President Obama Releases FY 2013 Budget Request, Signals Education as a Priority

From NASSP’s Principal’s Policy Blog: This past Monday, President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, which outlines his spending priorities for certain programs and purposes for the next fiscal year, which will provide funding for the 2012-2013 school year. NASSP is happy to see the President’s continued investment in education: a proposed increase to the education budget of $1.7 billion, 2.5% above fiscal year 2012 levels. This proposed increase is especially significant given that the President in contrast proposed reducing the defense budget by 1%, while non-security discretionary programs across all other agencies only received an overall increase of $2 billion. Clearly, the President is fighting for investing in education, and on behalf of NASSP members we applaud this direction. Read the rest of the blog here.

Read more about the President’s education budget from the Department of Education here.

President Obama Announces $5 Billion Proposal to Strengthen Education Profession

From NASSP’s Principal’s Policy Blog: As part of his FY 2013 budget proposal, President Obama has requested $5 billion through the American Jobs Act for a new initiative to elevate teachers and school leaders. Known as Recognizing Education Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching or “RESPECT,” the one-time competitive grant program would support states and districts “that commit to pursuing bold reforms at every stage of the teaching profession.”

“Our goal is to work with teachers and principals in rebuilding their profession and to elevate the teacher voice in federal, state and local education policy,” said US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a press release announcing the proposal. “Our larger goal is to make teaching not only America’s most important profession, but also America’s most respected profession.” Read the rest of the blog here.

Read the U.S. Department of Education press release here: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/obama-administration-seeks-elevate-teaching-profession-duncan-launch-respect-pro.

New Mexico ESEA Waiver Approved

Secretary Duncan announced this Wednesday that NM was also granted its ESEA waiver, so all 11 states that applied have now been approved. In addition, ED set September 6 as the deadline for the third round for states to submit waiver requests. See: Department of Education Approves New Mexico’s Request for Flexibility from No Child Left Behind and 3rd-Round Waiver Deadline Set, Short-Term NCLB Relief Offered

News

House Education and the Workforce Committee Holds Hearing on ESEA Bills

On Thursday, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) held a hearing on two ESEA bills he formally introduced the same day: The Student Success Act (HR 3989) that addresses accountability, and The Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act (HR 3990) that addresses teacher quality. Chairman Kline drafted and introduced these bills in a partisan manner and without the participation and support of Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA) and other Democrats after talks apparently broke down at a certain point. As a result, the committee members were divided on the appropriate federal role in education, and it did not seem as if consensus will be reached soon. NASSP has heard that Chairman Kline would like to mark up the bill in the committee the week of February 27, which would give Rep. Miller (D-CA) and any other members the chance to offer as many amendments as they would like to the bill. It remains to be seen, however, if the committee can find enough of a common ground to approve these two bills. Access the witness testimony, remarks by the Chairman and Ranking Member, and the hearing video here.

Read NASSP’s perspective on these bills here.

Finally, read an Education Week analysis of the hearing here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/22/21esea.h31.html?tkn=MTNFcszfdThFvzrdqOs0aDJe7CRZR3Dm6EDw&cmp=clp-edweek.

Brookings Institution Report Claims the Common Core Will Have Little To No Effect on Student Achievement

Excerpt from the report: “Common standards will only affect variation between and among states (analysts use the grammatically suspect “between-state” as shorthand for this kind of variation). Achievement variation existing within states is already influenced, to the extent that standards can exert influence, by the states standards under which schools currently operate. Within state variation is four to five times larger than the variation between states. Put another way, anyone who follows NAEP scores knows that the difference between Massachusetts and Mississippi is quite large. What is often overlooked is that every state has a mini-Massachusetts and Mississippi contrast within its own borders. Common state standards only target the differences between states, not within them, sharply limiting common state standards’ potential impact on achievement differences.” Read the full report here and read the Education Week summary here.

NASSP strongly supports the common core state standards, as expressed in a position statement awaiting its final draft format: http://www.nassp.org/tabid/3788/default.aspx?topic=Common_Core_State_Standards_and_Assessments_in_K_12_Education

U.S. Secretary of Education Appears on the Daily Show with John Stewart

From a Washington Post article that appeared February 17, 2012: “Jon Stewart tried to engage Education Secretary Arne Duncan on “The Daily Show” Thursday night, but the effort was an exercise in the futility of conversing with someone who won’t deviate from his talking points.

