November 2011 Archives

For years, advocates for poor and minority students have been saying that districts haven't been doing a good of ensuring that high-poverty schools get their fair share of state and local dollars, including those schools that get federal Title I money to help educate the disadvantaged.

Now, thanks to a wide-ranging study by the U.S. Department of Education, those advocates have some new, very expansive data to back up their point.

Nearly half of all high-poverty schools, including schools that get Title I money, were at least 10 percent below the average school in their district in terms of state and local aid, according to the department's study, which looked at more than 13,000 districts across the country.

What's more, the report found inequities in districts that have both Title I schools and non-Title I schools when it comes to personnel costs. More than 40 percent of Title I schools spent less on personnel per student than non-Title I schools in the same district that served the same grades. Check out the full report here.

This is a big deal, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on a conference call with reporters today.

The "findings confirm an unfortunate reality in our nation's education system," Duncan said. "Many schools serving low-income children aren't getting their fair share of funding." And he added that "in far too many places Title I dollars are filling budget gaps rather than being extra."

This is a very complicated issue, but it comes down to what's called the "comparability loophole." (Cliffnotes version here.) In a nutshell, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires that districts give high-poverty schools the same share of state and local dollars as their other schools before the district can tap Title I dollars for disadvantaged students.

The idea is to make sure that Title I money, which is supposed to help districts cope with the added cost of educating poor students, is not just going to fill holes.

So how do districts get around this? The law says that districts don't have to take actual teachers' salaries into acount. They just have to make sure that teachers at every school in the district are on the same salary schedule. But that means a Title I school with lots of inexperienced teachers (who tend to be cheaper because they're lower on the salary schedule) could get less state and local money overall than a non-Title I school in the same district.

The department seems to think fixing the problem would be relatively painless for most districts. It issued a policy brief along with the report, which suggested that it would cost districts about 1 percent of their total spending to make up the difference.

Duncan singled out a few districts he thinks are doing a good job making sure high-poverty schools aren't shortchanged, including Broad prize winner Charlotte-Mecklenberg, in North Carolina.

And there's been a push in Congress to try to address this issue. U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., has a bill on it, and so do Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss. In fact, the Bennet-Cochran language was included in a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka NCLB) that the Senate education committee passed in October.

Duncan highlighted that provision on the call, commending Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's cosponsors, for their "courage" in including the provision. (That's one of the few nice things the secretary has said about the substance of the senators' legislation).

Harkin and Bennet each put out statements today saying that the report's findings underscore the need to keep the comparability language in the bill.

Here's Harkin: "This report confirms that the problem of poor kids getting less than their fair share of state and local resources is real in many places."

Here's Bennet: "This report is further evidence that the 'comparability loophole' is a critical problem that often results in low-income schools subsidizing their high-income counterparts. This is a solvable problem, and closing this loophole is a common-sense step we can take."

But the comparability language isn't a slam-dunk. Some folks worry that closing the comparabilty loophole could lead to forced teacher transfers (there's language in the Harkin-Enzi bill saying that's not the intention). And others worry that it could lead to some needless bureacratic maneuvering as districts try to balance the books. It's a good sleeper issue to watch in the debate over reauthorization.

So how does the department have all this data? There were new reporting requirements in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act calling for districts to supply information on a range of previously unreported areas, including school-level expenditures.

And you true-blue data nerds out there are in for a treat. The department has put a searchable database on its website so you can see how schools in your district stack up.

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Seven states that narrowly missed getting a piece of the $4 billion in Race to the Top money in the last round are going for another shot at a grant, the U.S. Department of Education announced today.

Nine states that scored high in the second round of the Race to the Top competition, but not quite high enough to win a grant, were eligible for this third round of funding, totaling $200 million.

The seven states in contention are: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. States will be eligible for grants based on their population.

Notably, California isn't in the running, which likely will mean more money for everyone else. California submitted an incomplete application, the department said. Apparently, California didn't cover the full gamut of assurances, and didn't explain how they planned to address them.

And South Carolina, which has had a major turnover in leadership since its almost-made-it-bid, opted out of the competition. South Carolina also didn't meet the maintenance of effort requirements for the Education Jobs Fund, a prerequisite for the competition.

The applicants in this round were required to submit data showing that they're continuing to work toward the four assurances (turning around low-performing schools, improving teacher quality, boosting standards and assessments, and bolstering data-systems) outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

By mid-December, each of the seven states will have to submit a budget for how they would use the grant and identify which part of the Round 2 application they want the federal government to fund. In a new twist, they will also have explain how their plan will help improve science, technology, engineering, and math education.

The department will announce the winners of this third "Bridesmaid" round of Race to the Top funding by the end of the year.

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Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has risen fast in the polls lately.

So how does he want to address the problems of poor students stuck in underperforming schools? At least, in part, by changing child labor laws.

In a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Gingrich said that society is "crippling [disdvantaged kids] by putting them in schools that fail. [This] has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy."

His solution: Overhaul child labor laws which are "truly stupid. We say to someone, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age? Fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that's failing, with a teacher that's failing. I tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools oughta get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor, and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work. They would have cash. They'd have pride in the schools. They'd begin the process of rising. ... Get any job that teaches you to show up on Monday."

Questions abound: Is having students do janitorial work—before they turn 14— the best way to improve foundering schools? Could students really handle being near so many cleaning products? What about those mop and soap fights in the hallway?

Gingrich clarified his comments to the Washington Post, saying, "I'm not suggesting that they drop out of school and become janitors, I'm talking about working 20 hours a week and being empowered to succeed."

That begs another question: Do the high school teachers out there think their kids would be able to balance 20 hours of work with school?

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Education advocates and local school officials are nervously eyeing a series of draconian cuts set to hit just about every federal program in 2013—including Title I, special education, and money for teacher quality—now that a bipartisan panel tasked with making recommendations for trimming the nation's deficit has failed to reach agreement.

Quick recap: Over the summer, as part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, lawmakers decided to set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" which would include twelve members of the House and Senate, half Democrats and half Republicans. The panel was supposed to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years. But lawmakers failed to reach agreement.

Now, a process known as sequestration, is set to kick in, beginning in January of 2013. It would mean an across-the-board cut of about 7.8 percent to most government programs, including many for education, advocates estimate.

That's on top of some very serious cuts already in place at the state and local level, particularly now that vast majority of the funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Education Jobs Fund is gone.

The possibilty of signficantly slashed federal aid is worrisome for Paul Durand, the superintendent of the 1,600-student Rockford County school district in Minnesota.

The proposed federal cuts "would come on the backs of issues we've had in our state. ... School districts in Minnesota are having to borrow money to make sure we can pay our bills." Further cuts to education at the federal level would be "very short-sighted and poor policy," he said.

