July 2008 Archives

Which students are improving fastest in the NCLB era: those at the top or the bottom of the achievement ladder?

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation issued a report last month suggesting that the test scores of those in the bottom 10 percent of achievement are rising faster than those in the top 10 percent. The study cited scores from the state version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

When the report came out, I asked: Doesn't this mean NCLB is working as intended?

But the Think Tank Review Project—made up of self-appointed gadflies in their own right—asked its own question: Do other NAEP data substantiate the conclusion? When Gregory Camilli of Rutgers University analyzed data from the national long-term trend NAEP, he found almost no change in the gap between the bottom 10 percent and the top 10 percent. He writes:

In sum, the state and long-term data sets give different results, and this problem needs to be addressed before gap statistics can be used confidently to describe the effects of accountability policies.

As in many debates over education, the research appears to be inconclusive. With the delay in NCLB reauthorization, there will be more chances for researchers to answer the question of whether NCLB has had a positive impact on the achievement of students at all levels.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 3:37 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

With NCLB on the back burner until next year, Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del., has introduced a bill that could be the starting point for discussion in 2009.

The bill includes lots of ideas from the bipartisan discussion draft that leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee released last year, according to this press release issued jointly by Castle and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif. They are the most important Republicans on the education committee.

According to a summary on Castle's Web site, the bill would:

1.) Require states to rewrite their standards to make them compatible with expectations for colleges and the workplace.
2.) Ask the National Academy of Sciences to explain the best method for comparing states' standards.
3.) Create two "separate and distinct school improvement and assistance systems" and two separate ways of redesigning schools, depending on the severity of the student achievement problems in those schools.
4.) Revive the Reading First program. See H.R. 1939 sponsored by Castle and McKeon.
5.) Establish a uniform method of calculating graduation rates.

Time reporters may point to this as a sign that NCLB could move quickly next year. But, remember that the discussion draft didn't advance last year.

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Time is reporting that NCLB is on track for a quick reauthorization in the next Congress. The Democratic Congress has done the background work for NCLB and children's health insurance. If the Dems add to their majority, as expected, they should be able to move both issues through the legislative process, the article says.

The article assumes that congressional Democrats will be united on NCLB issues. But in the past two months, it's become clear that Democratic interest groups disagree on the law's most important details. See the dueling statements from the "Broader, Bolder" and Klein/Sharpton crowds. And look at my item from last week about the split between civil rights groups and the NEA over accountability. Congress' Democratic leadership will have a lot of work to do to satisfy both sides of the debate. (Republicans, by the way, have their own divisions over education policy.)

Charlie Barone sees the potential for the combination of health and education policies to bridge the Democrats' divide. That would take some crafty legislative maneuvering.

One more comment on the Time article: Notice how it only quotes senators. If the reporters talked to House members, they might have heard about how hard it's going to be to unify Democrats on NCLB. (See entries here or here.)

Who out there thinks that Congress will be done revamping NCLB in 2009?

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 11:00 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

NEA President Reg Weaver defends the Graves-Walz bill to freeze accountability in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. In a letter to the editor, Weaver writes the bill is a "common-sense, moderate approach to NCLB's current system of snapshot, multiple-choice tests." He adds that NEA is working with education, civil rights, and other organizations to change NCLB. He's referring to the Forum on Educational Accountability.

Yes, some civil rights groups are part of the forum. But many more—including the biggest ones—came out against the Graves-Walz bill. Take a look at the following paragraph from the June 18 letter circulated by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:

LCCR believes that NCLB is a civil rights law, and that some of the requirements of NCLB constitute, in essence, the rights of children to obtain a quality education. The NCLB Recess Until Reauthorization Act calls itself a 'temporary suspension' of those same requirements. Even a temporary suspension of a civil rights law, and therefore of the civil rights of our children, is unconscionable.

The Leadership Conference represents a long list of groups (including the NEA!). It's founders are some of the most important leaders of the 20th Century's civil rights movement. It's voice represents a consensus of the civil rights community. (Charlie Barone gives a complete scorecard of the Graves-Walz' bill's opponents.)

