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Colorado Senators Introduce New No Child Left Behind Bill

2011-10-04T23:12:51Z

In the two-and-a-half weeks since President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced ways in which states could overhaul No Child Left Behind without Congress's consent, lawmakers have introduced several bills that would alter the sweeping federal education law.

The latest bill, introduced Tuesday by Colorado's Democratic senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, would shift the measurement of student exam performance, moving from a model based on the raw number of students who pass math and reading tests to a "growth model" that would measure student growth over time.

One of NCLB's most maligned provisions requires states to report student test scores by the raw number of students who pass. The law requires that targets for percentages of students scoring above that mark, known as proficiency rates, rise annually until meeting about 100 percent proficiency in 2014. Schools and states that fail to make those targets are marked as failing under the law and face increasing sanctions.

Bennet said that a growth model that tracked student performance over an extended period would be more effective.

"The point is to create an accountability system which is actually of use to kids, parents and teachers," Bennet told The Huffington Post. "The one that's enshrined in No Child Left Behind that compares this year's fourth graders to last year's fourth graders isn’t of any use to anybody who's in the field."

As superintendent of Denver's schools, Bennet helped develop a growth model now used by the state. The bill introduced Tuesday does not specify which exams would be used to set the growth benchmark, only saying that students would have to be "college and career ready," echoing the administration's own language.

The bill also allows for different variations of growth formulae. "It's not an effort to implement one growth model across the country," Bennet said.

Duncan lauded the bill after it was announced. "We need to be able to measure students based on their growth and progress, not one test taken on a single day," Duncan said. "I thank both Senator Udall for his thoughtful leadership on this issue and Senator Bennet, who has been a tireless advocate for education -- both as Denver Superintendent and in the US Senate."

The Udall-Bennet bill follows an announcement last week that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) will convene the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on October 18 to mark up a comprehensive NCLB reauthorization bill based on Harkin's negotiations with Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).

“This reauthorization is now more than four years overdue, and our students, schools, and communities cannot afford to wait any longer,” Harkin, who chairs the committee, said in a statement. “Our bill will take important steps to advance the state, local and federal partnership that is needed to improve educational equity and ensure all students graduate from high school prepared for success in college and careers."

A week prior to that, Republican senators, led by former U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), introduced a slew of bills that would amount to a rollback of the federal government's role in NCLB.

Some believe that Duncan and Obama's Sept. 23 announcement of their waiver plan, during which they condemned Congress for failing to overhaul NCLB and offered a method to skirt Congressional approval, has prompted lawmakers to move to revamp the law. "Congress is now upset that the law is being changed by the administration and not by them," said Jack Jennings, a former education Hill staffer who now heads the Center on Education Policy. "They're hearing complaints back home that the Congress isn't doing its duty."

The Republican senate bills resemble ones that the House Education committee, chaired by Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), has advanced. The day before Alexander announced his bills, a Kline-sponsored bill that would alter the federal government's role in creating charter schools passed the House. Other Kline bills would remove some federal controls from education spending and slash federal education programs.

Despite movement in both chambers of Congress, it remains unclear what the end game will be, given that Harkin's bill is comprehensive and Kline's measures are piecemeal.

"It's just like falling dominoes," Jennings said. "Duncan announced that he's going to give waivers, which meant bypassing Congress. That had the effect of Harkin and Enzi, the chief senators, deciding that they would make an effort to reach agreement in order to take legislative action. If they do get a bill through the Senate, that's going to have an effect on the House. People back home will say to congressmen, 'Why aren't you taking action?'"

Once the House and Senate advance their respective NCLB overhauls, a conference committee will be tasked with tying them together. "I think Kline is going to surprise everybody in the end," said Bruce Hunter of the American Association of School Adminstrators. "I see a glimmer of hope."

How Should Tests Measure Teachers?

2011-10-04T00:10:33Z

When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan presented the Obama administration's reforms to teacher training programs before the D.C.-based think tank Education Sector last Friday, he was joined by an unlikely partner: Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association.

The National Education Association, the largest teacher's union in the country, has warred with the Obama administration in the past, going as far as adopting a resolution this summer that took on the title, "13 Things We Hate About Arne Duncan."

But Van Roekel appeared by Duncan's side on Friday, along with Teach for America President Wendy Kopp. "This plan is a useful tool in helping to ensure that candidates entering the profession from any pathway meet the same high and rigorous standards," Van Roekel said in a statement.

The Education Department's teacher preparation package seeks to alter the training process by basing the ratings of teachers' colleges on outcomes of graduates and their students, creating a new scholarship grant program and diverting funding toward minority-serving schools. Most controversially, the package would require the use of student tests, described by the DoE's report on teacher preparation as "multiple, valid measures of student achievement to reliably ascertain growth associated with graduates of preparation programs."

As Education Week notes, little in the proposal is new, as almost all of it is from the Education Department's fiscal year 2012 budget proposal. Friday's unified front, though, masked the fundamental difference in the approach that Duncan and Van Roekel take regarding the role of student tests in measuring teachers' performance. While Van Roekel would rather teachers be measured by exams that assess teaching practices, Duncan wants the exams to track how much teachers helps their students improve.

"They're making a very big assumption when they assume that a test that measures student learning also measures my contribution to that," Van Roekel, a former Arizona teacher, told The Huffington Post.

These two philosophies come to a head in a classroom like John Bierbaum's, who teaches social studies in Normal, Ill. "I feel really strongly that as a teacher, I should be judged based on a standard," Bierbaum said. "But people also have to understand that the students I have are extremely diverse, and that I can't move them all the same way. Those factors are working against me."

This summer, the NEA adapted new teacher evaluation guidelines that, for the first time, took student performance into account.

"We did not say to what extent [the tests should count in evaluations]," Van Roekel said. "They must be valid measures."

While data-driven reformers lauded the guidelines as a big step for the NEA, Van Roekel said he wouldn't want new teacher evaluations to use standardized exams that are already in place.