The 7.8 percent cut would mean about a $3.5 billion decrease to the U.S. Department of Education's budget. To put that number in perspective, it's more than states get right now for Improving Teacher Quality State Grants (funded at $2.5 billion), but a little less than the competitive grant total for Race to the Top under the stimulus ($4 billion).

The National Education Association is estimating that sequestration would result in the loss of more than 24,000 jobs in elementary and secondary education.

"This is a huge deal," said Mary Kusler, the manager of federal advocacy for the union. These are "dramatic cuts that will be felt by every student and every school district at a time when state budget [cuts] are raising the importance of the limited federal dollars that are flowing."

Of course, Congress has a whole year before those major cuts are triggered. And lawmakers may well cook up a plan that would scrap the programmatic spending cuts, which are set to go into effect not just for domestic programs, but for defense, too.

Lawmakers may not come up with a plan to stop "sequestration" until after the 2012 election, said Joel Packer, a veteran education lobbyist who is now the executive director of the Committee for Education Funding.

"I think we are in for year-long fight about sequestration and everything else budget related," Packer said. "My personal guess is that nothing happens until after the election."

That may well make the cuts to domestic programs, including K-12 education, a centerpiece of the presidential campaign.

But that would leave school districts in the dark for a while about their federal funding, which can complicate local decisions, Durand said.

"The not-knowing what's happening is bad because you can't plan and you need to be able to plan," he said. "All of these things have real impact on children."

And already, district advocates are worried lawmakers may move to spare defense, but not education.

"If we get [the cuts], that is what would be very damaging for schools," said Noelle Ellerson, the assistant director of policy analysis and advocacy, for the American Association of School Administrators. But the worst case scenario, she said, would be if other programs, such as defense were exempted from the cuts, and education was not. That would mean the cuts to education would be even deeper and more damaging than anticipated, Ellerson said.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is worried, too.

We must reduce America's debt. But we must do so in a thoughtful and deliberate way that protects national priorities like education at such a critical time. Because the supercommittee failed to live up to its responsibility, education programs that affect young Americans across the country now face across-the-board cuts.

And Republicans are also upset about the failure of the committee to reach agreement. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said that he believed the money would eventually be cut but worried that it would be "done the wrong way"—he'd rather see major changes to entitlement programs, such as Medicare.

Photo: President Barack Obama walks away from the podium after making a statement at the White House on Nov. 21 after the congressional debt supercommittee failed to reach an agreement on debt reduction. (Evan Vucci/AP)

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Gov. Mitt Romney's comments about beer and Mormonism in a forthcoming interview with People magazine are snagging lots of attention around the web, after Politico's Playbook published a snippet of the interview today.

But we at Politics K-12 are perplexed by Romney's comments on education policy, an area on which he says he has some common ground with President Barack Obama.

Here's the relevant exchange:

PEOPLE: In the holiday spirit of comity, can you say one thing President Obama has done right?

Romney: "He's a good example of a husband and father. Some of his education initiatives—merit pay for the best teachers and school choice—have been positive. The surge in Afghanistan was the right choice. But the pluses are far exceeded by the places where I'd give him a minus."

The merit pay for teacher thing we get. Obama has pushed for an expansion of the Teacher Incentive Fund, which doles out grants to districts to create pay-for-performance programs. And he made performance pay a component of both Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grant programs.

But school choice? Okay, Obama has pushed for an expansion of charter schools, again under Race to the Top and SIG. But he also scrapped the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (though the money was ultimately put back at the behest of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the speaker of the House.) And his waiver package doesn't require districts to offer mandatory school choice or tutoring services.

So we're wondering what exactly Romney was talking about here.

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The Senate subcommittee overseeing children and families will examine federal child abuse laws, in the wake of the events at Pennsylvania State University.

The panel, which is part of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, will take a look at how well laws already on the books are protecting kids from abuse. Lawmakers will consider whether they need to boost reporting requirements going forward. Right now, just 18 states require all adults to report suspected child abuse, according to the committee.

Over on the House side, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has also requested hearings on the issue.

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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hasn't been following the GOP presidential debates because he has "a real job to do," according to an interview set to air on Bloomberg EDU, a radio program to be broadcast tonight at 10 p.m.

"I have no idea if they are serious or not. I just haven't spent any time, frankly, watching or following that," Duncan said, in response to a question about what he thought of some GOP presidential candidates' plans to scrap the U.S. Department of Education. "What I will say is that we're always trying to think through what is the correct federal role ... so I think there were some things going on at the federal level that weren't helpful."

Duncan went on to express major misgivings about the bill to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last month. So far, the department has only praised the committee's bipartisan process and hard work, not the substance of what it did. In particular, the department is unhappy with the bill's handling of teacher evaluation and accountability.

And the secretary treaded that line again in the Bloomberg interview:

"There are some good things in the bill, but you don't want to walk away from accountability, you don't want to walk away from focusing on achievement gaps, you don't want to walk away from making sure we're rewarding great teachers and great principals and shining a spotlight on excellence in education. So you want a good process, but at the end of the day you want really strong policy. And it's early innings, obviously, in the bill that came out of the Senate HELP committee, and we think it can be strengthened going forward. So I applaud the work that's gone on so far, clearly not a finished product, but a long way to go."

On the child abuse allegations at Penn State University, Duncan said the department would conduct a thorough investigation.

"We will have a team that will be on the campus shortly, and they will do a thoughtful and thorough investigation. And we'll just go where the facts lead us."

He also called the situation "any parent's, you know, worst nightmare. .... When you see this kind of behavior it's just sickening. It's absolutely sickening. And you just wish no child has to go through that. And the fact that so many children were possibly abused there, it's stunning."

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From guest blogger Nirvi Shah:

It turns out pizza is the real political hot potato when it comes to school lunches.

Although a federal spending bill that includes provisions that would allow a slice of cheese pizza to count as a vegetable on school lunch trays is headed for President Barack Obama's desk, a petition protesting the clause is being circulated by the Democratic party.

In a plea for signatures, the request proclaims Republicans sold out students' health to appease corporate interests.

"In this Republican Congress, almost anything is up for sale to the highest bidder and most powerful lobbyists—including the literal definition of the word 'vegetable'—and this time, it's coming at the expense of our kids' health," wrote Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

His email notes that the Obama administration was trying to undo the loophole in school meal standards that now allows pizza to be counted as a vegetable. While other vegetables and fruits are counted as a serving only if there is at least a half-cup on students' plates, just one-eighth of a cup of tomato paste on a slice of pizza counts as a serving.

Putting a full serving's worth of tomato paste on an individual slice would have made the pizza inedible, the frozen food industry has argued. (Although they could have alternately added veggies to the pizza.)

And the USDA's proposed switch wouldn't have kept pizza off lunch trays. Schools would have had to serve additional vegetables with it, however.

Mr. Woodhouse said the tomato paste clause was built into school meals during the Reagan administration, the same one that tried to count servings of ketchup as a veggie.

