Home ::
On Saturday, March 13, the Obama administration released its blueprint for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In analyzing the blueprint, TCTA found, as expected, many of the education reforms we objected to in a series of federal grants released by the administration last summer.
In releasing its blueprint for reauthorization of the ESEA, the Obama administration claimed to heavily rely on the four education reform areas first set out in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in developing the blueprint (although the four reform areas have evolved each time the Department released criteria for one of the grant programs authorized by the ARRA, including Race to the Top).
In the version presented in the administration’s blueprint, the four reform areas are:
(1) Improving teacher and principal effectiveness to ensure that every classroom has a great teacher and every school has a great leader;
(2) Providing information to families to help them evaluate and improve their children’s schools, and to educators to help them improve their students’ learning; (3) Implementing college- and career-ready standards and developing improved assessments aligned with those standards; and
(4) Improving student learning and achievement in America’s lowest-performing schools by providing intensive support and effective interventions.
Although there are some potential positive improvements for the ESEA in this blueprint that were seemingly made in response to commonly heard complaints about the current NCLB, many of the proposed changes are based on the same themes that were present in the ARRA grant programs – themes that caused TCTA great concern and to which TCTA strongly objected.
Highlights of the blueprint of particular importance to teachers are as follows:
Common Core standards
One of the biggest questions leading up to the administration’s release of its ESEA reauthorization blueprint was whether participating in and adopting the standards of the Common Core Consortium would be required. This was an especially important question for Texas, given that our state was one of only two states in the country declining to participate in the Common Core.
At first blush, the administration appeared to stop short in the blueprint of requiring participation in and adoption of the standards developed by Common Core Consortium. Instead, it's allowing states to upgrade existing standards with certification by their four-year public university system, ensuring that a student won’t need remedial coursework upon admission to higher education OR work with other states to create state-developed common standards in English language arts and math.
(In a recent statement, the Texas Education Agency announced that Texas meets this requirement: “Academic standards that are externally validated, by both college educators and national groups, to ensure consistent and rigorous standards across grade levels and subjects that lead to college- and career-readiness standards; - Assessments anchored to post-secondary readiness, with a coherent set of performance expectations providing early information to students, parents and teachers as to whether a student is on track to be successful, including an expectation that graduates will not require development education courses.”)
However, it then goes on to require that, beginning in 2015, formula funds will be available only to states that are implementing assessments based on college- and career-ready standards that are common to a significant number of states.
The blueprint also requires states to continue to implement statewide science standards and aligned assessments in specific grade spans.
Student assessments
Regarding assessments, the blueprint calls for improved assessments that can be used to accurately measure student growth; to better measure how states, districts, schools, principals, and teachers are educating students; to help teachers adjust and focus their teaching; and to provide better information to students and their families.
The blueprint also calls for competitive grants to consortia of states, and to other entities working in partnership with states, for research on, or development and improvement of, additional high-quality assessments to be used by multiple states in such areas as science, history, or foreign languages; high school course academic and career and technical subjects; universally designed assessments; and assessments for English Learners and students with disabilities.
Data and reporting
Another area of key interest to educators in the blueprint is its call for states and districts to collect key information about teaching and learning conditions, including information on school climate such as student, teacher and school leader attendance; disciplinary incidents; or student, parent, or school staff surveys about their school experience.
It requires that both states and districts must publish report cards at least every two years that provide information on key indicators, such as teacher qualifications and teacher and principal designations of effectiveness; teachers and principals hired from high-performing pathways; teacher survey data on levels of support and working conditions in schools; the novice status of teachers and principals; teacher and principal attendance; and retention rates of teachers by performance level. States will also be required to report on the performance of teacher and principal preparation programs by their graduates’ impact on student growth and other measures, job placement, and retention.
Additionally, the blueprint provides for competitive grants to be used to provide learning environments that ensure that students are successful, safe and healthy. Under this program, grantees will be required to develop and implement a state- or district-wide school climate needs assessment to evaluate school engagement, school safety (addressing drug, alcohol, and violence issues), and school environment, and publicly report this information.
