NEWS
- National Research Council Report on D.C. schools shows much needs to be done [FOCUS mentioned]
- Get rid of No Child Left Behind, however
- Feds renew No Child Left Behind waivers for D.C. and seven states
- Education groups to Congress: Please get rid of No Child Left Behind, already
National Research Council Report on D.C. schools shows much needs to be done [FOCUS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 23, 2015
The Washington Post's Michael Allison Chandler today covers a D.C. Council education committee hearing regarding the National Research Council Report which looked at the progress of D.C. public schools since Mayoral control was implemented in 2007. While it found that there have been significant improvements in the education landscape in the nation's capital there is still much to be accomplished. The investigation found that the greatest amount of work still to be done has to do with those at the low end of the economic scale. The study revealed that the academic achievement gap between rich and poor and black and white is not improving. From the report:
"Black and Hispanic students, those with disabilities, those eligible for free or reduced price lunches, and English-language learners are much more likely to be in the lowest performance categories than other students. Some improvement is evident since 2009, but more than half of these students still score below proficient. There is little indication that these performance disparities—in test scores or in graduation rates—are lessening."
The reaction to these findings from DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson was highly predictable. Ms. Chandler quotes her as stating the obvious. “It’s no secret we need to do more,” Ms. Henderson remarked.
But I don't think there is actually any appetite to do more. There are several steps we could take today to significantly improve public education in this town but there is no one left to fight for these reforms. I'll include a few of them here:
1. Increase the number of students eligible to enter the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Enrollment has been stuck at about 1,500 kids for a decade. Why not give a private school scholarship to the family of any low income child that wants one?
2. Provide charters guaranteed facility space paid for by the city. Charters are public schools like the traditional ones who receive at least two and a half times less facility capital funds per student than DCPS.
3. Fix the inequity between charters and DCPS regarding operating funds. This is what the FOCUS lawsuit is about. However, we don't really need to wait for a Federal judge to solve this issue. Mayor Bowser could eliminate the need for legal action today.
Taking step one would increase competition for students and provide those living in poverty a quality education right now without having to wait for the public schools to improve. Steps two and three would encourage other high performing charter operators to come to D.C. and may nudge some of our own excellent local charters to replicate.
These things would be fantastic and would lead to solving one of the greatest civil rights challenges of our time. However, I'm afraid the air that used to hoist the school reform balloon way up over our heads has already escaped.
Get rid of No Child Left Behind, however
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 24, 2015
At a news conference today, the Washington Post's Emma Brown reports, ten education groups are going to ask Congress to finally eliminate the No Child Left Behind law. The legislation, which sought to have all public school students proficient in math and reading by 2014, needs to be either renewed or replaced but politicians have not been able to come up with an acceptable path forward.
Ms. Brown characterizes those opposing NCLB this way, "In addition to the National PTA and the NEA, which represents 3 million teachers nationwide, the groups calling for action include the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Chief State School Officers and organizations representing principals, superintendents and school boards."
Many recognize the problems with the act. Schools reported proficiency rates but it was up to each State to determine how this was measured. The result was that in some localities pupils that were judged to be meeting academic expectations were found on the NAEP examination, or the national report card, to score poorly. In addition, educational institutions that were taking kids that were years below grade-level and making significant progress in bringing them to where they needed to be would still be labeled as "failing" because students did not reach the law's annual proficiency targets.
So while NCLB has to be revised we must not go back to the way things were prior to President G.W. Bush signing this groundbreaking bill in 2001. Before the implementation of this law the public had no idea which school was performing well academically and which was not. In fact, it was shocking to find out how poorly many schools were doing. While you will not find anyone more opposed to the federal government's involvement in our lives than me, we cannot return to the situation were school districts are receiving significant dollars in the form of Title 1 funds but are not being held accountable for results in the classroom. The former Chancellor of New York City schools Joel Klein makes exactly the same point in his excellent book Lessons of Hope (HarperCollins, 2014).
Therefore, if the federal government is going to remain involved in public education, and I'm afraid it will have to because the individual states have done such a poor job on the accountability front, then standardized testing must continue to be required on an annual basis. Some action plan will have to stay in place for those schools where students are not academically proficient in math and reading. Perhaps the next version of NCLB can include credit for those facilities that show strong increases in scores for those that are the most challenging to educate.
