More States Rebelling Against Federal Education Law; States Should Sue the DOE to Regain State and Local School Control

Obama Asks CEOs to Pump Money into Public Schools

July 18, 2011

The Lookout - President Obama is asking the CEOs of Time Warner, AT&T, and other major companies in a meeting today to funnel money into the nation's public schools, which are facing steep budget cuts on the state level this year.

The Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Banchero writes that both Bank of America and Microsoft will announce new investments in K-12 education after the meeting: $50 million for programs to prepare low-income students for college and a $15 million investment in video-game technology for the classroom, respectively.

According to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers, 18 states cut spending for K-12 instruction in fiscal year 2011 by $1.8 billion. Proposed cuts for the next fiscal year are much steeper: They total $2.5 billion for K-12 schools.

But some education advocates and teachers' unions have argued that corporate money comes with strings attached. The three biggest foundations that donate to education initiatives--the Broad, Walton, and Gates Foundations--all strongly support charter schools and back the evaluation of teachers based on how their students perform on standardized tests. The millions these foundations pour into education reform efforts each year have changed the shape of the national debate on education, as education writer Dana Goldstein explains on her blog.

According to the Journal, corporate donations to education initiatives totalled about $514 million in 2009.

Officials Frustrated With No Child Left Behind Try to Substitute Their Own Plans

July 19, 2011

Wall Street Journal - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been at odds with state schools chief Tony Evers over budget cuts, vouchers and teachers' collective-bargaining rights. But they have found common ground in their aggravation with No Child Left Behind.

Messrs. Walker and Evers formed a joint committee this month that will write a new state policy to replace the federal law requiring schools to ensure all students are passing state math and reading exams by 2014. No Child Left Behind is "broken," they have said.

"We are not trying to get around accountability," Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a phone interview. "But instead of using the blanket approach that defines a lot of schools as failures, we will use a more strategic approach so we can replicate success and address failure."

Wisconsin and other states say No Child Left Behind unfairly penalizes schools that don't meet rigid requirements. Tired of waiting for Congress to overhaul the law, some states have taken matters into their own hands.

South Dakota, Montana and Idaho recently told federal officials they would disregard key aspects of the law. Wisconsin officials plan to ask the U.S. Department of Education if they can substitute a state-developed accountability policy in place of the law, and Tennessee is considering a similar move.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last month that if Congress didn't overhaul No Child Left Behind soon he would waive certain requirements in exchange for states adopting changes he supports, such as linking teacher evaluations to student achievement and expanding charter schools. He hasn't provided any details of the waiver package.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the department, said states must either follow the law or apply for a waiver.

"There is no Plan C," he said, adding that the department can withdraw federal funding from states that don't comply.

No Child Left Behind, which President George W. Bush proposed and later signed into law, has been widely criticized for labeling too many schools as failures, narrowing school curricula and prodding states to water down standardized tests. The law has been up for renewal since 2007, with Congress extending it a year at a time.

President Barack Obama and Mr. Duncan have pushed Congress to revise the law and, until recently, it was expected to be one of the few bipartisan achievements this year. But in the highly partisan environment of Washington, lawmakers have begun to balk.

That hasn't appeased state education officials.

"Either Congress does not have the political will or this is not a priority for the administration," said Tom Luna, Idaho's Superintendent of Public Instruction. "Either way, we are bearing the burden of their inaction."

State education officials want relief from the 100% student proficiency requirement for schools. By law, states are supposed to gradually increase the percentage of students who pass standardized reading and math tests until 100% of them do by 2014. Schools that miss the mark face increasing sanctions, from busing students to better campuses to closure. States are required to help the lowest-performing schools.

Denise Juneau, Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, said her office doesn't have the capacity to assist an increasing number of schools, so she froze the proficiency bar for Montana schools at the 2010 levels of 83% for reading and 68% for math—a violation of federal law.

"It doesn't make sense to label more schools as failure simply because of an unrealistic federal goal and stretch the money even thinner," she said.

Most states want to measure schools by growth in student test scores. Wisconsin's Mr. Walker says he wants to use other measures to judge schools, such as the percentage of students taking and passing advanced placement classes.

Many states set a minimal pace of growth in student test scores for a school to be deemed proficient in the early years, followed by more aggressive growth standards later. In Wisconsin, the target for 2003 was 61% of students passing reading and 37% passing math. The bar inched up slowly for eight years and, by this year, sat at 80.5% in reading and 68.5% in math.

To reach 100% proficiency by 2014, Wisconsin schools will have only three years to make the same growth they made during the previous eight years.

Margaret Spellings, who served as education secretary under Mr. Bush and helped write No Child Left Behind, said freezing the proficiency bar is "more about helping the adults" than the children.