This assessment must include surveys of student, school staff and family experiences with respect to individual schools, and additional data such as suspensions and disciplinary actions. States will use this data to identify local needs and provide competitive subgrants to school districts and their partners to address the needs of students, schools and communities.
Building capacity and equity in funding
In an example of responsiveness to a commonly heard criticism of the NCLB, the blueprint calls for helping states and districts build capacity in order to meet the higher expectations set out in the blueprint. Specifically, the blueprint allows states and districts to reserve federal funds to carry out activities, such as supporting educators in teaching to the college and career readiness standards.
It also states that over time, districts will be required to ensure that their high-poverty schools receive state and local funding levels (for personnel and relevant nonpersonnel expenditures) comparable to those received by their low-poverty schools. In addition, districts that use their resources to provide strong support to disadvantaged students will be given additional flexibility to provide such support. Finally, states will be asked to measure and report on resource disparities and develop a plan to tackle them.
Well-rounded education
In another example of responsiveness to a common NCLB criticism, the blueprint encourages schools to provide students with a well-rounded curriculum by providing for competitive grants to states, high-need districts, and nonprofit partners to strengthen the teaching and learning of arts, foreign languages, history and civics, financial literacy, environmental education, and other subjects.
This appears to be an attempt to address complaints that NCLB’s current focus on accountability for student performance in reading, math, and science has narrowed the curriculum offered and taught in schools. The blueprint also provides for competitive grants for literacy and STEM initiatives, with priority going to states which have adopted common, state-developed, college- and career-ready standards, as well as competitive grants for college pathways and accelerated learning.
A new vision for accountability
In yet another example of trying to address a commonly maligned NCLB provision, the blueprint appears to eliminate the current NCLB deadline of all students reaching proficient levels on state assessments by 2014, and instead proposes the following: States, districts and schools must aim for the ambitious goal of all students graduating or on track to graduate from high school ready for college and a career by 2020. Performance targets, based on whole-school and subgroup achievement and growth, and graduation rates, will guide improvement toward that ambitious goal, and those that are meeting all of their performance targets will be recognized and rewarded.
The blueprint’s proposal regarding accountability for states and school districts sets out a system in which schools, districts and states that are successful in reaching performance targets, significantly increasing performance for all students, closing achievement gaps, or turning around the lowest-performing schools (at the district and state level) will be recognized as Reward schools, districts and states. The benefits of being a Reward school/district/state includes flexibility in the use of ESEA funds and, as appropriate, competitive preference in some federal grant competitions.
At the other end of the spectrum will be Challenge states, districts and schools.States will identify Challenge schools that are in need of specific assistance. The first category of Challenge schools will be the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in each state, based on student academic achievement, student growth and graduation rates, that are not making progress to improve.
In these schools, states and districts will be required to implement one of four school turnaround models to support better outcomes for students. The four turnaround models are: closing a school and enrolling its students elsewhere; adopting a “turnaround” model that entails firing the principal and rehiring no more than half the staff; reopening the school as a charter school or under new management; or making wholesale changes by revamping curricula, adding alternative pay systems, and introducing extended learning time.
The next 5 percent of low-performing schools will be identified in a Warning category, and states and districts will implement research-based, locally-determined strategies to help them improve. Meanwhile, Reward districts will receive flexibility to implement a different research-based intervention model, beyond the scope of the four school turnaround models. Challenge districts whose schools, principals and teachers are not receiving the support they need to succeed may also face significant governance or staffing changes, including replacement of the superintendent. Both Challenge districts and states will face additional restrictions on the use of ESEA funds and may be required to work with an outside organization to improve student academic achievement.
Teacher and principal effectiveness
The second of the four major education reform areas that the blueprint focuses on has to do with improving the effectiveness of teachers and leaders, and ensuring that students in high-need schools are being taught by effective teachers in schools led by effective principals. The proposal requires that states and districts put into place statewide definitions of "effective teacher," "effective principal," "highly effective teacher" and "highly effective principal that are based in significant part on student growth and also include other measures, such as classroom observations of practice. The proposal calls for maintaining the “highly qualified teachers” provisions of current law as states transition to using these measures of effectiveness, but with additional flexibility.
