NCLB: Act II

First growth models, then differentiated accountability. It appears as if Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' next target is graduation rates.

Spellings will appear at an event tomorrow sponsored by the America's Promise Alliance. The group will release a new report analyzing dropout data and will announce it will sponsor "dropout summits" in 50 states and 50 cities.

In her speech, Spellings will announce she believes there's "a need for a more comprehensive and precise definition of graduation rate," says Department of Education news release promoting the event.

On a more important (and personal note), if I get a chance to talk to the secretary tomorrow, I'm going to ask for her help getting Nationals' tickets.

EXTRA TIDBIT: America's Promise is the group founded by Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. Just last week, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, discussed her support for NCLB. When was the last time two secretaries of state got involved in a K-12 issue like this?

FULL DISCLOSURE: The America's Promise report was produced by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, a separate arm of the nonprofit that publishes edweek.org and Education Week.

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"Troublemaker" Checker Finn, at right, believes that NCLB's reauthorization is stalled because of five fallacies. He says it's a myth that the law is underfunded, and he questions whether it has led to teaching to the test. "If the test is an honest measure of a solid curriculum," he writes in Sunday's Washington Post, "then teaching kids the skills and knowledge they need to pass it is honorable work."

Whether you agree with him on those points, I'd be interested to hear reaction to his succinct summary of the problems with the law's standards.

Compromises needed to pass NCLB left the law laid-back about standards yet fussy about what states and districts should do when those standards aren't met. The upshot: low expectations on one hand and too much micromanagement on the other.

Take a minute to read all five myths . The piece is short enough to be a blog entry. In the future, we'll all be bloggers.

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Back in 2000, Republican presidential candidates courted foreign policy expert Condoleezza Rice, right, to advise them. One thing that appealed to the Russia expert about George Bush was his proposal to give "equal opportunity to black and white students" under NCLB.

That's what the secretary of state tells The Washington Times in an interview published today.

(Note: Rice's remarks about NCLB are on the jump of the story. They aren't included in the video that goes with the story.)

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In my first entry of 2008, I wrote that state legislators were going to put NCLB in their sights. Virginia already has passed a bill that would require the state board to consider opting out of the law, though I predicted that board members would find more than 400 million reasons (aka dollars) to stay with the law.

Now, anti-NCLB bills are moving in Minnesota and Arizona. In Arizona yesterday, the House passed a bill that would require the state to leave NCLB by July 1, 2010. Rep. David Schapira, the Democrat who sponsored the bill, estimates that the state would need to replace $600 million in federal money if the bill is enacted. In Minnesota, the House Finance Committee approved an amendment Tuesday that would require the state to leave NCLB.

In both states, the bill will face hurdles. In Minnesota, Education Commissioner Alice Seagren opposes the bill, according this news report (courtesy of Schools Matter). In Arizona, Rep. Schapira has no specific plan to replace the lost federal money. At some point, someone will ask how the state is going to replace that money. That would be a hard question to answer in Arizona—or just about any other state.

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Yesterday, I reported that the Department of Education had approved 29 states' standards and assessment plans. I based that on my reading of decision letters on the department's Web site.

Since then, I've gotten clarification on where states stand. All told, 31 states have received the Department of Education's "full approval" or "approval with recommendations," Chad Colby, a department spokesman, told me in an e-mail. All of them will qualify to participate in the pilot project on "differential accountability."

Colby wrote that four states and the District of Columbia are in the "approval expected" category. They probably will have their testing systems completed and approved by the department by the start of the 2008-09 school year. They can apply for the differential accountability project, but they wouldn't be allowed to implement their plan until their standards and assessment had been certified by the department.

Another nine states are in "approval pending." These include Louisiana and South Dakota. Yesterday, I reported that South Dakota has not been approved based on this July 13 letter, which says the state hadn't been assigned "an approval status." That has changed, Colby told me.

Finally, six states and Puerto Rico haven't been approved and remain far away from getting approved. They are working with the department on agreements outlining the steps they'll need to take to get their testing systems up to snuff. These states plan will probably need two or three years to complete their work, Kerri L. Briggs, the assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, told me in an interview today.

Nebraska is in a "holding pattern," Briggs said, as its lawmakers consider major changes to the state's testing system. (See Nebraska Bill Would Boost States Tests' Status.)

