December 2008 Archives

From guest blogger Michele McNeil:

The U.S. Department of Education came out with its holiday stocking stuffer today, in the form of non-regulatory guidance on the new graduation-rate regulations that went into effect Nov. 28.

The new regs, which have pleased advocates for the disabled but further annoyed groups like the National Conference of State Legislatures, require districts to use the same method of calculating graduation rates by the 2011-12 school year. They're in line with what the nation's governors agreed to do, voluntarily, in 2005.

According to the department, the new guidance: helps states in setting a single graduation-rate goal and annual graduation-rate targets, outlines requirements for reporting graduation rates, and answers questions about how states include the four-year, adjusted cohort graduation rate and any extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate in AYP determinations, including the use of disaggregated rates for student subgroups. The guidance also clarifies the timeline for implementing the new graduation rate provisions.

In David's absence, I threw out a couple of calls this afternoon to state-level organizations trying to figure out if there's anything significant in this guidance document, but with the holidays, few people are thinking about graduation rates. So, if you spot anything interesting, please leave a comment below.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 9:56 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Alexander Russo helpfully proves my point. He posts a bunch of links on Arne Duncan's struggles with and resistance to the implementation of NCLB. Those clips don't prove, as Russo thinks, that Duncan is an NCLB hater. If he was, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., wouldn't have invited him to testify in a July hearing that turned into a love-fest for the law.

One source of mine reviewed Duncan's testimony from that day. In retrospect, the source said, it sounded as if Duncan was making the case to be Barack Obama's secretary of education. Obama's endorsement of the law hasn't been resounding, but he was more supportive than the Democrats he beat for the nomination. And, like him, his nominee to be secretary of education wants to preserve key elements of the law and improve its administration.

If I had to nominate a poster child for NCLB resistance, I'd pick Reg Weaver. How about you?

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 2:55 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Alexander Russo takes issue with my characterization of Arne Duncan as a supporter of NCLB. He calls the Chicago Schools CEO and secretary of education nominee "one of the most vocal critics of the legislation." But the examples he gives reflect Duncan's criticism of implementation, not the legislation itself.

If you look at what Duncan has said about the law, he's supportive. In July, he told the House education committee (according to a transcript that isn't online):

As others here have said, the No Child Left Behind Act with a focus on accountability was a huge step in the right direction. The focus on subgroups is a huge step in the right direction.

Two years earlier, Duncan's prepared testimony for an education committee hearing included the following:

CPS and NCLB clearly share the same goals. Over the past five years, we have worked to integrate our efforts with the requirements of the law. We want CPS policy and NCLB to re-enforce each other. This has been hard work for us. But the effort has been largely successful. ... Congress should maintain NCLB’s framework of high expectations and accountability. But it should also amend the law to give schools, districts and states the maximum amount of flexibility possible—particularly districts like ours with a strong track record of academic achievement and tough accountability.

In Russo's mind, those statements don't qualify as support for the law. Instead, Duncan's efforts to push back against federal mandates make him a "vocal critic." But one can fight the Bush administration's interpretation of NCLB while still supporting the basic tenets of the law. For example, Duncan didn't balk at offering tutoring to eligible students. He fought back against the feds' interpretation that his district couldn't provide that tutoring. He won concessions on that.

There's a distinction that Russo doesn't appear to make. Duncan (and many urban superintendents) support the law itself while opposing the way the Bush administration has administered it. When Duncan comes to Washington, he'll have the tools to change that implementation. He'll also have a significant say in the next version of NCLB.

In his role as education secretary, I see indications that he'll use his influence to maintain NCLB's accountability rules and exercise his administrative powers to change the implementation issues he doesn't like. By the end of his time in Washington, I predict he'll be seen as a supporter of the most important parts of the law.

