Real World NCLB

As Congress Debates Reauthorization of the Law that Has Transformed American Education, Montessori Educators Assess Its Effects

By Mark Anderson

For most public Montessori educators the changes triggered by the No Child Left Behind law are easy to sum up. They’re costly and they’re at odds with Montessori’s key dictum: trust the child to set the pace and direction for learning.

NCLB will end next year, and Congress is getting ready now for a high-octane debate on its reauthorization, focusing on the law’s costs and the timing of its achievement goals.

It’s not clear, however, how much impetus there is for change in the high-stakes testing regime that creates a variety of disruptions in Montessori classrooms.

States and local districts and families all have an interest in seeing the tests continue, as a down payment on the schools’ pledge of accountability, and as one concrete measure that can help parents judge and choose schools.

As long as those testing sweepstakes continue they will have considerable consequences for Montessori — both in the classroom and in the perception of the public.

“We’re a magnet school,” explains Lois Wandless, assistant principal at Lake Waco Montessori in Waco, Texas. “That means that if we don’t measure well on the tests and parents don’t choose us, we won’t exist.”

But are there changes and fixes — in the tests or funding regimes — that could deliver accountability and a freer hand for public Montessori educators?

As the debate in Washington approaches we talked with several veteran public Montessorians about their five years under NCLB, and about reforms they believe could make an accountability-focused public school system a little friendlier to Montessori.

Lois Wandless, Assistant Principal

Lake Waco Montessori, Waco, TX

Testing and accountability predated NCLB by years in Texas schools, which meant there was little shock to Lake Waco Montessori’s staff as the federal testing requirements rolled out in 2003.

But the strain of administering that parade of tests did grow as constantly changing state standards were joined by new district standards and tests, with new federal Adequate Yearly Progress goals looming over it all.

“What we end up with is a dual accountability system” that requires “never-ending” attention to preparation and to absorbing the results from the multiple systems, according to assistant principal Lois Wandless.

The school’s staff long ago aligned the contents of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills to their Montessori curriculum, a task they repeat each year to conform to content changes.

But the school also made a pragmatic decision to devote one day each week in the 4-6 grade classrooms to “teach to the test.” Now, each classroom becomes much like a traditional Texas classroom on that day, with teachers reviewing concepts from TEKS and talking about test strategies and question formats.

The choice acknowledged the importance of the annual tests to the families who select among the district’s magnet and comprehensive schools, Wandless said.

It’s one of the compromises that the Lake Waco staff understood would be required when they started the program ten years ago in the wake of an accountability campaign that was steadily gaining strength in Texas.

“But we established firmly in our hearts and minds what Montessori looked like, and we said that was the kind of learning community we were going to be,” Wandless said. “The core of Montessori is always on our mind.”

That certainty helped the school through many challenges, and it guided teachers’ response to a new set of quarterly benchmark assessments the district recently ordered.

“We decided we just wouldn’t take those all that seriously,” Wandless said. They give the tests, but continue to trust their teachers’ observations to meet students’ needs and keep performance on track.

Wandless, who came to Waco to start the Montessori program in 1996, says she endorses NCLB’s underlying goals — its insistence that schools demonstrate their children are making academic progress, and its urgent commitment to make sure that’s true for all children. “Complacency doesn’t have a place in public schools anymore.”

But she says the assessments need to improve for the sake of the children and to provide a better measure of school performance.

The prime flaw is the tests’ insistence that skills be mastered by a single day on the school calendar. “Each child has a clock” that determines when the child will respond in the richest way to a subject or activity, Wandless says. Better assessments would take that developmental reality into account and measure the acquisition of skills over a longer time frame.

Assessments should also be expanded to explore the broader learning and development of children. “In Montessori we look at a child’s leadership, the problem-solving skills they have, they thought processes they use. That valuing of the whole person isn’t in the accountability system now.”

Wandless sees hints that those ideas are beginning to gain currency — hints in the language and concepts Waco educators are starting to use.

“They talk now about differentiated instruction, about observation and intervention ... about using a growth model for assessments. Those are things we understand and practice as Montessorians,” but they weren’t part of the traditional educators’ lexicon in the past.

One reason those changes are occurring, albeit slowly, is the strength of Montessori, she thinks. Lake Waco Montessori regularly ranks in Texas’ top achievement categories, and about 150 children wait for the few enrollment spots that open each year at the school.

“The public and the wider school community has come to recognize the good stuff that goes on here, and they start to accept that ‘maybe we should do that, too.’”

Bethany Hamilton, Principal

Denison Montessori, Denver

The first effect that NCLB had on Denver’s Montessori schools was a direct financial blow to many of its teachers.

Colorado education leaders decided that “highly qualified teacher” equated to obtaining a standard state teachers license, ending an adjunct licensing program that teachers in the district’s Montessori programs had used in the past. The adjunct license recognized accredited Montessori training and teaching experience as a way of meeting its competency requirements. After a year of successful classroom teaching the adjunct license converted to a full license.

That decision sent eight of Denison Montessori’s teachers back to school for another 24 credit hours and big tuition bills.

“They went kicking and screaming,” says Denison principal Bethany Hamilton, but they all completed the requirements, and were able to minimize their cost by using an online program that Hamilton and others helped arrange with a state college.

The HQT reforms went even further at Denison, requiring classroom assistants to pass a new battery of competence exams or return to college for two more years.

