ASCD sets 2013 Legislative Agenda

Posted on February 4, 2013 by coreeducation

ASCD, one of the largest international organizations of teaching professionals, has set their 2013 legislative agenda, and that agenda, quite simply, is legislation. The “key priority” for ASCD and its members in 2013 in terms of federal public policy priorities is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which the most recent version is No Child Left Behind.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, originally passed in 1965 under the Johnson Administration and re-authorized every five years, has had no reauthorization since President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law on January 8, 2002. In lieu of a formal reauthorization, the Education Department has been authorizing temporary waivers, which guide states in their education reform efforts. Congress has yet to make a concerted effort at reauthorization, as it has been focused on broader budgetary issues.

ASCD, formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, represents 140,000 members—superintendents, principals, teachers, professors, and advocates from more than 134 countries—as well as 56 affiliate organizations.
More specifically within the reauthorization of the ESEA, ASCD looks for elements of the legislation that:

Create meaningful accountability systems
Encourage comprehensive improvement strategies
Promote adequate and effective preparation and ongoing professional development for educators to improve student outcomes

The broader principles which guide ASCD are broken down into four categories:

A whole child education: The demands of today’s global society require a new approach to preparing our nation’s youth for college, careers, and citizenship. Policymakers should seek a comprehensive approach to learning recognizing that successful young people are knowledgeable, healthy, motivated, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond their own borders.

Multiple measures: The true measure of student proficiency, educator effectiveness, and school quality must be based on more than just students’ test scores on a few state standardized tests. Likewise, evaluations of educators’ effectiveness should be based on a combination of elements and could include students’ performance, classroom observations, and staff feedback.

Capacity for success: All school improvement strategies-particularly interventions focused on the lowest-performing schools-must inform and engage all stakeholders; support enriched curriculum; enhance the school culture; provide high-quality teaching with ongoing professional learning to improve the quality of instruction; be commensurate with the need; and offer engaging learning opportunities that involve all students, families, and staff.

Improving student outcomes: Evaluations of teachers and administrators must use multiple measures and lead to professional development opportunities that build the capacity of districts and schools to improve student outcomes.

For more information, including a link to the full .pdf of the 2013 agenda, please visit:

http://inservice.ascd.org/ascdpolicy/introducing-ascds-2013-legislative-agenda/

Education Department releases new guidelines on ESEA flexibility

Posted on January 28, 2013 by coreeducation

With the release of new guidelines broken down into five categories, the US Education Department has offered increased clarity to state and local school systems wondering about specifics of government education stipulations. As this blog posted about recently, the increased clarity is particularly important in light of the combined facts of continuing budgetary difficulties on the state level and the US Congress’ lack of movement on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)/ No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The Education Department hopes that “ESEA flexibility enables states and districts to maintain a high bar for student achievement while better targeting resources to schools and students most in need of additional support.”

The guidelines have been broken down by the Education Department into five areas; exemplars mentioned by the Education Department are selected under each:

Continuing to expose and close achievement gaps
1. Through ESEA flexibility, Kentucky will: Hold nearly 1,000 additional schools accountable for subgroup performance than under NCLB; and as a result, implement statewide initiatives to help close achievement gaps among students with disabilities and English Learners and their peers, and deliver support and technical assistance to these schools.
Advancing accountability for graduation rates
1. Oregon’s flexibility plan raises the bar for high school graduation higher than ever before, by specifying that: Half of a school’s performance rating is based on its overall graduation rate and the graduation rate of subgroups of students who, based on historical data, are least likely to receive a diploma; and all schools that keep graduation rates lower than 60 percent will receive increased attention and the highest level of interventions.
Turning around the lowest-performing schools
1. Massachusetts will: Classify schools in five levels, and classify districts based on the level of their lowest-performing schools, requiring each district to be responsible for every school within its jurisdiction; Require the lowest-performing schools to immediately develop and implement plans that will use comprehensive interventions to drive rapid, systemic change within three years; and take over schools that are chronically underperforming as its highest level of intervention.
Protecting school and student accountability
1. Maryland’s plan categorizes each of its schools into one of five performance strands: Delineating different levels of support based on the needs and performance features of each strand; and utilizing a performance index based on student growth; graduation rate; dropout rate; and student achievement in reading, mathematics, and science.
Supporting teachers, leaders, and local innovation
1. Wisconsin is utilizing ESEA flexibility to build its capacity by: Creating two new centers that will develop high-quality curricular resources aligned with college- and career-ready standards that will become a critical component of the state’s transition to new standards and serve as a hub of content experts to assist the whole state; and using the centers to implement college- and career-readiness training for teachers, principals, and other school staff that will be accessed easily at low- to no-cost across its districts.