As long as I'm making predictions, Alexander, how do you feel about the one you made on Aug. 11:

Anything could happen, but EdWeek's campaign blog leaps far out into the unlikelysphere with its notion that Chicago's Arne Duncan might be a leading candidate for EdSec under Obama ... The guy doesn't have nearly enough heft—or success—to make the cut. Even his supporters would admit that he isn't a charismatic or dynamic speaker. He doesn't really give Obama anything politically.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 10:48 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

NCLB gained a friend on Monday when President-elect Barack Obama tapped Arne Duncan to be the next secretary of education.

Now it looks as if it will lose its leading foe after 2010. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., is planning to announce that he won't run for re-election, Alyson Klein reports over at Campaign K-12. In his final term, Hoekstra will have extra motivation to enact his conservative vision of giving states greater power over K-12 decisions. He plans to run for governor of Michigan and probably will want to exercise those new-found powers himself.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 3:55 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

In picking Arne Duncan to be secretary of education, President-elect Barack Obama will have a fan of the No Child Left Behind Act running the U.S. Department of Education. Read about it on the Campaign K-12 blog.

Chicago "has been innovative in adapting NCLB’s school improvement framework to re-enforce our efforts," the city schools CEO told the House education committee in 2006.

Earlier this year, he spoke favorably of the law to the House Education and Labor Committee. Here's his written testimony, which is light on praise for NCLB. If you want to hear Duncan speak his mind during the Q&A with committee members, you can watch the video available on this site.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 6:50 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

During last night's debate at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Gene Hickok dropped the phrase "leave no child behind" while arguing against the "Broader, Bolder" initiative.

Peter Edelman took the podium next and said: "I'm tempted to say: I live in the household where the term 'Leave No Child Behind' was originated."

The comment reminded me of one the biggest ironies of NCLB: A conservative Republican (George Bush) co-opted the slogan of a stalwart liberal organization (the Children's Defense Fund led by Marian Wright Edelman). Bush put the new phrase as the top of his "compassionate conservative" agenda—a message that many pundits credit as a key reason for his narrow victory over Al Gore in 2000.

Now that Bush is leaving office eight years later, the phrase "No Child Left Behind" is probably going to fade from the political discourse. But its child-centered approach to accountability and broader school policy may live on.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:39 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

After a trip down memory lane on Tuesday, I'm back with two important developments for the immediate future of NCLB.

1.) Education groups are lobbying to put a hold on the Bush administration's final effort to change NCLB through regulations, Alyson Klein reports over at Campaign K-12. The Council of the Great City Schools was pushing for that even before the election in the extensive advice it gave to the incoming president. But the two most important lawmakers in K-12 like the graduation rate requirements in the rules. The Obama team is caught in the middle.

2.) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit heard arguments in the latest round in the National Education Association's attempt to declare NCLB an unfunded mandate. “States and school districts are prisoners of this law,” Robert H. Chanin, the general counsel of the NEA, told the judges, according to Mark Walsh's report from the Cincinnati courtroom. But the judges seemed skeptical of the NEA's legal argument, focusing on the ambiguity of the unfunded mandate language in the law.

I won't predict which way these two issues will be settled. But I'll bet that both the administration and the court will announce their decisions before Congress writes a law to replace NCLB.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 3:39 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

When people criticize NCLB for being unfair to schools, they point their fingers at President Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. But, as my retrospective look at the Bush presidency points out, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., had a significant role in making NCLB's accountability rules as tough as they are.

Bush's initial NCLB proposal would have required schools to set up schools to make AYP goals for all students and specifically for low-income students. They also would have needed to report the progress of students in minority groups and categories such as special education students and English-language learners. But the final bill required schools to meet AYP goals for all categories to avoid accountability sanctions.

That requirement was essentially the same as an amendment that Miller and Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., offered in 1999 when Congress was working on reauthorizing ESEA, former Miller aide Charles Barone told me. (That comment didn't make my piece for space reasons.)