The pizza-protection provision was built into the agriculture spending bill along with other provisions that keep the USDA from limiting the amount of starchy vegetables, including white potatoes, served at school; and cut some limits on sodium in school meals the agency proposed.

Just last year, Congress told USDA to rewrite the rules on school lunch, a measure that passed with bipartisan support. Despite the petition, The Hill reports that more Democrats than Republicans in the House approved the spending measure that contains rules about tomato paste.

That was folded into a bigger spending bill involving several departments—Commerce, Justice, Science, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The bill also passed the Senate.

And because of that, it's expected that President Obama will sign the bill.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple of weeks ago, Politics K-12 made a strong case for why the U.S. Department of Education was wrong for not disclosing, up front, the names of the judges who would help decide which states earned waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act and which wouldn't.

Today, to its credit, the department reversed course and identified the 21 education-policy experts who will inform U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's waiver decisions. (More on the who's-who list in a moment.)

In late October, the department said it planned to keep the names secret until after the process was mostly over to keep things "fair and consistent." Today, spokeswoman Liz Utrup told me: "The decision to post peer reviewers' names now, instead of after the review is complete, is a product of thoughtful conversations about how to balance the integrity of the review process and privacy concerns with our commitment to transparency."

The waiver judges are an interesting mix of researchers, think tank and advocacy folks, and those with experience working for a state education agency or local district. In fact, the field of 21 is heavily stacked with people who have deep experience at state departments. Much of the group is in the pro-strong-accountability camp, with a lot of folks dedicated to improving the performance of student subgroups, whether they be minority or poor kids, or special education students and English-language learners.

At least seven have clear experience working for a state education department, which should please the Council of Chief State Schools Officers, which was critical of the Race to the Top judging process for largely omitting those folks. They are: Karla Baehr, a deputy commissioner from the Massachusetts department; Monique Chism, an innovation and improvement administrator with the Illinois State Board of Education; Pete Goldschmidt, the director of assessment and accountability at the New Mexico department; Sara Heyburn, a policy advisor with Tennessee's department; and Amy McIntosh, a senior fellow with the New York State Education Department Regents Research Fund.

Though no longer working for a state department, another two also bring that perspective: Richard J. Wenning, a former Colorado associate commissioner who, in 2010, testified before Congress about the use of data in accountability systems; and Christy L. Hovanetz, a former higher-up in the Minnesota and Florida departments, who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Three of the reviewers have district-level experience, including Judy Elliott,, the former chief academic officer of Los Angeles Unified, who was recently bought out of that position because she fell out of favor with the new superintendent there, even as she was praised for her aggressive education improvement ideas. The others with district experience include two with English-language learner expertise: Barbara M. Medina, from Denver Public Schools, and Gabriela Uro, of the Council of Great City Schools.

Researchers who will serve as peer reviewers are Johns Hopkins University's Robert Balfanz, of high school dropout factory fame; Rebecca Kopriva, a senior scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, who's an expert in ELL testing; and two experts in testing ELLs and special education students from the University of Minnesota's National Center on Educational Outcomes—Rachel Quenemoen and Martha Thurlow. Also on the roster are two teacher-quality researchers: Allison Henderson, from Westat, who served as a judge in Race to the Top, and Sabrina Laine, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research. And another researcher also has strong state ties: Edward Roeber, an adjunct professor at Michigan State University who used to direct assessment issues for CCSSO.

And, lastly, are four people who work for think tanks, advocacy groups, or another kind of education policy organization, including two judges who are leaders at the Education Trust, President Kati Haycock and K-12 policy development director Daria Hall. The Ed Trust, which is big on subgroup accountability and getting states and districts to be more aggressive in closing the achievement gap, has generally praised the waiver framework, but has also said the onus will be on states and the federal department to deliver a strong replacement system for NCLB.

Also judging is Susan Hanes, a technical advisor with the Center on Innovation and Improvement, which works on school turnarounds, and Ross Wiener, the executive director of the Aspen Institute, which works on union-district collaboration issues and last year tried to help some states win Race to the Top.

With 11 applications for waivers already in the hopper, the peer reviewers' work starts now. In this first round, the goal is to get the judging mostly done in December and award the first set of waivers after the first of the year. States can apply in the second round in mid-February, and on a rolling basis through 2012.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There could be congressional hearings in the wake of alleged child-abuse crimes at Penn State University, if U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has his way.

Miller today sent a letter to Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the committee's chairman, asking him to call a hearing into whether Congress needs to consider changes to federal laws designed to protect students.

And Miller isn't concerned only about the situation at Penn State. He's worried about another recent revelation at the Citadel, in Charleston, S.C., which also involved alleged sexual abuse of children that wasn't reported to police.

"Potential weaknesses in specific laws designed to keep children safe have come to light in the wake of the alleged sexual crimes committed on the campuses of the Pennsylvania State University and the Citadel," Rep. Miller wrote. "Our inquiry should not seek to parallel, replicate, or interfere with those efforts; rather, we must examine the ongoing operation of the underlying federal laws to identify any vulnerabilities and better ensure against future risks to children."

Miller is specificially interested in looking at two federal laws: the Clery Act, which requires post-secondary institutions to collect and report on crimes that happen on campus, and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which requires states to establish laws on reporting child abuse.

Kline is monitoring the Penn State situation and will decide whether Congress should take further steps after the U.S. Department of Education finishes its investigation into the matter, said his spokeswoman, Alexandra Sollberger.

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So you've heard a lot about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But there's this whole other law that gets much less attention: The Education Sciences Reform Act, which created the Institute for Education Sciences back in 2002.

Today, the House Education and the Workforce subcommittee on K-12 education held the first hearing on the reauthorization of ESRA, which has been pending since 2008. Sarah Sparks, of Inside School Research Fame, wrote a great preview, and tweeted the hearing.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the politics of education research aren't nearly as charged as the politics of, say, accountability. The witnesses seemed to agree that the best thing the feds can do when it comes to research is to make sure that it's accessible and understandable for school district folks, but refrain from putting major requirements on it.

Another interesting point? Lawmakers from both parties didn't seem to have too many questions about issues at the heart of ESRA. But they did focus extensively on what kind of research exists on teacher quality and teacher evaluation—which is one issue that the House Education committee still has to tackle as it works towards reauthorization of ESEA. I guess ESRA is sort of a bridesmaid of federal education laws.

Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, the former director of IES who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that basically, if the federal role in overseeing research isn't broken, Congress shouldn't fix it.

And he said that when Congress does get all directive about what sorts of research schools should use (as in the case of Reading First and the School Improvement Grant program) the results aren't always so fantastic.

Another witness, Caroline Hoxby, a Stanford University economics professor and a former member of the National Board for Education Sciences, IES' advisory board; suggested robust research can help the feds decide which programs to fund during tough budget times.