In what Marc Tucker has called a “power grab”, the Education Department concluded their brief about the new guidelines by blaming Congress for a lack of new legislation and condemning No Child Left Behind:

The Department announced voluntary ESEA flexibility in September 2011 in the absence of a reauthorization – or congressional update – to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The most recent update to the federal education law – the No Child Left Behind Act – was due for reauthorization in 2007, but has governed a changing national education landscape for more than a decade. ESEA flexibility allows states and districts to replace the “one-size-fits-all,” prescriptive provisions of NCLB with state-led reforms tailored to address their most pressing education challenges.

Depending on your perspective, the Education Department is either doing the best they can in the interest of the states to reform the American education system without the help of Congress, or is taking advantage of a unique situation to pursue reform on their terms without the sort of broad support usually needed to carry out such reforms.

For more information, please visit the following websites:

http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/department-releases-new-publications-highlighting-esea-flexibility/

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/esea-flexibility/index.html

Teacher Quality Since NCLB

Posted on August 13, 2012 by coreeducation

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently released a new study that takes an in-depth look at “teacher quality,” and how our understanding of the concept has changed over the past decade. The report, From Teacher Education to Student Progress: Teacher Quality Since NCLB, notes that prior to NCLB, it was assumed that teacher effectiveness was immeasurable, and “that our only hopes to increase it were tied to classroom experience and academic credentials.”

However, in the intervening years a wealth of research has studied teacher quality and what makes an effective teacher. Key markers in this transformation of the concept of teacher quality include:

Declining trust in teacher education. Data show that teacher education programs graduate students of widely variable ability.
Ineffective credential requirements. Despite federal requirements, research has shown high-poverty schools are more likely to have ineffective teachers.
Bipartisan agreement. Major federal politicians in both parties have agreed that low teacher quality is a barrier to high-quality education.
New era of measurement. NCLB created a treasure trove of individual student data that led to new opportunities for research to link teachers and students.

For more insights into how the concept of teacher effectiveness has evolved, read the full report at http://www.aei.org/papers/education/k-12/teacher-policies/from-teacher-education-to-student-progress-teacher-quality-since-nclb/

Five More States Get Waivers

Posted on July 3, 2012 by coreeducation

On June 29, the Department of Education announced that waiver applications from five more states have been approved. Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia bring the total of waiver-approved states to 24, with 13 states still waiting for a decision.

The big surprise for many observers was the approval of Virginia’s waiver. Part of the waiver process requires that a state adopt standards that prepare students for college or career, which some conservative critics have argued is simply the administrations way of forcing states to adopt the Common Core. Virginia is one of the handful of states who has not adopted the Common Core, which could put to rest this argument. Virginia has proved that the second option offered in the waiver application—that of adopting state standards that the state’s university system agrees will prepare students for non-remedial college coursework—is viable path for states to take.

Prior to approval, all five states were required to revamp their applications to better spell out how they would intervene in schools that are missing achievement targets because of particular subgroups of students—even if those schools are not in the bottom 5 or 10% of performance.

The states also had to make changes to their proposed teacher evaluation systems in their original waiver application. For example, Arkansas and Missouri had to revise their systems so that teachers with low-performing students will not be able to be rated at the highest levels.

Each state also had to revise their applications to better communicate how students in special education and English Language Learners would be transitioned to college- and career-ready standards.

States that don’t get waiver approval by the start of the coming school year have been allowed to freeze their AMOs for one year. However, to be eligible for the freeze, states must take steps: adopting college- and career-ready standards, making data about achievement gaps public, and sharing data about student growth with teachers. Iowa, which had its original waiver request denied, has already applied for the freeze.

Waivers: Round Two Approvals

Posted on June 6, 2012 by coreeducation

The Obama administration approved eight additional states for flexibility from key provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in exchange for state-developed plans to prepare all students for college and career, focus aid on the neediest students, and support effective teaching and leadership. The announcement brings the number of states with waivers to 19. Eighteen additional applications are still under review.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced waivers for Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island. “These eight additional states are getting more flexibility with federal funds and relief from NCLB’s one-size-fits-all federal mandates in order to develop locally-tailored solutions to meet their unique educational challenges,” Duncan said.

Duncan pointed out that many of the new state-created accountability systems capture more students at risk, including low-income students, students with disabilities, and English learners, adding, “States must show they are protecting children in order to get flexibility. These states met that bar.”

Connecticut’s plan, for example, raises the number of schools accountable for the performance of students with disabilities from 276 to 683; free and reduced-price lunch students from 757 to 928; African American students from 280 to 414; Hispanic students from 356 to 548; and English learners from 97 to 209.