"While Miller and Kildee lost that battle [in 1999], what they did was set the stage for an alliance between top congressional Democrats and Bush ... to do something powerful and constructive to focus attention and resources on the nation‘s most vulnerable children," Barone wrote in a 2007 paper for Democrats for Education Reform.

By 2007, Miller had adopted the mantra that NCLB "is not fair, not flexible, and is not funded." He offered a proposal to add multiple measures to the accountability system. Spellings complained that it would have "watered down" accountability; others said the changes would have made the law too complicated.

As Tom Toch and I pointed out earlier, we're in for a major debate about the future of federal accountability rules. At the heart of the debate is the following question: Is there a fair way to hold schools accountable for the individual performance of their entire population as well as of students in a variety of demographic categories?

If you have the answer, you may want to publish it.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 2:52 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Education Sector's Tom Toch gives the rundown on Linda Darling-Hammond's latest thoughts about the role of assessments in school reform efforts. He deconstructs the Stanford University professor's article in Phi Delta Kappan examining other countries' performance-based tests, and he wonders how Darling-Hammond might use these ideas if she retains influence over the Obama administration's policies. (Only the abstract is free online.) Toch concludes:

So, if Barack Obama gives Linda Darling-Hammond a major role in his administration, we're going to have a big policy debate over testing in American education and whether we should move beyond NCLB accountability to something potentially very different. Such a debate wouldn't be a bad thing.

True, and that's why Darling-Hammond's supporters and opponents are fighting so hard over who should be the next secretary of education and his or her advisers. Those are the people who will have to set the policies on what types of assessments the federal government pays for, requires states to use, and ultimately becomes the tools for judging schools' success.

Darling-Hammond's article updates her past statements on testing issues. Here's one snippet:

Finland has no external standardized tests to rank students or schools. Finnish education authorities periodically evaluate school-level samples of student performance, generally at the end of the 2nd and 9th grades, to inform curriculum decisions and school investments.

The Finnish model goes against many of the core tenets of NCLB: annual testing and individual student results. Following that model would make it impossible to measure whether schools and districts are closing the achievement gap. President Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings have been the most prominent proponents of these features. But many Democrats believe in them, too, including Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. And, don't forget that President-elect Barack Obama has said that he endorses NCLB's attempt to close the achievement gap.

Toch's right. We're in for a big debate over accountability.

P.S. Maybe Ed Sector's Kevin Carey will take a break from his Finnish "vacation" to weigh in on whether the Finland's accountability model could work in the U.S.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 11:39 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Two weeks ago, I reviewed where two of President-elect Barack Obama's K-12 advisers stood on assessment issues related to NCLB. Jon Schnur supports the idea of creating a national test that is developed by states or private organizations. Linda Darling-Hammond suggests there should be multiple measures that determine whether a school is successful.

Then, I promised to give you an update on what the next president thinks on testing.

I've looked through everything I can find. But I don't have a clear idea of where the president-elect stands on the issue. Then again, I'm not the only one in that spot.

Here's a look at two important statements on testing that Obama has made, one that dates back to the beginning of his Senate career and one that explains what he will do as president.

First, look at the bill that Sen. Obama introduced in 2005 and again in 2007. In it, he proposed that 20 districts be selected to use innovative approaches to improving student achievement. Among the requirements, the districts would need to establish accountability systems to measure individual students' achievement starting in 1st grade. The data from those accountability systems would be used to inform important decisions, such as evaluating the quality of students' teachers.

But Obama's current plan doesn't mention such testing. It criticizes NCLB for forcing teachers "to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests." It says the Obama administration "will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner." It also calls for improving accountability "so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them."

Comparing the two, I'm not exactly sure where Obama stands. He doesn't appear to be headed toward national tests, as Schnur has suggested. But he doesn't say whether his accountability measures would use multiple measures, as Linda Darling-Hammond would like.

So far, President-elect Obama has focused his transition on hiring his economic and foreign policy teams. Maybe we'll know more about where he stands on important education issues once he picks his education team.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 11:38 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)