Duncan was so programmed that Stewart was even unable to get the basketball-playing secretary to have some fun talking about the New York Knicks’ new hero, Jeremy Lin.

When Stewart jokingly asked Duncan whether, having graduated from Harvard, it was “a disappointment” that he “ended up as just the secretary of education” and not as an NBA superstar, Duncan’s only response was about how great a role model the hard-working Lin was for young people.

Stewart surely knew at that point he would get nothing from Duncan, but he made a polite effort anyway, because he had time to fill and, perhaps, because he knew his mother, a teacher who apparently can’t stand Duncan’s policies, would be watching.. Read the rest of the article here.

Research

Calder Releases Report on the Effect of Principals on Student Achievement

Titled “Estimating the Effect of Leaders on Public Sector Productivity: The Case of School Principals”, the report’s abstract states: “Although much has been written about the importance of leadership in the determination of organizational success, there is little quantitative evidence due to the difficulty of separating the impact of leaders from other organizational components – particularly in the public sector. Schools provide an especially rich environment for studying the impact of public sector management, not only because of the hypothesized importance of leadership but also because of the plentiful achievement data that provide information on institutional outcomes. Outcome-based estimates of principal value-added to student achievement reveal significant variation in principal quality that appears to be larger for high-poverty schools. Alternate lower-bound estimates based on direct estimation of the variance yield smaller estimates of the variation in principal productivity but ones that are still important, particularly for high poverty schools. Patterns of teacher exits by principal quality validate the notion that a primary channel for principal influence is the management of the teacher force. Finally, looking at principal transitions by quality reveals little systematic evidence that more effective leaders have a higher probability of exiting high poverty schools.” Access the report here.

Resources

Want to Know What’s on the Department of Education’s Agenda for FY 2012-2013? The Department recently released their priority goals for fiscal year 2012-2013:

FY 2012-13 Priority Performance Goals. The goals are the following:

• Improve outcomes for all children from birth through third grade.
  By September 30 2013, at least nine states will implement a high-quality plan to collect and report disaggregated data on the status of children at kindergarten entry.
• Improve learning by ensuring that more students have an effective teacher.
  By September 30th, 2013, at least 500 school districts will have comprehensive teacher evaluation and support systems and a majority of States will have statewide requirements for comprehensive teacher and principal evaluation and support systems.
• Demonstrate progress in turning around the nation’s lowest-performing schools.
  By September 30th 2013, 500 of the nation’s persistently lowest-achieving schools will have demonstrated significant improvement and serve as potential models for future turnaround efforts.
• Make informed decisions and improve instruction through the use of data.
  By September 30th, 2013 all states will implement comprehensive statewide longitudinal data systems.
• Prepare all students for college and career.
  By September 30th 2013, all states will adopt internationally-benchmarked college- and career-ready standards.
• Improve students’ ability to afford and complete college.
  By September 30th, 2013, the Department will develop college scorecards designed to improve consumer decision-making and transparency about affordability for students and borrowers by streamlining information on all degree-granting institutions into a single, comparable, and easily-understandable format, while also helping all states and institutions develop college completion plans.

Events

Tuesday February 21, 2-3 pm EST: Want to Know More About What Is At Stake for the Fiscal Year 2013 Federal Education Budget? Attend this free webinar hosted by NASSP coalition partner Committee for Education Funding. This information is important for school leaders to know-we strongly encourage you to attend!

Register at: http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/acte/session.php?id=8479

“Our goal is to work with teachers and principals in rebuilding their profession and to elevate the teacher voice in federal, state and local education policy,” said US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a press release announcing the proposal. “Our larger goal is to make teaching not only America’s most important profession, but also America’s most respected profession.”

While most of the rhetoric surrounding RESPECT has focused almost exclusively on teachers, the key elements of the initiative would also impact principals and other school leaders:

• Attract a high-performing and diverse pool of people to become teachers and leaders in education and ensure that they are well prepared to be successful in the school environments in which they will work;
• Retain, promote and maximize the talents of accomplished teachers and leaders, while creating well-supported roles for novices;
• Create schools whose climates and cultures, use of time, approaches to staffing, use of technology, deployment of support services, and engagement of families and communities are optimized to continuously improve outcomes for the students they serve;
• Evaluate and support the development and success of teachers and leaders;
• Create an education system that provides the highest need students with the most effective teachers and principals, and provide access to other necessary resources to support every student’s academic success; and
• Transition to a significantly more effective and efficient educational system that is sustainable after the grant program has ended.

