ESEA Come, ESEA Go

The chatter among the education cognescenti this week is about what is and what isn't in the bipartisan ESEA draft released by Senate education chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-WY).

Let me repeat my prior contention that, politically, ESEA reauthorization is an issue for 2013 -- not 2011 or 2012. The Republican-led U.S. House is not going to give President Obama any kind of a political victory, despite the solid compromise put forth by the Senate HELP Committee. For that reason, the work currently underway is in part about laying the groundwork for a future compromise, in part a genuine attempt to get something done (despite the House), and in part political cover.

The bill itself represents a sensible step back from a pie-in-the-sky accountability goal of 100% proficiency in favor of annual state data transparency, continued data disaggregation among subgroups, and greater state flexibility over educational accountability. Personally, I am not an accountability hawk and am unswayed by spotty evidence and advocates such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush who contends that it was Florida's accountability system (rather than its major investment in literacy and other interventions) that fueled student test-score gains. Chairman Harkin nails it by saying that the bill "focuses on teaching and learning, not testing and sanctioning." Amen to that.

Seeing as I have a day job that doesn't allow me to analyze the entirety of 800-page bills, here is my quick take on a few elements in the draft bill:

Positives

• Accountability: Eliminates AYP. Requires states to identify 5% lowest-performing schools and 5% of schools with the largest achievement gaps.
  
• CSR: Tightens up the use of Title II, Part A for class-size reduction to ensure that those dollars are directed at research-based implementation of smaller class sizes. [UPDATE: This could potentially free up some Title II, Part A dollars for teacher professional development and new teacher support.]
  
• Teacher & Principal Training & Recruiting Fund: This Fund would support state & local activities that further high-quality PD, rigorous evaluation and support systems, and improve the equitable distribution of teachers. The bill's language significantly strengthens existing federal policy language regarding the elements of comprehensive, high-quality educator induction and mentoring.

Concerns

• Equitable teacher distribution: The bill would require states to ensure that high-poverty and high-minority schools receive an equitable distribution of the most effective educators as measured by new teacher evaluation systems that must include four performance tiers. Sounds good and fair. But given that teacher working conditions significantly impact an individual educator's ability to be effective in the classroom (and garner a "highly effective" rating [see DC]), wouldn't this just create a massive game of musical chairs and major disruptions in the teaching pool unless a determined effort were mounted to improve the often poor teaching and learning conditions present in high-poverty schools?
  

Good Coverage & Analysis

Alyson Klein - Politics K-12 - Education Week
Joy Resmovits - Huffington Post
Stephen Sawchuk - Teacher Beat - Education Week
The Quick and the Ed (Education Sector)

You have read this article accountability / Education / ESEA / Florida / Mike Enzi / NCLB / teacher distribution / teacher quality / teaching / Tom Harkin / U.S. Senate / Washington DC with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2011/10/esea-come-esea-go.html. Thanks!

ESEA Hearing on Teachers and Leaders

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is holding a hearing this morning on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind. Today's hearing focuses on the teacher and school leader elements of ESEA.

Among the witnesses are:

• Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
• Stephanie Hirsch, Executive Director, National Staff Development Council
  
• Jon Schnur, CEO, New Leaders for New Schools
  
• Ellen Moir, CEO, New Teacher Center
  
• Timothy Daly, President, The New Teacher Project
• Thomas Kane, Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard University and Deputy Director, U.S. Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  

UPDATES:
A video replay of the hearing -- as well as links to the participants' testimony -- is available here.

You have read this article ESEA / federal / NCLB / New Teacher Center / teacher / teacher effectiveness / U.S. Senate with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2010/04/esea-hearing-on-teachers-and-leaders.html. Thanks!

Daily Drivel

It's hard to believe that the Wall Street Journal fancies itself a national newspaper while publishing this largely baseless, political clap-trap on its editorial page:

But national standards are no substitute for school choice and accountability, which are proving to be the most effective drivers of academic improvement.

First of all, to frame education reform as pitting national standards against choice/accountability is ridiculous on its face. It is a false choice. Plus, the Obama Administration's reform blueprint is so much more broad than that. About the only thing that the WSJ editorial gets right is in saying that national standards "won't magically boost learning" by themselves.