A key question at the hearing: Is it the federal role to get schools to use available research? One witness, Eric J. Smith, the former chief of Florida schools, said that's a state responsibility. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.,countered that states and locals aren't stepping up to the plate on that front.

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UPDATED

The U.S. Department of Education has now spelled out what the nine runner-up finalists from last year's Race to the Top competition must do to get a piece of the $200 million consolation prize.

[UPDATE, 11/17, 12:20 p.m.] This new money, which makes for a third round of the Obama administration's signature education-reform initiative, must be spent on a piece of a state's second-round Race to the Top proposal that seeks to advance the state's comprehensive reform agenda, according to the department. Importantly, though, a state must make the case that whatever it chooses will also improve STEM education. STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and math, has become an important priority for the Obama administration, and most recently, was a big beneficiary of the latest round of Investing in Innovation grants. For this latest round of Race to the Top, grant money doesn't necessarily have to be spent on STEM programs, it's just that a state must identify an area to focus on that will also benefit STEM (such as raising standards in all subjects).

For states to qualify, according to the rules the department put out today, they must meet nine requirements or "assurances". For one thing, they must be in compliance with maintenance-of-effort requirements in the Education Jobs Fund, which already means South Carolina (if it had even wanted the money) wouldn't be eligible.

The state also has to be in compliance with certain requirements regarding its data system under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a one-time pot of federal stimulus aid. (Could California be in trouble for this?)

There must also be no firewall between student and individual teacher data. Also, a state has to maintain any laws and rules that it used to beef up its original round-two Race to the Top application around teacher evaluations, school turnarounds, expanding charter schools, and adopting common standards and assessments. So no backtracking allowed.

In addition, the application must be signed by the governor, the state schools' chief, and the president of the state's board of education.

The funding comes from the fiscal 2011 budget deal Congress reached earlier this year. A separate $500 million pot of money was set aside for an early-learning version of Race to the Top.

Awards will be based on the size of a state's student population, and will range from $12 million to $49 million. If every one of last year's finalists applied, which isn't likely, this is how the awards would be broken down: $12.25 million for Colorado, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Kentucky; $17.5 million for Arizona; $28 million for Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; and $49 million for California.

That's not a lot of money for so many strings attached, but, for states that are plowing ahead with the education-reform agenda they spelled out in Race to the Top, it might be easy money.

The application process will be in two steps. States have until Nov. 22 to file proof that they meet all of those assurances. If the Education Department agrees, then states have until Dec. 16 to make their pitches for STEM projects.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The 23 finalists from the Investing in Innovation grant program are probably already counting their winnings (so long as they've secured their required private-sector match), but it's important to note the U.S. Department of Education made a possibly crucial change in scoring this year that may have altered who made it to the winners' circle.

The department did not standardize scores to determne this year's winners, a change from last year's first round of i3.

Wonky, yes. But an important change.

According to a department spokesman, feedback from the public indicated there was confusion over how the applications were scored last year, which, among other things, prompted the change. Count Politics K-12 as among those confused over the standardization process, which EdWeek blogger Sara Mead also called "incomprehensible".

The reason for standardization during the first round, according to the department, was to mitigate what can sometimes be big variation in the judging process between easy graders and hard graders. Standardization is a highly statistical process that makes sure some applicants aren't improperly penalized just because they got a bunch of hard graders (or vice versa). Standardization was not used in the department's other high-profile competition—Race to the Top, which garnered its own share of scoring criticism.

An analysis by the Rural and Community Trust indicated standardization wasn't a big factor in determining the fates of applicants in the first round, though it did have some effect.

Nonetheless, the department got rid of standardization. A spokesman told me the department then took additional steps to address concerns over the naturally human and imperfect process of judging, and how to balance hard and easy graders. Among those steps: Judges were given clearer numeric ranges to help them decide on a score, and the department limited the number of applications each peer reviewer judged.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

So it's official: Gov. Rick Perry is now calling for getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education, as part of the GOP presidential hopeful's new plan to overhaul the federal government, released today.

As anyone with access to YouTube knows, Perry, a Republican from Texas, made a major gaffe in a recent presidential debate, when he was unable to remember all three of the federal agencies he was planning to eliminate. He remembered the Education Department was on the hit list, though. The other two agencies are the Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy.

But, at the time, his official campaign plan didn't actually call for scrapping the department, just hacking it in half. Apparently, he's changed his mind. Check out the whole plan here.

Perry doesn't give any details as to just how he'd go about dismantling the Department. But it's tough to do.

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Eleven states will have the first opportunity to secure waivers from the U.S. Department of Education under the No Child Left Behind Act after meeting Monday's deadline for the first round.

They are: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

This is fewer than the 17 states that originally had planned to apply by this first-round deadline, and reflects how much work—and collaboration with stakeholders—is required to put together a solid waiver proposal. As many as 40 states, plus D.C., may apply in subsequent rounds of the waiver process. The next deadline for states is mid-February, although the department has indicated it will accept applications in the future on a rolling basis.

These states' applications will be examined by outside peer reviewers in December, and they could win their waivers as early as January.

As part of their applications, the 11 states were supposed to demonstrate how they plan to implement college- and career-ready standards and tie state tests to them; adopt a differentiated accountability system that focuses on 15 percent of the most-troubled schools; and craft guidelines for teacher- and principal-evaluation systems that will be based partly on student growth and be used for personnel decisions.

In return, states will no longer have to face the 2014 deadline for bringing all students to proficiency in math and reading, their schools will no longer face NCLB sanctions, and district officials will have more freedom to move Title I money around.

Four of the 11 states that applied are Race to the Top states—Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. These states should have had a leg up in preparing their waiver proposals, which contained many of the elements required under Race to the Top.

Now it's time to delve into these 11 states' applications, and figure out what accountability without the cornerstone elements of NCLB looks like. Will we like what we see?

UPDATE [3:15 p.m.]: The Education Department has said it will publish the applications online later this week, along with the names of the peer reviewers.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

From guest blogger Nirvi Shah:

Pizza would be continue to be considered a vegetable on school lunch trays under new changes to school meals proposed by Congress late yesterday. And lawmakers who wanted no limits on how many starchy vegetables students are served also got their wish.

Collectively, child nutrition advocates say, the changes amount to Congress bending to the whims of food manufacturers and growers at the expense of children's health.

"At a time when child nutrition and childhood obesity are national health concerns, Congress should be supporting the U.S. Department of Agriculture and school efforts to serve healthier school meals, not undermining them," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Together the school lunch riders in the agriculture spending bill will protect industry's ability to keep pizza and French fries on school lunch trays."

The Agriculture Appropriations bill approved by a conference committee of House and Senate members yesterday would also make other changes to rules about what's served on school lunch trays, even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture is still in the midst of making rules about those meals.

