accountability movement in American education has had both positive and negative ramifications.  In fact, there has been so much change in American education over the past two decades, it is easy to oversimplify most any analysis of it.  As an educator, for many reasons, I am thankful for the increased expectations and scrutiny this accountability movement has ushered in. 

For nearly as many reasons, however, the increased accountability politicians often trumpet smacks as underfunded mandates, stacked one upon another, such that the proverbial turnip is being squeezed hard in hopes it will yield blood.  An example was the expectation under NCLB that 100% of students (regardless of the degree of their qualifying condition) would pass high stakes, grade-level assessments (without modifications) by 2014.  So, a student with an IQ sub-75 was expected to pass standardized assessments that were also designed to "test" the top percentage of our students.  It screamed flawed accountability so loud that it is almost disturbing politicians had schools making decisions for years based upon the fear that this would sting us by 2014 if we didn't reach the 100% bar.  We all kind of knew the expectation was unreasonable and had to change, but for years school administrators were charged with speaking and making decisions as if it wouldn't.

Many Americans are convinced that education spending has increased dramatically since the 1980s.  While recent tough economic times have somewhat moderated this perception (after all, how can we ignore recent dramatic education cuts in many states across our country....like Texas cutting $4 billion dollars in its most recent two-year budget, despite adding 68,000 new students over that time), it is important to understand that even before this wave of cuts the bulk of increases to school funding have been in the growth of special programs---> read, special education.

My personal experience as a public school student in the 70s and 80s was that I could pass without doing much of anything by virtue of possessing some intellectual capacity combined with a willingness to play the game.  School was a series of short hurdles.  Rigor was minimal.  It was easy to float along with the mass in the middle.  The school knew we'd pass the (then) low-stakes accountability assessments.  That was just about enough.

Now that accountability assessments carry so much higher-stakes, one would think that a focus on the individual student has increased---and it has.  However, my experience tells me this is a misleading fact.  It is true that schools tend to be much more deliberate about studying data on each child and educators are getting better at disaggregating the data to provide students with targeted remediation in areas where they have a need.  That is a positive development.

This positive development has been tempered by the realities of a country that prizes its military over its educational system.  Increased accountability without increased resources results in a system where the appearance of success is almost important as the true measure of success.  For example, schools in Texas are almost all consumed with meeting the marks.  In particular, pass rates.  Texas holds schools accountable by "sub-pops".  If even one sub-population (Hispanic, African-American, Low SES, etc.) underperforms, the school rating can drop a level.  Nevermind that some Texas schools are lily-white and wealthy, with no real sub-pops to worry about, while others are represented in each sub-pop and have a much greater exposure for "underperformance."

I would go as far as to say, at least at the bureaucratic level, meeting pass rates on standardized assessments drives Texas education these days.  Principals and other campus personnel must allocate their tight resources in ways that maximize overall pass rates (especially of sub-pops) even at the expense of marginalizing students who either "can't" pass (read---> aren't projected to pass) or---on the other end of the spectrum---are very likely to pass.  The "bubble kids", they are often called. 

In the current system, a school better have good data on who their bubble kids are and how to get them to pass the assessment.  Often, it can be a mere handful of students...or even a single student...who makes the difference between receiving one school rating versus the next lower one.  Beyond knowing who these bubble students are, the school must have a sense of how many fall into which sub-pop...or even sub-pops.  Because students are often part of more than one sub-pop (for instance an African-American who also happens to be low-SES and special education), it becomes even more of an imperative to address the needs of these students over those of a student who will only count for or against you in one category.

The result is often a much more targeted effort to remediate the academic gaps of some students over others.  Schools are forced into this necessity by the mismatch of resources versus expectations in the context of a gotcha accountability system.  It is self-preservation.  In this context it is understandable.  In the context of the continuous improvement of our schools for all students, it is an abomination.