Additionally, the blueprint requires district-level evaluation systems that meaningfully differentiate teachers and principals by effectiveness across at least three performance levels and are consistent with their state’s definitions of "effective" and "highly effective" teacher and principal. It allows for states and districts to use funds to recruit and develop effective teachers and principals, support the creation of effective educator career ladders, and improve teacher and principal certification and retention policies to better reflect a candidate’s ability to improve outcomes for students.
It states that funds spent on strategies such as professional development and class-size reduction must be aligned with evidence of improvements in student learning. States will be required to develop meaningful plans to ensure the equitable distribution of teachers and principals that receive at least an "effective" rating. If states are unsuccessful in improving the equitable distribution of these teachers and principals, they will be required to develop and implement more rigorous plans and additional strategies more likely to improve equity.
The proposal also provides for a series of competitive grant programs related to this reform area, including a Teacher and Leader Innovation grant,
to be used to reform compensation systems to provide differentiated compensation and career advancement opportunities to educators who are effective in increasing student academic achievement, who take on additional roles and responsibilities in their schools, and who teach in high-need schools, subjects, areas and fields.
There is also a Teacher and Leader Pathways grant, to be used to strengthen traditional and alternative pathways into teaching and provides competitive grants for the recruitment, preparation, placement and induction of promising teacher candidates for high-need schools, subjects, areas and fields. (Programs must be designed to meet the specific teacher needs of a district or districts and must either have a record of preparing effective teachers or commit to tracking and measuring the effectiveness of their graduates in the classroom, with priority given to programs that work to recruit and prepare high-performing college graduates or non-traditional candidates, such as military veterans or midcareer professionals).
Assessing students with disabilities
Another example of the administration’s attempt to respond to commonly heard complaints about NCLB is the blueprint’s provision that assessments more accurately and appropriately measure the performance of students with disabilities. This appears to be a response to the cap that the NCLB puts on the percentage of special education students who can be assessed on an alternative or modified assessment for purposes of meeting Adequate Yearly Progress.
Expanding educational options and charter schools
In the name of “fostering innovation and excellence”, the blueprint provides for “expanding educational options." Chief among those is supporting effective charter schools. The blueprint provides that competitive grants will go to states, charter school authorizers, charter management organizations, districts, and nonprofit organizations, to start or expand high-performing public charter schools and other high-performing autonomous public schools, with a priority for applicants proposing to start or expand high-performing public charter schools.
The blueprint defines “autonomous schools" as those public schools that, as much or even more than charter schools, have ongoing autonomy over key operational elements, including staffing, budget, schedule and program. It also provides that both charter schools and other autonomous schools funded under this program must be subject to the same accountability systems as traditional public schools, as well as increased accountability for improving student academic achievement.
It further states that in order to build greater capacity to support and hold schools accountable under this program, grantees at all levels will be allowed to set aside funds to improve their capacity to oversee and support schools funded under this program. Additionally, charter management organizations that commit to work with and support districts in implementing effective strategies in schools may be eligible for larger grants. Other methods for expanding educational options authorized under the blueprint include competitive grants for creating or expanding inter- and intra-district choice programs, theme-based schools, high-quality online learning programs, or academic pathways as well as for magnet schools.
What happens next remains to be seen. Some experts opine that the administration’s blueprint will be largely ignored by Congress, when they finally take up ESEA based on recent history when Congress has ignored most White House budget requests. Additionally, some say that the president is in a weak political state which gives Congress even fewer reasons than usual to do his bidding. Nonetheless, with the health care reform legislation now signed by President Obama, it will be important to keep a close eye on developments regarding reauthorization of the ESEA, as some insider speculate that it will be the next major issue Congress addresses.
Posted: 03/24/10
