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)

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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.

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President Obama Calls For Education Reform

Amen.

In comments about the stimulus plan at last night's press conference [see above link for transcript], President Barack Obama called for education funding accompanied by more reform. (Kudos to Politics K-12 blog for its post on this topic.)

"I think there are areas like education where some in my party have been too resistant to reform and have argued only money makes a difference. And there have been others on the Republican side or the conservative side who said, 'No matter how much money you spend, nothing makes a difference, so let's just blow up the public school systems.' And I think that both sides are going to have to acknowledge we're going to need more money for new science labs, to pay teachers more effectively, but we're also going to need more reform, which means that we've got to train teachers more effectively, bad teachers need to be fired after being given the opportunity to train effectively, that we should experiment with things like charter schools that are innovating in the classroom, that we should have high standards." -- President Barack Obama, February 9, 2009

President Obama is right on the mark. His pragmatism and practicality is quite refreshing. Not liberal, not conservative, not even moderate necessarily. How different from the holier-than-thou, we-like-to-get-our-names-in-the-press Senate "moderates" that slowed the bill down over ... what exactly? Cuts in funds for shovel-ready school construction projects (read: jobs) and help for shell-shocked state governments?

The President's comments get to the heart of my recent posts (here, here, and here) which argued that money alone would neither transform the federal role in education or lead to more reform. President Obama seems to agree. Fortunately, there'll be future opportunities to inject some needed policy reforms and retool some spending priorities in education. The stimulus package alone is not going get that done, but will inject some desperately needed funding into things like Title I, special education and Pell Grants and hopefully help to keep schools and students afloat ... once it gets out of the Capitol Hill sausage factory.

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