One of the big changes would, in essence, continue to allow pizza with tomato sauce to be considered a vegetable. That's allowed under the bill because of a change to how schools would be able to count the amount of tomato puree or paste in a dish. Boiled down, the USDA can't spend any money on counting tomato paste the way it proposed to in a rule offered for comment earlier this year. The USDA way would have kept pizza slices from counting as veggies unless they had about 1/2 cup of tomato paste (with a half-cup of any veggie counting as a serving), Food companies said that meant the pizza could become inedible, though simply adding other vegetables per slice could also resolve the issue.

"It is not that a whole-grain, moderate-in-fat-and-sodium pizza can't be a healthy food. It just isn't a vegetable," Ms. Wootan said.

The bill also wouldn't allow the agency to spend money on reducing sodium in school meals beyond what the USDA proposed for the first four years after the rules are in place. School lunches—which have been cited for being high in sodium, accounting for as much as half a student's sodium allowance for a full day—would have had to become drastically less salty over 10 years. Another change chips away at the USDA proposal on whole grains.

These changes are in addition to others that prevent the USDA from limiting the amount of white potatoes, corn, lima beans, and green peas served on school lunch trays. Senators from several potato-growing states worked that into the bill before it went to the House and the change stuck.

It was just last year that Congress authorized the USDA to make changes to school meals with passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The agency proposed changes in January and by April, had received more than 130,000 comments on its proposal, comments that would likely have affected final rules that were expected to be issued later this year.

But if the spending bill, with these changes that preempt the USDA's action, is approved by both the Senate and House, it is expected to make its way to President Barack Obama's desk within a week.

Photo: Fries are scooped into containers during lunch at Gardiner High School in Gardiner, Maine. The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains. (Pat Wellenbach/AP)

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Stand for Children and the Education Equality Project are pooling their resources to reach more minority students, the groups announced today.

The new partnership marries a strong grassroots organization seeking to make an impact on state policy (Stand for Children), with a politically connected organization that has a focus on minority communities (EEP).

Education Equality Project board members John Legend, Michael Lomax and Handy will join Stand for Children's boards. Although not a merger, it seems as if EEP is essentially folding into Stand for Children.

EEP made a big splash during the 2008 presidential campaign, but has been quieter since. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and GOP presidential hopeful who has recently surged in the polls, has been a big champion of EEP. And EEP also has as one of its key board members Phil Handy, who, as of last check, is advising GOP front-runner Mitt Romney on education.

Stand for Children has become a loud voice on the policy scene, becoming a key player in the recent debate over successful school-reform efforts in Illinois.

"Working together, Stand [for Children] and EEP will reach an even broader scope of communities, thus helping more disadvantaged students graduate from high school ready for post-secondary education," the groups said in a statement.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

House lawmakers representing districts with high concentrations of Asian, African-American, and Hispanic students have said they'd like to see a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act include performance targets for different subgroups of students.

You can check out the full letter, by the so-called "Tri-Caucus" here. The group's concerns are nothing new—it has said in the past that its members were worried about a potential retreat from subgroup accountability. But the letter is particularly interesting in light of the fact that a bipartisan, comprehensive rewrite of the ESEA law, recently approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, does not include federally-set performance targets for subgroup students.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Nov. 10 that he does not think the Senate measure can become law unless the House is able to pass bipartisan legislation.

I would note that historically, education policy in Congress has been done in a bipartisan fashion and I believe that the House must also maintain that approach. Without a bipartisan bill coming out of the House, I believe it would be difficult to find a path forward that will draw the support we need from both sides of the aisle to be able to send a final bill to the President that advances education for America's students. Here in the Senate we have demonstrated that it is possible to reach bipartisan consensus despite the thorny issues in education. We all need to work together in a bipartisan way to replace the No Child Left Behind Act with a new and better law.

Earlier this week, advocates were speculating that Harkin was going to hold off putting a bipartisan rewrite on the floor until the House is able to act. The House education committee has written three ESEA renewal bills, but still has yet to deal with the tricky issues of teacher evaluation and accountability.

The Obama administration continues to oppose key portions of the measure, including the bill's teacher evaluation component, which would require only districts that receive Teacher Incentive Fund or Race to the Top money to craft evaluation systems based on student outcomes.

But Harkin said the bill he cosponsored "is based largely on the administration's ESEA blueprint, released in March of 2010.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

From guest blogger Nirvi Shah:

For more than 20 years, Bill Modzeleski worked at the federal Department of Education on improving school safety, a gig that started when he was sent from the U.S. Department of Justice to run the the National Commission on Drug-Free Schools.

After more than 20 years at the department, including the last 10 at the decade-old Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, Mr. Modzeleski stepped down from his post as acting assistant deputy secretary of the office last week.

His departure comes just a few months after assistant deputy secretary Kevin Jennings stepped down—Mr. Modzeleski then stepped in—and in the midst of changes to the office.

The Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools was eliminated earlier this year. Now funded at $191 million in the fiscal 2011 budget, after a $79 million budget cut by Congress, its programs will be moved into a new Office of Safe and Healthy Students, to be located within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

In a parting note, Mr. Modzeleski wrote how much he learned from the staff in the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

"First, I learned just how difficult your jobs are. Each and every one of you is working with hundreds of school districts, of various sizes, shapes and needs, that present multiple problems, many of which are exacerbated by dysfunctional families and communities," he wrote. "Next, I learned how your efforts impact teaching and learning. In the education community, we tend to focus on teaching and learning but ignore the conditions that make both possible. You make teaching and learning possible!"

Posted by Michele McNeil at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

By Guest Blogger Erik Robelen

The U.S. Department of Education has identified the 23 finalists expected to get Investing in Innovation, or i3, grants in the second round of the high-profile competition, including the Success For All Foundation—the only repeat winner—as well as the College Board, a California charter schools network, and five school districts.

The largest single grant is expected to go to Old Dominion University Research Foundation, based in Norfolk, Va., which requested nearly $25 million for a "scale-up" grant aimed at providing high-need middle schoolers with increased access to challenging math courses.

In all, 587 applicants were vying for a slice of nearly $150 million in this second round of the i3 program. Last year, the Education Department awarded 49 grants totaling roughly $650 million.

All the new awards are contingent upon the applicants securing a private match of a portion of their grant total, ranging from 5 percent to 15 percent, depending on the type of grant requested.

Efforts to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (or STEM) education and rural schooling got a boost this round, as they were added to a short list of categories given special emphasis by the department. In fact, one-third of the nearly $150 million in i3 funding is expected to target proposals that identified STEM as an "absolute priority," according to the department.

"This round of i3 grantees is poised to have real impact in areas of critical need, including STEM education and rural communities, on projects ranging from early-childhood interventions to school turnaround models that will prepare more students for college and career," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a press release issued today.

