How is LFT responding to Superintendent of Education John White’s request for waivers of No Child Left Behind Act waivers?

With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) stalled in Congress, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last fall that his department will offer waivers of some provisions of the Act. In exchange for flexibility, states are required to implement education reforms. Thus far, 10 states have applied for and received waivers of NCLB requirements.

This week, Superintendent of Education John White unveiled a PowerPoint presentation that broadly outlines the Louisiana Department of Education’s wish list. His department is already asking stakeholders to sign statements of support for the request.

But White has not released the state’s official application for waivers, even though the deadline for public comments on the document is February 16.

Based on the scant information in the PowerPoint presentation, LFT has concerns about the direction White wants to take in asking for waivers of federal education requirements.

For starters, the presentation calls for “merit-based certification, compensation, tenure and retention.” That sounds good, but what does it mean? In conversation, White has questioned even the value of a college major in a subject area for teachers.

His presentation, which features the liberal use of the word “empower,” calls for parental choice including “early childhood, traditional public, charter, private, virtual, industry, university.” Is the superintendent asking the U.S. Department of Education to approve a voucher scheme? The details have yet to be released.

The slide show also asks for “Freedom from retrograde labor rules and burdensome funding restrictions,” without defining retrograde labor rules or identifying burdensome funding restrictions.

The superintendent says he wants to “eliminate school and district improvement plans,” but favors “enhancing accountability.” These are broad strokes that beg for explanation.

White says that he would like to strip School Performance Score criteria down to bare bones. Kindergarten through eighth grade schools would be judged solely on iLEAP and LEAP scores; high school scores would be based on ACT performance (50%) and the cohort graduation rate (50%).

Are these criteria supported by research and data? Who will pay for all the ACT tests that must be administered? Isn’t there room for multiple indicators of school performance, such as disciplinary actions, attendance levels and other elements of a Learning Environment Index?

The presentation raises many questions about issues such as redefining subgroups, rewards and interventions, classifying schools based on performance, etc.

Based on the information available, Superintendent White’s plan is not ready for prime time, and time is growing short. Public comment on the as-yet unpublished draft is expected by February 16.

BESE board approval of the “revised accountability concepts and policies” is expected to be complete by next summer, with final approval by August, with full implementation scheduled for the 2012-13 academic year.
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Here is what the U.S. Department of Education has to say about applying for waivers:

To get flexibility from NCLB, states must adopt and have a plan to
implement college and career-ready standards. They must also create
comprehensive systems of teacher and principal development, evaluation and
support that include factors beyond test scores, such as principal observation,
peer review, student work, or parent and student feedback.

States receiving waivers no longer have to meet 2014 targets set by
NCLB but they must set new performance targets for improving student achievement
and closing achievement gaps.
They also must have accountability systems that
recognize and reward high-performing schools and those that are making
significant gains, while targeting rigorous and comprehensive interventions for
the lowest-performing schools.

Failure to reauthorize NCLB may lead to waivers

One result (or lack thereof) of the deadlock in Congress is a failure to reauthorize the federal No Child Left behind act. Because of the legislature's inaction, President Obama has announced that states may apply for waivers of the act so long as they "agree to adopt a prescribed set of education reforms," according to this Education Week blog post by Michele McNeil.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last June that the administration would proceed with a waiver plan if Congress fails to reauthorize NCLB by the start of school.

Duncan said waivers would be offered as long as states meet other requirements, which will not be spelled out fully until next month. Areas likely to be considered in waiving the 2014 proficiency deadline are: raising standards for achievement, new strategies to help low-performing schools, and implementing educator evaluation systems that are tied to test scores.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten had a cautious response to Duncan's announcement.

"We understand and feel the frustration with No Child Left Behind, and we support changing it in a comprehensive way to better assist teachers and students," Weingarten said. "Time will tell whether moving to a waiver plan that bypasses the full legislative (and public comment) process is the right approach."

"Waivers, if issued, should be informed by what works to improve teaching and learning," she continued. "We will continue to encourage Congress to get the education law right to ensure that students in this country have a fair, equitable, high-quality public education system."

