WASHINGTON (Map, News) - In an era of high-stakes testing brought on by the No Child Left Behind Act, new research finds the overall quality of reading and math instruction to be in decline, and the students most in need of high-quality teaching as the least likely to receive it.

Linda Valli, the University of Maryland education professor who collected the data, said her findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of NCLB, the federal legislation signed in 2001 aimed at raising standards and closing the “achievement gap” between high-performing and low-performing students.

Valli and her colleagues spent 2002-2005 observing fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in an undisclosed school district.

“One of the real ironies is that the whole purpose of NCLB was to provide a rigorous education for students,” Valli said. “The test scores are going up, but they don’t look inside the classrooms to see what’s going on to make those test scores go up.”

Instead of encouraging teachers to be sensitive to students’ individual needs, Valli found, high-stakes testing policies “promote an environment in which teachers are asked to relate to their students differently, enact [teaching styles] that are often at odds with their vision of best practice, and experience high levels of stress.”

In addition, Valli found classes with a high percentage of low-income students to be more dependent on teachers than their wealthier peers to bridge curriculum and understanding.

“For years people have said we shouldn’t give resources to schools until accountability is demanded, and now that we have that, we’re not supplying excellent teachers,” said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive officer of Washington, D.C.-based Center on Education Policy.

CEP was in the news last spring for its study finding student test scores in reading and math have improved since the enactment of NCLB.

Although Valli’s study wasn’t universal, Jennings said, it “points to the need to improve instruction in teaching along with demanding the right kind of accountability.”

Examiner Staff Writer Kelsey Volkmann contributed to this article.

lfabel@dcexaminer.com