04/30/08

    Permalink 05:33:24 am, Categories: Announcements [A]

    Last week, Secretary Spellings issued proposed regulations for NCLB, following six years of experience with the law’s implementation in 50 states and 15,000 school districts.

    Here’s our take. We think it’s generally a good package, but falls short in a few key areas. We’re sure she knows that she is in for a rough ride. And we wish her luck.

    Graduation Rates

    Measurement

    States have a long-standing practice of obfuscating the real extent of high school dropout through statistical sleights of hand. Absent pressure otherwise, states will continue to try to make themselves look as problem-free as possible.

    ("Liberal" education activists and "experts" claim that it is "high stakes" attached to indicators that cause "inaccuracy". But the only real stakes attached to graduation rates right now are those for students who do not attain a diploma. Because schools can fudge the numbers, they lack incentive to address the needs of potential dropouts).

    US DOE’s proposal reflects the conclusions of an expert panel and is the same method that all 50 of the nation’s Governors agreed to adopt three years ago. It is a much-needed bright line. The Secretary should stick to her guns and strenuously resist pressure to shoot this standard full of holes.

    The catch is that most states don’t have the data systems to do what the feds are asking. But they will by 2012-13 if (and this is a big if) the next Secretary has the guts to back Spellings up.

    Accountability

    Right now, according to DOE: "more than one-half of States accept any improvement or some established minimal improvement (e.g., 0.1 percent from the previous year) in their high school graduation rate to count as making AYP. In several States, a school can graduate less than half of its students, year after year, and still make AYP by graduating one more student with a regular high school diploma than it did in the previous year."

    The proposed reg would do very little to change this. But it will require states to hold school districts accountable for the graduation rates of subgroups of students - students from low-income families, minorities, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities. No longer would the lower graduation rates of these students be hidden behind those of more advantaged students. And this would be a significant improvement.

    Minimum Subgroup Size

    The proposed regs would have states reexamine the minimum subgroup sizes they use for purposes of reporting and judging adequate yearly progress. (These minimum subgroup sizes are referred to as "N’s," a statistical term for sample sizes; technically the term used should be "n" since it refers to subgroups not the whole sample. But the fact that they’re using statistical terms at all in the discussion of federal policy is landmark).

    I think the Secretary needs to draw a much brighter line. States like California have an effective "N" of 100. This excludes hundreds of thousands of poor and minority students from the state’s accountability system. I have never seen a peer review panel set the bar for N size that high.

    Keep in mind that it took the Associated Press to uncover the N gaming scam in California and elsewhere. The statisticians, who are just as purchasable as lawyers or anyone else, will not solve the problem left to their own devices.

    The general consensus is that the minimum N should be no higher than about 30. The Secretary should just set the standard there and be done with it. This arguably would bring more kids into the accountability system than any other single action she could take.

    Growth Models

    States are clamoring to be able to use "growth" models in calculating AYP. Growth models look at a student’s progress over time rather than comparing "cohorts" of students (e.g., this year’s 3rd graders to last year’s 3rd graders). States and other lobbying groups act as if it is federal law that is holding them back. But most states don’t have the data systems necessary to track students from grade to grade.

    Nine states have already been approved to use growth models. More may be approved next month.

    In the proposed reg, the Secretary lays out criteria that states must meet in order to have their growth models pass muster. I don’t know how seriously to take them, because they have not been applied uniformly to states that already have been approved. For example, some states that have already been approved will effectively not have to reach 100% proficiency by 2014 (in fact will never have to), in violation of the Secretary’s core principle. So this one is a wild card.

    Choice and Supplemental Educational Services

    Parental Participation

    The proposed reg would require districts to provide two weeks notice to parents about their options for enrolling in public school choice programs and SES. It would also require districts to provide parents and the public with more information about choice and after-school tutoring.

    These proposals seem eminently sensible and reasonable. The National Assessment of Title I found that many school districts seemed to be discouraging parents from understanding and exercising their school choice and tutoring options. The Secretary would have been justified in taking even stronger action to make sure parents have the information they need to make decisions about their children’s education in a timely fashion.

    Access to Schools

    The proposed reg would guarantee SES providers access to school facilities to provide their services. There was a time back in the 1990’s when this general policy was not so politically charged - it was advanced by then-Senator (and then-Republican) Jim Jeffords and had the support of President Bill Clinton. But something tells me NCLB has tainted that dynamic. Too bad, because it’s the kids that lose.

    The Secretary is justified in pushing this policy. It maximizes public resources for the public good. But I think she is in for some tough sledding if she follows through and tries to enforce it come the beginning of the next school year. Which an outgoing Secretary could find fun and rewarding, particularly in an election year.

    Funding for Choice and SES

    The proposed reg would allow districts to count some of the cost of notifying parents about their choice and tutoring (SES) options toward the total of the 20% of Title I funds that they are required by law to spend for these purposes. Current law allows none of those administrative costs to be so counted. This is a fair and reasonable provision since districts sometimes complain about the notification costs.