For those keeping tally, here’s the waiver standings:

Approved: 19 (CO, NM, OK, MN, LA, IN, KY, TN, OH, GA, FL, NC, NY, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, MD)
Intend to Apply: 5 plus Puerto Rico (ND, WV, ME, NH, HI)
No application: 6 (CA, WY, NE, TX, AL, PA)
No intention to apply: 1 (MT)
Application Under Review: Everyone else!

To keep track of developments in waivers, check out CEP’s “Waiver Watch” application, linked here.

“Deeper Learning” for College and Career Readiness

Posted on May 24, 2012 by coreeducation

State applications for waivers under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act vary in the degree to which “deeper learning” skills are reflected in the standards, accountability systems, professional development, and teacher evaluations proposed by states, according to a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education (“the Alliance”). The report, Providing Greater Opportunities for Deeper Learning in NCLB Waivers, finds that state plans tend to generally reflect deeper learning competencies in their college- and career-ready standards but not in their teacher professional development and evaluation systems. It argues that deeper learning provides students with the deep content knowledge they need to succeed after high school and the skills that today’s jobs demand.

The report notes that the term “deeper learning” may be new, but its basic competencies are routine educational practice for many accomplished educators as well as some high-performing schools. To determine the extent to which states are coordinating standards, teacher professional development, and teacher evaluations with deeper learning, the Alliance reviewed waiver applications from the eleven states that recently received waivers under NCLB and the twenty-seven additional waiver applications now pending approval from the U.S. Department of Education. In the report, the Alliance chose to feature six states-Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington-to ensure balance in geographic location and between states that earlier received Race to the Top grant funding and those that did not.

In conducting its analysis, the Alliance focused on three main components: (1) whether state waiver applications define college- and career-ready standards in a way that encourages deeper learning; (2) the extent to which state plans for teacher professional development include instructional strategies for deeper learning competencies; and (3) the extent to which teacher evaluations encourage opportunities for deeper learning.

Regarding the first component, the report finds that most states define college- and career-ready standards in a way that encourages deeper learning. When it comes to the second and third components—the extent to which deeper learning competencies are reflected in the professional development and teacher evaluation systems proposed by states—the report finds several variations. In Massachusetts, for example, deeper learning competencies are reflected in teacher evaluations, including district-determined measures of student learning across grades and subjects, such as student portfolios and project-based learning. At the other end of the spectrum is Oregon, where deeper learning is reflected in standards for students, but it is not reflected in the state’s plan for professional development and teacher evaluation. Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, and Washington fall somewhere in the middle.

The report cautions that the waiver applications only provide an indicator of states’ plans in regard to deeper learning, but they “can serve as a starting point for encouraging states to evaluate how, and to what extent, they are supporting deeper learning as they implement the policies and practices outlined in their applications.” To ensure that deeper learning competencies are better reflected in state plans, the report recommends that policymakers consider the following recommendations:

Include the five competencies of deeper learning in the state definitions of college and career readiness.
Provide professional development that focuses on instructional strategies for developing deeper learning competencies.
Create and implement teacher evaluation systems that measure instructional practices in support of deeper learning such as teacher observations and assessment of student work and performance, including portfolios, project-based learning, and higher-order tests designed to measure these competencies.

To read the full report, please visit http://www.all4ed.org/files/DeeperLearningInNCLBWaivers.pdf

Special Education Approaches Go Mainstream

Posted on May 18, 2012 by coreeducation

Instructional approaches usually associated with special education are gaining traction as states and districts are faced with implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), reports Education Week. Two strategies, universal design for learning (UDL) and response to intervention (RTI), have been frequently cited in NCLB waiver requests for CCSS implementation in the section about how the state will implement the standards.

Broadly, UDL involves creating lessons and classroom materials flexible enough to accommodate different learning styles. The RTI approach can identify learning problems early and introduce focused lessons (interventions) to address those problems. The instructional methods have gained popularity because otherwise, educators are faced with narrow mandates and a broad population.

“Without a system to be responsive to student need, we’re back where we started with standards: aiming at the middle. There was going to be nothing intrinsically new unless we seized upon an opportunity to make this about every kid,” explains Emilie Amundson of the Wisconsin Education Department.

Districts already using one or both of these approaches believe they are best-suited for helping them implement the CCSS. Though new approaches to instruction won’t erase the challenges of implementing standards that are more rigorous than current state standards, it may make implementation more responsive and mitigate fears that the standards will once again turn students with disabilities into scapegoats for poor performance.