The ideal student exams for Van Roekel, he said, "are not based on an individual [student] test provided to an individual teacher." When asked for an example, he pointed to the National Board for Professional Teaching standards exam, which rates portfolios of student work and videos of teachers in action. "It's not like the tests we use in No Child Left Behind, that wouldn't be it," Van Roekel said.

When asked about current exams, Duncan conceded that they have flaws, but also highlighted their utility. "Are they measuring some things? Yes. Are they doing it perfectly? Of course not," Duncan said. While they are only one measure of teaching, he said, he still finds the information they provide to be useful.

Stanford University's Eric Hanushek, an expert on teacher quality, said the distinction between the two approaches is significant. "Once [like Van Roekel] you start trying to measure how they do it, it suggests that you know the technology of teaching," Hanushek said. "Most of the time, it would not allow for the fact that you and I do things differently."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, does not support the plan. "We were surprised that a principal recommendation of the report was to judge the effectiveness of a teacher preparation program by, among other things, the test scores of students being taught by its graduates," Weingarten said in a statement. "At the same time that the validity of using standardized tests as the ultimate measure of performance is being widely questioned, the U.S. Department of Education appears to be putting its foot on the accelerator."

David Nungaray, a member of Teach for America in San Antonio, said he feels that tests as they currently exist are a somewhat accurate reading of his teaching skills. "It gives me a picture of where students grew," he said. "But doesn't give a full picture of what I did." Few advocate judging teachers solely based on test scores.

At the end of the day, Van Roekel and Duncan found common ground in upending teacher preparation programs, which currently leave three fifths of teachers feeling unprepared for the realities of the classroom, according to a recent survey cited in the Education Department report -- despite the fact that states have only identified 37 of 1,400 such programs nationwide as under-performing.

"I don't think those two approaches are necessarily mutually exclusive, which is why you see them standing together," said Tim Knowles, director of the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute. "With the right assessments, not just an end-of-year standardized test, you could build a full picture of whether a teacher is effective or not."

More Charters And School Closures To Come In Detroit, Roy Roberts Says

2011-09-28T21:35:00Z

NEW YORK -- Roy Roberts, a former GM executive, says his first few months on the job as emergency manager of Detroit's public schools have been "like drinking from a fire hose."

"I had five weeks to pull together a budget for 2012," he said in an interview. "That's not a simple process."

So far, his tenure has entailed cutting salaries across the board by 10 percent; imposing $81 million in wage concessions; and announcing a new state-run educational authority to oversee Michigan's lowest-performing schools that will pilot in Detroit next year. He has also faced several lawsuits and seen 11 people charged with stealing from the city's schools.

Some of these may seem far-reaching decisions and unusual challenges for a schools chief. That's because they are. Under Michigan's Public Act Four, which created his role, Roberts has near carte-blanche power over Detroit's schools and the people who run them.

"That means I don't have to accept the union's input or the school board's input," Roberts explained.

While Detroit's school board and teachers' union are relatively powerless with the emergency manager in place, Roberts has so far shown relative restraint in using his authority.

"My attitude has been -- I don't care how much power or authority I have," Roberts said. "The key is when I use it. I haven't seen fit to say I'm going to abolish unions or school boards. I'm doing what I think is right and best for the young people."

"When the governor was introducing me the first day," he noted, "I went back to the president of the [teachers] union. 'If you want what I want, I want you at the table,' I told him. 'If not, I'm going to move off you fast.' We both shook hands."

(The Detroit teachers' unions are suing Roberts over the pay cuts. Last week, a union member filed a lawsuit in the hopes of removing Roberts from his post.)

Roberts took over Detroit Public Schools in May. He now helms a district in crisis, due to the recession, a $327 million deficit and a reputation, as Roberts put it, as "the worst academic system in the United States of America."

But Detroiters are angry about the state takeover of the school system, as Deanna Williams, a student at Eastern Michigan University who recently graduated from Detroit Public Schools, expressed.

"I hear [from my friends] it's just more of the same," she said on Monday, at a panel with Roberts and Tamron Hall at NBC's Education Nation summit. "A lot of this is just words. What are you going to do to get the schools to rise up?"

"They don't have the resources because nobody wants to put them there," Williams continued. "People like the higher-ups."

"It's noise," Roberts said afterwards. "There is enough culpability to go around."

Whatever Roberts' own plans for the schools, he has also had to deal with the buildup of the system's past failures. Earlier this month, 11 Detroiters -- including three DPS employees -- were charged with school theft.

"It's kind of sad, but it provided an opportunity for me to say to the public, 'We're not going to be a patsy for people who will steal from kids,'" Roberts said.

DPS also faces dwindling enrollment as families move outside Detroit. That population drop led to school closures under Roberts' predecessor, Robert Bobb.

Bobb's five-year plan for the district sought to close 45 schools. Roberts has so far closed none. He said few specifics are available about possible school closures under the new state-run district, since planning is in its early phases.

Williams, the former student, criticized the school closures, saying residents and parents "have a lot of trouble believing that this is the best plan."

"It's being done to the people of Detroit, it's not being done for them," she said.

In addition to school closures, the district faces major staff cuts. Under Roberts' deficit-elimination plan, DPS would fire 1,500 teachers over the next five years. The enrollment crisis, Roberts said, explains that decision, too.

"Firing is a misnomer," Roberts said, pointing to the need to balance the district's budget. "Sixty-eight percent of our budget is people. It's driven by how many students do we have. That drives the teacher count."

Meanwhile, Roberts is planning the execution of the Educational Achievement System, the new statewide district that will take over Michigan's lowest-performing schools.

"We're going to close some schools, charter some schools, have some autonomous schools, raise money for those schools and train principals differently," Roberts said. He added that EAS aims to raise $200 million in private donations, half of which would fund an ambitious scholarship program. "So far so good," he said of the fundraising, although he declined to name specific pledges.

Roberts recently hired Kansas City schools chief John Covington to run EAS. To take the job, Covington left his superintendent post abruptly after two years in Kansas City, before it was possible to assess the results of his plan to close half the city's schools. Since his departure, the district lost accreditation.

But Roberts said he isn't worried about Covington's record.