    Restructuring

    The proposed reg would tighten the definition of "restructuring," the action which districts are supposed to require of schools that miss their adequate yearly progress goals for six consecutive years. For example, the Secretary states that simply replacing the principal would not meet NCLB’s requirement for re-staffing chronically under-performing schools.

    It’s understandable that the Secretary would want to push this issue, given how little restructuring or reconstituting is going on more than six years after passage of NCLB. Both NYC and DC for example were in the news this week regarding their troubles with re-staffing schools under their own very strong state and local laws.

    But I still think that, for better or for worse, NCLB’s provisions on this score give districts a wide degree of latitude. The only real solution to this problem is statutory. And even then, it is very difficult for the federal government to monitor the day to day or even month to month progress of school improvement efforts across 15,000 school districts.

    Highly Qualified Teachers

    The proposed reg codifies the loophole, created in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, that allows special education teachers to have less knowledge, training, and experience in the subjects they teach than non-special education teachers.

    If I were the parent of a special education student, I would want to know why my child should have a algebra teacher with less knowledge in mathematics than the teachers of my child’s non-special education peers. I’m kinda funny that way.

    Assessments

    The reg would clarify and emphasize that the law allows states to use multiple measures to assess student learning, including for measuring adequate yearly progress. It also creates a technical advisory council to give states assistance in improving state assessments.

    It’s good that the Secretary is doing these things. But too many anti-NCLB groups have their arguments centered on the "one test" argument. (i.e., they say accountability should be based on additional measures. Then say out of the other side of their mouths that there is too much testing already). This proposal won’t cool that misleading rhetoric.

    So, this is a very small, very modest step. A much more aggressive campaign, along with new funding for a handful of vanguard states that want to pursue 21st Century assessment systems, would be needed to really turn things (both perception and reality) around. Of course, a Secretary needs Congressional action, support, and funding to do that.

    04/28/08

    Permalink 05:31:45 am, Categories: Announcements [A]

    NCLB Academic Nonsense: Second In a Series


    The "experts" are coming out of the woodwork to say that public policy decisions shouldn’t be based on objective criteria like tests.

    Only in the bizarre world of education policy where people are allowed to advance with impunity arguments that are DOA in any other real world setting would such statements as the following pass muster:

    "The more you put pressure on a given indicator, the more you end up corrupting whatever it is the indicator is supposed to measure," Koretz said. "It’s not uncommon to find bogus gains that are in the vicinity of three, four or five times as much as real gains."  In a high-stakes environment where money, prestige and a school’s future can rest on test scores, test results can’t be trusted, said Harvard education professor Daniel Koretz. 

    I look forward to Koretz’s upcoming study finding that Harvard University is highly overrrated, no better than, say, Cape Cod Community College, since its national rankings are based on the very types of indicators he cites. As are his tenure status, his salary, the advancement of his graduate students, the integrity of his publications (and public statements), etc….
     
    A note to Dan’s students: sounds like Dr. Koretz will be canceling final exams! Last one to the Vineyard is a rotten egg.  

    For more see today’s Contra Costa Times.

    04/24/08

    Permalink 05:54:32 am, Categories: Announcements [A]
    Wherein the Secretary steps into the policymaking vacuum. And New York Times reporter Sam Dillon gets spun like a top once again….

    On Tuesday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings stepped into the policymaking vacuum created by a paralyzed Congress to offer a sensible, albeit imperfect, set of proposals for revising NCLB regulations. She is well within her rights to do so.* We will take up the substance in our next post. For now, here’s our take on the politics.

    Congress, which seems to be annoyed by Spellings’ action, could have avoided this if it had acted legislatively. But it did not, apparently could not.

    On the House side, Democrats on the Education Committee, who know the issues, were ready in September to move forward with a sensible, albeit imperfect set of reforms. But they were blocked by Democrats off the Committee who, to be honest, got snookered by lobbyists (primarily the NEA, AFT, and AASA) into blocking the bill from coming for a vote before the full House. These lobbyists never offered an alternative proposal, but merely lobbed vague demagogic attacks (including political ads) against Chairman Miller’s and Ranking Member McKeon’s draft proposal. At the time, they were betting that Hillary Clinton would assume the Presidency in 2009 and completely eviscerate the law rather than revise it.

    On the Senate side, Chairman Kennedy faced the prospect of a Committee markup attended by Presidential candidates Obama and Clinton. There is not a hose in the Senate big enough to have washed away all the slung mud.

    If the law is as bad as those poorly informed members of Congress who have thus far blocked legislative action say it is, you’d think they would have taken the Miller-McKeon deal, offered their amendments, demanded a huge funding increase, then taken another shot at the law in 2009.

    Instead, they are left empty handed. At almost a year and half into their control of Congress, Democrats can claim no policy changes and no significant increase in funds. And, in the meantime, some of the same lobbying organizations that blocked legislative action on NCLB (such as the AFT) are doing all they can to elect President McCain.

    The MSM has yet to catch onto the game that the inside-the-Beltway education lobbyists (dubbed affectionately by former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett in the 1980’s as ‘The Blob’) have been running on our elected leaders since at least last August.