In an interview with Jon Stewart last night on The Daily Show, Secretary Duncan said that the “ability to attract and retain talent now will impact education for the next 30 years,” and we at NASSP couldn’t agree more! We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to ensure that teachers and school leaders are well-prepared and supported to meet the demands of educating students to excellence in the 21^st Century.

NASSP Applauds Proposed Increase to Education Funding Yet Is Disappointed in Frozen Funding Levels for Core Programs and Alerts Members to the Threat of Sequestration

This past Monday, President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, which outlines his spending priorities for certain programs and purposes for the next fiscal year, which will provide funding for the 2012-2013 school year. NASSP is happy to see the President’s continued investment in education: a proposed increase to the education budget of $1.7 billion, 2.5% above fiscal year 2012 levels. This proposed increase is especially significant given that the President in contrast proposed reducing the defense budget by 1%, while non-security discretionary programs across all other agencies only received an overall increase of $2 billion. Clearly, the President is fighting for investing in education, and on behalf of NASSP members we applaud this direction.

However, a closer look at the President’s education budget reveals the administration’s spending priorities within education, which give NASSP cause for concern. The President continues his investment in his signature competitive grant programs in calling for an increase to Race to the Top $300 million above its 2012 level largely to provide funds for the new Early Learning Challenge focused on early childhood education. In contrast, the President proposes to freeze funding at the 2012 levels for the core programs of Title I state grants that provide services for low-income students and of IDEA Part B state grants that fund special education services for students ages 3-21.

NASSP wants to emphasize the point that level-funding these programs actually denotes a cut in services from these programs when one factors in the rising enrollment for grades K-12 and the impact of inflation. Further, as cited in a recent New York Times article, a study found that “the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.” This evidence only underscores the need to invest more in foundational federal programs like Title I that reach all low-income students, instead of using some of this money to invest in competitive grants like Race to the Top that by nature only reach some. NASSP feels that when it comes to the achievement gap, the stakes are too high to divert Title I funds into grants like Race to the Top whose effectiveness is not yet comprehensively proven. Similarly, flat-funding IDEA grants for special education amounts to a cut in services whereby the federal share to fully fund the additional costs of special education (as measured by average per-pupil expenditure) drops to 16% despite a promised contribution of 40% (which the federal government has never fulfilled).

Consolidated Funding Streams Jeopardize Federal Programs for School Leaders

The Administration also proposes to consolidate 38 programs into nine new flexible funding streams. While the idea of flexible funding may seem favorable at face value, consolidating programs jeopardizes the chance that any of those individual programs will receive dedicated funding next year to carry out the critical services each of them provides. NASSP members should be concerned about the proposed consolidation of the School Leadership grant, funded at $29 million this year to recruit, train, and mentor principals and assistant principals in high-need districts. The administration would consolidate this program into a pathway called the Effective Teachers and Leaders State Grants that pits funding for this and other programs against one another for one pot of funds and increases the prospect that the school leadership grant will not be funded for fiscal year 2013. NASSP recognizes that school leaders already struggle to obtain funding for their own professional development against competing issues like class size reduction, and opposes this and other consolidations that further jeopardize funding for these critical services for school leaders.

NASSP Members Must Learn and Speak Out About Danger of Sequestration

Despite the promise that the President’s increase to education funding provides, NASSP members should be concerned-and vocal-about the looming threat of sequestration that would cut education programs by an untenable 9.1%. (Congress now faces the threat of sequestration because the twelve-member “Supercommittee” this fall failed to present a plan to reduce the federal deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion. As a result, according to the Budget Control Act passed in August 2011, across-the-board, deep cuts to all discretionary programs including education is scheduled to occur in 2013 unless Congress acts to stop it). As stated by Executive Director Joel Packer of NASSP’s coalition partner the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), “Education programs will be chopped by over $4 billion, moving the country backwards in efforts to close academic achievement gaps, improve overall student achievement and educator quality and increase high school graduation, college access and completion rates.” To this end, NASSP urges its members to contact their legislators and impress upon them that sequestration cannot be an option due to the severe cuts to education that it would cause and the backwards direction in which it would set our country. To learn more about the dangers of sequestration and talking points to use with your legislators, NASSP encourages you to attend a free webinar next Tuesday, February 21 2-3 pm EST hosted by CEF Executive Director Joel Packer. Register here.