Frustrated educators to march on Washington

The upcoming "Save our Schools March and National Call to Action" has caught the attention of Education Week. The newspaper sent reporter Erik Robelen to write this article about the growing frustration teachers feel because of the mandates of the federal No Child Left behind Act.

At the heart of the protest is discontent over the test-driven accountability standards imposed by NCLB. As one teacher quoted by Robelen puts it, "Teachers lose the opportunity to teach anything beyond how to fill in the bubbles.”

The Washington protest is slated for July 28-31, and the American Federation of Teachers is one of the march's sponsors.

Organizers of the march state their mission thusly:

We stand united by one belief – it’s time for teachers and parents to
organize and reclaim control of our schools.

As concerned citizens, we demand an end to the destructive policies and
rhetoric that have eroded confidence in our public schools, demoralized
teachers, and reduced the education of too many of our children to nothing more
than test preparation.

A well-educated society is essential to the future of the United States
of America. Our students must have access to a fully funded, world-class public
education system, and it is our responsibility to hold our government
accountable for providing the means to achieve it.

The actual rally will be held at noon on July 30, starting at the capitol park ellipse. Other events are listed here.

For those unable to attend the Washington event, a list of local actions are posted here.

If "reform" seems so good to be true, it probably is!

Thank God for Diane Ravitch! In this op-ed for the New York Times, the prickly professor punctures the bubble of so-called "reform," convincingly demonstrating that many success stories "are the result of statistical legerdemain. "

Ravitch takes aim at the No Child Left behind mandate that all children must be proficient in either reading or math by 2014. Teachers understand that to be an impossible goal, she writes, because of the "enormous variation among students and the impact of family income on academic performance."

Even so, she writes, many politicians and the snake-oil salesmen who've hijacked the education agenda claim "that the right combination of incentives and punishments will produce dramatic improvement. Anyone who objects to this utopian mandate, they maintain, is just making an excuse for low expectations and bad teachers."

With assistance from former LSU professor and Baton Rouge School Board member Noel Hammatt, Ravitch proceeds to demolish extravagant claims for success in some reconstituted schools.

Taking particular aim at two schools mentioned by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address, Ravitch says "the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations."

One of those claimed a high graduation rate, but its published ACT scores were far below the state average. Another, which Obama said had "skyrocketed" since firing the principal and half the faculty, actually ranks 430th out of 469 high schools in math.

In conclusion, Ravitch urges the public to meet inflated claims of educational improvement with skepticism - a lesson yet to be learned in Louisiana, where credulous news media uncritically report bogus gains in the State Recovery School District.

The answer simply is not as easy as firing teachers or reconstituting schools because, as Ravitch puts it,

If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to
learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our
educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.

Duncan: No Child Left Behind is unworkable and must be changed

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has finally come to the same conclusion that teachers around the nation reached years ago: the No Child Left Behind Act is a recipe for disaster. It is set up to guarantee that schools appear to be failing and that teachers are at fault.

As reported here by the Washington Post's Nick Anderson, Duncan told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that the flawed law will soon stigmatize three quarters of American schools as failures.

Said Duncan, "This law is fundamentally broken, and we need to fix it, and fix it this year. The law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible and focused on the schools and students most at risk."

The act, passed in 2002 as former President George W. Bush's signature education initiative, has been heavily criticized for overemphasizing standardized tests and for its unreachable goal requiring all children to become proficient in math and reading.

Obama: budget freeze won't apply to schools

President Barack Obama's plan to freeze domestic spending won't apply to public education, according to this article by CNN reporter Ed Henry.

The president recently announced that he plans to freeze most non-security related spending in order to rein in the federal deficit, which is about $1.4 trillion this year. That left educators wondering about the future of Obama's education plans.

In tonight's State of the Union address, according to Henry, the president will announce that education spending by the federal government will increase by $4 billion in the coming year.

Included in that amount is an additional $1.34 billion for Obama's Race to the Top program, and another $1 billion to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act.

Breaking news: LA is in for federal education millions

The stars seem to be aligning for Louisiana to bring in the lion's share of federal education dollars under President Obama's "Race to the Top" program. As WAFB-TV's Keitha Nelson reports here, our state could net $25 million to $50 million per year for up to three years.

