January 2009 Archives

Over at the Quick and the Ed, Robert Manwaring asks an important question about the Title I money in the stimulus package: How would cash-strapped districts comply with the program's "supplement, not supplant" rule?

As I pointed out yesterday, the stimulus bill would give Title I $13 billion—almost as much as it received in fiscal 2008. The rule is designed to ensure that districts aren't using federal dollars to offset state and local cuts. That doesn't appear to be possible in the current fiscal climate and may require some "fancy accounting" if the rule is in effect for stimulus money, Manwaring says.

"Keep an eye on the supplement/supplant language in the stimulus package as it moves forward because this is an area where details matter," he writes.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 9:49 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 1:45 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

In The Washington Post today, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings tells her prospective successor to keep NCLB. If you've heard her speak in the past two years, you wouldn't learn anything new. Test scores are up, she writes, especially among poor and minority children. The backlash against NCLB's accountability rules, she writes, "speak[s] to the harsh truths it reveals."

NCLB can be improved, she says, and she's all for it. But she doesn't want to undermine its "core accountability provisions," she writes. She doesn't say it, but from past statements, she probably means the goal for universal proficiency by the end of the 2013-14 school year; annual assessment; and disaggregation of student scores into subgroups representing races, ethnic minorities, and participation in programs for special education and English-language learners.

She also says there's a unique coalition that supports the law, led by civil rights activists and business leaders. What she doesn't say is whether she'll be a public spokeswoman for the law after Jan. 20. I'm betting she will be.

P.S. In yesterday's Post, Spellings and others gave their advice to Arne Duncan. Like Spellings' op-ed, much of it was predictable. But Michael Dannenberg's offered a fresh idea. The New America Foundation fellow proposed a horse-trade: Win the teacher unions' support for teacher-pay initiatives with multi-billion-dollar increases for NCLB. Politically, it may be possible. Financially, wait and see.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 12:02 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Joel Packer, the NEA's spokesman on NCLB, is getting ready to end his tenure at the union after 25 years.

Packer announced to NEA staff earlier this week that he would leave the union at the end of April. In a phone conversation with me today, he said it was time to do something new. He expects to remain active in the education policy world. He said he may start his own advocacy firm, or he may join another organization or lobbying firm. He says he'll decide once he leaves NEA.

As the NEA's director of policy and practice, Packer has been the go-to guy for anyone who wants to know where the union stands on NCLB or any other federal initiative. He was the man with "all the answers," according to his short-lived blog.

Here's an example of the breadth of his knowledge and his persistence in advocating for his employer. At the end our conversation, he pointed out a few things about the "Great Expectations" document released by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings yesterday. Spellings' report criticized stances taken by the NEA in 1918 and 1992. But it heaped praised on the 1892 report from the Committee of Ten without mentioning that NEA convened the group. He even offered a link to the report and pointed out that the NEA is mentioned in the first sentence.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 3:12 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Has NCLB improved the targeting of money toward low-income students? I went round and round and round on that question with John See, Kevin Carey, and Michael Dannenberg back in December 2007. All of it was based on the reporting for this story.

I think the answer we came up could be summarized by saying: Yes, but not by much.

This week, the Department of Education released a report reinforcing that conclusion. In "State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act: Volume VI—Targeting and Uses of Federal Education Funds," the American Institutes for Research reports that districts serving about half of the nation's poor children (and 25 percent of the total student population) received 38 percent the money from all federal funds.

From Title I (by far the largest program in NCLB), those districts saw a slight increase in their share from the program; they received 50 percent of the money in the 1997-98 school year and 52 percent in the 2004-05 school year. At the school level, the amount of Title I funding per poor student in high-poverty schools remained the same from 1997-98 to 2004-05. The 51 percent increase in funding over that period "basically kept pace with the growth in the number of low-income students served in these schools," the report says.

The report also includes a hint at the real solution: using federal dollars to change the way states and local governments finance their districts. High-poverty districts (which serve 25 percent of the nation's students) received 21 percent of state and local funds in the 2004-05 school year. The federal funds, even if their targeting increases significantly, will never make up that difference. If federal policy could emphasize incentives for states and locals to change the way they distribute funds, then high-poverty schools will get a significant increase in funding. Under NCLB, it's done so through Title I's Education Finance Incentive Grants. But so far, that hasn't made a huge difference.

You can read the whole report here and the highlights here .