"When [Covington] came to Kansas City, it already had provisional accreditation," Roberts said. "Everybody there was ultra pleased with his work. That's why they were so upset when he left them."

Rate Teachers Together, Not One By One

2011-09-27T23:30:00Z

WASHINGTON -- Standardized tests should rank students by percentile and rate teachers in teams, according to a new policy brief by Derek Neal, an economics professor at the University of Chicago.

"I'm very opposed to ever using this [data] to give individual scores for teachers," said Neal, speaking at a Tuesday conference hosted by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.

Educational research like Neal's is appearing as standardized tests have become more important to school funding decisions and play a larger role in the evaluation, hiring and firing of teachers. At least 26 states now mandate teacher reviews that take standardized testing into account. Many education reformers stress the use of data to rate teachers -- but, as Neal noted, these exams are often imperfect. Critics of this development argue that increased focus on tests won't improve student learning if the tests aren’t measuring the right things.

Neal's dissatisfaction with standardized exams derives from their dual use. "You have a test that's being used to measure how the students are performing in a system over time," Neal said. "At the same time, you're taking those test scores and creating performance metrics for the educators."

The two interests undermine each other, Neal said. The characteristics that make tests good at measuring achievement over time -- such as consistent formatting -- also make it easier for teachers to teach to the test, which corrupts the tests' usefulness in measuring the adults' performance in the classroom.

According to Neal, students often perform much higher on standardized tests that are used in teacher accountability systems than on tests that are not, suggesting that the structure leads teachers to focus on test-specific skills. "The predictability that makes consistent scaling possible in theory invites ... coaching that contaminates the scale in practice," he said.

"Race to the Top is not going to get you around this," said Neal, referring to the federal educational funding competition that inspired many state changes and is financing the development of new exams.

Instead of linking scores to individual teachers, Neal suggested calculating student scores on a percentile basis statewide and holding teachers accountable in groups -- all those within one school in the same grade and subject. "You take that number [the percentile score], average it over all the kids in a grade or school -- that's a winning percentage for that fifth-grade math team," he said. These scores create a performance curve, he said, and offer a ready means for identifying failing schools by how they perform against each other.

Neal presented his research at the Brookings Institution conference, "Promoting K-12 Education to Advance Student Achievement," which examined the role incentives play in education.

States use exams to determine whether students are proficient in a certain subject, a measuring encouraged by the No Child Left Behind mandates. Neal noted there is no consensus on what the dividing line, known as the cut score, should fall between students ranked as proficient and failing. The state-by-state setting of cut scores, he said, allows states to game their numbers: New York state, for example, was revealed to have lowered its cut score when it was discovered that a large number of students were scoring right above the proficiency line.

"If you try to set targets, those targets can be manipulated," said Neal, advocating instead for relative performance rankings.

Also speaking at the conference, Robert Hughes, president of New Visions for Public Schools, noted that relative performance rankings can be tricky because it's difficult to figure out which student factors to control for and how. "Getting that peer-to-peer analysis is very complicated," he said.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said teacher accountability systems should encourage professional development. He called for a "fast process for removing teachers who are not doing their jobs well."

Sometimes the push for greater accountability can go too far, said News Corp. executive Peter Gorman, who until recently headed the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school system in North Carolina. "I made a horrible mistake," he said. "I came out too quick on value-added."

Gorman was referring to the ranking of individual teachers through a formula that calculates how much teachers advanced their students' achievements relative to expected growth. He found that students grew the most when teachers worked together, the very collaboration factor Neal's system would measure.

But when Mulgrew noted that New York City teachers had not routinely been given approved curricula -- he said he had to introduce a provision guaranteeing that in a recent bill, and now "we have a lot of people breaking the law" -- Neal was taken aback.

"I just assumed that every school had a big curriculum book from the state," Neal said. The audience laughed. He had based his model on this assumption.

After the event, Mulgrew said he was surprised about the gap between Neal's expectations and reality. "The assumption that all schools have curricula and development teams, that's something I've run into before," Mulgrew said. "It would be helpful if academia was working with school systems to understand these things."

Rate Teachers Together, Not One By One

2011-09-27T23:30:00Z

WASHINGTON -- Standardized tests should rank students by percentile and rate teachers in teams, according to a new policy brief by Derek Neal, an economics professor at the University of Chicago.

"I'm very opposed to ever using this [data] to give individual scores for teachers," said Neal, speaking at a Tuesday conference hosted by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.

Neal presented his research at the Brookings Institution conference, "Promoting K-12 Education to Advance Student Achievement," which examined the role incentives play in education.

"If you try to set targets, those targets can be manipulated," said Neal, advocating instead for relative performance rankings.

"I just assumed that every school had a big curriculum book from the state," Neal said. The audience laughed. He had based his model on this assumption.

Education Nation: Teachers, Officials -- And The University Of Phoenix

2011-09-27T13:03:00Z

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of players in the education debate hunkered down in a tent staked over Rockefeller Center's ice skating rink this week for NBC's multi-million dollar, three-day panel fest "Education Nation."

This year marks the second iteration of Education Nation, which launched in 2010 on the heels of "Waiting for Superman," a popular documentary that increased the focus on education policy, while also drawing criticism for presenting charter schools as the ultimate solution. Some condemned last year's Education Nation conference for siding with the education reform movement, for excluding teachers and for presenting shallow content.

"This year is about going a little bit deeper and exploring some new areas," Steve Capus, NBC News president, said in an interview. "We did an hour and ten minutes on early childhood education rather than doing 20- or 30-[minute] long panels."

Education Nation kicked off Sunday with a "teacher town hall." Anchor Brian Williams polled various teachers and audience members about their work and the policies that affect them. The summit included a film premiere and panelists such as former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, several governors and former President Bill Clinton. Celebrities such as Jennifer Garner and LeBron James were on hand to voice their perspectives. The event also provided an opportunity for some major schmoozing, with refreshment rooms and cafes that rarely closed.