For its part, NASSP Government Relations staff is joining forces with dozens of other education advocates in the Committee for Education Funding (CEF) and will be meeting with Congressional staff in the House and Senate budget committees over the next several weeks where we will reinforce the President’s message to invest in education and impress upon staff the severe threat to education funding that sequestration imposes. NASSP is timing these visits to occur before the House presents its own budget resolution for fiscal year 2013, so we can educate Congressional staff about the importance of investing in education funding in order to put our country on a long-term stable and thriving financial path.

Ten States Receive NCLB Waivers

From NASSP’s Principal’s Policy Blog: “The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced on February 9 that ten states—Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—are approved to waive certain requirements from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in exchange for raising standards, improving accountability, and undertaking reforms to improve educator effectiveness. New Mexico was the only state to apply for and not receive a waiver, but ED will continue to work with the state to improve its application. An additional 28 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have also indicated their intent to apply for waivers later this month.” Read the rest of the blog here and read about the reactions of various education groups in the News section below.

FY 2013 Education Funding: President Obama to Release FY 2013 Budget 2/13

On Monday February 13, President Obama will release his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, which outlines proposed funding for all government agencies and further, for certain programs, and gives a sense of the President’s priorities for spending in the year ahead. NASSP staff will keep you updated on the proposed budget for education overall and by particular program, but for a preview of what might be in the President’s budget, access this article: Budget Cheat Sheet: What to Watch. On February 13, budget materials will be posted online at http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget13/.

ESEA Reauthorization

House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman Kline on Thursday formally introduced his two bills to reauthorize ESEA that address accountability and teacher quality: The Student Success Act (HR 3989) and The Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act (HR 3990). He spoke about these bills at a briefing that morning hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, and a video of the briefing can be accessed here. NASSP sent a joint letter with NAESP to Congressional offices outlining areas we favor in these two bills and areas that cause serious concern: http://www.nassp.org/Content.aspx?topic=NASSP_and_NAESP_Letter_on_School_Leadership_Provisions_in_House_ESEA_Bills. NASSP and NAESP are most concerned about the diminished role of professional development in the bills’ language, when instructional leaders already struggle to obtain that funding under Title II in current regulations. Chairman Kline will hold a committee hearing on these two ESEA bills next Thursday February 16 and is expected to hold a mark-up on the bills the week of February 27. Follow NASSP staff on Twitter (@akarhuse and @kingston_m) as well as on NASSP’s Principal’s Policy Blog for the latest developments on these two bills.

White House STEM Announcement

On Tuesday, the President announced new proposals on STEM education. Among the proposals is that “The President’s upcoming budget will request $80 million for a new competition by the Department of Education to support effective STEM teacher preparation programs, such as those that allow students to simultaneously earn both a STEM degree and a teaching certificate, and provide undergraduates with early and intensive experiences in the classroom honing their skills.”

AFT Endorses President Obama for 2012

From the AFT website: “Declaring that President Obama is the only candidate who will fight to preserve and expand the middle class, close the inequality gap and ensure everyone has a “fair shot” at success, the 1.5 million strong American Federation of Teachers announced today its endorsement of President Obama and Vice President Biden for re-election.” Read more here.

News

NASSP Urges Support for Homeless Children and Youth Act

This week, NASSP staff sent an action alert to all NASSP members urging them to contact their House Representatives to vote for the Homeless Children and Youth Act (HR 32). This legislation amends the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) definition of homelessness to include children, youth, and their families who are verified as homeless by federal program personnel from four federal programs: school district homeless liaisons designated under the education subtitle of the McKinney-Vento Act; Head Start programs; Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs; and Early Intervention programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C.

The Homeless Children and Youth Act creates a streamlined, efficient referral process for homeless children and youth to access HUD homeless services. It stands in contrast to HUD’s current regulations on the definition of homelessness, which impose requirements for multiple moves and long periods of homelessness, as well as extensive documentation and recordkeeping, before a family or youth receives HUD homeless assistance. The simplicity of the Homeless Children and Youth Act is modeled on successfully implemented provisions of the Child Nutrition Act and the College Cost Reduction and Access Act.

NASSP asks you to send the form letter here to your Representatives for their support of this important legislation. Even better, include a few sentences about how this legislation would help homeless students in your school or community. A personal note from a constituent like you is very powerful!