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 1:03 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

In addition to President George W. Bush's speech and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' "Great Expectations" document, the Bush administration has released a series of policy announcements on the 7th anniversary of NCLB.

• Spellings has approved the growth models of Colorado, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Now, 15 states are using the growth models.

•Spellings has added Arkansas, Louisiana, and New York to the differentiated accountability pilot program. That brings the total number of states to nine. (No link available yet.)

•Spellings has sent every state an update on where they stand on the "cornerstones" of NCLB: Testing, accountability, AYP reporting, flexibility, and other issues. (Think of it as a 7th birthday present for every state chief.) It also includes a handy spreadsheet specifying where every state stands on these issues.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 5:09 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

President George Bush gave the last policy speech of his presidency today. The topic was the same as his first such speech: NCLB.

In it, he repeated many arguments for the law, that it: requires schools to ensure the achievement of all students is rising, provides parents with information they need about their childrens' achievement, and has resulted in better test scores.

But near the end, he talked about the "growing consensus" to keep the law's hard line on accountability.

There is a growing consensus across the country that now is not the time to water down standards or to roll back accountability. There is a growing consensus that includes leaders of the business communities across America who see an increasingly global economy and, therefore, believe in standards and accountability. There's a growing consensus amongst leaders of civil rights organizations—like La Raza, and the Urban League, and the Education Equality Project. These leaders refuse to accept what I have called the soft bigotry of low expectations. There's a growing consensus—includes a lot of parents, and superintendents, and mayors, and governors who insist that we put our children first.

Is there really a growing consensus? All of the groups that Bush mentions have been supporters of NCLB for a long time. Meanwhile, the usual suspects have issued statements (see FairTest's and NEA's) showing they don't agree with the law's accountability methods and want to see changes.

It looks as if the debate over accountability in federal policy is going to begin anew.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:23 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

As part of NCLB's 7th anniversary celebration, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has released a long document entitled "Great Expectations."

The 67-page document summarizes the Bush administration's message on NCLB for the past two years. Using a common device, it offers a word for the first five letters of the alphabet—two words actually for "C"—and explains why each word is important for the future. Here's a synopsis:

Accountability: "The next president will face calls to dismantle or radically redefine accountability. He should resist them."

Bipartisanship: "The No Child Left Behind Act was approved overwhelmingly because it united Republicans and Democrats behind a cause greater than themselves. It is time for that same spirit of unity to motivate everyone involved in the public education system."

Children: "We must also not fall into the trap of blaming poor academic performance on poverty or family circumstances. It is our responsibility to provide a quality education so children can overcome their hardships."

Choice: "Students who suffer in silence in chronically underperforming schools must be offered a lifeline. Saving a child is more important than protecting a building or a job."

Data: "Without quality data and sound science to guide us, we risk making decisions based
not on facts but assumptions."

Expectations: "The lesson of the last eight years is that if we expect more from our students, we will get it. ... When expectations rise, standards and test scores soon follow."

Here's the conclusion: "There is no letter 'F'—because failure is not an option. We cannot fail as long as we have the will to sustain and strengthen reform."

Starting Jan. 20, we'll have a chance to learn whether these will be the priorities of the Obama administration.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 2:14 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks to my colleagues on our in-house research team, we know a lot more about the AYP status of schools and districts in the 2007-08 school year. Here are three pieces of data that stand out from the story I wrote and that appeared online before my holiday break:

1.) More than a third of schools failed to make AYP in the 2007-08 school year, up by 7 percentage points from the previous year.

2.) Eighteen percent of schools are in school improvement, meaning they've missed AYP for one or more years. That's a jump of just 2 percentage points.

3.) Four percent of schools are in the fifth year or later in the restructuring process. That's double number of the previous year.

If you look at the first point, you might surmise that the percentage of schools not making AYP will continue to rise in coming years.

But the second point suggests something else: Many schools that enter the AYP process are escaping it. Chad Aldeman suggests "safe harbor" is giving them an escape hatch. That may be true, but our research team didn't collect data on whether schools are making AYP based by meeting their annual measurable objective or safe harbor goals. (For more about why Charlie Barone believes safe harbor will save schools from the goal of universal proficiency, see here.)

And the third point suggests that the most troubled schools are having a hard time meeting their AYP goals—with or without safe harbor. Alexander Russo isn't troubled by those numbers in rather complimentary post.

For more, you can read the story I wrote based on the data. It comes with three state-by-state tables with data.

Posted by David J. Hoff, edweek.org at 4:30 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | TrackBacks (0)