While some lauded the increased balance and depth at this year's Education Nation, retired New York City teacher and Grassroots Education Movement member Norm Scott gave Capus an earful on Tuesday. "People see an absence of the word 'class size' in these debates," he told Capus.

"This notion that somehow we're skewed too close to the reformers, I just don't buy it and completely disagree," Capus responded.

"How did a guy like Jonathan Alter end up as an expert on Sunday night's panel?" Scott asked. He was referring to the Bloomberg columnist and MSNBC contributor who has taken hard-line stances on charter schools and teacher evaluations.

"We had Jonathan Alter and 300 teachers," Capus countered.

Meanwhile, some harder-line reformers grumbled that this year's events were too soft.

"There's an incredible amount of passion around these subjects," Capus conceded. "Some people come at it for a point of view, and they're going at it to push their agendas."

Education Nation's panels focused on the importance of learning and college attainment. But one of the event's main sponsors has been accused of having different motives. The event took place in a tent whose central outside decoration was the logo of the for-profit University of Phoenix.

The University of Phoenix has 200 campuses and online degree programs. An ABC news investigation found that the school routinely makes promises about work eligibility that it can't deliver on, resulting in students mired in debt without the benefits of a degree.

A U.S. Senate committee investigation found that 66 percent of associates degree students and half of bachelor's degree students at the school withdrew after beginning their programs. About 22 percent of University of Phoenix students defaulted on their loans during 2008, while the school's owner, the Apollo group, devoted 22 percent of its spending to marketing.

Capus defended University of Phoenix's sponsorship of Education Nation.

"We have about seven decades worth of experience of building a dividing line between the ... commercial sponsorship side and the reporting side of NBC News," Capus said. The Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation and State Farm also sponsored the summit. "They don't shape the editorial content," Capus said.

But a University of Phoenix representative introduced the governors' panel that Williams hosted, saying he was proud to make Education Nation happen.

"If you want to view it from a conspiracy theorist point of view, we couldn't possibly meet all their concerns," Capus half-joked before adding, "The University of Phoenix has been subject to some tough news stories on NBC News."

Another major sponsor, the Gates Foundation, used the summit to release a first glimpse at its own survey results.

The Gates survey polled 10,000 teachers, asking their opinions on how to improve education.
The survey found teachers considered only 63 percent of their students who graduate high school to be prepared for college. More than half the teachers surveyed said they saw an increase in students with behavioral problems, more poor students and more English language learners since they began teaching.

When asked to list the ingredients key to academic achievement, teachers cited family involvement, supportive administrators and high-quality curricula.

While increasing teacher pay was a major focus of Education Nation, the Gates survey found money was not the most important incentive for good teaching. On a list of 15 items presented to teachers, it ranked 11th. Only 16 percent of teachers said merit pay measures help retain good teachers.

U.S. Education Secretary Duncan Talks To HuffPost Education

2011-09-23T12:00:00Z

With President Barack Obama poised to announce alternatives to states' compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act on Friday, the role of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be under scrutiny.

In August, Duncan and the president announced they would waive components of NCLB -- at least for states that agree to pursue reforms mandated by the administration. Duncan has since faced criticism for exceeding the bounds of his power. Less than a month later, he embarked on a bus tour in early September to discuss with education leaders both the waiver plan and the economic hardships many districts face.

After watching Obama's Sept. 8 jobs speech on TV on the road between Merillville, Ind., and Milwaukee, Wis., Duncan spent an hour with HuffPost Education, answering questions about everything from his tenure so far to standardized testing.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

What did you think this job would be before you took it?

I didn't know. I had talked a fair bit to [George W. Bush Education] Secretary [Margaret] Spellings so I had some sense, but you honestly don't know.

What surprised you most?

How much we could get done. The U.S. Department of Education hadn't necessarily been my friend in Chicago. So I had a healthy skepticism about what was possible. My job is to support, to shine a spotlight, to replicate success, to talk about excellence, but also to challenge the status quo.

You talk about the status quo a lot, without describing who's keeping it that way. Who are you targeting?

In this country, we've been very complacent. A lot of what drives me is anger, is frustration and real dissatisfaction with the status quo. There are far too many children who we aren't getting real opportunities for. I've seen that my whole life, so that's really personal.

How can we fix education?
It'll take another four hours to talk about. There isn't one thing. I wish there was one simple thing we can do. It starts with really high-quality early childhood education. Raise standards. Think about how we get more great teachers into the profession. For post-secondary, we retained the Pell grant and simplified the financial aid application form. It's about all those pieces.

A major change your administration has promoted is changing teacher evaluations. Do you have a prescription on how teachers should be rated?

I don't. And frankly no one does.

Teacher evaluations are largely broken in this country. We've had a system that doesn't reward excellence, doesn't support those teachers in the middle that are trying to get better, that doesn't weed out the teachers who are unfortunately not improving. If it doesn't work for any of the adults along that continuum, I can promise you it's not working for children.

You said in Pittsburgh and elsewhere that people are "scared" to discuss teacher excellence. Is that really true?

Everyone is scared to say that great teachers matter, and that's been a great impediment to reform. There's been this tendency to treat everyone the same. It masks a tremendous richness and potential of nurturing amazing work and not tolerating failure when it impacts children. Don't you think that's vitally important to figure out how to get talent where you need it most?

Then on what system are you grading them?

On whatever system they have. You're right, they've got to have a thoughtful system. But let's have that conversation.

What do you see as your role in these conversations?

My role is to shine a spotlight on folks who are showing real courage, doing tremendous work to support students. My role is to challenge folks where I don't see that happening.

So many states have dummied down standards. I tried to talk about this today in Detroit and pumped them up -- Michigan is raising their standards. They're getting huge pushback. I have to give them political cover, because there's lots of forces, lots of pressure to continue to lie to themselves, to continue to lie to parents.

How do you know that tests are measuring teaching?

Are they measuring some things? Yes. Are they doing it perfectly? Of course not. Again, that's why it's so important for me to have multiple measures.

When did you realize when NCLB reform was something you would take into your own hands?

I was always aware of that possibility. It wasn't something that I wanted or welcomed. We've been very clear for awhile that so much of the current law is fundamentally broken. I have this huge sense of urgency. I can't see doing nothing.

Were you surprised when the news about teacher cheating in Atlanta broke?

I was disturbed, angry to hear about it, to get the full report. I'd had some sense that you had a culture there that was morally bankrupt. Nobody goes into education to hurt children, but that's exactly what happened there.

Why do you think some teachers are angry at you?

I want to challenge that assumption but I want you to characterize it yourself as you see it.

Well, there were angry teachers at the Save Our Schools march this summer.

This is a really tough time to be in education. Teachers are massively frustrated with No Child Left Behind. That's why we're acting. This is a time of very significant budget cuts, the likes of what we haven't seen in decades. Teachers have to do more with less. They're seeing their colleagues laid off, they're seeing class sizes increase. It's frustrating. I share that frustration. We're doing everything we can from trying to fix NCLB's waivers to saving 300,000 teacher jobs with the Recovery Act to the announcement tonight of a huge part of $60 billion from the president's speech used in education.

How can unions be a contributing force to your plans?

Collective bargaining itself must be a tool not to protect adults, but to protect student achievement. That's got to be the purpose of all collective bargaining activity.

RELATED:

Obama To Lay Out No Child Left Behind Waiver 'Flexibility'

2011-09-22T21:37:33Z

States that want out of specific No Child Left Behind provisions must adapt four reforms that mirror the administration's legislative priorities, President Barack Obama will announce Friday morning.

"To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change," Obama said in a statement released by the White House Thursday. "The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level."

On Thursday, the White House circulated materials explaining that the administration will offer a "flexibility package."

The No Child Left Behind law, passed by Congress a decade ago during the George W. Bush administration, requires regular standardized testing and the disaggregation of educational data by subgroup. It also states that just about 100 percent of students must reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014. As the deadline has approached, an increasing number of schools in each state have been labeled as "failing" under No Child Left Behind, in part because the reporting model focuses on raw scores, not improvement in scores. "Failing" schools face escalating consequences. States such as Montana and Idaho have resisted the ever-increasing performance targets, saying the law strains their capacities and leads to an overly broad portrayal of schools as underperforming.

In light of those concerns, a White House fact sheet stated, the administration will allow states to request "flexibility through waivers of specific provisions" of No Child Left Behind, including the timeline for proficiency; "flexibility regarding school improvement and accountability requirements," which will allow states to set their own consequences for so-called failing schools; and "flexibility related to the use of federal education funds." Rural districts will have more freedom.

A state that requests these waivers, the fact sheet said, will have to show that:

It has already "adopted college- and career-ready standards in reading/language arts and mathematics" and administer "tests aligned" with these standards. The fact sheet does not detail what exactly such standards would entail, although U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has previously said states that haven't adapted the Common Core State Standards will not be barred from requesting waivers.

It has set systems "of differentiated recognition, accountability and support," which includes turnaround plans targeted at the lowest 5 percent of the states' schools.

It is "evaluating and supporting teacher and principal effectiveness" with a process that includes educator input. A senior administration official said on a conference call that this process must consider test scores.

Beyond that, few details are available about the plan, such as the amount of funding over which states will have more discretion and the turnaround models that failing schools will have to use.

No Child Left Behind has been up for renewal since 2007, and the administration released its own blueprint for the law in March 2010. But congressional gridlock has prevented formal reauthorization so far. Both Republicans and Democrats have introduced small components of a reauthorization -- with one measure involving charter schools passing last week -- but few have gained traction.

In August, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Obama had approved plans to, in effect, reform the law without going through Congress: The secretary would waive specific provisions of the law in exchange for states agreeing to adopt favored reforms.

Under No Child Left Behind, the Secretary of Education may waive provisions of the law for states in need, but he has no explicit authority to ask states to adopt reforms in exchange.

The expanded waiver process is the administration's attempt to implement its own reforms, and the process comes with political risk. "The GOP is trying to develop a theme that Obama is overreaching in terms of federal power," said Jack Jennings, who heads the Center on Education Policy. "That's the argument they're using with the health care bill and the financial institution regulations. Now they're going to use it in education. [The administration is] playing into the narrative, and they know it."

Already, GOP congressmen are criticizing the plan. In a floor speech Thursday, former Education Secretary and current Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) urged Duncan to "show restraint" with waivers. "Just because the secretary has every state over a barrel doesn't mean he should be tempted to use this opportunity to become a national school board," said Alexander.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who chairs the House education committee, said in a statement that he "simply cannot support a process that grants the Secretary of Education sweeping authority to handpick winners and losers."

On the other hand, a statement from Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called the waivers the "best temporary solution." Harkin oversees the Senate committee responsible for the bipartisan mockup of a reauthorization bill. "I am concerned that waivers provide a patchwork approach rather than a national solution," he said.

Obama To Lay Out No Child Left Behind Waiver 'Flexibility'

2011-09-22T21:37:33Z

States that want out of specific No Child Left Behind provisions must adapt four reforms that mirror the administration's legislative priorities, President Barack Obama will announce Friday morning.

On Thursday, the White House circulated materials explaining that the administration will offer a "flexibility package."

A state that requests these waivers, the fact sheet said, will have to show that:

It has already "adopted college- and career-ready standards in reading/language arts and mathematics" and administer "tests aligned" with these standards. The fact sheet does not detail what exactly such standards would entail, although U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has previously said states that haven't adapted the Common Core State Standards will not be barred from requesting waivers.

It has set systems "of differentiated recognition, accountability and support," which includes turnaround plans targeted at the lowest 5 percent of the states' schools.

It is "evaluating and supporting teacher and principal effectiveness" with a process that includes educator input. A senior administration official said on a conference call that this process must consider test scores.

Beyond that, few details are available about the plan, such as the amount of funding over which states will have more discretion and the turnaround models that failing schools will have to use.

Under No Child Left Behind, the Secretary of Education may waive provisions of the law for states in need, but he has no explicit authority to ask states to adopt reforms in exchange.

No A+ Student Left Behind?

2011-09-20T23:00:00Z

In the eyes of Michael Petrilli, education discussions and policies based on the disparity in performance between subgroups of U.S. students -- known as the achievement gap -- leave some honors students behind.

"The overwhelming focus has been on gap-closing and equity," said Petrilli, a George W. Bush-era education official who is now executive vice president of the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute. "There are trade-offs. Policies good for the lowest-achieving kids may be bad for the highest-achieving kids. But we're not even having that conversation."

Petrilli's observations come on the heels of the release of Fordham's latest paper, "Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude?" The paper suggests that high-performing students lose ground because of policies -- such as the federal No Child Left Behind act -- that incentivize proficiency, instead of growth or excellence, and direct resources toward the lowest-scoring students.

"When No Child Left Behind was passed, people worried about it," he said. "It wasn’t hard to predict that this focus on the lowest-achieving kids could lead the highest-achieving students to be ignored."

The report defines the elite group it calls "high flyers" as those who score in the 90th percentile or higher on the Measures of Academic Progress exam, a computer-administered test that districts use as a diagnostic exam to assess how students might perform on state standardized tests. The MAP, developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association, adapts the rigor of its questions to students' grade level.

The report's findings were determined by NWEA researchers' analysis of individual student data. They show that between one-third and half of the 120,000-student sample dropped out of the top-performing group over time.

In reading, 44 percent of students first categorized as high flyers fell out of the top tier between third and eighth grades, and 48 percent dropped below the 90th percentile between sixth and 10th grades. In math, 43 percent of students lost their high flyer status between third and eighth grades, and 30 percent dropped between sixth and 10th grades.

But the mobility works both ways: The overall group of high-achieving students increased over time. While some "high flyers" dropped out, other students, whom the paper calls "late bloomers," joined the cohort.

The Fordham paper calls this a "glass half-empty or half-full" situation. The paper's authors wrote:

Eight, ten, twelve, seventeen years old, with little more than a coin toss determining whether they wind up in their school careers simply "above average" or among the country's top achievers and brightest hopes for the future.

The authors call for more attention to be paid to students performing in the upper tier in order to keep them there, as well as encourage an increase in the number of "late bloomers" who join their ranks.

The paper suggests its findings can be explained by NCLB's focus on the lowest-performing students, but the lack of data on the performance trends of pre-NCLB era "high flyers" makes that claim hard to prove. NCLB, meanwhile, is up for re-authorization.

The report shows the importance of using student growth -- not proficiency rates -- as the basis for school funding decisions, Petrilli said. "Schools should have an incentives to make sure all their kids are making progress," he added.

The study also found that "high flyers" improved their scores in reading more slowly than their low-achieving peers did. Jaekyoung Lee, associate dean for academic affairs at SUNY Buffalo's Graduate School of Education, said that phenomenon is merely a regression to the mean.

"This is well known," he said. "If someone does extremely well on a test today, the person is much less likely to do as well tomorrow."

Lee also suggested that the Fordham study might have found different results -- and drawn different conclusions -- had it used different tests or cut-off points. "State standards are all over the place," he said. "There's no consistency."

The results might also be misleading, Lee said, because the tests are MAP diagnostic -- they are not high-stakes standardized tests.

"There might be some motivation issues, especially with high achievers," he noted. "If [a test] doesn’t matter, why should they try so hard?"

Duncan's Bus Tour Ends In Chicago Amid Union Lawsuit

2011-09-09T23:25:03Z

CHICAGO -- Stopping in areas notorious for volatile labor relations this year, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrapped up his Great Lakes bus tour in Milwaukee and Chicago on Friday with little talk of teachers union battles.

In Milwaukee, Duncan was joined by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who outraged educators by signing a budget in June that severely limited their collective bargaining rights, at a town hall event focused on connecting learning to career skills.

"All of us feel your presence today but appreciate your interest in Milwaukee and particularly the Milwaukee Public School system," Walker said in the library of Milwaukee's School of Career and Technical Education.

"You've done some things we agree with, and you've done some things that we don’t agree with," Duncan said, addressing Walker. "Limiting collective bargaining rights is not the right way to go," he added, garnering applause.

Duncan did not further address Walker's union-busting laws, except to laud Senate Bill 7, legislation Illinois passed in May with limited union collaboration that makes teacher tenure harder to obtain, gives districts the ability to fire teachers for poor performance and allows Chicago to lengthen its school day. "They made it much much tougher to get tenure," Duncan said.

The Chicago Teachers Union pulled its support for the measure at the last minute, and is currently at war with district management over the school day issue. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had four schools lengthen their school days by getting teachers in each school vote to waive their union contracts. On Friday, CTU filed an unfair labor lawsuit against the school board, saying Emanuel's work extending the school day was tantamount to declaring "war" on the union. The suit claimed that Emanuel's tactics, which included offering raises to teachers that accepted the increase, constituted bribery.

At a panel event about SB7 with Duncan Friday afternoon at Schurz High School in Chicago, Emanuel did not address his falling-out with CTU until a reporter presented him with allegations that he exploded at CTU president Karen Lewis at a recent meeting. In response, he told reporters that he didn't want to get into a shouting match, but that the meeting ended in a hug.

CTU representatives did not attend the Chicago event, nor did Illinois Federation of Teachers president Dan Montgomery. Montgomery was originally scheduled to sit on the SB7 panel with Duncan and Emanuel. He did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Without acknowledging that CTU pulled its support of the bill, Duncan lauded SB7 as a model the rest of the nation should follow. "The wrong way is to shut people out of the process," he said. "This is about elevating the profession, this is about strengthening the profession, this is about educating our way to a better economy."

Now that SB7 has passed, Illinois has to develop the details of the implementation process, including devising a new teacher evaluation process. It is unclear how that process will be hampered by an unanticipated $500,000 funding gap.

Duncan also used his pulpit to trot out the details of Obama's jobs bill. "Hopefully all of you saw the president's speech last night," he said. Illinois would receive $1.24 billion for saving teacher jobs and $1.1 billion for school construction. "To see his commitment on education is just extraordinary."

Teachers Make Own Lesson Plans For 9/11

2011-09-09T15:00:00Z

NEW YORK -- Brook Peters saw the twin towers fall on his second day of kindergarten at Manhattan's P.S. 150. He was 4 years old and eight blocks away, listening from his school at Greenwich and Jay streets to the tragic events that would define his youth.

The images of that day haunted him –- including the fire truck he rode on and the temporary classrooms he endured. And yet, for the next 10 years, not a single teacher in any classroom explained the world-shaking he'd witnessed.

"I was disappointed teachers didn't deal with it," Peters, now 14, said. "I did want to learn more about 9/11. ... There wasn't the opportunity in class. Me and a few other students took it upon ourselves and learned more outside."

Like Peters, many children who grew up in the post-9/11 world haven't been formally educated about the events of that day and their aftermath, and researchers have no idea how many teachers even touch on the subject in the classroom. Still, they think the number is less than it should be.

"What we've seen is the curriculum pressure these folks are under," said Jeremy Stoddard, an associate professor at William & Mary College of Education, who has examined the issue. "If it's not in their standards that's going to be tested, it's not likely to be taught."

Those who do teach about 9/11 are forced to be creative with their lesson plans, because 10 years after the attacks, the events of Sept. 11 are not settled in textbook curricula, Stoddard said. Shortly after Sept. 11, many organizations disseminated their own curricula, but instead of presenting only facts, he found, these materials served the missions of those groups, leaving teachers with a confusing array of resources.

Indeed, only a few states require the teaching of Sept. 11 in their standards, and teachers themselves are often scared to have deep, politically tinged conversations about terrorism. "They're worried they're going to be seen as indoctrinating students," Stoddard said. "Anytime you get into something that might be deemed controversial, teachers are anxious about opening up the question for fear of what might come out."

With his former adviser Diana Hess, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stoddard examined the proliferation of 9/11-related curricular aides and released a study in 2007, finding that "[n]on-profit organizations used 9/11 in ways that aligned with their missions, while textbooks treated 9/11 in ways that are directly linked to the subject of the books."

For example, Brown University's Choices for the 21st Century Project, a broad program that uses role-play to facilitate learning, focuses on foreign policy -- and so did its 9/11 materials. The Close Up Foundation at the time was producing a video about youth voting -- so it tacked on an introduction about 9/11. "Thus, while the Choices Project suggested deliberation as an appropriate citizen response to 9/11, Close Up promoted voting," Hess and Stoddard wrote.

The report also found that textbooks in particular tended to have few factual details, such as the death count.

Still, there are efforts to standardize 9/11's lessons. New York City introduced a new curriculum on Sept. 1, available for teachers' use across the city. Developed by the city’s Department of Education and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, it includes lessons on such subjects as "historical impact" and "heroes & service." New Jersey also recently released a new curriculum, which stresses tolerance. It was jointly created by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education and victims' families.

Several states have written standards for 9/11 into their curricula. But the quality and complexity of the standards and the curricula vary, according to Stoddard. "Some state standards, like in Texas, lead to stereotypes," he said. "Texas points to fundamentalist Islam for the study of terrorism."

Last month, Stoddard and Hess released a followup paper examining newer materials. They found that, while still lacking detail, the updated curricula increasingly open up questions about terrorism for discussion, allowing students to think instead of memorize. Still, according to the study, textbooks specifically do not allow "for the possibility that its [terrorism's] definition may be contested or wrong." They praised some curricula, such as the U.S. State Department's, for encouraging debate.

Yvonne Mason, an English teacher in Mauldin High School in Greenville, S.C., looked at the barrage of curricular offerings, but distrusts ready-made lesson plans. "The packages don't give much leeway for actual thinking," Mason said.

Instead, she's using the news to teach 9/11. "I'm having them find accounts of the anniversary from international newspapers," Mason said. "We're going to talk about how the diction and language impacts the story itself." Her students will write comparisons of the domestic and foreign stories, with the goal of understanding how nationalism colors a country's recounting of its own tragedies.

Jane Balvanz, an elementary school counselor in Carolville, Iowa, plans to read a children's book to younger students. She's also continuing a Red Cross donation drive first inspired by a student named Hannah, who, in 2001, posed the question, "Who would buy toys and clothing for the kids who lost their mommies and daddies?"

And Lisa Carter, who teaches comparative philosophy of war at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, Ct., is using the program from Brown's Choices for the 21st Century Project. "We talk about why people fight wars with each other," she said. "We'll talk about how should the United States go about making policy with regard to terrorism." Students will act out different scenarios based on their findings.

The confusion raised by teaching about 9/11 led Lisa Dolan, a Northern Virginia teacher who helped create the Pentagon's educational materials, to poll her peers. "I don't think 9/11 is being taught adequately in our schools, if at all," she said. "Everybody is so afraid to talk about the facts."

That fear might be why Brook Peters heard so little about 9/11 in class. So he took his schooling into his own hands, creating "The Second Day," a documentary that tells the story of 9/11 through the eyes of students.

"One of my main goals for the film is to get it into education," Peters said. And already, teachers and officials in several countries -- including Australia, Israel, Spain and Vietnam -- have bought "The Second Day" for use in classrooms and broadcasts.

Peters added that he was trying to help bridge the gap between what happened on 9/11 and what people thought about that day. He said he wanted to "piece together this giant puzzle.”

Arne Duncan: Obama's Jobs Bill Would Save 280,000 Teaching Jobs

2011-09-09T01:40:45Z

CHICAGO -- America's two largest teachers unions, which have often clashed with the Obama administration on education policies, praised the president for including $60 billion in relief for cash-strapped school districts in his jobs package announced Thursday evening.

"We have for months been talking about jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told The Huffington Post. "We know that there needs to be a lifeline because the economy has not grown the way it should, and that is what this plan is about. It's about putting people back to work, growing the economy, making sure how families feel stabilized."

The speech follows a year of widespread teacher layoffs and education cuts that sparked concerns about sacrificing educational quality for short-term financial stability. The drying up of stimulus funds worsened the blow.

"You see, people taking furlough days, you see people taking modest raises or pay cuts, you see digging deeper in their pockets, you see higher class sizes, you see effects for families teachers and kids," Weingarten said.

Though Obama did not report a price tag for the plan, media outlets cited White House officials as saying it would cost $450 billion. The plan would set aside $60 billion for the repair of 35,000 schools and teachers' jobs.

"This will be huge," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told HuffPost from his tour bus as it passed through Chicago. "Everywhere we go, we hear about ... how big the need is." The bill would save 280,000 teacher jobs, he said.

Vice President Joe Biden called both Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association, earlier Thursday to brief them on the plan. "I told him I was pleased with the things they were mentioning," Van Roekel said.

The NEA, the nation's largest teachers union, endorsed Obama this summer for a second term, but also adopted a resolution criticizing Duncan. "The schools in America need to be repaired," Van Roekel said, in response to a question about his relationship with the administration. "We stand firmly behind the president and his vision."

In his speech, Obama stressed the importance of funding education. "Pass this jobs bill and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work," Obama said. "These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher."

"But while they're adding teachers in places like South Korea, we're laying them off in droves. It's unfair to our kids," Obama continued. "Pass the jobs bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong."

Both Weingarten and Van Roekel, though, conceded that the funds might not be enough.

"You never know, but we need to start somewhere," Weingarten said.

"How much does it take? More than they're willing to spend," Van Roekel said.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, blasted the plan, saying in a statement that "rather than renew his support for the failed policies of the past, the president should join our efforts to chart a better course for our children's future." Kline's efforts would reduce the federal government's role in education, he said.

Duncan said that while Obama's jobs plan is not a viable long-term fix, the bill would provide immediate relief. "The impact on education would be phenomenal," he said.

Arne Duncan: Obama's Jobs Bill Would Save 280,000 Teaching Jobs

2011-09-09T01:40:45Z

Both Weingarten and Van Roekel, though, conceded that the funds might not be enough.

"You never know, but we need to start somewhere," Weingarten said.

"How much does it take? More than they're willing to spend," Van Roekel said.

Duncan said that while Obama's jobs plan is not a viable long-term fix, the bill would provide immediate relief. "The impact on education would be phenomenal," he said.

Education Secretary 'Optimistic' About Detroit's Schools

2011-09-08T17:32:00Z

DETROIT -- U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave the Motor City a homework assignment Thursday.

"Can Detroit become the fastest-improving urban district in the country?" Duncan asked Detroiters packed into the auditorium of the Charles H. Wright Academy of Arts and Sciences. "I see no reason why that can't happen."

It was a challenge, and a less scathing message than the one Duncan gave during his last visit here, in 2009. Duncan admitted branding the city as "ground zero" for education reform, may have angered Detroiters.

"I was a little bit tough," he said. "Two years later, I couldn't be more hopeful and optimistic about Detroit."

Duncan's emphasis on turning around the Detroit district is echoed in the sentiment that pervades the schools here.

"If we can do it in Detroit, then we can do it anywhere in America," said Michael Brennan, president of United Way for Southeast Michigan.

Detroit's schools are depressed. The district is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and faces a mounting enrollment crisis. This year's first day of school saw a 55 percent attendance rate.

A recovery in Detroit would be encouraging for school districts nationwide. But for that to happen, recent reform measures, such as the creation of a special state-run district to manage Michigan's lowest-performing schools, must bear fruit.

Duncan was passing through Detroit on the second day of his back-to-school bus tour.

After a relatively tranquil Wednesday that included stops in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo and highlighted collaboration between teachers' unions and school districts, the Detroit panel featured unrest from some audience members and far more questions than could be answered in the time allowed.

But most of the ire was directed at local leaders, not Duncan.

"Let us not go back to Brown vs. Board of Ed where we're willing to make an investment in one group of students and tell another group of students, 'Oh well, survive as you can,'" said Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, who sat on the panel.

Johnson was referring to that state-run district, the latest education reform measure introduced in Michigan. The Educational Achievement System, announced in June, will govern 5 percent of the state's persistently lowest-performing schools, pushing more resources into failing classrooms. After a year of planning, the program is slated to pilot in 30 to 40 Detroit schools before expanding statewide.

Two weeks ago, the EAS board hired away Kansas City, Mo., schools superintendent John Covington to serve as chancellor of the experimental district. Critics say the move puts Detroit's worst schools in the hands of an administrator who left his city abruptly amid of allegations of betrayal and an inflated performance record.

Covington told The Huffington Post that he could not make Thursday's event in Detroit due to a family-related scheduling conflict.

At the panel, Detroit School Board member Lamar Lemmons noted that the district's debt has only increased under state-appointed administrators' watch. He also criticized the EAS.

"The district, under the state's stewardship, have quadrupled the percentage of failing schools," he said. "The only students that will be in that system are the ones that the emergency manager fails in his capacity as emergency manager."

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) first appointed an emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools in 2009. Under Gov. Rick Snyder (R), the manager's powers have expanded beyond balancing the budget to include managing individual schools.

DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts -- who has near carte blanche over the schools and is currently being sued by the teachers' union -- maintained that the EAS is a fair and effective reform measure. In addition to his role in DPS, Roberts will chair the executive committee of the EAS.

"We're admitting that these are repeatedly low-performing schools, the bottom 5 percent in the state of Michigan," he said. "We want to make sure we call those out and put the support behind those schools that are so sorely needed."

Lemmons criticized Roberts' dual roles, asking whether his leadership of both DPS and the EAS is a conflict of interest, since failing DPS schools will eventually end up in the EAS. To much applause, Lemmons also asked who will foot Roberts' bill -- local or state residents -- when it comes to items like a recently purchased SUV.

Roberts did not address the car purchase, but did say, "I feel a real responsibility for every child in the city of Detroit -- I don't care what school they go to."

Later in the discussion, Snyder, who helped design the EAS, said there was "no point in wasting time on blame."