    Here’s a quote on Spellings’ action from Sam Dillon’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times, by one of the key lobbyists who worked to block Congressional action on NCLB 2.0 last year:

    “This is the boldest sidestep around the Congress that I’ve ever seen,” said Bruce Hunter, a lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators. “She’s trying to rewrite the law without benefit of Congressional action. I’d be surprised if lawmakers let this go.”

    The quote goes unanswered in Dillon’s piece.

    Sam, if you see a table on the streets of Manhattan with 3 folded cards being shuffled quickly please, for your own sake, run the other way.

    ——————————————————————————————

     

    * According to Education Daily (courtesy of reporter Stephen Sawchuk) Spellings’ proposal gets a "Legal thumbs-up"

     

    From Ed Daily:

     

    David DeSchryver, legislative director at Brustein & Manasevit, an education law firm in Washington, D.C, noted that the courts have set a high bar for successful challenges to regulations.

     

    The proposed ED regulations do not meet the "arbitrary and capricious" standard under the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 for the courts to overturn them.

     

    "In terms of legal muster, it’s a hard standard not to pass," DeSchryver said.

     

    Dianne Piché, an attorney for the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, said a cursory review of the regulations did not turn up any red flags.

     

    "We’re still going through it with a lawyer’s fine-toothed comb, and we could find something that’s not within the secretary’s broad author­ity to regulate and enforce laws passed by Congress, but we haven’t found anything yet," she said."

     

    ————————————————–

     

    NYT editors take note. The difference between Sawchuck’s piece and Dillon’s represents the difference between real reporting and merely using one’s article as a bulletin board for the "usual suspects".

     

    04/14/08

    Permalink 05:15:08 am, Categories: Announcements [A]

    U can be the President
    I’d rather be the Pope
    Yeah u can be the side effect
    I’d rather be the dope
    — Prince 
     
     
    v   Services for private school students accounted for about 1 percent of Title I funds in 2004-05.
     
    v   The number of private school students participating in Title I increased gradually over the past 20 years, to 188,000 in 2004-05.
     
    v   In 2005-06, 16 percent of private schools reported participating in Title I.
     
    v   Catholic schools were much more likely to participate (37 percent of all Catholic schools) than were other religious schools (7 percent) or non-sectarian schools (6 percent).
     
    v   Private schools were more likely to participate in other NCLB programs; 44 percent reported participating in at least one program in NCLB.
     
    v   In 2005-06, 60 percent of districts reported that consultation covered professional development for private school teachers, compared with 48 percent of private school principals.
     
    v   District respondents were also more likely to report consultation on activities for private school parents (52 vs. 41 percent) and assessment methods for measuring students’ progress in meeting standards (55 vs. 48 percent).
     
    v   In 2004-05, districts serving private school participants through Title I funds most commonly provided instructional services to private school students (reported by 87 percent of such districts).
     
    v   Other frequently-provided services included equipment or materials (65 percent), professional development for private school teachers (63 percent), and parental involvement activities (60 percent).
     
    v    In 2005-06, among public school districts with Title I participants from private schools, about half (49 percent) provided Title I services at the private school site with a district teacher; other common approaches were to provide services at the private school using a third-party provider (28 percent) or in a computer-assisted lab (16 percent). 
     
    All facts and figures are from the National Assessment of Title I, revised 1/2/08 

    04/12/08

    Permalink 08:14:12 am, Categories: Announcements [A]

    Legislation is now moving through the Oklahoma legislature that would allow a 50 percent tax credit to individuals or businesses contributing to a fund that would provide scholarships for low-income kids in failing schools to go to a private school.  The heroes here are two black Democrats – Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre and Rep. Jabar Shumate. Going against the grain of their party, and against the Oklahoma union and public-school establishments, these brave souls are championing this initiative.  The bill has already passed the Oklahoma Senate, where Eason McIntyre co-sponsored it with a conservative Republican. It’s now waiting to be scheduled for a vote in the House. 

    I know how bad schools are in Oklahoma City from the frequent postings of one of my most avid readers, teacher John Thompson.

    But are Senator McIntyre and Representative Shumate just the tip of a very large iceberg?

    I was on Capitol Hill when the bill passed to provide federally funded vouchers for DC public school students and I can tell you that no Democrat threw themselves on the tracks to stop it.
     
    As we saw in yesterday’s post, many key Democrats (including, in fact especially, Chair of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, Representative Dale Kildee, D-MI) work hard to funnel millions of dollars in federal funds to private schools.
     
    Many liberals are closet voucher supporters (and some, like former Labor Secretary Robert Reich are not so closeted) in part because they are frustrated with playing cat and mouse games with administrators and teachers unions to even get data collected let alone implement sensible reforms that benefit children.
     
    I’m not there. Not yet.

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    Swift & Change Able will attempt to cover all aspects of NCLB, including:
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    Swift & Change Able will try to look at events in the states and local school districts, as well as the ongoing reauthorization process in Washington, D.C.

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