For an earlier analysis of this year's applicants, check out Michele's EdWeek story, plus my blog post over at Curriculum Matters, which takes a STEM education angle.

The i3 program, established under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and extended by Congress earlier this year as part of the fiscal 2011 budget, seeks to find innovative and promising education strategies that also have a good record of success. Awards this time range from up to $3 million for "development" grants to as much as $25 million for the "scale-up" award. The bigger the award, the more evidence of past success is required.

One key change this year was that the department added two new categories to the "absolute priority" list: promoting STEM education, and improving achievement and graduation rates for rural school districts. Basically, every applicant was required to select one of the five "absolute" priorities. In addition to STEM and rural education, the other three priorities are innovations that: support effective teachers and principals; complement the implementation of high standards and high-quality assessments; and turn around persistently low-performing schools.

One applicant this time, the Success for All Foundation, has been selected for its second i3 grant. In 2010, the Education Department awarded a $50 million grant to the Baltimore-based organization to expand its model for the whole-school turnaround of struggling elementary schools. In the announcement today, Success for All was chosen for its $3 million proposal to create and evaluate a technology-enhanced approach to early literacy. Success for All was also listed as one of three "project partners" on the $25 million plan from Old Dominion University.

All applications were peer reviewed and given numeric ratings. In the end, the department did not simply select the 23 highest-ranking applications from the full list. Instead, it separated them into categories based upon each "absolute" priority, as well as based upon the type of grant sought, whether a scale-up, validation, or development grant. From there, it ranked the applications within each category to ensure a balance of projects across the priority areas.

"One of the big objectives of i3 is to create a portfolio of solutions to a range of challenges," said Jim Shelton, the Education Department's assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement, in a conference call with reporters yesterday.

The score for the $25 million grant request from Old Dominion University was 86.33 (out of 100), notably lower than most other finalists identified, which generally ranged from 94 to 100. (Apparently, it was the highest-ranked among the 14 applications for a scale-up grant.)

When asked whether the lower score raised questions about the relative worth of this project in comparison with other winners, Shelton replied: "It was a very strong proposal. ... There is some risk involved, [but] we feel confident that this is more than a prudent risk."

Here's a quick sampling of the applications selected for an i3 award:
• Applicant: Ounce of Prevention Fund
Amount Requested: $3 million
Project: In partnership with Chicago Public Schools, the nonprofit aims to implement and evaluate a professional development initiative to improve both classroom instruction and school leadership in early-childhood education settings.

• Applicant: Boston Public Schools
Amount requested: $2.9 million
Project: In partnership with the National Center on Time & Learning, the district will "replicate and codify" a school-turnaround strategy that strategically redesigns the school day to add 300 hours more per year for all students.

• Applicant: Regents of the University of Minnesota
Amount requested: $15 million
Project: In partnership with education and nonprofit agencies in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the university will provide "intensive and continuous" educational and family-support services targeting students from preschool to 3rd grade.

• Applicant: New Visions for Public Schools
Amount Requested: $12.9 million
Project: In partnership with the New York City school district and the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative, create the Accessing Algebra Through Inquiry project to drive student achievement in 30 high-need secondary schools.

An Education Department official tells me that while the agency's final grant awards may not exactly match the requested figures, they're definitely in the same ballpark.

Here's the full list of successful applicants for Round 2:
Old Dominion Research Foundation
University of Alaska Statewide Office of K-12 Outreach
National Math and Science Initiative
New Visions for Public Schools
Regents of the University of Minnesota
North Carolina New Schools Project
Aspire Public Schools
Texas Tech University
Temple University of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education (Pennsylvania)
New York City Board of Education
New York Hall of Science
Baltimore City Public Schools
Fresno County Office of Education
The College Board
Oakland Unified School District
Ounce of Prevention Fund
The Metropolitan Education Commission
Boston Public Schools
Success for All Foundation
Del Norte Unified School District
Berea College
Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative
KnowledgeWorks

UPDATE: (11:30am)
For more analysis of the STEM dimension of today's announcement, check out this Curriculum Matters blog post.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said in a Republican debate tonight that he wants to scrap three federal agencies: the U.S. Department of Education, the Commerce Department ... and a third player-to-be-named-later.

"It's three agencies of government that are gone when I get there. ... Commerce ... Education ..." and then Perry trailed off. Other candidates at the Rochester, Mich., debate suggested maybe he meant the Environmental Protection Agency? Perry couldn't remember for sure. (Later in the debate, he landed on the Department of Energy.)

And, actually, Perry's own education plan doesn't call for scrapping the U.S. Department of Education. He would only get rid of about half of the department.

During the debate, which was hosted by CNBC, candidates also answered a question about what they would do about the massive increase in student loan debt. Tuition rates have increased much faster than inflation in recent years.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, called the policy of "student loans a total failure. ... I mean a trillion dollars of debt? To be dumped on the taxpayer. ... There's nothing more dramatically failing than that program. ... We should get rid of the loan programs, we should get rid of the Department of Education."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the student loan program is an "absurdity." He said it expands the ability of students to stay in college longer because "they don't see the cost." He talked about a school, the College of the Ozarks, where students must work 20 hours a week to pay for their education.

Perry said the feds should be considering "how we can make these universities efficient" including by using technology.

"Let our kids have the opportunity to get an education through long-distance learning," he said.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Department of Education notified Penn State today that the agency will be investigating whether the university broke federal law in failing to report allegations of sex abuse by an assistant football coach who worked under the famed Joe Paterno. UPDATE [11/11, 7:41 a.m.]: Read the letter, including a list of documents investigators want to see, and other demands, here.

The Education Department's jurisdiction is via the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, or Clery Act for short.

Former Penn State Defensive Coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually abusing several young boys over several years, including incidents on campus.

According to the Education Department, the Clery Act requires colleges and universities to disclose the number of criminal offenses on campus that are reported each year. In addition, in certain cases, the institution must issue a timely warning if a reported crime represents a threat to the campus community.

In 2011, the Education Department used the Clery Act to fine Virginia Tech $55,000 for failing to warn students about a shooting rampage that claimed 33 lives.

The Office of Federal Student Aid will investigate Pennsylvania State University, which was notified by letter today. The department said the Office of Civil Rights will also be monitoring the situation.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement: "If these allegations of sexual abuse are true then this is a horrible tragedy for those young boys. If it turns out that some people at the school knew of the abuse and did nothing or covered it up, that makes it even worse. Schools and school officials have a legal and moral responsibility to protect children and young people from violence and abuse."

And for more about Duncan's reaction to the scandal, and the lessons for high school sports teams, read this Schooled in Sports blog post.