“We have really talented assistants who’ve been in the classroom 20, 30 years who thought they would lose their jobs,” Hamilton said. The paraprofessional’s union eventually established a tutoring program that helped all the assistants pass the new standards.

“These are wonderful people, and they were really scared. Is that really what NCLB set out to do?”

But NCLB’s major continuing impact on Denison is the testing, and in Denver “that’s tipped over into assessment overload,” Hamilton says.

Like most urban districts, Denver struggles to meet AYP goals, and a new administration in the district is staking part of its improvement strategy on developing more comprehensive data on student progress.

Driving that effort is a battery of tests that now includes reading, math and writing tests for all children in grades 3 though 8, language acquisition tests, basic skills tests and quarterly district benchmarks.

Montessori ends up paying a price in the classroom, Hamilton says. “Instead of looking at the experience of children in the three-year classrooms, teachers have to look at them as 3rd or 4th graders. That diminishes the ability of the child to pursue learning and grow at their own pace.

“We work as a staff to safeguard as much in the curriculum and method as we can. But there are a lot of pressures and distractions.”

Hamilton says federal lawmakers can reduce those unnecessary pressures if they adopt a couple key changes when they reauthorize NCLB.

First, fund the unfunded mandate. The state recognizes now that there’s too much money going into testing, taking resources away from materials and teachers, she says. Denison devotes a full-time position to coordinating assessment activities for part of each year, and each test takes 6 to 12 hours out of normal classroom work. “It’s a monster to organize.”

Second, ratchet back the testing and performance pressure. A few weeks ago, Hamilton listened to some lawmakers speculate that the congressional coalition that passed the 2001 NCLB law had dissolved, making fundamental changes likely during reauthorization. “I felt sort of wildly excited for a few minutes,” and she continues to hope that a loosening of the federal law this year could be a tonic for the district and Denison.

That would be good news for a district that’s expanding its Montessori offerings, adding two new programs to the three that already exist. The increase is a response to strong parent demand, which has helped to offset district-wide enrollment declines during the last several years.

The district also funded the development of a Montessori report card, which will include results from standardized tests and Montessori classroom assessments.

And Hamilton says that, despite losing a few teachers who wanted to be free of NCLB’s regiment of extra-Montessori requirements, morale is high in the school.

“Our teachers are tremendously dedicated. And it’s extraordinarily rewarding to work in this setting. If you want to realize the vision that Montessori had for all children, it’s in a public school setting where you really get that chance.”

Phil Dosmann, Principal

Craig Montessori, Milwaukee

The NCLB era puts standardized tests inevitably at the front of every public educator’s mind for many months each year, says Phil Dosmann, principal at Milwaukee’s Craig Montessori school.

“Schools are judged by test results. You’re sanctioned if you’re not meeting AYP goals, and in Milwaukee high-scoring schools get privileges, too, more money and autonomy.”

In Milwaukee the state and district’s commitment to accountability and the test schedule itself force Craig Montessori’s classrooms to shift their focus each autumn, taking on a much more traditional approach.

All 3rd through 8th graders test in reading and math in November, and 4th and 8th graders test in an additional four content areas at the same time. Milwaukee added quarterly benchmarks — administered online — this year too.

With children coming back from 12 weeks away from school, the first few weeks are spent relearning forgotten lessons, Dosmann says. “But we have a lot of children in poverty, too and they typically don’t do well on standard tests because they don’t have the vocabulary and the background knowledge that helps middle-class kids succeed on test-taking. We need to help every kid be ready.”

So autumn is about reviewing and drilling on test content. “We spend five hours each week in the fall getting prepared for tests, and we use more traditional tools,” Dosmann says.

The tests themselves continue for a week and a half. “Everybody here breathes a big sigh of relief in November when we can get back to concentrating on Montessori.”

This year the testing expenses combined with district budget cuts added to the pressure-filled autumn.

Dosmann commits most of two staff positions during the autumn to managing test schedules and coaching, but this year the staffing squeeze tightened when he lost funding for art and media positions, for half of his physical education staff budget and for two part-time paraprofessionals.

“This was the worst budget year I’ve faced in 12 years,” he says, a result of enrollment declines and rising district expenses.

With all those challenges in mind, Dosmann cites a handful of incremental or more fundamental changes that could improve the climate for public Montessoris and strengthen school performance overall.

The first regards test timing. “We could live more easily with this, it would be less disruptive, if major testing were scheduled at the end of Montessori cycles — in 6th grade and 8th grade. I think 3rd and 4th graders are too young to test anyway.”

He also says standardized tests should be briefer and take into account classroom assessments. “Ultimately I wish we wouldn’t have to test. Classroom performance is the best way we can assess learning, and I wish government would acknowledge that we’re professionals and we’re doing that.”

A major underlying complaint about NCLB that Dosmann shares with most educators is about the federal government’s failure to pay for its wide-ranging accountability requirements.

He cites one glaring example of a funding oversight. NCLB promises afterschool remedial resources for children in schools that lag in AYP, “but in magnet schools, kids from outside the neighborhood can’t be involved. They didn’t provide any money for transportation.”

Dosmann offers one final recommendation, directed not at federal or state policy makers but at Montessori school communities.

“We have good public Montessori programs, they’re recognized and they’re popular, but there isn’t a groundswell of support” to protect Montessori from test-focused changes, he says.

“This isn’t going to be easy, because parents are already so busy, but we need to do more to get parents to advocate for us.”