To read the full story, please visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/04/25/29cs-speced.h31.html?tkn=RSBFzoH5F9GTJL57UTdUa%2BcVqA06%2BesABqRF&cmp=clp-ecseclips

States Get Feedback on Waiver Applications

Posted on May 17, 2012 by coreeducation

The second round of waiver applicants, 26 states plus the District of Columbia, have received feedback from the Department of Education on their requests. Education Week examined 22 of the 27 letters sent to applicants, and found some common areas of concern:

Almost every state needs to do a better job of explaining how they will train teachers/principals to implement the Common Core.
Many states were asked to be explicit about how they would make the standards accessible for ELLs and special education students.
Many states had trouble clarifying how they would cope with transitions (i.e., from old standards to the Common Core or from old accountability systems to new ones).
The Department was also unimpressed with the way in which many states created their “annual measurable objectives.” Many of the targets weren’t rigorous enough or didn’t explain how states would intervene in schools that were not meeting targets.
Many states also were called out for not explicitly addressing how they would handle “Priority” (bottom 5%) and “Focus” (those in danger of slipping into the bottom) schools.
Almost every state was also critiqued for not doing enough to explain how they were working with stakeholders, particularly groups representing students who are typically underserved (ELLs, students with disabilities, minorities).

Education Week also notes that the Department commented that some of the requests went beyond the scope of what the NCLB waivers are meant to do. For example, Vermont wanted to add a fifth model it could use with schools getting SIG funds, and Ohio wanted to give ELLs an extra year before they are tested in ELA for accountability purposes.

To find out specifics on each state’s waiver status, please visit http://tinyurl.com/c4ydx62. You can also get caught up on what has already taken place with NCLB waivers by visiting my earlier posts here and here.

More States Apply for Waivers

Posted on March 4, 2012 by coreeducation

Twenty six more states plus DC have applied for waivers to free them from many NCLB requirements. If the new applicants are approved, only 13 states will still be operating under the full law (11 states have already received waivers—you can read the story here). In exchange for waivers, the states have to agree to adopt specific reforms designated by the Obama administration.

The following states have applied: Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with D.C.

The states will receive notice of their approval status later this spring; the third round of waivers applications is expected to take place in the fall. New Hampshire and Maine have said they still need more time to figure out what they are willing to do to make the waiver requirements work in their states; California, on the other hand, has expressed its skepticism toward the whole process.

It is assumed that the Department of Education will approve most of the waiver applications, given that they approved all eleven applicants from the previous round. To keep track of waiver applications, you can also visit Waiver Watch, discussed here.

10 States Receive NCLB Waivers

Posted on February 13, 2012 by coreeducation

On February 9, the Department of Education announced that ten states received waivers from some of the stringent requirements of the No Child Left Behind law. Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee will now have the opportunity to use alternative methods to improving student achievement, and to gauge achievement by means other than standardized test scores. New Mexico has asked for a waiver but was not granted one, and continues to work with the Department of Education to get approval; 28 other states plus DC and Puerto Rico have also signaled they plan to ask for waivers.

While many across the ten states celebrated, Republicans in Congress accused President Obama of executive overreach, and education and civil rights groups questioned if the waivers would allow districts to stop efforts to provide an equitable education for low-income, high-minority schools. Though the waiver process required each state to submit a plan for promoting and measuring student achievement statewide, the concerns of these groups are certainly valid.

The waivers allow states to bypass the 2014 deadline of having students up to par in reading and math. Instead, their plans must show they will be preparing students for college and career, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, reward the best performing schools, and focus help on the ones doing the worst. As the deadline approaches, more schools across the country are failing to meet requirements under NCLB, with almost half not doing so last year according to the Center on Education Policy. This is because some states have harder tests or higher numbers of immigrant and low-income children, but also because each year the state does meet the standard, the standard is raised the following year.

The waivers do not excuse states from the standardized math and reading tests, but does give them the freedom to include other subjects in their measures of student progress. They can also use scores on college entrance exams and other tests in their calculations (such as AP exams). Essentially, says Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, “under the waiver plan states have a contractual relationship with the federal government to deliver on the approved plan…by giving these waivers….they have raised the standards. They have put in place much more focused attention to the lowest performing, they have put in place professional development activities that didn’t exist prior, and they are holding those schools much more accountable.”

However, there have been accusations of President Obama using education as a “political poker chip.” Sen. Mike Enzi, the ranking member of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over education, believes “this action clearly politicizes education policy, which historically has been a bipartisan issue.” Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, released new legislation Thursday that would rewrite NCLB, and includes a provision that prohibits the education secretary from coercing states into adopting specific academic standards in exchange for a waiver.

It can only be speculated how this latest in education policy clashes will turn out. In an election year, it is hard to say what will happen to NCLB or the waivers if the Executive Branch changes hands. However, the action taken by the President and Department of Education will certainly push education into the political spotlight, and perhaps encourage a more concrete discussion of these issues during the election process.

The "Core" of Education

Tag Archives: NCLB