Teacher World

I recently blogged regarding the announcement that half of the nation’s public schools failed to meet No Child Left Behind progress goals, which has added incentive for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others to give waivers to states allowing them to change the standards for “adequate yearly progress” in schools. One such state which plans to apply for a waiver happens to be my own home state of Ohio.

Ohio public schools did better than the nation, with 60 percent meeting federal goals during the last school year, but half of its districts failed to meet these goals.

Under current NCLB policy, all public school students are to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. To guarantee that this occurs, the federal government required states to set “adequate yearly progress” goals. Each year or every few years, these goals must be raised. Due to this practice, most states now require approximately 90 percent or more of their students to pass the state tests.

Since Ohio and Kentucky recently adopted demanding math and reading curricula and are also developing new, college-preparatory tests for students, Duncan has argued that this high bar penalizes states like these.

How bad is the problem in Ohio? Well, in the Cincinnati area, 45 percent of its public schools failed federal annual academic progress goals. The largest district, Cincinnati Public, had 67 percent of its schools fail, and the second largest, Lakota, had 9 out of 20 of its schools fail. Winton Woods had all six schools fail.

So what is the common problem within these schools? Steve Denny, the executive director of accountability for Winton Woods, says it is the schools’ diversity; he says that the more diverse the school is, the harder it is to meet federal requirements. Which makes a lot of sense.

Here’s how it works: for a school to meet federal standards, each demographic student group, or subgroup, must pass the tests. Subgroups are based on several factors including ethnicity, poverty, disability, and limited-English-speaking level of students. Schools that don’t have many of these students have few federal progress goals to meet. But, according to Denny, it only takes a few students in a subgroup to fail for the school and district to fail as well.

Janet Walsh, the district spokesperson for Cincinnati Public, explained that in the 39 schools in the district which failed to meet federal goals, learning disabilities were a factor. She went on to explain that about 5 percent of the students in the district are unable to take the regular state tests due to severe disabilities. Yet, Ohio only allows these schools to give alternative tests to one percent of its students. This means that the other four percent fail the tests.

Jeanine Molock, director of accountability at the Ohio Department of Education said, “Ohio is in a better position than most states. Our story wasn’t as dramatic as most states were reporting.” She explained that part of the reason for this is the fact that Ohio allows its schools to meet federal standards four different ways, which exceeds the chances which other states have.

First, there is the traditional way: if the required numbers of students pass their state tests, as in other states, Ohio schools can meet federal goals. However, if an Ohio school fails that, it can still pass if one of the following goals is met:

• its two-year average for passing grades meets the federal standard,
• or enough students are on a trajectory to pass tests within two years,
• or the percent of students failing declines by 10 percent from the prior year.

But, Molock said that, in spite of this flexibility, Ohio will seek a waiver from federal progress restrictions by February. Those of us who are Ohio teachers will be watching to see if our state gets a waiver, and if so, what exactly that waiver means for our schools.

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Finally, some welcome news regarding No Child Left Behind, but it’s still not what President Obama has been asking for; reforming the federal education law before the beginning of this school year. Let’s look at why reform is necessary and what will be happening until true reform occurs on this law.

Since federal educational aid is directly linked to standardized testing results under NCLB, this law has received criticism from many. One of the legitimate concerns with this link between aid and test results is that it causes teachers to focus primarily on the material that would elevate test scores. And yet, in spite of a proposal which was introduced 16 months ago and countless Congressional meetings and hearings held to fix NCLB, no agreement has been reached due to “partisan politics in the House,” according to a statement by the Department of Education.

Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Department of Education said that NCLB is “forcing districts into one-size-fits-all solutions that just don’t work. The President understands this and he has directed us to move ahead in providing relief.”

The director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Melody Barnes, stated, “American’s future competitiveness is being decided today, in classrooms across the nation. With no clear path to a bipartisan bill in Congress, the President has directed us to move forward with an administrative process to provide flexibility within the law for states and districts that are willing to embrace reform.”

Earlier, I wrote a blog about Idaho demanding a third year in a row without raising the proficiency targets in math and reading, relief that does not comply with NCLB. Until agreement for true reform of NCLB is reached, under this new process, states like Idaho that are seeking relief from certain provisions of NCLB will receive that relief, but they must “demonstrate commitment to education reform.” Now, I confess that I have no idea how states are to demonstrate that commitment because there were no details in the article to explain this. Barnes was quick to add that this policy is “not a pass on accountability.”

In the meantime, the administration is continuing to forge ahead on the reform of NCLB with a plan that provides for an accountability system which is more flexible and more targeted, based on measuring annual student growth on college-and career-ready standards. The plan would focus on data and the quality of a district’s teachers and principals. This “flexibility package” with all of its details, will be made public in September. 

Duncan remained hopeful that true reform will be attained soon. “We’re still hopeful that Congress can continue its work this fall. In the meantime, states and districts have an opportunity to move forward.”

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With Congress apparently too busy trying to settle economic matters in our country, it seems that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s request to make changes to No Child Left Behind is falling on deaf ears, so some states are taking matters into their own hands, apparently with permission from the U.S. Department of Education.

Take Idaho for example. According to an article in Education Week by Michelle McNeil, Idaho’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Luna wrote a letter to Arne Duncan in June stating that he did not intend to comply with NCLB mandates that require states to steadily increase proficiency targets in math and reading. In a gutsy move, Luna stated in his letter that he was taking matters into his own hands since Congress was not acting on any reauthorization plans. Rather than ask for a waiver, as other states have done, he simply informed the Department of Education of what he planned to do.

Now, one would think that this kind of rebellious action would lead to a strong reprimand at the very least, but instead, the Department of Education gave Luna formal permission to keep the same annual proficiency targets in math and reading for the third year in a row.

Other states, such as Tennessee and Michigan, were some of the latest to officially seek waivers from NCLB asking for a reprieve from the 2014 deadline which states that all students must be proficient in both math and reading. With 2014 right around the corner, many districts are legitimately concerned as more schools across the U.S. are not making adequate yearly progress. Schools have reason to be worried, because those that don’t make AYP face sanctions which get more punitive as targets are not met.

Montana was actually the first state to tell the Department of Education that it would not be raising its proficiency targets. But, instead of being granted permission, as Idaho was, state officials in Montana were told to come up with a plan that complied with NCLB by August 15 or face consequences, one of which is to lose federal Title 1 money, which is governed by NCLB.

So, why did Montana get slapped on the wrist while Idaho got permission? The main difference between these two states was that Montana was going for four years in a row with no change in targets instead of three years. Duncan’s letter to Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau stated that these “flat expectations” weren’t acceptable.

South Dakota is another state that has contacted the Department of Education for a freeze of proficiency targets for three years in a row. They are still waiting for permission.

In Arne Duncan’s letter to Idaho’s Tom Luna, he stated, “States had hoped the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind would allow for a growth model by now, but the reauthorization is now four years overdue. Therefore, Idaho will keep its current proficiency targets in place and begin implementing a new model of accountability so we can direct the state’s limited resources to those schools that are truly struggling academically.”

So, in response to the stillness in Washington concerning some revamping of NCLB, states are anxiously waiting for details regarding Duncan’s plan which would create a formal waiver process for many of the current requirements of NCLB.

Some wait, but clearly some states have decided that action is better than inaction. These states are pushing for waivers, and most have received them. My guess is that we will see more states becoming more daring and demanding waivers as we get closer to 2014, unless NCLB gets some much-needed modifications.

It’s about time, don’t you think?

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