Millions Participate in Digital Learning Day

From A U.S. Department of Education email newsletter: “Thirty-six states and Washington, D.C., 18,000 teachers, and 1.7 million students participated in the first-ever Digital Learning Day on February 1, which aimed to demonstrate how technology is improving teaching and learning across the nation.  The day kicked-off with web sessions focused on leadership and innovation, instruction, and professional learning and teacher effectiveness before attendees viewed a national town hall webcast featuring Secretary Duncan, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski, and video conferences with teachers and students from exemplary schools across the nation.  “We have to do everything we can to foster education and to help us move from print to digital as fast as we can,” the Secretary said, noting that while technology has transformed business and government around the world, it has only slightly changed the way most U.S. schools operate.  “We have to move from being a laggard to being a leader.”  Next month, the Department and the FCC will convene a meeting with policymakers and stakeholders to develop real action plans.  FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO http://www.digitallearningday.org/.  (Note: During the town hall, a collaborative of business and education leaders presented the “Digital Textbook Playbook” [http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/digital-textbook-playbook], a guide to help K-12 teachers and administrators leverage broadband technology and develop rich digital learning experiences.)”

Research

What Parents and Educators Want from K-12 Assessments

From the NWEA website: “Produced by NWEA and Grunwald Associates LLC, For Every Child, Multiple Measures: What Parents and Educators Want From K-12 Assessments gauges the assessment needs of parents, teachers and district administrators – those with the most practical and personal experience with the day-to-day impact of assessments and accountability. The study comes at a pivotal time, as policymakers are considering a new blueprint for education improvement and significant education reform initiatives are currently underway.”

The nationally representative study summarizes which assessments parents and educators find most useful, most relevant and most cost effective.

Key findings from the study include:

1. Child-centered teaching and learning is a top priority for parents and educators.
2. Parents, teachers and district administrators think it’s important to measure student performance in a full range of subjects—and in the “thinking” skills that will be critical in life.
3. Parents, teachers and district administrators agree on local decision-making about teaching and learning.
4. Formative and interim assessments are perceived as more valuable by parents and educators.
5. Many parents, teachers and administrators question the money, time and stress spent on assessment.

Access the report and executive summary here: http://www.nwea.org/every-child-multiple-measures

Resources

Report Describes the Process of Six States in Implementing Common Core

Based on interviews with state officials in the six Southeast Region states, this study describes state processes for adopting the Common Core State Standards (a common set of expectations across states for what students are expected to know in English language arts and math) and plans for implementing the common standards and aligning state assessment systems to them. Access the report and summary here.

Events

Tuesday February 21, 2-3 pm EST: Want to Know More About What Is At Stake for the Fiscal Year 2013 Federal Education Budget? Attend this free webinar hosted by NASSP coalition partner Committee for Education Funding. This information is important for school leaders to know-we strongly encourage you to attend!

Register at: http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/acte/session.php?id=8479

“After waiting far too long for Congress to reform No Child Left Behind, my Administration is giving states the opportunity to set higher, more honest standards in exchange for more flexibility,” said President Barack Obama at a White House event announcing the waivers. “Today, we’re giving 10 states the green light to continue making reforms that are best for them. Because if we’re serious about helping our children reach their potential, the best ideas aren’t going to come from Washington alone. Our job is to harness those ideas, and to hold states and schools accountable for making them work.”

The 10 states receiving waivers will no longer have to meet the 2014 deadline for 100% proficiency, but they are required to set new performance targets for improving student achievement. Their accountability systems must recognize and reward high-performing schools in addition to providing “rigorous and comprehensive” interventions in the lowest-performing schools. State plans must address how they intend to improve educational outcomes for underperforming subgroups of students and close achievement gaps, but they will also provide schools and districts with greater flexibility in how they spend Title I funding.

In a conference call with education stakeholders today, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development Carmel Martin and Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Michael Yudin explained that all of the states would not only adopt higher standards but submitted plans to transition all of their students to college and career readiness. Massachusetts was particularly noted for its plan to align teacher and principal licensure requirements with the new college and career ready standards.

States would incorporate student growth and progress into their accountability systems, and they would also move away from the one-size-fits-all intervention strategies that are required under NCLB. Some plans focused on improving school and district capacity and providing tiered supports for low-performing schools and districts. Plans also included a focus on early warning data systems to identify students that are not on track to graduate from high school and provide them with necessary supports to succeed.