"I bet parents and children in these states want to see students make progress every year," she said.

Duncan’s No Child Left Behind Waivers May Come with a Catch: More Reforms

August 15, 2011

The Lookout - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says the federal government's role in education is "to be tight on goals but loose on the means for achieving those goals."

That's why Duncan is planning to issue waivers to states that are set to face sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which labels schools as failing if their students aren't making adequate progress on standardized tests each year. By 2014, every single American student is expected to be testing at grade level under the law, a goal set nearly 10 years ago that is clearly out of reach, especially for states that have recently raised their testing standards.

Duncan has said he will provide details on what is required from states to qualify for waivers in the fall. But interestingly, Duncan's own comments and those of sources who spoke to Education Week's Alyson Klein suggest that the waivers will not be entirely "loose" on how states should improve their kids' test scores. Klein writes:

The waiver plan will be an all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it package—no a la carte picking-and-choosing allowed. In exchange for a waiver from the 2014 deadline and more funding flexibility, states would have to adopt college- or career-ready standards, propose their own differentiated accountability systems, and adopt teacher evaluation systems based in part on student growth on state tests.

That last part would represent the biggest victory for Duncan, as test-based teacher evaluations have been a big part of the administration's education reform platform. It's unclear if states would reject those conditions, especially given how badly some need relief from No Child Left Behind's sanctions. (Certain failing schools will have to offer--and pay for--after-school tutoring, for example.) Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement that the administration should "avoid being overly prescriptive in its waiver package."

The New Republic's Simon van Zuylen-Wood argues that demanding reforms in exchange for an exemption to federal law may be illegal, though it's unclear if anyone would challenge the move in court. Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, told Zuylen-Wood that Duncan and Obama may be "overstepping their authority," even if the waivers are the right thing to do.

Idaho, South Dakota, Utah and Montana have already told the department they will ignore parts of No Child Left Behind next year, waiver or no waiver. (The administration announced Montana would receive a waiver today, the Associated Press reported.) Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee have asked for waivers already.

"Pretty soon all the schools will be failing in America, and at that point the law becomes meaningless,'' Larry K. Shumway, superintendent of public instruction in Utah, told the AP. "States are going to sit and watch federal accountability implode. We're seeing the end of an era.''

Duncan to Issue 'No Child' Waivers

August 8, 2011

Politico - Seeing “no clear path” toward reauthorizing the “No Child Left Behind” education law, the Obama administration will unilaterally issue waivers to states, exempting them from some of the law’s regulations.

“Today, we’re less than a month from the start of the school year, and … we still believe there is no clear path toward a bipartisan bill to reform No Child Left Behind, said White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes in a conference call with reporters, the contents of which were embargoed until Monday.

“Our administration has been working on plans to provide more flexibility. The president has directed us to proceed with those plans.”

The announcement comes months after President Barack Obama called on Congress to deliver legislation to his desk by September that fixed the Bush-era law. But as the calendar moves closer to Obama’s deadline, the House and Senate have moved on separate paths at a pace the White House says is not nearly fast enough.

Meanwhile, states and local administrators are clamoring to the Department of Education for relief from federal mandates — and the sanctions that threaten to punish schools for not meeting the law’s requirements.

“I cannot overemphasize how loud the outcry is for us to do something now,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “Our job, simply put, is to support reform at the state and local level. We need to get out of the way wherever we can.”

In September, the administration will announce the details of the plan, which will encourage states to apply for regulatory relief in exchange for “reforms,” which include raising standards for student achievement and implementing school improvement plans and teacher evaluation systems.

Waivers are likely to address the law’s requirement that 100 percent of students are proficient in state assessments by 2014, and the stringent sanctions that could result in a complete restructuring of schools deemed as “failing.”

Duncan said he expects the exemptions to affect students during the upcoming 2011-12 school year.

In response to the announcement, House and Senate Democrats issued statements supporting the administration’s move, citing a series of politically divisive reform bills proposed by House Republicans in recent months that would likely be rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

But Duncan emphasized that the plan is intended to serve as a “bridge” or a “transition” to Congressional action, not a challenge to House Education and Workforce Committee chairman John Kline’s legislation.

Kline, the Minnesota Republican who had challenged Duncan’s authority to issue waivers in exchange for reform in a June letter, continues to oppose the plan.

“I remain concerned that temporary measures instituted by the department, such as conditional waivers, could undermine the committee’s efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,” Kline said in a statement. “The House Education and the Workforce Committee has already advanced three pieces of legislation to reform current elementary and secondary education law, and we plan to complete our reauthorization package this fall.”

He pledged to monitor Duncan’s actions to “ensure they are consistent with the law and Congressional intent.”

For their part, Barnes said that the administration’s message to states and local school districts is simple: “Relief is on the way.”

Poll Shows Changing Teaching Force More Receptive to Education Reform Ideas

August 1, 2011

The Lookout - An increased share of the American teaching force supports paying teachers based on their performance, evaluating teachers on how their students score on tests and other tenets of the education reform movement that teachers' unions have historically and often fiercely opposed, according to a new poll by the National Center for Education Information.

Fifty-nine percent of all teachers polled said they are in favor of paying teachers based on their performance (also called "merit pay"), up from only 42 percent in 2005. Nearly a third of teachers (up from 27 percent) said ending teacher tenure would improve education, while 19 percent (up from 13) said they would support ending teachers' unions altogether. The figures represent a small fraction of the total teaching force, but are notable for how much they've grown in only four years.

Some of this shift in opinion is echoed by the country's largest teachers' union, the National Education Association, which, to the surprise of many this May, tentatively backed the creation of standardized tests to evaluate teachers.

But Emily Feistritzer, the author of the study, tells The Lookout that much of the change appears to be driven by the growing number of teachers who are entering schools through non-traditional routes. These teachers didn't major in education in college or go to an education graduate school program; instead they joined teaching through alternate certification routes for mid-career professionals or programs like Teach for America.

About a third of new teachers hired since 2005 came through these non-traditional routes, and those teachers tend to support different education policies than their peers. Unlike teachers whose entire careers have been within the education system, 59 percent of these non-traditional teachers say evaluating teachers by student test scores is a good idea. Those who entered teaching through alternate paths also support paying more money to teachers in "high needs" schools and those who teach high-demand subjects.

Feistritzer, who advocates for alternative routes to teaching, reasons that this new generation of teachers will do more to transform the profession for the better than federal reform programs like Race to the Top.

"Teaching historically hasn't changed very much in the last half century," Feistritzer says. "But I think [...] this whole new population of non-traditional people that are coming into the teaching force are going to wind up having a profound impact on the profession. I've been around a long long time and I've not really felt that the teaching force stands a better chance of changing than I do now by virtue of the people coming into the profession."

Education historian and former Department of Education official Diane Ravitch, on the other hand, has argued that Teach for America encourages a "revolving" teaching force instead of a stable one and also only makes up a tiny fraction of the country's 4 million teachers. Nearly 85 percent of all teachers in the nation's schools still entered through traditional routes, even though the share of non-traditional new teachers is growing.

Feistritzer praised professionals who switch to teaching mid-career as bringing more real-world experience with them into the classroom.

Since 2005, the teaching force has become increasingly female and younger, the study also found. Twenty-two percent of teachers are now under 30, compared to 11 percent four years ago, and 84 percent are female.

The study surveyed 1,076 teachers and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Arne Duncan Sued by Private College Association

July 22, 2011

Missouri Education Watchdog - Gainful Employment regulations calls for all schools to demonstrate 100 percent proficiency by 2014 – or else face federally mandated sanctions. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stirred controversy in March when he estimated that 80 percent of the nation’s schools would be labeled failing under the current law by fall 2011.

While many agree this number is an exaggeration, it’s likely that most states will be identifying more than 30 percent or 40 percent of schools as “failing” to make Adequate Yearly Progress by 2013.

About a month ago, Duncan switched to “Plan B,” laying out a plan in which states could apply for waivers from the accountability requirements under NCLB in exchange for adopting a “basket of reforms.” The plan drew harsh criticism from those questioning the legality and prudence of such an option. A recent Congressional Research Service report about the proposal, for example, found,

“Under such circumstances, a reviewing court could deem the conditional waiver to be arbitrary and capricious or in excess of the agency’s statutory authority.”

There is a theme running throughout the DOE on all levels of education: arbitrary, capricious or in access of the agency’s statutory authority.

Has the time come for states to start pushing back on the DOE?

Duncan’s dilemma is twofold. First, he’s fighting a losing battle in the court of public opinion when it comes to NCLB and the role of Washington in school reform. In the most recent PDK/Gallup poll, nearly 50 percent of respondents said they held either an unfavorable or very unfavorable view of NCLB, while just 30 percent felt favorably towards NCLB. This is a marked shift since 2008, when the percentages of those favorable and unfavorable towards the law both hovered around 30 percent. When asked who should hold schools accountable for what students learn, state and local government were preferred to the feds by an overwhelming margin of 80-19. Considering that many of these leaders were elected to push back on the Washington establishment, it may very well be a political win for these leaders to turn their back on NCLB and replace it with a state-devised solution.

The state consortia need to regroup and instead of focusing on unconstitutional common core standards, they should focus on suing the DOE to regain state and local school control.