There hasn't been any significant legislative movement this year on NCLB. One source suggested to me that the most important development is the way the civil rights community stopped the Graves-Walz bill before it gained momentum. More than anything else that has happened this year, the statements of LCCR and others will frame the future debate over accountability in federal programs.

AFTERTHOUGHT: In the letter to the Journal, Weaver tries to rebrand NCLB as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It looks as if the NCLB era will end soon—something I suggested in one of this blog's earliest posts.

This reminds me that I'll need a new name for my blog. ESEA: Act X doesn't have a very good ring to it.I'm open to suggestions.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 12:56 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Laura Bush defends NCLB in USA Today.

Sorry I didn't get to this earlier. I was doing something else. Don't believe me: I'm in the background early in this video.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 12:53 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

I know you all want to know about Richard Simmons on the Hill today.

Let's get the wonkery out of the way. The FIT Kids Act has a chance of getting through the House this year, Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., one of its sponsors, said today. Kind and Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., agreed to drop sections of the bill that would make physical education one of multiple measures to be considered under NCLB's accountability system. Without that, the bill still would require states to report on the amount and quality of PE offered in their schools, as well as effort to improve professional development of teachers and principals. The bill also would create a pilot program aimed at reducing childhood obesity. If you're looking at this summary from the American Heart Association, strike out the first bullet under What the Bill Would Do and you'll see what's left in the bill.

As for what Simmons said and did on the Hill, I'll leave it to others to report about his coy suggestions that he may run for Congress. But one thing he said resonated with me.

In answering a question during the hearing, he said that parents and teachers use music to teach preschoolers the alphabet, numbers, and other things. "At a certain age, the music stops and everything becomes academic," he said. But he said that children respond when he encourages them to move to their favorite music.

I suspect he's right. I saw it in action this morning. As Simmons was walking into the House Rayburn building, he passed a group of teenagers—most of them African Americans—waiting in the security line. They were waving and taking pictures of him.

"Hey, you're dancin," he said to one girls who was swaying in place.

"I'm sweatin' to the oldies," she said.

"No you're not," he said, "You're dancing to" and he started singing "No One" by Alicia Keys. He slithered toward her doing some of his workout moves.

She and everyone else in line sang along. Those who weren't taking pictures, danced with them.

In just a few moments, he got those kids moving—and left them smiling.

"She's sassy," he said as he and his entourage (me included) headed into the building.

If you ever run into Simmons on the street, he'll greet you like a friend ("I don't know a stranger," he told me); he might kiss you (he planted one on Wamp's forehead); and he might get you dancing.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 5:58 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Richard Simmons is coming to Washington tomorrow. And the media frenzy has already started. He appeared on local news this morning, joking around but sounding serious when he talked about his mission to save PE. USA Today reports that the "fitness fireball" promises to be a combination of "Norma Rae and Johnny Appleseed" when he touts the FIT Kids Act to the House Education and Labor Committee tomorrow.

On Monday's edition of NPR's "Tell Me More," Simmons talks about fighting obesity as a child and describes how he's always been "a clown and court jester." He promises to be funny tomorrow.

Simmons is sure to draw the media spotlight in the hearing room. He'll appear on a panel with Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., (the sponsors of FIT Kids), former NFL wide receiver Tim Brown, two physical fitness experts, and a student from the Florida Council on Physical Fitness.

After the hearing, Simmons will lead a rally at noon on the terrace of the Cannon Office Building. His Web site promises they'll be sweatin' to "Dancing in the Streets." Good thing the heat wave has broken.

Remember when Alyson Klein wrote that the House committee's action on the No Child Left Inside Act was a sign that NCLB wasn't going anywhere this year? Same could be said about tomorrow's hearing.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 6:08 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

As the political season heats up, Campaign K-12 is becoming increasingly indispensable.

Today, Michele McNeil reports from New Orleans that state legislators believe NCLB's accountability systems are "coercive."

And I summarize what one of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign advisers has to say about NCLB, the Democratic presidential candidate's "comprehensive" education plan, and Sen. John McCain's speech last week.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 2:57 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

With the goal of dramatically improving student achievement, many people are asking: What can schools do?

Offer extra time, some say.