Improving educator effectiveness was a requirement for the waivers, and all states will modify their teacher and principal evaluation systems to incorporate multiple measures of student achievement. The evaluation systems will be created in partnership with teachers and principals and are intended to provide meaningful feedback to teachers in order to improve instruction.

What may be of surprise to educators is that only four of the states receiving a Race to the Top grant—Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Tennessee—also received a waiver in the first round. Although it should be noted that the other seven states—Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island—have not yet submitted a request for a waiver.

To read the state plans, go to: http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility/requests. Questions and comments concerning the NCLB/ESEA waiver process may also be sent to eseaflexibility@ed.gov.

NASSP Recognizes “Digital Principals”

Congratulations to the 2012 NASSP Digital Principal Award winners: Michael King of Dodge City (KS) Middle School, Patrick Larkin of Burlington (MA) High School, and Eric Sheninger of New Milford (NJ) High School. Read more about the winners!

The Digital Principal Award is an opportunity to honor principals who exhibit bold, creative leadership in their drive to harness the potential of new technologies to further learning goals. The award also allows us to showcase models of leadership that encourage the use of technology in instruction and for principals’ own professional use.

ESEA Reauthorization

NASSP Government Relations staff has heard of the possible schedule regarding House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman Kline’s recently released ESEA bills. It is speculated that the committee could hold a hearing on the bills the week of February 13 and a mark-up the week of February 27. NASSP staff will keep you updated with the latest news on this front, but recall that Chairman Kline’s bills are very partisan in the House and the Senate doesn’t want to move its ESEA bill unless the House can produce a bipartisan bill. Also read more about Chairman Kline’s ESEA draft bill on accountability in the News section below.

House Floor Agenda

This week House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) issued a memo setting forth the issues that the House will consider in the first quarter of this year. Though the memo lists the plan to pass a budget resolution by the end of March, interestingly, there is no mention of ESEA reauthorization in this quarter.

News

38 Groups Decry House Republicans’ ESEA Draft Bill on Accountability

A coalition of education, business and civil rights groups sent a letter last week to Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, expressing their grave disapproval of Chairman Kline’s draft bill on accountability, the Student Success Act. The signed organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stated that

“The draft bill is not an update; it is a roll­back…It under­mines the core American value of equal opportu­nity in education embodied in [Brown v. Board of Education, 107 LRP 36247, 347 U.S. 483, (1954)]. Specifically, it abandons accountability for the achievement and learning gains of subgroups of disadvantaged students who for generations have been harmed by low academic expectations.” The letter goes on to state that the committee’s proposal “also eliminates performance targets, removes parameters regarding the use of federal funds to help improve struggling schools, does not address key disparities in opportunity such as access to high-quality college preparatory curricula, restricts the federal government from protecting underprivileged students, and fails to advance the current movement toward college-and career-ready standards.” NASSP has similar concerns about the issue of neglecting accountability for disadvantaged students, as expressed in our January 9 blog post. Look for a joint statement from NASSP and other education groups on the Principal’s Policy Blog soon outlining favored provisions in the draft language along with our concerns, many of which resonate with those expressed in this group’s letter.

Report Finds Progress Among States on Teacher Quality Measures

The National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently issued its annual “State Teacher Policy Yearbook” and found that in 2011 states made significant gains in teacher quality, but still earned only an overall grade of D+ in their efforts to improve teacher evaluation systems and policies to identify effective teachers and to help remove ineffective ones. With Race to the Top serving as part of the momentum for change, NCTQ assessed that “new state policies for identi­fying effective teachers and exiting ineffective ones contributed to the highest Yearbook grades NCTQ has given to date.” State specific information is available at www.nctq.org/stpy.

Few States’ Science Standards Are High Quality

A report published by the Washington, DC think tank Thomas Fordham Institute finds that in analyses of the rigor and quality of state science standards, 75 percent of states scored a C or lower on an A-F scale, and just five states and the District of Columbia earned an A or an A-minus. Reviewers used a common grading metric to evaluate the science standards for content, completeness, accuracy, and clarity. Kathleen Porter-Magee, senior director of the High Quality Standards Program at the Fordham Institute, said states should use these reviews to determine the specific strengths and growth areas of their own standards against the Next Generation Science Standards, which 26 states and Achieve is currently designing. See how your state fared and read the full report here: http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/the-state-of-state-science-standards-2012.html.

