Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for November 19, 2005 NCLB - YIELDING TO PRESSURE

But, will it be "too little, too late" to help Cairo School District Number One dodge the bullet...

Some States to Get Wider Latitude in Measuring Students' Gains

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (AP) - Tinkering again with enforcement of the No Child Left Behind education law, the government plans to let some states change how they measure yearly student progress.

In an experiment, up to 10 states will be allowed to measure not just how students are performing, but also how that performance is changing over time.

Schools are now judged based only on how today's students compare to last year's students in math and reading - like fourth graders in 2005 versus fourth graders in 2004.

Education officials in many states argue that such a system does not recognize changes in the population or growth by individual students. They have been seeking permission to measure growth by students, which might make it easier for schools to meet their goals and avoid penalties.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the new approach, known as the growth model, on Friday at a gathering of state school chiefs in Richmond, Va.

"We're open to new ideas, but we're not taking our eye off the ball," Ms. Spellings said in remarks prepared for delivery to the state school officials.

Ms. Spellings has promised to be flexible in enforcing the education law.

Other recent changes in it have dealt with testing, teacher quality and students with disabilities.

Student progress is the cornerstone of the law. How it is measured has big implications. A school that receives federal poverty aid but does not make "adequate yearly progress" for at least two years faces mounting penalties that range from allowing students to transfer to the eventual restructuring of the school and its staff.

Ms. Spellings said it made sense to give schools credit for progress that students made.

The states that win approval for the new flexibility, however, must do more than show growth. They will still have to get all children up to par in reading and math by 2014, as the law requires, and show consistent gains along the way.

The Education Department will require states to take many steps before they can qualify for the "growth" option.

States must have data systems to track individual students and close achievement gaps between whites and members of minorities.

The law requires yearly testing from third grade through eighth grade and once in high school.

The department has not chosen the 10 states that will be part of the experiment. In practical terms, many states will not qualify because they do not have data systems that can track individual students across grades.

Patricia Sullivan, director of the independent Center on Education Policy, praised federal leaders for showing flexibility and clearly outlining what states must do to get it.

A growth model could benefit not just struggling students but also gifted ones who may be challenged anew to show their own yearly progress, beyond the school's standard benchmark.

"This is clearly what states have been asking for," Ms. Sullivan said. "It makes a lot of sense to measure growth. It's so discouraging for teachers when students make tremendous gains but don't get the credit because they don't get all the way over the bar."

High hopes in Utah...

U.S. to let up to 10 states use academic growth to satisfy rules

By Jennifer Toomer-Cook
Deseret Morning News

The federal government cracked open a door Friday that could quell some of Utah's gripes over No Child Left Behind.

U.S. Department of Education is going to let up to 10 states use students' academic growth to satisfy No Child Left Behind rules in a pilot program next school year.

Utah has been asking to use a growth model that awards schools points for bringing up struggling students, even if they're still below grade level.

"I'm thrilled with the announcement," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said in a Friday interview from Richmond, Va. "I think this is another signal the department is trying to reach out with greater flexibility and honor for what states already are doing and have done in terms of accountability."

The department will take applications from states wanting to participate, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said in a Friday address to the Council of Chief State School Officers' annual policy forum in Richmond.

"Many educators and policymakers have asked me about the possibility of using growth models to recognize the progress schools are making toward this goal . . . to close the achievement gap and get every child to grade level or above by 2014," Spellings said, according to her speech released by the federal department.

"A growth model is not a way around accountability standards. It's a way for states that are already raising achievement and following the bright-line principles of the law to strengthen accountability."

Harrington said the State Board of Education ultimately will decide whether Utah will apply to be a pilot state. Utah meets initial criteria, including having two years of data (last year and the current year); a way to track students over time; and plans for a longitudinal growth-based model, which would track students from one year to the next, rather than this year's third-graders, for instance, versus next year's third-graders, Harrington said.

"I believe we have a jump-start on it," she said.

Superintendents soon will receive a letter detailing the proposal, Spellings said.

No Child Left Behind aims to have all children, regardless of race, income or disability, do well on reading and math tests by 2014. It measures states' progress toward that goal every year and singles out schools in which even one group of students is underperforming.

Some ethnic minority advocates in Utah have cheered the law. But some education officials hate its all-or-nothing approach, how it fails to measure a student's growth over time and other concerns. This year, the Utah Legislature decried the federal law as an encroachment on states' rights. It passed a law prioritizing state educational goals over federal mandates.

Since, Harrington has met with Spellings over Utah's concerns in attempts to promote understanding. Friday's announcement continued her good feelings.

"I'm encouraged," Harrington said. "I believe (Spellings) is doing everything she can . . . to make sense out of this very complicated law."

And in California...

In 10 states, schools to set their own goals for testing

Nanette Asimov, Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle

The U.S. Department of Education made its first significant concession Friday on a cornerstone of its No Child Left Behind Education Act by agreeing that not all schools are failures when their test scores aren't high.

For three years, the nation's sweeping education law has used a one-size-fits-all approach to determine which schools succeed or fail. It requires that each state set a single, annual test-score goal for all schools to reach in math and English, regardless of the different demographics and academic backgrounds of its students.

But under a pilot program announced by federal officials, schools in 10 states will be allowed to try to achieve test-score goals tailor-made for each school. It's a major shift in a bedrock provision of the controversial federal law and is a victory for California's Superintendent Jack O'Connell. He led a group of 14 state school chiefs last year in urging the federal government to let states consider an individual school's progress when judging it to be good or bad.

Since then, he and Alan Bersin, education secretary to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have worked with a national bipartisan group to create No Child Left Behind's first large-scale experiment allowing more flexibility.

Only 10 states will be chosen to participate, and O'Connell said he intended to submit an application for California.

"This is a very positive step," O'Connell said. "The starting line is not the same for all kids, so to try to apply universal, rigid and arbitrary criteria (when measuring success) is inherently not fair."

For example, at Bret Harte Elementary in San Francisco, test scores soared last spring, and students achieved three times what had been expected on the state exam. But under No Child Left Behind, the school was labeled an underperformer because one too few Latino students scored at grade level on the exam, as did five too few English learners.

In California, 44 percent of the 9,200 schools failed to meet the federal goals this year, including many that have raised scores and are popular with students and parents.

The state began using the federal method to judge its schools in fall 2002, along with the rest of the nation. But California has stubbornly continued to also use its own Academic Performance Index, established in 1999, which sets tailor-made achievement goals for each school. Schools that attain the goals are considered successful. Unlike the federal method, there are no penalties for those that fail.

If California becomes one of the pilot states, that is likely to put an end to the state's confusing use of two separate school rating systems -- the federal No Child Left Behind program and the state's Academic Performance Index -- by blending them in some way.

The No Child Left Behind method requires states to establish one annual achievement goal for all schools. The goals get tougher each year until 2014, when 100 percent of students are supposed to score at their grade level -- the mark of success.

Despite the concessions allowing more flexibility, 100 percent of students still will have to score at grade level by 2014 -- which is the idea that No Child Left Behind was named for.

States have accepted the federal approach -- some reluctantly, such as California -- in part because of the threat that federal money would be withheld from states that flout the rules. But No Child Left Behind caught on also because it embodies a fervor among many in the nation for testing students and holding schools accountable for results.

Business groups and some civil-rights groups worry that the new plan will water down expectations for students.

"We are skeptical that the experiment, as we understand it, will be rigorous enough," said Dianne Piche, executive director of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. "The issue here is not whether the adults in the system will be pleased -- and clearly many of them are -- but whether children ultimately will benefit."

Jim Lanich, president of California Business for Education Excellence, said the idea of lowering expectations "is the ugliest form of discrimination imaginable."

In announcing the pilot program, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings sought to assure skeptics that the new approach "is not a way around accountability standards. ... We're not taking our eye off the ball."

Numerous groups, from teacher unions to education policy think tanks, applauded the new plan.

In California, Superintendent O'Connell acknowledged that the school-by-school test-score goals established under the state's Academic Performance Index were too low to get all students to grade level by 2014. He promised that the annual goals would be set higher for all students.

"We're going to raise the bar," he said. "We need to be intellectually honest."

States have until Feb. 17, 2006, to apply for No Child Left Behind's new flexibility program.

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