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released two reports on the topic. In one, Elana Rocha gives a sample of what more than 300 districts have done to expand learning time. In the other, Marguerite Roza and Karen Hawley Miles explain how districts can pay for such projects.

At a session discussing the reports, a key aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said on Monday that there may be federal help on the way. This week, Sen. Kennedy plans to introduce a bill that would authorize grants to states to support districts' efforts to increase learning time, said Carmel Martin, the general counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

The program would authorize $150 million a year for the grants. District grants would add between $1,200 and $1,400 per pupil in districts (about what Massachusetts districts are given to expand learning time in a private-public program). States would need to match the federal dollars. The authorization would grow over the five-year life of the bill.

The object, Martin said, is to "get this seeded throughout the country and have people trying different models that we can study."

The program may have the added benefit of answering the critics' assertion that NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, particularly in high-poverty schools, she added.

The program could give students "more time on task to reach high standards ... without sacrificing art, music, and other enrichment activities," Martin said.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 8:03 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

I spoke (via Skype) to a class for future teachers at the University of Tennessee. My main point was that the federal government has gradually increased the amount of testing and prescription over the past 20 years.

In 1988, the ESEA mandated testingrequired districts for the first time to define the test scores they expected of Chapter 1 (now Title I) students, but didn't prescribe interventions. In 1994, the law required states to assess all students three times (once in elementary, once in middle, and once in high school) and to measure schools were making adequate yearly progress toward Title I students being proficient. But the law didn't set a deadline for reaching that goal, and once again was silent on how to hold schools accountable for reaching it.

Then NCLB added annual testing in grades 3-8 and once in high school, the goal that all students be on track to be proficient by the 2013-14 school year, and prescriptions such as school choice and tutoring for schools that fail to meet AYP goal based on that deadline.

The following questions dawn on me: What will Congress do next? Will it let up on what it requires of schools or will it add more?

Just this week, we've heard arguments from both sides. Randi Weingarten argued for a retrenchment. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings praised the law's accountability measures like a revivalist preacher. Urban superintendents told a House committee to be more aggressive on accountability and to embrace national standards.

Here's an essay question for anyone willing to answer: Which way do you think Congress will go? Comments welcome (and if you're from Lynn Woolsey's class at the University of Tennessee, please identify yourself).

UPDATE: See corrections in the second paragraph. Thanks to former Ed Week writer Bob Rothman for setting me straight.

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Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., invited two mayors and the leaders of four urban districts to testify about the success their cities have had in improving student achievement.(Here's a link to the committee's page about the hearing.)

Over the course of the three-hour hearing, the leaders gave the chairman and the rest of the Education and Labor Committee three ideas for changing NCLB:

1.) Create national standards:

Right now, Atlanta Superintendent Beverly L. Hall said the only way for districts to measure their students' performance against the rest of the country is participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress' program measuring city schools' achievement.

"We need to have national standards and national assessments so then everybody can understand that if you're proficient in math in California, you're proficient in math in New York," said Joel I. Klein, the chancellor of New York City Public Schools.

"If you look at the countries that are doing well, they all have national tests and national standards," he added.

"The fact that you have 50 different hurdles for our children to jump over, that doesn't make any sense," said Arne Duncan, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

2.) Maintain challenging accountability systems:

NCLB's accountability measures, requiring students from various subgroups to meet goals, was "a huge step in the right direction," Duncan said.

Duncan and Klein said that accountability should be revised to recognize students' growth or the value-added by each school.

But they and others didn't ask Congress to make the law's goals easier to meet.

"I think you should make it harder for people like me because it's not about me, it's about my kids," Klein said.

3.) Finance teacher-pay experiments:

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed federal money to "give incentives for effective teachers and principals to work in the schools that need them the most."

District of Columbia Chancellor Michelle Rhee said that federal money should reward teachers for improving the achievement of their students.

The proposal would get "a significant amount of pushback" on linking teacher pay and student performance, she said.

"It's incredibly important for the Democratic Party to step up on this," she added.

Committee members didn't seem to be excited about these big three ideas. Rep. Donald M. Payne, D-N.J., raised questions about whether it's fair to hold all students to the same standard given the inequities of schools' finances. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said her experience working in human resources would make it difficult to create new teacher-pay plans that are "fair and objective and defensible."

These debates over those two issues dominated last year's effort to reauthorize NCLB. After today's hearing, it's clear they'll re-emerge next year—or whenever Congress gets around to debating the law again.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:37 PM | Permalink | 4 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

In yesterday's big education speech, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., neglected to say the four words that have defined federal K-12 policy for the past six years. Asked why, his advisers didn't utter them either. (Hint: the first starts with an 'N,' the second starts with a 'C,' ... I think you know where this is going.)

Michele McNeil has more at Campaign K-12.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:35 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

What do the NEA, the AFT, and the Texas Republican Party have in common?

They all want to get rid of NCLB. Anyone reading my blog or Vaishali Honawar's knew where the teachers' unions stand. But if you read this item on the Dallas ISD blog (link via Russo), you'll learn that the Texas GOP believes that NCLB is "a massive failure [that] should be abolished."

One Texan is still a true believer, though. At a Business Roundtable event yesterday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings gave a vigorous defense of the law.

"We're going to hear a lot of wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kind of discussion about things that sound good ... but either we're not ready for or represent a gutting of accountability," she said. "I think we need to watch the fine print and hold true, real, meaningful, understandable accountability."

"Say Amen," she added. A few people did.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 11:14 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Proposals to change the way teachers are compensated brought down last year's attempt to reauthorize NCLB. Whoever is president next year will try again.

Read more over at Campaign K-12.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:21 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

On Saturday, a teacher asked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a softball question: "What would you do to correct President Bush's 'every child left behind' policy?" The audience cheered.

All Obama had to do was say "Get rid of it," listen for the applause, and move on.

But he didn't, according to Scott Elliott of the Dayton Daily News. Reporting for EWA's Education Election blog, Elliott transcribes Obama's extended answer.

Here are two quotes almost short enough to fit on a bumper sticker, but they summarize where Obama stands:

"The basic concept of No Child Left Behind was a good one."

"The problem was in the execution."

What he likes: NCLB's goals of raising academic standards and improving teacher quality. What he doesn't like: He says NCLB has been inadequately funded and puts too much emphasis on testing.

After reading the whole answer, I'd say that Obama sounds like he's in line with the AFT's original NCLB slogan: "Let's Get it Right." He certainly isn't saying: "Let's Get Rid of It," as the union's leadership was saying in Chicago this weekend.

EQUAL TIME: Carly Fiorina, a top adviser of Sen. John McCain, appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Here's a snippet from her take on the presumptive Republican nominee's stands on NCLB:

"He believes that No Child Left Behind was an imperfect piece of legislation. Nevertheless, there are things about it that have worked. We need to learn the lessons, fix the problems, fully fund it, and continue to focus on the education of our children as well as the education and training of our displaced workers."

He wants to "fully fund" NCLB. That's news to me. And it certainly doesn't fit with McCain's proposal to freeze discretionary spending.

You can read the whole transcript or skip straight to the page where Fiorina and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., talk about NCLB.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 12:25 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

It sounds as if the AFT has gone from "Let's Get It Right" to "Let's Get Rid of It."

At the union's convention, outgoing President Ed McElroy promised that AFT will work with the next administration to "create a new law," Vaishali Honawar reports from Chicago. Incoming President Randi Weingarten believes the law “is too badly broken to be fixed,” according to Sam Dillon of The New York Times, who got a preview of Weingarten's acceptance speech.

AFT's about-face happened because its leadership is changing and because NCLB has become a punching bag for everyone from George Will to the scriptwriters for "Family Guy." But the union leaders' rhetoric doesn't mean they oppose everything that NCLB stands for. Weingarten has compromised on pay-for-performance in New York City, and she's put out a detailed plan for school-based accountability. Both of these issues will be at the heart of the debate over NCLB's future.

Weingarten looks to be willing to play ball in Washington. Just how far she will change where the AFT stands depends on a lot factors—none of them bigger than the results of Election Day.

