04/30/08
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
05:31:45 am, Categories: Announcements [A] NCLB Academic Nonsense: Second In a Series
"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.
04/24/08
05:54:32 am, Categories: Announcements [A] “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.
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* 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."
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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
05:15:08 am, Categories: Announcements [A] 04/12/08
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.
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