Feds renew No Child Left Behind waivers for D.C. and seven states
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
June 23, 2015
The District and seven states will remain exempt from key parts of No Child Left Behind, freeing them from the most burdensome provisions of the federal education law that left many schools facing sanctions.
The District and the states — Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, West Virginia and New York — first won waivers from No Child Left Behind several years ago.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Tuesday that he had renewed those waivers under a fast-track approval process for states that lived up to their commitments in their initial applications for relief.
New York’s renewed waiver is good for four years, through the 2018-19 school year. The other seven waivers, including the District's, are good for three years, through the 2017-18 school year.
Duncan announced the renewal of five other waiver requests in March. Forty-two states and the District received waivers beginning in 2011 and all of those facing expiration have applied for renewal.
In order to receive waivers, states had to outline their own accountability plans and agree to adopt certain policies favored by the Obama administration, including teacher evaluations that incorporate student test scores.
Some state officials and members of Congress have criticized the waivers as an overreach by the federal Education Department. Duncan said Tuesday that it’s well within the power of Congress to do away with waivers — all lawmakers have to do is reach a deal to rewrite No Child Left Behind, a move that would render the waivers moot.
A bill to revise the federal education law could come to the Senate floor as early as July.
Education groups to Congress: Please get rid of No Child Left Behind, already
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
June 23, 2015
Enough, Congress!
Time to finally get rid of No Child Left Behind.
That’s the message that the nation’s two largest teachers unions and eight other major education groups, including the National PTA, are planning to deliver at a Tuesday news conference. They want the Senate to vote on a bill to revise No Child Left Behind, the long-expired and widely reviled federal education law.
The Senate’s education committee supported the bipartisan bill with a rare unanimous vote two months ago, but floor debate keeps getting pushed off by other issues — including, mostly recently, legislation related to President Obama’s trade agenda.
“Once again, a group of politicians has said we really, really care about kids, except that they’re not the most important thing that we’re going to do this week,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association. “It’s time that kids are the most important thing that can come before the Senate.”
Eskelsen said that Congress could miss a rare window of opportunity to end an “absolutely failed education policy” if it doesn’t act soon.
In addition to the National PTA and the NEA, which represents 3 million teachers nationwide, the groups calling for action include the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Chief State School Officers and organizations representing principals, superintendents and school boards.
The 2002 No Child Left Behind law in 2002 required schools to meet annual test-score targets or face an escalating series of sanctions. As more and more schools failed to meet targets, the law became increasingly indefensible, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan offered waivers from the most burdensome provisions to states that were willing to adopt policies favored by the Obama administration, including teacher evaluations based in part on test scores.
Lawmakers from both sides of the political spectrum are eager to do away with the law — some because they see it as punitive and overly focused on standardized tests and others because they want to see the federal government wield far less influence in education.
But for all the disgust with No Child Left Behind, it has managed to persist eight years after passing its expiration date because Congress has been unable to agree on an alternative. The current Senate bill, a compromise hammered out by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairman and ranking member of the education committee, has given many advocates hope that change is within reach.
“We’re tired of being patient,” said G.A. Bouie, a Kansas principal who serves as president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, in remarks prepared for Tuesday’s news conference.
The earliest the Senate bill — known as the Every Child Achieves Act — could come to the floor is now sometime after the July 4th break. Alexander has said that he hopes the bill will come up for debate in July.
But that debate could get pushed back to August or beyond. The longer it is put off, the more likely it is to become tangled in — or derailed by — other events, including partisan budget politics and the 2016 presidential contest.
And a vote in the Senate is just the beginning. The House would need to either pass the Senate bill or its own version. And President Obama would have to be willing to sign whatever compromise emerges.
It’s a long road, but many education advocates remain hopeful that this is the beginning of a real goodbye to No Child Left Behind.
“We’re pleased that both houses of Congress are finally moving on this, and we think there’s real energy on this,” said Thomas Gentzel, executive director of the National School Boards Association. “I think there’s a lot of momentum behind it.”
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