UPDATE: Vaishali files a story from Chicago with this quote from Weingarten:

“NCLB has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had. Conceived by accountants, drafted by lawyers, and distorted by ideologues, it is too badly broken to be fixed.”

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 12:30 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

If you've ever wanted to meet Richard Simmons (or would like the chance to make a second first impression), be at the House Education and Labor Committee's hearing room on July 24.

The exercise mogul will be there talking about the lack of PE in schools and the FIT Kids Act. (For background, read this post, and this one, and this one. I'd offer more, but that would provide fodder for those at Ed Week who think I've written too much about Simmons.)

Simmons' Web site has most of the details, including inside information that Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., wants to move a PE bill. I'm sure there will be more to his Capitol Hill visit than standard testimony. With Richard, there always is.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 2:39 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

The pilot projects for growth models and differentiated accountability have gotten a lot of notice since Margaret Spellings became secretary in 2005. But Spellings also has been granting waivers regarding public school choice and supplemental educational services. She has given several districts permission to reverse the timetable for implementing those changes, allowing them to offer the SES one year before choice. Last month, she said she'd consider applications from all states.

Alabama is seeking a waiver to do that. A Birmingham school advocate and national civil rights organizations are teaming up in opposition.Citizens for Better Schools in Birmingham, with assistance from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, say that Alabama's reasons for requesting the switch is lame (it'll save gas money). But the press release also includes this illuminating quote from the Lawyers' Committee's chief counsel John Brittain:

"Transfer is a right extended by Congress to the beneficiaries of Title I and should not be taken away or delayed by the state recipients. What Congress giveth only Congress should take away.”

Brittain's saying school choice is a right extended to parents of students in schools in need of improvement. The choice rules are not mandates put upon school districts. Spellings' may be exceeding her executive authority to delay the implementation of school choice, the groups say in the formal complaint sent to the department.

Alabama has revised its application since the groups sent their complaint to the department last week, Brittain told me in an e-mail. Still, the question remains unanswered: Does Spellings have the authority to offer this flexibility to Alabama or any other state?

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Sen Barack Obama wasn't shy about taking on the National Education Association in his speech on Saturday. As in 2007, he endorsed performance pay to reward teachers who "consistently excel in the classroom." A few of the 10,000 NEA members booed, but most were silent, Vaishali Honawar reports in her blog on the convention.

But Obama did give a nod to NEA's desire to increase federal K-12 funding. In the litany of things he would change about NCLB, increasing funding for the law was at the top. "Forcing out educators to accomplish all of [the law's goals] without the resources that they need is wrong," he said in a speech given in Butte, Mont., and broadcast to the NEA convention. Later, he said that special education funding needs to increase.

The NEA has been consistently in favor increased funding for NCLB's Title I and IDEA. In the union's latest plan, it recommends making both programs entitlements, which would guarantee full funding for them every year. As I wrote last week, the NEA plan would double funding for those programs. Obama didn't endorse that idea. So far, he hasn't explained how he would trim spending elsewhere or raise revenues to create the money for those programs.

LINKS:
The NEA has the video of the speech, but it's for members only. The Education Intelligence Agency has a handmade version that is the most complete copy available to all.

For commentary, Joe Williams says that Obama successfully distanced himself from the union. Alexander Russo is unimpressed.

Sherman Dorn says Charlie Barone's post overstates the meaning of the boos.

Obama "deserves credit for backing a smart idea" on teacher pay, Liam Julian writes for NRO. At the Daily Kos, BDA in VA likes that Obama is willing to take unpopular stand. "Three cheers for Obama for having the guts to say something he knew wouldn't be popular with the most powerful Democratic interest group," Whitney Tilson writes.

The USA Today's On Politics has a statement from Tucker Bounds of the McCain campaign. "Barack Obama has never spearheaded education reforms while in the U.S. Senate and has no record of working across the aisle for change," he says.

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Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings loves Reading First. She says educators do, too. Here's what she told Greg Toppo of USA Today:

"If I had a nickel for every person who said, 'Thank God for Reading First,' I'd be a millionaire."

Let's do the math on that. At 20 nickels to a dollar, that would mean 20 million people would be singing the program's praises for Spellings to become a millionaire.