Secondly, the WSJ appears to be falling into the "silver bullet" mentality all too prevalent among simplistic education reformers. "Just run schools like a business!" Or, "[INSERT pet approach] is the answer." Yes, we've been down that road before .... small schools, merit pay, open classrooms. The WSJ apparently wants to contribute choice and accountability to the junkyard of spent shell casings.

Third, where is the research evidence to suggest that school choice and accountability should be in the driver's seat? The editorial offers no evidence. The presence of publicly funded vouchers is no panacea. Just look at Milwaukee's experience (here and here). At the recent meeting of the American Education Finance Association, the U.S. Department of Education's senior adviser Marshall 'Mike' Smith offered evidence that rates of gain in student test scores were lower after No Child Left Behind became law than before. We chided Margaret Spellings last year for touting the successes of NCLB on similar grounds. So much for bare-bones accountability.

Does the Wall Street Journal have any editorial standards? Or any shame?

UPDATE: Read Claus von Zastrow's take on this editorial on Public School Insights: "It doesn't pass the laugh test."

You have read this article academic standards / accountability / ESEA / NCLB / school choice / Wall Street Journal with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2010/03/daily-drivel.html. Thanks!

Cheerleading for NCLB

I guess my reaction to today's Washington Post shout out to No Child Left Behind ("'No Child' in Action") from former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is a question: "If NCLB's accountability alone is such a silver bullet, then how come test scores at the high school level didn't improve?"

Although Spellings mentions that NCLB requires math and reading tests in grades 3-8, it is quite disingenuous of her not to mention that such tests were also required in high school. If the achievement gains aren't sustained through high school, what real difference does it make?

The wise Aaron Pallas offers his take on this issue ("Wishful Thinking"), calling into question Spellings's claims:

But what portion of those trends can be attributed to NCLB? Margaret Spellings refers to changes since 1999, which is convenient for her story, because there were sharp increases in grade 4 reading between 2000 and 2002, and in grade 4 and grade 8 math between 2000 and 2003. But NCLB was signed into law in January, 2002; the first final regulations dealing with assessment were issued in December, 2002; and initial state accountability plans were approved by the U.S. Department of Education no later than June, 2003. The 2003 main NAEP was administered between January and March of 2003. Is it realistic to claim that NCLB affected scores before the 2003 NAEP administration? I, and a great many other analysts, think not.

Only in Margaret Spellings’ world can NCLB affect NAEP scores for the four years before the law was passed and implemented. Now that’s wishful thinking.

UPDATE -- Diane Ravitch comes to similar conclusions in her blog post.

Thus, when one looks at the patterns, it suggests the following: First, our students are making gains, though not among 17-year-olds. Second, the gains they have made since NCLB are smaller than the gains they made in the years preceding NCLB. Third, even when they are significant, the gains are small. Fourth, the Long Term Trend data are not a resounding endorsement of NCLB. If anything, the slowing of the rate of progress suggests that NCLB is not a powerful instrument to improve student performance.

Caveat emptor.

You have read this article Aaron Pallas / accountability / Assessment / data / Margaret Spellings / NAEP / NCLB / No Child Left Behind with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2009/05/cheerleading-for-nclb.html. Thanks!

Teacher Quality and Title II

Education Week published an incredibly important story this week by Stephen Sawchuk ("Spending On Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned") and Education Sector issued an incredibly important report (Title 2.0: Revamping The Federal Role in Education Human Capital) on Title II, Part A dollars in No Child Left Behind. The notion of better utilizing existing resources is especially critical in light of the economic downturn and budgetary challenges which will make new resources harder to come by.

As I wrote in two recent posts ($29 Billion Buys You A New Education System? and Will The New President Support New Educators?), it is abundantly clear that Title II, Part A's $3 billion are not flowing toward the most impactful initiatives in schools and districts. Most are going to class-size reduction and professional development (of questionable quality).

In a nutshell, Education Sector recommends shifting "the federal government’s role from enabler of existing activities largely irrespective of quality to a driver of reform through strategic investments in new initiatives, institutions, and policy schemes to recruit, train, support, and evaluate and compensate teachers."

Easy stuff, right?

You have read this article budget / Education Sector / Education Week / ESEA / NCLB / No Child Left Behind / teacher quality / Title II with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/11/teacher-quality-and-title-ii.html. Thanks!