If you want to see where your state stands, see this list I've compiled.

If you want to read more about the "differential accountability," my story from this week's newspaper is States Get Flexibility on Targets. And here are other blog posts on this issue:
Lawmakers on Left and Right Criticize Pilot Project
Minnesota, Other States Left Behind in Accountability Pilot
Spellings Creates Pilot Project to Differentiate Consequences

Other stories of note in the March 26, 2008, issue of Education Week:
States Seeking Proper Balance in Use of ELL Test Scores
FOIA Requeset Elicits Greeting and Blank Pages

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In a new report, the Government Accountability Office says that states are allocating their own money to help schools failing to make AYP under NCLB. The GAO estimates that since 2002 states used $2.6 billion of their own money for school improvement efforts. That's double the $1.3 billion that states are required to set aside for school improvement from NCLB's Title I. States also are using money from federal programs other than Title I to aid those schools.

GAO also that not all states can document how their schools are spending their Title I money for school improvement. In a joint statement, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., say the Department of Education should start monitoring how states spend the money.

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Last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings traveled to St. Paul, Minn., to announce that she would offer up to 10 states the chance to "differentiate accountability" under NCLB. She didn't mention in her speech that Minnesota wouldn't qualify. The state hasn't won the feds' approval for its testing system—one of four criteria participating states must meet.

In her speech, though, Spellings said she would give preference to states that have been "pioneers for reform." She lauded Louisiana, Maryland, North Dakota, and South Dakota for their accountability systems and Massachusetts for its standards.

But two of those states—Louisiana and South Dakota—haven't received the Department of Education's "full approval" for their testing systems, according to decision letters posted on the department's Web site. Both states have lists of things to fix before winning the feds' approval. (See Louisiana's list in a June 29 letter and South Dakota's list in a July 13 letter.)

Chad Colby, an Education Department spokesman, told me in an e-mail today these states could apply for the new pilot project. But they wouldn't be allowed to implement any plan until the department okays their testing system.

Colby is checking on the number of states that the department has given "full approval." I counted 15 states in that category, and another 16 in "approved with recommendations."

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The response to the "differentiated accountability" project shows one truth about NCLB: It's hard to please everybody. Looking at reaction from the left and the right on Capitol Hill, you see tepid endorsements for the plan, followed by criticism of the law itself.

From the right, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the pilot project "a good step forward," but added that it doesn't go far enough. In his statement, Cornyn touted his bill, S. 893, that would give states "maximum freedom" to design their own initiatives in five-year performance contracts. The bill has the support of conservative senators—but not the Bush administration.

From the left, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., calls the plan a "long overdue step" in a letter to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who announced the plan last week. But Walz indicates that the announcement won't change his stance on the law: "NCLB is a deeply flawed mandate that is badly in need of significant reform and overhaul," he writes. (Link via Bluestem Prairie.)

These reactions will mean little in the implementation of the latest pilot project. But they show how difficult it will be to gather the votes for NCLB reauthorization—whether it happens this year or next.

P.S. A letter to the editor of The New York Times gave a headline writer the chance to create the latest word play on the NCLB name: No Cynic Left Behind.

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Yesterday, I pointed out that people as diverse as Margaret Spellings and Randi Weingarten are floating ideas that will inform NCLB's reauthorization. Today, I can report that some old hands in Washington are thinking of way to do the same thing.

At a panel discussion organized by Education Sector, Jack Jennings said that his Center on Education Policy is organizing a group that will recommend new directions for federal K-12 policy. "We're going to fundamentally rethink the federal role in education," said Jennings, who worked for House Democrats from 1967 through 1994 and has been the Center on Education Policy's leader since then. He expects his group will issue a report in January—just in time for a new administration to read it.

For her part, Kati Haycock of the Education Trust is looking to create education's version of the National Institutes of Health. "What passes for evidence [in education] is pathetic," she said. She's also trying to find ways to get teachers the curricula and materials they say they need, citing their desire for clear definition of what to teach. What they really want is national standards, she said.

I must say that my recent items (see here and here) that House leaders are pessimistic on NCLB's prospects this year has sparked a small existential crisis for my inner blogger. If the Senate doesn't succeed, what's my purpose as a blogger about NCLB reauthorization?