The program is 6 1/2 years old. That's 2,373 days.

To get a million dollars, every day, 8,428 people would have told Spellings about Reading First's greatness.That works out to almost 6 people every minute of every day since January 2002.

Although lots of people love Reading First, the secretary wouldn't get rich in the "nickel for every person" formula. I bet she'd do a lot better on her favorite game show.

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MM has assigned me the task of making sense of the National Education Association's new "Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020." I read two pieces of NEA's six-point plan, and I saw dollar signs jumping off the page.

The NEA wants Congress to guarantee full funding for NCLB's Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (In federal budget terms, that would make those programs entitlements, meaning they wouldn't be subjected to the cap on discretionary spending.) That would more than double the $26 billion currently spent on those programs.

The new federal money would be small change compared to what the NEA wants to get from states. The union is proposing that federal law require each state to write a "adequacy and equity" plan. The document would detail the inequities in their school systems and explain what the state would do to fix them. They'd also become Exhibit A for any lawyer suing a state for failing to adequately finance its schools.

As my colleague Vaishali Honawar points out, NEA's proposal isn't surprising. After all, wouldn't you expect the union to ask for more money and the other elements of their plan (promoting teaching as a profession, improving accountability, investing in education research, and basing reforms on proven strategies)?

But the amount of money that could go to schools if this plan is enacted could be staggering.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:39 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Why did only six states win approval to participate in the "differentiated accountability" pilot project? After all, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said she would let up to 10 states into the program.

The answer comes in the Word document summarizing peer reviewers' perspectives on the proposals.

The methods appeared largely to be based on methods of convenience rather than a focus on the underlying causes of schools inability to meet AYP.

The boldface is in the original. That's like getting a D- on the paper you stayed up all night to write. Never a good day when that happens.

The folks at Ed Sector aren't impressed either. Andy Rotherham calls the plans "underwhelming" and suggests Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' decision were "pretty political." (Another blogger uses Georgia's participation in the program as a chance to make a political attack.) Chad Aldeman says the pilot project "backtracks" on NCLB's core principles of disaggregating data and helping students in those groups. "Millions weren't spent today to tarnish NCLB," he writes. "The secretary did it herself."

Susan Ohanian is outraged (as she usually is when NCLB is in the news). This time, she complains about the quality of curriculum offered in the states participating in the pilot project.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 9:55 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced that six states won her approval to participate in the differentiated accountability pilot project. The lucky states are Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio. Here's the department's press release.

"The plans these states submitted speak to the fact that many were among the first to embrace data-based decision making and accountability," Spellings said, according to remarks prepared for her to give at the Education Commission of the States' conference in Austin, Texas.

You can read all of the state applications at the Department of Education's Web site or Chad Aldeman's summary of applications submitted by the 17 states that wanted to participate in the program.

Although Spellings lauded the six states in the program, she wasn't happy that more states didn't submit plans worthy of her approval.

"I'm also discouraged that more states didn't take this as an opportunity to take more dramatic action to improve schools that have not met reasonable goals for multiple years running," she said. "We need more states to be pioneers in advancing positive change."

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 1:33 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Reauthorize, don't re-regulate.

That's the message state education officials sent the Department of Education in reaction to the rules Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings unveiled as her alternative to NCLB reauthorization two months ago.

In their formal reaction to the rules proposal, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Association of State Boards of Education said that it's the wrong time to issue new rules that will give their members a long list of things to do.

"This investment in time and money may be worthwhile were these regulations to be in place for more than a year or two, but since they won’t be, we do not believe they warrant the fiscal or managerial expenses they entail," Brenda Lilienthal Welburn, NASBE's executive director, wrote about the rules in her letter last week to department officials.

"Subjecting states to fundamental changes in federal requirements and policies on the eve of [Elementary and Secondary Education Act] reauthorization and executive branch transition, which likely will result in further policy changes, could be disruptive, result in piecemeal approaches, impose financial and administrative burdens on our educational systems, and breed public misunderstanding of state accountability systems," Gene Wilhoit, CCSSO's executive director, wrote in his cover letter on the rules.

For CCSSO's complete comments, see here.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 8:22 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)