Wither Education?

An article ("Obama is Expected to Put Education Overhaul on Back Burner") in today's Wall Street Journal that reads more like an opinion piece than a new story suggests that President-elect Obama will not prioritize education in the face of other policy challenges.

I disagree with the likes of the Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless (my grad school professor) whose comments alone basically provide the article's headline. Loveless says that "he expects Mr. Obama to sidestep most major issues involving public schools and instead focus on small, symbolic initiatives in the mold of former President Bill Clinton's promotion of school uniforms as a way to instill discipline in classrooms." Obama has shown a deep personal commitment to issues involving schools and urban communities as a U.S. Senator and in his prior life. Despite the economic and foreign policy challenges he faces, I don't see Obama walking away from this commitment and interest to focus on marginal educational pronouncements. Deep engagement and substantive proposals may not be offered in his first 100 Days -- a concept that should be left to history books -- or even in his first year in office, but Obama WILL expend political capital on education reform during his presidency.

The wise Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy gets it right on this one. He suggests that Congress will likely take the lead -- especially on contentious issues related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (AKA NCLB) -- and that President Obama will wait for them to hash out a consensus before acting. In talking to a key Hill staffer in Washington, DC yesterday, however, it is clear that congressional Democrats are looking for signals from an Obama Administration to inform their work. Some core principles from the President will help to influence congressional action and provide structure to an eventual compromise that must win passage in both houses of Congress and earn the president's signature.

You have read this article Barack Obama / Education / ESEA / Jack Jennings / NCLB / No Child Left Behind / Tom Loveless / Wall Street Journal with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/11/wither-education.html. Thanks!

"Illusory" Test Score Gains

Here is a neat little story from today's Washington Post that puts my recent post about Maryland test scores into some context.

Recent reports from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and [Bruce] Fuller's group, Policy Analysis for California Education, have concluded that most recent gains on state tests are illusory, reflecting better test-taking skills or lower standards rather than increased knowledge. Another study, from the Center on Education Policy, concluded that the gains seemed genuine but did not necessarily reflect greater learning.

You have read this article adequate yearly progress / Assessment / AYP / Maryland / NCLB / No Child Left Behind / Washington Post with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/07/test-score-gains.html. Thanks!

Student Achievement in Maryland

In Maryland, the glass is half full ... or is it half empty?

From 2007 to 2008, the share of students statewide who were judged proficient or better rose six percentage points in reading and four points in math, to 82 percent and 76 percent, respectively, on the Maryland School Assessments.

But

State reading and math tests taken by Maryland students were shortened and tweaked this year, leading some critics to question whether the shifts contributed to surprisingly strong gains in achievement.

Is this uptick in student achievement in Maryland legit? Or is this another example of a state gaming the system [see here and here] when it comes to NCLB's adequate yearly progress requirements?

Ed Week's David Hoff provides a nice summary of the trickery employed by states in this blog post from November 2007.

--------------

ADDED: Read Eduwonk's take on this.

You have read this article adequate yearly progress / Assessment / Maryland / NCLB / No Child Left Behind with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/07/student-achievement-in-maryland.html. Thanks!

Musings on Kennedy, Obama

Not that I think that this means that NCLB will be reauthorized this session, but what a tremendous sight it was to see Senator Ted Kennedy walk into the U.S. Capitol yesterday to cast a vote on Medicare legislation.

On the presidential front, Dan Balz tries to put Obama's ideology into context in today's Washington Post ("Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult To Pinpoint"). All in all it's a pretty flat article. William A. Galston, a former Clinton White House domestic policy adviser, gets it mostly right:

Galston cited three strands that he regards as helping to define Obama-ism. First is an "all of us together" approach that rejects "diversionary interests and short-term gains." Second is an effort to bring people together across partisan lines. Third is his effort to broaden participation in politics and his use of modern technology to do so. This appears to be a marriage of Obama's roots in community organizing and his willingness to tap the power of technology to open the processes of government to more than the traditional cadre of experts.

What does this mean for education? There's been lots of chatter in the blog-o-sphere about whether Obama is a traditionalist or a reformer when it comes to education policy. With issues such as teacher pay, it is clear that Obama is willing to push the envelope and challenge union orthodoxy. The real question is whether he can and will prioritize these issues should he be a resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next year.