Photo: Penn State football coach Joe Paterno arrives home on Nov. 9 in State College, Pa. Paterno said in a statement Wednesday he is "absolutely devastated" by the developments in the case of Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator accused of molesting eight boys over 15 years. (Matt Rourke/AP)

Posted by Michele McNeil at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Voters in Ohio gave Senate Bill 5, which stripped teachers and other public workers of many collective bargaining rights, a "smashing rebuke" in the words of one local newspaper reporter.

This resounding defeat, even in Republican counties in Ohio, is detailed over at State EdWatch.

This morning, a post-game analysis is being conducted in Ohio with AEI and EdWeek blogger Rick Hess, NEA vice president Lily Eskelsen, and Columbus Distpach reporter Joe Hallet (who gave us the "smashing rebuke" line).

Hess' take? This issue is not dead. The elements of Senate Bill 5 will be back in states across the country, but repackaged and re-envisioned.

Eskelsen's take? This was a historic vote, with the public telling policymakers to leave public employees alone—that there are other ways to raise revenue than making them pay more towards their pensions.

Hallet's take? Ohio voters also overwhelmingly voted in favor of a constitutional amendment that would require Ohio to opt-out of the individual health care mandate that is part of President Obama's health care package. This was a smackdown of President Obama—and in fact, more people voted to opt out of the health care plan than voted to repeal Senate Bill 5. So this election was by no means a win for Democrats, or for the president as he faces re-election.

Interesting results, wouldn't you say?

Posted by Michele McNeil at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today's much-anticipated hearing on a Senate bill to make over the No Child Left Behind Act had one of the bill's chief sponsors casting it as an important but imperfect compromise, while Republicans saying the bill wouldn't do enough to rein in the federal role in education.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said that a comprehensive, bipartisan bill that passed out of his committee last month is a step in the right direction, even if it doesn't please everyone.

"This bill that we have will not solve every problem in elementary and secondary education. ... No bill has everything everybody wants," Harkin said of the bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., the top Republican on the panel. The central question, he said: "Does it advance the cause of finding proper balances between federal, state, and local?"

The bill would overhaul the NCLB law, the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It was approved by the Senate committee on Oct. 20, and a floor vote has not yet been scheduled.

The Obama administration has been quietly critical of the bill's handling of two key issues: accountability and teacher evaluation. But Harkin said today those decisions were the result of the need for bipartisan compromise with Enzi.

"The administration can say those things," he told reporters. "They never had to negotiate with anyone to get those waivers"—a reference to the administration's system for giving states wiggle room on key pieces of the NCLB law, but only if states advance certain reform priorities.

It's unusual for a congressional committee to hold a hearing on a bill it's already passed. But during last month's markup on the bill, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., threatened to slow down the process of committee consideration unless the panel held a hearing that included the folks who would implement the law, such as teachers, principals, and school superintendents.

Paul wasn't much of a firebrand during the hearing, though. Instead, he reiterated his view that the federal government should stay out of K-12 policy.

"The farther we get away from the local school board, the worse it gets," said the Kentucky senator. And he said he is "concerned that we still have a testing mandate. I don't think we fixed that."

Based on comments at the hearing, it sounds like other Republicans may be seeking changes to the bill if and when it gets to the Senate floor. Enzi said he would like to see "a much smaller federal role" in education and "fewer programs" and was sorry that "the markup moved in the opposite direction."

The hearing was done in a roundatable format. Witnesses were asked to explain which parts of the bill they particularly liked and which parts they thought needed work.

Jon Schnur, co-founder and chairman of the board for New Leaders, a non-profit that helps train principals to work in underperforming schools, said he thought the committee should consider a big incentive for developing evaluation systems. One possibility could be to make at least half of Title II funding (the nearly $2.5 billion that states get each year for teacher quality) competitive instead of given out by formula.

Elmer Thomas, the principal at Madison Central High School in Richmond, Ky., said he was glad to see the committee was "getting rid of punative [Adequate Yearly Progress] sanctions.

A broad coalition of civil right and business groups is opposed to the legislation. They were represented at the hearing by Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Henderson called the bill "a historic retreat from accountability."

After the hearing, a Senate aide sought to counter some of those claims, pointing to language in the bill that makes it clear that states must submit accountability plans that address subgroup success. The main difference between the bill and current law is that there wouldn't be a federal system of labeling schools, or federally spelled-out interventions.

That balance works for Tom Luna, the state superintendent in Idaho, who also happens to be the president-elect of the Council of Chief State School Officers. Idaho has embraced some major changes lately, including on teacher quality, merit-pay, and technology initiatives—all without federal involvement, Luna said in an interview after the hearing.

"I think the reauthorization keeps the good parts of the No Child Left Behind Act," he said, including the focus on disaggregating data for all students, while including some positive changes, such as growth models, which allow states to measure individual student progress.

He said he thinks the scaling back of the federal role is the right move. "I don't think it's a question of whether states can step up. I think they've proven that they have."

And Luna added that he'd rather see an honest-to-goodness reauthorization in place of waivers. "Reauthorization is long term," he said.

Photo: Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., left, huddles with Sen. Lamar Alexander R-Tenn., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, right, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, during the Nov. 8 hearing on a Senate bill to make over the No Child Left Behind Act. (Andrew Councill for Education Week)

Posted by Alyson Klein at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

UPDATED

As part of his latest effort to show he's trying to address critical problems while Congress remains mired in partisan politics, President Barack Obama announced today his administration will require the lowest-performing Head Start providers to compete for future federal funding.

"After trying for months to work with Congress on education, we've decided to take matters into our own hands," Obama said in a news release.

The thing is, this particular Head Start matter was already in Obama's hands. Congress wasn't holding up any of it. The rules have been in the works for a few years, and it was Obama's own administration that was taking its time in turning proposed regulations into reality.

In fact, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, noted that the rules were made possible by legislation Congress passed in 2007. He said: "I am pleased the president is finally moving to enact this Republican initiative and look forward to hearing the details of his plan."

Melody Barnes, Obama's top domestic policy adviser, however, said in a conference call today that the Head Start move today is part of a broader effort to make up for the lack of "serious action" on improving education among Republicans in Congress. She hammered on Republicans for voting against Obama's jobs bill, for "slashing" Pell Grants, "refusing" to fix the flaws in NCLB in a bipartisan way, and wanting to cut funding from Head Start.

According to White House officials, the goal of the new competition is to strengthen the early-childhood services provided by the 1,600 Head Start and Early Head Start organizations that serve low-income children and families. By directing federal tax dollars to the strongest programs, the Obama administration hopes to weed out poor performers. About 1 million infants, toddlers, and preschoolers receive Head Start services a year.

As early as December, the Department of Health and Human Services, which manages Head Start, will begin notifying those that fail to meet new benchmarks and are deemed low performing. This could affect as many as one-third of providers.

Several things could trigger a provider having to compete for future funding: deficiencies uncovered during an on-site review, failing to establish and use school-readiness goals for children, or demonstrating low performance in the classroom evaluation. Other triggers include if a provider has had its license revoked, or if its federal grant has been suspended.

