". . . The administration would allow states and districts considerably more leeway to determine how to intervene in schools that are struggling to meet the law’s achievement targets, but aren’t among the lowest-performing schools. It would also permit states to expand the subjects tested beyond reading and mathematics. And it would ask schools to report on a broader range of factors, such as school climate.
“We’ve got to get accountability right this time so it actually drives improvement in student achievement,” Mr. Duncan said in a March 12 conference call with reporters. He added there were three overarching goals with the newly released blueprint: setting a high bar for students and schools, rewarding excellence and success, and maintaining local control and flexibility.
"Through this plan, we are setting an ambitious goal: all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career—no matter who you are or where you come from."
The looming 2014 deadline under NCLB—the date by which all students are supposed to be proficient in reading and math—would essentially go away under the department’s blueprint. States instead would be given time to adopt new college- and career-ready standards, and they would set performance targets against those new standards,
. . . To address complaints that the NCLB law doesn’t make a clear distinction between schools that are consistently struggling to raise the achievement of all their students and schools that are having trouble only with particular student populations, the Obama administration is seeking to differentiate interventions for schools that have varying difficulty in meeting the law’s goals.
The new vision for ESEA would provide local and state flexibility in determining what interventions were necessary in most schools. And broadly, the department says there would be consequences and rewards for districts and states as well as schools.
But the bottom 5 percent of schools would be forced to use the department’s four turnaround models that now govern the Title I School Improvement Grant program. The next-lowest 5 percent would be on a “warning” list and be required to take action using research-based interventions, although the department would not mandate one of the four turnaround models.
In addition, states would be required to identify schools with the greatest achievement gaps and take aggressive action to fix the problem. If, within three years, a school’s students failed to improve, the department would require the state to take over the school’s Title I spending.
States would also be directed to point to high-poverty schools that were making significant progress in closing achievement gaps and reward them with recognition and additional funding.
The proposal to set up different tiers of sanctions was widely anticipated by most observers. The Education Department already allows some states to use such a system through a “differentiated consequences” pilot project, created in 2008 under Secretary Duncan’s predecessor, Margaret Spellings.
Still, the idea earned high marks from advocates for state and district officials.
. . . In an important policy shift, schools that failed to meet achievement targets would not be mandated to provide school choice or supplemental educational services, known as SES.Mr. Duncan had already signaled that the tutoring and public-school-choice provisions under NCLB were not acceptable to him. Last April, in light of the $10 billion in additional Title I money flowing to states and school districts from the federal economic-stimulus package, he invited states to apply for waivers to make those provisions more flexible. So far, the department has granted 43 waivers.
The proposal could meet with opposition in Congress, particularly among Republicans.
“It’s disappointing to see
and school choice removed from the parental toolbox, particularly because it appears the focus is shifting to the needs of schools rather than the needs of students,” said Alexa Marrero, a spokeswoman for Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee.
Mr. Duncan’s dislike for the supplemental-services provisions in NCLB is well known. While the chief executive officer of the Chicago school system, he fought regularly—and publicly—with the Education Department during the Bush administration in his quest to allow the district to serve as a provider of tutoring services for its students, even though the district had not made adequate yearly progress. The department told Mr. Duncan in 2004 that he must stop providing the services using federal funds, but he refused to do so.
. . . On another front, the ESEA renewal plan seeks to give teachers a voice in school improvement efforts by using still-to-be-specified surveys about working conditions and school climate.
And it would seek to strengthen provisions in current law that require states to make sure their most effective teachers are distributed equitably among high- and low-poverty schools, such as by providing more reporting and transparency. Schools would be required to report on factors such as teacher turnover, teacher absenteeism, and the number of novice teachers working in a school.
States would also be directed to develop a definition of “effective teacher” that relies at least partially on student outcomes, and to establish systems for linking students’ academic performance to their teachers and school leaders.
. . . “encourage funding equity,” such as by requiring schools and districts to more clearly show how resources are being distributed among high- and low-poverty schools.
Under the blueprint, states would be able to measure individual students’ academic growth, rather than comparing different cohorts of students with each other, as under current law.
. . . the administration was seeking to replace AYP—the signature accountability yardstick in the NCLB law—with a new measure aimed at making sure students are ready for college or a career.
And earlier this month, the administration released a proposal to tie Title I grants for districts to states’ adoption of college- and career-ready standards. States could either join with a consortium seeking to develop such standards, or work with their institutions of higher education to craft them.
The Title I proposal is expected to bolster the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the highest-profile national effort to develop more uniform, rigorous standards.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/13/25esea.h29.html?tkn=MPMFIVw0NVZF%2BPakj5QQXnAiIVrF1yURVnUN&cmp=clp-edweek
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