After this week's events, I convinced that I won't lack for important ideas and events to write about if until Congress gets the law reauthorized, even if that takes until 2010.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT: Samuel Halperin provides some context for those who think the stakes are high in this NCLB reauthorization. At today's event, he talked about how K-12 bills stalled in Congress for a decade because Southerners blocked efforts to tie federal aid to the desegregation of their schools. The debate over "differential accountability" and the universal proficiency seems small by comparison.

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With NCLB reauthorization looking less likely each week, the debate over the future of the law's key tenets has begun. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said she wants her new pilot project on "differentiated accountability" to offer Congress a model of how to rework interventions in schools. And don't overlook the accountability proposal that Randi Weingarten, president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, released last week.

Weingarten's plan would add new ingredients to the accountability mix. (One quick note: Her ideas are about accountability in general but could be applied to NCLB.) In addition to test scores, schools would be rated on their safety and discipline, as well as their "teamwork for student achievement." Districts would be evaluated on the support they provide the school. The reports would rate schools against a standard—not on a curve—but also would compare schools against ones with similar demographics. Eduwonk says the plan "puts some good ideas on the table," but "it seems to me to move accountability too far away from demonstrable outputs."

When looking at the future of NCLB, Weingarten's proposal is important as much for her political standing as for her ideas. Weingarten is expected to become president of the American Federation of Teachers this year. If a certain senator from New York, whom the AFT has endorsed, is in the Oval Office next year, Weingarten certainly would be one of the most important voices in the next version of NCLB. Even if one of the other candidates is president, Democrats in Congress are certain to look closely at Weingarten's plan because it voices the complaints of teachers and educators.

"It is our hope that the UFT’s proposed framework initiates a vigorous debate over both the ends of accountability and the best means to achieve these ends," Leo Casey writes on the UFT blog, edwize. In the current issue of Education Week, Weingarten's proposal merited a brief mention. (Like other newspapers, we focused on the biggest news story in New York.) But I'm betting Weingarten's ideas will get noticed and talked about eventually.

Other stories of note in the March 19, 2008, issue of Education Week:
Spellings, on Tour, Aims to Promote NCLB
Key Democrat's Plan Would Boost Charter Schools (Note: Since this story went online, Rep. Rahm Emanuel has introduced legislation on this topic.)
Miller Joins Pessimists Club on NCLB Renewal
Poor Math Scores Posted on Unusual 3-State Exams
Virginia Lawmakers Enact Measure Taking Aim at NCLB (see my blog item on the bill)
New-Leaders Group Offers Initial Insights Into Effective Practice

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Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings traveled to St. Paul, Minn., to announce today that she's inviting states to experiment with "differential accountability." In her speech, she didn't mention one important detail: Minnesota doesn't qualify.

Minnesota's testing system hasn't been approved by the federal Education Department—one of four criteria states must meet to win approval under the pilot project. (The other three are: a teacher-quality plan approved by the feds; clean federal monitoring reports; and what the department calls "timely and transparent" AYP reports. It's all spelled out in the department's fact sheet.) What's more, the program will give priority to states in which more than 20 percent of schools have been declared in need of improvement under NCLB. Minnesota has fewer than 20 percent of its schools in that category.

Even so, Minnesota could apply for the new program and win approval for its plan. But it wouldn't be allowed to implement its plan until it met all of the criteria, Chad Colby, an Education Department spokesman, told me in an e-mail today. Florida had a similar experience when the department approved its growth model plan.

With these criteria, I wonder how many states are in the same boat as Minnesota. I've asked the department how many states meet all the criteria. I'll report it to you when I get it. In the meantime, you can read about today's announcement in Spellings Offers Latitude on Poor-Performing Schools. There will be more to come in next week's paper.

Bonus links on reaction to the proposal:
FairTest says the pilot project is "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."
Gene Wilhoit of the Council of Chief State School Officers calls the plan "a step in the right direction."
Eduwonk says the roll out was too political, but adds that the policy "might generate some new ideas on how to refine No Child's accountability rules."

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Ten states will get the opportunity to restructure their intervention in schools that aren't making AYP under the "differentiated accountability" proposal Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced this morning in St. Paul, Minn.

The Department of Education will set up a peer review process to evaluate states' proposals to provide consequences based on how close they are to making their AYP goals, with schools that are farthest away getting the most dramatic interventions. Spelling said the process will be "very similar" to the one in which the department evaluated the growth model pilot program.