Every five years, providers would be evaluated to determine whether they have to compete for another grant.

Photo: President Barack Obama visits a classroom at Yeadon Regional Head Start Center in Yeadon, Pa., on Nov. 8. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

Posted by Michele McNeil at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

UPDATED

On Tuesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee holds its big hearing on legislation overhauling the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, with a cast that will feature teachers, administrators, and other education stakeholders.

Holding a hearing on a bill after the committee's already passed it is an unusual sequence. This hearing is basically a prerequisite for floor action to appease U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who felt that he did not get enough time to digest and discuss the bill before it moved through committee consideration last month.

Right after the panel's 15-7 vote on Oct. 20, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, one of the co-authors, said he'd like to move it to the Senate floor as soon as possible. He said he was hoping to get it passed in time to stop the Obama administration's package of waivers from current provisions of the law, now known as the No Child Left Behind Act., They're set to go into effect early next year. Harkin thinks it would more effective to have honest-to-goodness legislation.

So does that mean the Senate is going to pass this bill sometime soon? Not so fast.

First off, there's the issue of a full legislative calendar. Senators have to approve spending bills, and consider recommendations before year's end from the "supercommittee" charged with making long-range proposals for cutting the deficit.

"Ultimately, the decision to bring legislation to the floor rests with Senate leadership," said Justine Sessions, a spokeswoman for Harkin. "Chairman Harkin is working with them on the bipartisan legislation approved by the HELP Committee last month, but he is also aware that the Senate floor schedule is extremely crowded."

Secondly, advocates are hearing that, in part due to pressure from the administration, Senate leaders may hold off on putting the ESEA bill on the floor until and unless the House approves an overhaul of the law's accountability and teacher quality provisions. Although discussions have taken place between U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the top Democrat, actual bipartisan legislation might be a tall order.

A Senate leadership aide said that the tight legislative timeline is a big part of the reason the bill is unlikely to see floor action this year. But the aide added that House action "definitely part of the calculus" in considering whether to move the bill.

A slowdown wouldn't be surprising because the administration has some major policy problems with the Senate bill sponsored by Harkin and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., in particular with its teacher evaluation and accountability provisions.

Meanwhile, Republicans want to see changes to key pieces of the bill before it goes to the Senate floor. Those include scrapping language that would retain the highly qualified teacher provision, along with language requiring states to make "continuous improvement," and language requiring states to focus on schools with persisent achievement gaps.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The vote on Oct. 31 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization to admit Palestine prompted the United States to announce that it is effectively withdrawing support for UNESCO.

The United States technically will remain a member of UNESCO, which works on worldwide education issues among other activities, but won't be paying its dues, the State Department announced on Monday.

"The United States remains steadfast in its support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, but such a state can only be realized through direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in the statement. "Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers longstanding legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO."

The loss of an estimated $80 million a year from the U.S. to UNESCO threatens the work of the organization, which helps promote literacy programs worldwide and has worked to develop competitive media in Iraq and Egypt, among other projects, according to a statement from the Paris-based organization.

And so the tortured relationship between the U.S. and UNESCO continues.

In 2003, the U.S. rejoined UNESCO after a nearly 20-year absence. According to this EdWeek story, the United States dropped out of UNESCO in 1984 amid allegations of mismanagement at the organization, complaints about its perceived anti-democratic agenda, and criticism of the agency's plan to monitor the press corps around the world.

Then-President Ronald Reagan, through a formal administration statement, accused UNESCO of "politiciz[ing] every subject it deals with," and exhibiting "a hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society."

Britain and Singapore also pulled out of UNESCO in the 1980s, and Britain returned in 1998.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

So, after pushing Congress for years to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it doesn't sound like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is such a fan of the bill that passed out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last month.

Here's what he told my colleague, Stephen Sawchuk of Teacher Beat fame in an interview earlier this week. Steve asked him what he thought of the bill's teacher evaluation provisions, which were scaled back to garner GOP support.

"I appreciate folks are working together [on K-12] education—it may be about the only issue right now," Duncan said. "I'm encouraged about the process, but it can't just be about the process, it has to be about the product. You don't want to have a weak bill or a bad bill at the end of the day."

He said he thought some parts of the bill were very strong. But in other areas, the bill might represent "a step back on raising standards and accountability. We've seen so much progress, we've got to keep getting better, not going backwards."

And he added that there are lots of opportunities ahead to continue to shape the bill.

The administration expressed its concerns with the bill's accountability provisions, which would allow states to decide whether to intervene in most schools up to states, here.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Even though it's too early to start judging how well Race to the Top states are using their $4 billion in winnings to improve student achievement, it's not too early to start looking at key indicators. And NAEP is one of them.

So just how did Race to the Top states fare on the 2011 NAEP versus non-winners?

There weren't many bright spots in the NAEP results released Tuesday, as reading scores remained relatively flat and math scores inched up. But amid the bright spots were, indeed, some Race to the Top states.

Hawaii (yes, Hawaii!) and Maryland were the exceptions in reading. Students in both of those Race to the Top states (and only those states) scored higher in both 4th grade and 8th grade reading than in 2009. (Winner Massachusetts, and other non-winning states, scored higher in 4th grade only. Another winner, North Carolina, was among a few scoring higher in 8th grade.)

That's pretty significant, especially for Hawaii, which hasn't been a darling of the education reformers. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and crew even debated how to avoid giving the state a Race to the Top award. Lately, the state's taken a beating over its teacher-evaluation system (or lack of one) with some critics saying Hawaii should have to give the money back. But, as Mike Petrilli at Flypaper noted, maybe there's something to Hawaii winning after all.

In math, winners D.C., Rhode Island, and Hawaii (yes, Hawaii again!) made gains in both grades since 2009. Non-winner New Mexico was the only other state to post gains in both grades. Winner Georgia (and several other non-winning states) made gains in 4th grade only, and Ohio and a few others made gains in 8th grade.

Rhode Island's jump in both grades is noteworthy because the state's low math achievement in particular has bothered Education Commissioner Deb Gist, who set very high goals for that subject in general as part of the state's Race to the Top application.

But even more spectacular is D.C.'s giant leaps in math. In four years, D.C.'s scores have jumped 12 points in eighth grade, and 8 points in fourth grade—making D.C. the biggest score mover on NAEP. (That's a lot of points when scores in most states barely budge from year to year.)

What about the other Race to the Top states? Like most of the nation, their scores didn't budge much. New York was the only Race to the Top state to see its scores go down in at least one area, in 4th grade math.

The Politics K-12 take: It's way too early to use these results to judge the success of Race to the Top, or any winning state. But D.C.'s math achievement is clearly worth studying. And, Hawaii, for all sorts of reasons, is a state to watch as the Race to the Top program gets implemented.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend