Education Advocate articles

July/August 2002

Ready or not – Federal law hits local schools

The effects of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation signed into law in January are now being felt in public schools across the country. The U.S. Department of Education has released a list of 8,600 “failing” public schools, with 256 in Pennsylvania. All these schools are Title 1 schools, meaning the student population meets certain poverty requirements. Over one million students are affected nationally.

No national measure was used to identify these “failing” schools. Instead each state identified its own schools that have failed to meet their state’s academic standards for two consecutive years. It is therefore impossible to compare the numbers. For example, Arkansas identified NO schools as “failing;” whereas, Michigan identified 1,513, one-third of the state’s schools. All “failing” schools will remain on the list until they show their students have made state-defined “adequate improvement” for two consecutive years.

What must schools on the federal failure list do? Each must provide public school choice , with schools failing for three consecutive years also offering supplemental education services.

• Public school choice means that students must be given the

   option to transfer to another public school in the district or in a

   cooperating neighboring district. Transportation costs are the

   responsibility of the failing school district.

• Supplemental education services refer to academic assistance

given outside of the regular school day, e.g. tutoring. States must

prepare a list of approved providers that meet specific guidelines.

• For both programs, the lowest-achieving students from low-

income families are given priority in placement.

• For both programs, distance learning can be an option.

• For both programs, detailed information about the choices of

   schools and/or supplemental services must be given to parents in

   their preferred language and in adequate time to make decisions

   for their children. 1

The above information is the theory – what “failing” schools are supposed to provide for the upcoming 2002-2003 school year. The reality may be something quite different.

Newspaper stories from across the country report the frustration felt by districts with failing schools. Where will students transfer when there are not enough openings in other schools? Will additional Title 1 federal funds cover escalating transportation costs? How can all the necessary plans be made and notifications sent to parents before school starts? Are the criteria used to identify “failing” schools too rigorous in some states and too lenient in others?

In Chicago, more than 110,000 students will be eligible to transfer to another school, but only 3,000 slots are available. In Kentucky, notification of “failing" schools will be delayed until mid-September while officials wait for the most current state test scores. About half of Cleveland’s schools are “failing.”

The problems with this massive program may best be illustrated by reports from Ohio and Michigan that reveal that some of the “failing” schools were previously designated national Blue Ribbon Schools!

The NCLB goal is 100% proficiency in math and reading in 12 years, with all schools showing steady annual progress. This first step toward that goal is being instituted in August, whether schools are ready or not.

1 Letter from U.S. Secretary of Education Paige to stateand local education officials,

14 June 2002 www.nochildleftbehind.gov.

January/February 2003

“A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom”

Under the NCLB Act, all new teachers in Title 1 programs must be certified and demonstrate subject-matter competence. This standard extends to all teachers of core academic subjects by the end of the 2005-06 school year. The recently released federal report, Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge, 1 will guide the states in establishing improved teacher certification requirements and transforming teacher preparation programs.

The report reveals some of the problems inherent in the current teacher preparation and certification programs:

· Well-qualified college graduates who have not completed a

teacher-training program are usually not allowed to teach.

·      Existing standards permit teachers to be certified despite weak

       content knowledge because required courses lack academic

       rigor. Certification does not always equate with being qualified.

· Teacher training fails to attract the best students.

· Teacher tests have low cut-off scores.

· Little evidence confirms that a certified teacher is more effective

than an uncertified one in bringing about student achievement.

The report recommends:

• Teacher education must become more rigorous and

    streamlined.

• Certification standards should focus on subject matter

    knowledge and verbal ability, not completion of coursework.

• Requirements for pedagogical training should be set by

    school districts as conditions for employment, not by states

    as conditions for certification 2 .

Representatives of teacher unions and schools of education have criticized the report’s findings. Although they may agree that teacher quality does need improvement, they claim the report is critical, misleading, and fails to recognize areas of improvement. Critics also blame teaching problems on factors outside of teacher training, such as unprofessional working environments, inadequate salaries, schoolhouse politics, and over-regulation.

Regardless of these complaints, this legislation makes it possible for states to develop meaningful teacher certification systems and for schools of education to weed out courses that teach unsubstantiated education practices, edufads, and experimental theories. Graduates of such improved programs are more likely to become the highly qualified teachers needed in American classrooms.

1 Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge, The Secretary’s Annual Report on

Teacher Quality , Office of Postsecondary Education, 2002.

2 Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge, From a ConsumerPerspective ,

Vol. 2, July 2002 – www.education-consumers.com .

January/February 2003

States Implement NCLB

The federal Department of Education (DOE) is implementing the 1000+ page NCLB legislation by writing regulations for all states to follow. According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, “while states remain committed to the law and have made significant progress in compliance with testing and accountability mandates, they still face formidable challenges.”

The report identifies several obstacles that states are facing:

· Lack of federal funding for the new federal mandates

· Meeting rigid regulation deadlines

· Making individual state education programs conform to the

federal one size fits all requirements

· Creating a database of supplemental services to be offered to

students in failing schools

· Finding space for students to transfer out of failing or dangerous

schools, even if transfers cause overcrowding in other schools

A major concern in Pennsylvania involves the validity of the accountability system itself. The PA academic standards are the basis for education programs in the state. Critics claim that the standards lack rigor and impose certain teaching methods on local districts. For example, many experts believe that the math standards are weak and push fuzzy math at the expense of solid, content-driven math programs. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) is used to measure the level of student success in learning the standards. Educators across the state have questioned the reliability and accuracy of PSSA scores. An entire state education accountability system based on questionable standards and testing will give dubious results. Yet this system is the state and federal “hammer” that rewards or punishes individual students, individual schools, and entire districts.

Another significant concern relates to the NCLB requirement that ALL students in ALL subgroups must improve their state test scores EVERY school year. NCLB calls this Average Yearly Progress (AYP). Each state defines AYP and determines how to measure it. At a press conference on January 3, Naomi Chudowsky of the Center on Education Policy explained that although closing education gaps among student subgroups is vital, it is unrealistic to expect that every school will make constant, gradual improvements in every student subgroup because of student transience, annual variability in actual test questions, and other factors. Yet failure to meet AYP will put thousands of schools on the failure list each year.

One very specific problem has surfaced with the new list of failing schools. Of the 884 Pennsylvania schools on the list, 108 are considered failing simply because less than 95% of the students took the PSSA. Since Pennsylvania allows parents to opt their children out of the PSSA for religious reasons, it is possible that less than 95% of a class will take the PSSA in some schools. The federal regulations are not flexible enough to account for this state provision.

Although the rhetoric from Washington claims that NCLB respects local control, the iron fist of federal regulations and federal approval of state implementation plans belies that claim. Yes, states and local districts can fill in some of the blanks, but the number of blanks is dwindling as education moves into the era of NCLB.

Report: From the Capital to the Classroom by Center on Education Reform at