In her speech, Spellings said the department would favor states that "have been pioneers for reform," identifying Maryland, North Dakota, Louisiana, and South Dakota as such states.

Here is a fact sheet on the pilot project. An here is an Associated Press story based on an interview with Spellings that was written before this morning's speech.

Updates to come later today.

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At the Council of the Great City Schools meeting in Washington this morning, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, right, said she plans to "make this law work as well as possible."

She touted her effort to approve states' proposals to use growth models in accountability. She listed other areas she's exploring, such as differentiating consequences for schools and districts based on how far away they are from their achievement goals; improving data on dropout rates; and ensuring students have access to tutoring.

When asked about differentiated consequences, she had this to say: "One of the things that is important to me ... is to start developing some better practices so that Congress will enact things that smart and good policy," she said. "The growth model notion that is now being talked about on the Hill is being talked about because we set that table with some sound practices. I think we owe the Congress that on differentiated consequences."

Her press shop put out an advisory this morning promising "a national policy announcement" tomorrow when she visits Minnesota. Expect to hear ideas on how to differentiate consequences—and perhaps a few other issues, too.

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Comedian Al Franken is running for U.S. Senate in Minnesota. His position on NCLB is that the law needs to be "dramatically reformed or scrapped altogether." Franken, a Democrat, sounds a like a cross between John Edwards and Bill Richardson.

His opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, is a co-sponsor of a bipartisan NCLB bill that would keep much of the law intact, but give it a new name.

Find out more over from Alyson Klein's latest cameo at Campaign K-12.

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When Congress convened last year, prominent Democrats introduced plans that would nationalize standards. Most would reward states for linking their standards to the achievement level of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The goal would be to entice states to increase the rigor of their standards. (See Standards Get Boost on the Hill.)

Even though those bills haven't made any progress, state groups are examining ways to beef up their standards, Michele McNeil (aka MM of Campaign K-12) reports in Benchmarks Momentum on Increase. The groups are considering a variety of efforts to upgrade their expectations, mostly by comparing individual states' expectations and student achievement with international test scores. The groups are looking at other countries because state leaders say they need to know whether the United States expects enough of their students.

"What if those standards are not aligned with the best-performing systems in the world?" Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, asks of an ongoing effort to identify the common elements of states' standards.

Other stories of interest in the March 12, 2008, issue of Education Week:

Insights Gained Into Arts and Smarts
Kentucky Lawmakers Take Aim at State Tests
Directors of 'Reading First' Plagued by Anxiety Over Budget Cuts

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The Virginia General Assembly has passed a bill that would give the state's board of education the option of leaving NCLB behind.

Virginia's been down this road before. In 2004, it passed a Republican-backed resolution saying it didn't have the money to comply with the law, prompting this statement from then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Virginia stuck with the law.

This year, Republicans raised the issue again. Throughout the legislative session, the House pushed a bill that would have required the state board to create a plan to withdraw from NCLB by 2009. Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, opposed it, according to this news story, and the Senate never went along.

The compromise was to let the board of education members decide. They have 416 million reasons to stick with NCLB. That's the number of dollars the state would receive from NCLB programs under President Bush's proposed fiscal 2009 budget proposal. Gov. Kaine probably wouldn't want to forfeit that money because he has plans for universal preK and other programs, as eduflak points out. Board members know that—and that the legislature wouldn't replace lost federal money with state funds.

All Virginia lawmakers are doing is making a political statement that reinforces the assertion by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., that NCLB is "the most negative brand in America."

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At the Center for American Progress today, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., suggested that he has an expansive vision for the next version of NCLB.

At an event discussing a new report from New Leaders for New Schools, Miller, at right, talked about how the federal government could assist principals. His goal would be to help them create plans for improvement that address the needs of their communities, based on the abilities of their staffs and parents and using resources in creative ways to accomplish the learning goals.

"This is all doable," the chairman of the House Education Committee told an audience at the think tank's Washington office. "The question is: Will we be able to do it?"

My question when I caught up with him in the hallway was: Will Congress be able to enact an NCLB this year?

Probably not, he said, echoing similar comments two weeks ago by Rep. Howard P. McKeon of California, his Republican counterpart on the committee.

"I just don't see the Congress passing that legislation if the president is not willing to support a budget with the resources everyone knows are necessary," Miller said in the interview.

Miller is still talking to leaders in the Senate education committee because "they want to take a shot at it," he added. But he didn't sound optimistic about getting a bill finished this year.

"This is not the kind of environment that people are going to go out and support what has become the most negative brand in America," he told me, repeating a phrase he's used before.

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Over at Campaign K-12, Mark Walsh reports on Monday's panel discussion on presidential politics at the American Enterprise Institute. Near the bottom, he includes this quote from William A. Galston: "I don't think that NCLB will survive in anything like its current form" if a Democrat become president.

Galston, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, worked in the domestic policy shop in the Clinton White House and had a hand in designing the 1994 version of the Elementary and Secondary Act. He predicts that a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress would create something that looks more like the 1994 law than NCLB.

I'm not so sure about that. It's hard to predict what would happen to NCLB if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., win in November. Based on what they've said on the campaign trail in these YouTube videos and on their Web sites (see his and hers), they wouldn't end the testing or accountability provisions under NCLB. But they leave lots of questions unanswered. Would testing be less frequent? Would accountability rules give negative labels to fewer schools? Even if the answer to both questions is yes, the law could still expect more from states than the 1994 version.

What's more, Congress will have a significant role in this process. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., are likely to stay in charge of the congressional education committees. Both helped write NCLB and will want to put their stamp on its replacement. Would they endorse a Democratic president's plan to go back to the 1994 policies?

Right now, I think it's too early to predict. And I don't think we'll get many clues in coming months. Education hasn't been a major issue for the candidates and it doesn't look as if it's going to become one. Unless it does, we won't have a clear idea of where NCLB is headed until the president takes office.

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NCLB's reauthorization will involve fights over big issues (such as testing, AYP, and school choice) and a whole bunch of small ones.

In U.S. Position on Research Seen in Flux, my colleague Debra Viadero explains that the definition of "scientifically valid research" will be one of those small ones. Last fall, the House education committee's discussion draft would have expanded the definition to include studies that don't have control groups.

"We can't be constrained solely by quasi-experimental and random-assignment studies in education," Roberto Rodriguez, a senior adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said at a Feb. 21 panel discussion on Capitol Hill.

But a Department of Education official wants Congress to proceed carefully before changing the definition.

"Unless we bring in rigor, we're not going to bring in really scientific advances," Williamson Evers, the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development, said at the same forum.

Other stories in the March 5, 2008, issue of Education Week:
Bush Education Budget Inadequate, Spellings Is Told
A Key Republican Sees Odds Dipping for NCLB Renewal (based on last Thursday's comments by Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif.)
New Group Formed to Promote Liberal Arts Curriculum (as mentioned in this item about Common Core)

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NCLB's prospects for 2008 appear to be fading. Even Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has her doubts the law will be reauthorized this year.

"I hope that it will get done. I don't know. But I certainly am not going to put all my eggs in that basket," Spellings said last week during her visit to Austin, Texas.

Spellings joins Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., in questioning whether NCLB will pass this year. He said last week the situation "doesn't look very favorable."

Back in January, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told people he was working on a bill that he believed the teacher unions would support and President Bush would sign. Kennedy's committee would mark up a bill in March, the word was. March is here, and Congress usually recesses for Easter. The clock is ticking.

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On the question of whether NCLB is narrowing schools' curriculum, put Sen. Barack Obama in the yes column. In a Feb. 28 appearance in Beaumont, Texas, the Illinois Democrat is emphatic on the point. (Below, watch the video his campaign posted on YouTube.)

"Since the only thing that's being tested is math and reading, we're not teaching children a broad range of things," he said at a rally in Beaumont, Texas, on Feb. 28. "I want kids to learn art and music and history and civics and a whole host of other things."

Broadening the curriculum will yield dividends, he said, because children can understand math by studying music. "Children who get physical education are better focused in the classroom," he said.

He also suggested that testing should happen at the beginning of the school year so the results can help the teacher and that accountability decisions should be made based on student growth.

Once he finished talking about NCLB and other education issues, Obama turned his attention to parents: "It doesn't matter how much money we put in [to schools] if parents don't parent," he said. Joanne Jacobs wonders if Obama would name Bill Cosby his secretary of education.

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