As an unnamed Clinton White House official was quoted in the Balz piece:

"His tone is very much post-partisan and post-ideological. The challenge will be coming up with the ideas to go with it. If you drop the same agenda into the same Washington petri dish, you'll get the same results."

You have read this article Barack Obama / NCLB / No Child Left Behind / Ted Kennedy with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/07/musings-on-kennedy-obama.html. Thanks!

$29 Billion Buys You A New Education System?

On Wednesday the Forum for Education and Democracy released a proposal to "transform the federal role in education." The conveners are a group of high-profile academics and educators, including Linda Darling-Hammond, John Goodlad, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Deborah Meier, and Ted Sizer.

The cynic in me might call this a $29 billion spending proposal which would result in a 75 percent increase in federal education spending ... but I'm an optimist, so I'll call it a proposed investment. And, in many ways, it is. There are many policy ideas worthy of consideration. I'm not sure it's transformational however.

First, the bad news: What it is, is a tough sell politically. The authors were aware of this, and noted that its cost is equivalent to the monthly price tag of the war in Iraq. But they could have done much more to suggest ways to use current educational resources more efficiently. For instance, what about all the federal funds squandered on spray 'n' pray professional development? Gotta be some savings there. And it would drape at least a paper-thin cloak of fiscal austerity over an otherwise jaw-dropping spending proposal.

Now, the good news: The report is right to call for additional federal investments to build human capital--particularly in so-called hard-to-staff and low-performing schools. In my opinion, the No Child Left Behind Act's biggest failures are (1) its lack of a serious focus on developing highly effective teachers and (2) its focus on punitive sanctions for 'failing' schools and districts rather than the provision of capacity building assistance to turn those schools around.

Let's stipulate two things. Number one, teacher quality is the most important school-based variable impacting student success. Number two, educational accountability is not a silver bullet.

(1) The 'highly qualified' teacher requirement is a meaningless designation. In most states, every teacher is highly qualified. What NCLB lacks is a coherent and sustained vision to enhance teacher development during the initial years in the profession and beyond. To the Forum's credit, it offers up some worthy ideas to move us off the dime: induction programs and teacher residencies as well as stronger school leadership preparation.

New educator support programs currently are allowable uses of NCLB's Title II, Part A dollars, but few of those monies are spent in such impactful ways. In 2006-07, U.S. school districts received nearly $3 billion under Title II, Part A--but 79 percent of the funds were used either to reduce class sizes (47%) or for professional development (32%). [See U.S. Department of Education Survey on the Use of Funds Under Title II, Part A (July 2007)]

(2) Educational accountability alone cannot transform schools. As one of my colleagues like to say, "You don't know what you don't know." Indeed. But the inherent presumption in educational accountability is that educators need a kick in the pants--and kids will learn. This--plus school choice--was W's and many social conservatives' primary argument for NCLB. But that's not how it works.

A main reason why educators in low-performing schools are unsuccessful is because they don't know how to work better or work differently--not because they're lazy or feckless. Changing this requires not just strengthening individual knowledge and skills but also organization-wide transformations in the conditions and culture of teaching and learning. Some of the Forum's ideas would move us in that direction.

Harvard's Dick Elmore makes this point quite cogently in a 2002 Education Next article:

"The working theory behind test-based accountability is seemingly—perhaps fatally—simple. Students take tests that measure their academic performance in various subject areas. The results trigger certain consequences for students and schools—rewards, in the case of high performance, and sanctions for poor performance. Having stakes attached to test scores is supposed to create incentives for students and teachers to work harder and for school and district administrators to do a better job of monitoring their performance.... The threat of such measures is supposed to be enough to motivate students and schools to ever-higher levels of performance.

This may have the ring of truth, but it is in fact a naïve, highly schematic, and oversimplified view of what it takes to improve student learning.... The ability of a school to make improvements has to do with the beliefs, norms, expectations, and practices that people in the organization share, not with the kind of information they receive about their performance. Low-performing schools aren’t coherent enough to respond to external demands for accountability.

The work of turning a school around entails improving the knowledge and skills of teachers—changing their knowledge of content and how to teach it—and helping them to understand where their students are in their academic development. Low-performing schools, and the people who work in them, don’t know what to do. If they did, they would be doing it already.