There is a catch, of course. As Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek tells the reporter, "aggressive steps" will be expected by the feds, and that could include a greater emphasis on charter schools. It could even mean reconstitution of schools, which Pastorek describes as firing the entire faculty and allowing them to reapply for their jobs.

With just a bit of understatement, Pastorek says, "Not every district is going to want to do this."

The New York Times has a succinct headline over reporter Sam Dillon's story describing Race to the Top: "Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift."

Dillon reinforces reports that Louisiana might get big bucks from Race to the Top, but also looks beneath the rock at the creepy crawlies that may come with the largess.

The article notes that members of the education community who supported Obama are disappointed, or at least puzzled, by his embrace of what they believe to be the worst aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act. "Much of the grumbling," he writes, " is from educators who say they supported Mr. Obama’s candidacy."

The administration’s stance has caught by surprise educators and officials who
had hoped that Mr. Obama’s calls during the campaign for an overhaul of the No
Child law would mean a reduced federal role and less reliance on standardized
testing.

Indeed, Race to the Top could wind up increasing reliance on high-stakes tests, and on judging teachers and principals by the results of those tests.

LA and 46 other states sign on to common curriculum

If we ever hope to accurately compare Louisiana's educational results with those of other states, we must have a nationwide agreement about what is being measured.

Under current No Child Left behind guidelines, each state develops its own curriculum. That's fine as long as your biggest concerns are States' Rights and keeping federal regulation to a minimum, but it makes for lousy statistical comparisons.

Right now, Louisiana has some of the most rigorous academic requirements in the nation. We suffer in comparison with states that are not quite so rigorous. That's not just an opinion. In a March EdLog post, we cited a Fordham Institute study that found "some schools deemed to be failing in one state would get passing grades in another under the No Child Left Behind law."

But there's good news. In this Washington Post article by reporter Maria Glod, we learn that Louisiana is one of 46 states working on a set of common voluntary standards for reading and math.


The key word is voluntary - what does that mean, and how much pressure can be brought to urge compliance. Beyond that, the issue will become testing, and the establishment of a common rubric.

Study verifies Weingarten's take on accountability

Just a couple of days ago, EdLog reported on a Washington Post op-ed by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Her thesis was that the No Child Left Behind Act's demand for standards has been met with a state-by-state patchwork of regulations that make accurate or fair comparisons impossible.

Now a new study verifies her concern. According to the Associated Press, the Fordham Institute, in conjunction with the Kingsbury Center at the Northwest Evaluation Association, has determined that "some schools deemed to be failing in one state would get passing grades in another under the No Child Left Behind law."

The study collected the test scores of 36 elementary and middle schools, and compared them to accountability rules in 28 states:

It found the schools failed to meet yearly progress goals in states with more
rigorous standards, such as Massachusetts. But they met yearly progress goals in
states with lower standards, such as Arizona and Wisconsin. Under No Child Left
Behind, states have a patchwork of rules that vary from state to state, the
study said.

Weingarten may have an ally in Arne Duncan, the new U.S. Secretary of Education. According to the Associated Press, Duncan said, "...the notion that we have 50 different goal posts doesn't make sense. A high school diploma needs to mean something, no matter where it's from."

The Fordham Institute study, named "The Accountability Illusion," can be read here.

AFT president argues for national standards

AFT President Randi Weingarten has a good point. Each state sets its own standards under the No Child Left Behind Act, and those can vary widely. Some are much tougher than others. Louisiana's education establishment, for example, is proud that our state has some of the nation's most rigorous standards. But we put less resources into our schools than many other states.

As the AFT president puts it:

Imagine the outrage if, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers had to move the ball the full 10 yards for a first down during the Super Bowl while the Arizona Cardinals had to go only seven. Imagine if this scenario were sanctioned by the National Football League. Such a system would be unfair and preposterous.

But there is little outrage over the uneven patchwork of academic standards for students in our 50 states and the District of Columbia. And the federal government has tacitly accepted this situation by giving a seal of approval to states that meet the benchmarks for improved achievement established by the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- even if their standards are lower than those of other states