THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he is unilaterally overriding the centerpiece accountability provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that requires students to be 100% proficient in math and reading by 2014, reports the New York Times. Duncan stated that he was revising NCLB requirements because of Congress’s failure to act. He stressed that waivers of NCLB’s proficiency requirements would be for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools.
Melody Barnes, director of President Obama’s White House Domestic Policy Council, who joined Duncan in the announcement, said that all states would be encouraged to apply for waivers from the law’s accountability provisions, but that only states the administration believed were carrying out ambitious school improvement initiatives would get them. “This is not a pass on accountability,” Ms. Barnes said. “There will be a high bar for states seeking flexibility within the law.”
Currently under NCLB, every school is given the equivalent of a pass-fail report card each year, an evaluation that administration officials say fails to differentiate among chaotic schools in chronic failure, schools that are helping low-scoring students improve, and high-performing suburban schools that nonetheless appear to be neglecting some low-scoring students. Last year, about 38,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools fell short of their test-score targets under NCLB, and Mr. Duncan has predicted that number would rise to 80,000 this year.Although critics have dismissed Duncan’s predictions as exaggerated, a huge number of schools are falling short under NCLB’s school rating system. For example, 89% of Florida’s public schools missed federal testing targets, even though 58% of Florida schools earned an A under the state’s own well-regarded grading system.
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), chairman of the House education committee, has questioned Duncan’s legal authority to override NCLB. Citing provisions of NCLB, Duncan argues the law itself gives the education secretary broad waiver powers. In response, Kline said, “I remain concerned that temporary measures instituted by the department, such as conditional waivers, could undermine” efforts by Congress to rewrite the law.
Kline’s committee has yet to produce any bills rewriting the law’s crucial school accountability and teacher effectiveness provisions. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate education committee, on the other hand, said he understood why Mr. Duncan was pursuing the waiver plan, since “it is undeniable that this Congress faces real challenges reaching bipartisan, bicameral agreement on anything.”
In their joint announcement, Duncan and Barnes said the U.S. Department of Education (ED) would issue guidelines next month inviting states to apply for the waivers. For a waiver to be approved, they said, states would need to show that they were adopting higher standards under which high school students were “college- and career-ready” at graduation, were working to improve teacher effectiveness and evaluation systems based on student test scores and other measures, were overhauling the lowest-performing schools, and were adopting locally designed school accountability systems to replace No Child’s pass-fail system.
Those requirements match the criteria the administration used last year in picking winning states in its two-stage Race to the Top grant competition. Ms. Barnes said states would not be competing against one another with their waiver applications.
Critics of the plan, however, expressed unhappiness with it. ”It sounds like they’re trying to do a backdoor Round 3 of Race to the Top, and that’s astonishing,” said Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. He called Mr. Duncan’s plan “a dramatically broad reading of executive authority.”
Meanwhile, the plan appears likely to gain broad support from state education officials. According to Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, more than a dozen states have already asked the department for changes to their No Child school accountability plans, or are about to do so. He also said, “Many states feel that we need major changes in the law, because it’s identifying such an outlandish number of schools that it’s losing credibility.”
Melody Barnes, director of President Obama’s White House Domestic Policy Council, who joined Duncan in the announcement, said that all states would be encouraged to apply for waivers from the law’s accountability provisions, but that only states the administration believed were carrying out ambitious school improvement initiatives would get them. “This is not a pass on accountability,” Ms. Barnes said. “There will be a high bar for states seeking flexibility within the law.”
Currently under NCLB, every school is given the equivalent of a pass-fail report card each year, an evaluation that administration officials say fails to differentiate among chaotic schools in chronic failure, schools that are helping low-scoring students improve, and high-performing suburban schools that nonetheless appear to be neglecting some low-scoring students. Last year, about 38,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools fell short of their test-score targets under NCLB, and Mr. Duncan has predicted that number would rise to 80,000 this year.Although critics have dismissed Duncan’s predictions as exaggerated, a huge number of schools are falling short under NCLB’s school rating system. For example, 89% of Florida’s public schools missed federal testing targets, even though 58% of Florida schools earned an A under the state’s own well-regarded grading system.
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), chairman of the House education committee, has questioned Duncan’s legal authority to override NCLB. Citing provisions of NCLB, Duncan argues the law itself gives the education secretary broad waiver powers. In response, Kline said, “I remain concerned that temporary measures instituted by the department, such as conditional waivers, could undermine” efforts by Congress to rewrite the law.
Kline’s committee has yet to produce any bills rewriting the law’s crucial school accountability and teacher effectiveness provisions. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate education committee, on the other hand, said he understood why Mr. Duncan was pursuing the waiver plan, since “it is undeniable that this Congress faces real challenges reaching bipartisan, bicameral agreement on anything.”
In their joint announcement, Duncan and Barnes said the U.S. Department of Education (ED) would issue guidelines next month inviting states to apply for the waivers. For a waiver to be approved, they said, states would need to show that they were adopting higher standards under which high school students were “college- and career-ready” at graduation, were working to improve teacher effectiveness and evaluation systems based on student test scores and other measures, were overhauling the lowest-performing schools, and were adopting locally designed school accountability systems to replace No Child’s pass-fail system.
Those requirements match the criteria the administration used last year in picking winning states in its two-stage Race to the Top grant competition. Ms. Barnes said states would not be competing against one another with their waiver applications.
Critics of the plan, however, expressed unhappiness with it. ”It sounds like they’re trying to do a backdoor Round 3 of Race to the Top, and that’s astonishing,” said Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. He called Mr. Duncan’s plan “a dramatically broad reading of executive authority.”
Meanwhile, the plan appears likely to gain broad support from state education officials. According to Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, more than a dozen states have already asked the department for changes to their No Child school accountability plans, or are about to do so. He also said, “Many states feel that we need major changes in the law, because it’s identifying such an outlandish number of schools that it’s losing credibility.”
Source: New York Times, 8/8/11, By Sam Dillon
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