Test-based accountability without substantial investments in capacity ... is unlikely to elicit better performance from low-performing students and schools."


In sum, I don't begrudge the Forum for setting forth these ideas for improving American public education. I just don't think that federal policymakers or presidential candidates are in the market for something with a $29 billion price tag. Targeted investments to strengthen teacher quality in high-need schools and districts--such as those proposed in U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman George Miller's TEACH Act or in U.S. Senator Jack Reed's School Improvement Through Teacher Quality Act--are much more likely to pass the political smell test and find their way into a reauthorized NCLB.

Further, during NCLB reauthorization (now likely to move forward in 2009-2010), one can hope that federal policymakers look toward capacity building strategies (such as those proposed in this report) to replace punitive sanctions and the use of external supplemental service providers. We have a good sense of what is takes to transform struggling schools and districts -- but it's gonna take more than cajoling, demanding and hoping to get the job done. It's going to require a financial and intellectual investment in strengthening the teaching profession and redesigning school leadership.

UPDATE: U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings's proposed rules for NCLB utterly ignore the capacity building needs I have articulated above. It's more of the same old-same old accountability and contracting out of services without support. This will not address the capacity of districts or schools to improve. See Education Week story here.

You have read this article Education / Forum for Education and Democracy / George Miller / Jack Reed / leadership / Linda Darling-Hammond / NCLB / No Child Left Behind / Richard Elmore / teacher / Ted Kennedy with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/04/29-billion-buys-you-new-education-system.html. Thanks!

The Education of Obama

Over the past several weeks, three particularly interesting articles have been written about Barack Obama and education policy. The Huffington Post ran the first on March 14, the New Republic ran the second on March 26, and Slate ran the third on April 4.

In the Huffington Post, Michelle McNeil opined, "Would Obama approach education reform with a centrist frame-of-mind if he had the full power of the Presidency behind him, and wasn't fighting it out for the nomination?" I don't know about a 'centrist frame-of-mind', but I honestly believe he would approach it with a problem-solving mentality and not just kow-tow to the status quo much as I believe Senator Clinton would.

In the New Republic, Josh Patashnik writes: "There's at least one issue ... on which Obama's record puts him sharply at odds with the party's liberal establishment: education. Obama has long advocated a reformist agenda that looks favorably upon things like competition between schools, test-based accountability, and performance pay for teachers. But the Obama campaign has hesitated to trumpet its candidate's maverick credentials. As an increasingly influential chorus of donors and policy wonks pushes an agenda within the Democratic Party that frightens teachers' unions and their traditional liberal allies, Obama seems unsure how far he can go in reassuring the former group that he's one of them without alienating the latter. And this is a shame, because Obama may represent the best hope for real reform in decades."

Undoubtedly, I believe Obama is playing it safe by not emphasizing his education reform ideas within the context of a Democratic primary. That's smart politics, but it's made easier by many others issues--from the economy to Iraq--that are trumping education as priorities among the mass of Democratic primary voters and caucus goers.

In Slate, journalist and blogger Alexander Russo offers a more critical take on Obama and his "lackluster record" on education. Russo writes that as an Illinois state senator from Chicago, Obama failed to evidence leadership and choose sides in a debate between Chicago Public Schools (the school district) and local school councils over local control versus centralized accountability. The same dynamic is playing out around No Child Left Behind (NCLB), says Russo, but "it's hard to imagine [Obama] taking charge of the continuing debate over whether and how [NCLB] should be renewed."

Indeed, sometimes the past is prologue, but I'm not sure it would be true in an Obama administration. As US Senator, Obama has offered some very substantive proposals on teaching quality within the context of NCLB. He has supported policies such as educator induction and urban teacher residencies that would get to the root of building stronger capacity within troubled schools and districts. He has shown a personal commitment to these issues. I can see him staking out a "mend it, not end it" position on NCLB reauthorization and working with Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman George Miller to work these proposals into a legislative package. Only time will tell.

What say you, Pennsylvania?

You have read this article Alexander Russo / Education / Huffington Post / NCLB / New Republic / No Child Left Behind / Obama / Performance Pay / Slate / teacher with the title NCLB. You can bookmark this page URL https://apt3e.blogspot.com/2008/04/the-education-of-obama.html. Thanks!