Research

Center for American Progress Reports

1) On Chairman Kline’s ESEA Bills: “House Republicans’ Education Plan Would Shortchange Disadvantaged Students and Schools.” Part of the report analyzes the impact of the proposed formula change for ESEA Title II funds.

Access the report here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/cut_and_run.html.

2) On Spending by Category that Contributed to the Federal Deficit: What Caused This Year’s Deficit?: Hint: It Wasn’t an Obama ‘Spending Binge’. The report notes that nondefense discretionary spending only resulted in 9% of the increased deficit since 2009.

Resources

New Website Focusing on Achievement Gaps

Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s leading measurement and research organization, has created a new website to draw attention to achievement gaps among students, provide resources to those studying the issue and highlight success stories.

The site looks at why and where achievement gaps exist; the impact they have on students, teachers, families, communities and national competitiveness; and most importantly how they can be narrowed and eventually closed. The ETS Achievement Gap website is: www.ets.org/achievement_gap.

Events

Chairman Kline ESEA Event: Chairman Kline will speak about his ESEA bills at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event on February 9. For details and to register (and to view the video of the event if you are not within the Washington, DC area): Chairman Kline Unveils GOP Vision to Fix No Child Left Behind

NASSP Releases Statement on President Obama’s State of the Union Address

“We call on the President to renew his pressure on Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and fix what is not working for all schools in No Child Left Behind. While the current law did some good in highlighting the achievement gap, the law’s high-stakes testing and onerous AYP provisions do little to reduce the gap. If education is indeed to become our national mission, the commitment must begin with a fairer and more flexible federal law.” Read the rest of NASSP’s statement here.

President Obama’s FY 2013 Budget to Be Released Monday, February 13

President Obama will lay out his FY 2013 budget proposal on February 13, which will reflect his priorities for spending for the next fiscal year. NASSP is actively involved in the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of over 90 education organizations that advocates for adequate federal funding, and that publishes and distributes on the Hill a budget response book (in response to the President’s budget) outlining the conditions and needs for various federal programs, including school leadership. We will take part in the same effort this year to ensure that as the Congressional budget and appropriations committees draft their FY 2013 budget proposals, they are aware of the need to invest in education. Go here to see CEF’s budget response for FY 2012: http://cef.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Budget-Response-FY-12-FINAL.pdf.

News

President Obama Delivers State of the Union (SOTU) Address

The text of the speech and additional materials are available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/25/president-obama-state-union. Also see the Department of Education blog post: An America Built to Last and the Blueprint for An America Built to Last (pdf). Senate Democrat leaders said on Wednesday they plan to bring pieces of President Obama’s economic “blueprint” unveiled in his State of the Union speech to the floor in coming months. In the President’s Blueprint that follows much of his SOTU address, there aren’t many specific proposals for education. Below, however, are the excerpts from the Blueprint on proposals related to K-12 issues:

Attract, prepare, support, and reward great teachers to help students learn: Teaching is a profession and should be treated like one. The latest research says a great teacher could increase the lifetime income of an entire classroom by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The President is fighting to protect our schools from being hurt by the recession by providing states and communities with funds to prevent teacher layoffs, and avoid increases to class sizes or decreases in the number of school days. The President is also asking for a new competitive program that will challenge states and districts to work with their teachers and unions to comprehensively reform the teaching profession by:

• Reforming colleges of education and making these schools more selective;

• Creating new career ladders for teachers to become more effective, and ensuring that earnings are tied more closely to performance;

• Establishing more leadership roles and responsibilities for teachers in running schools; improving professional development and time for collaboration among teachers; and providing greater individual and collective autonomy in the classroom in exchange for greater accountability;

• Creating evaluation systems based on multiple measures, rather than just test scores;

• Re-shaping tenure to raise the bar, protect good teachers, and promote accountability.

Keep students in high school: The President challenged state governments to live up to their responsibilities by calling on every state to do what 20 states have already done: require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18. Studies show that stronger dropout laws keep students in school longer and increase their lifetime earnings as a result. Raising compulsory school requirements, in conjunction with the Administration’s historic investments in low-performing schools, will curb the high school dropout crisis and set students down a path of academic and career success.

See statements from leading members of Congress in response to the President’s address:

Kline Responds to State of the Union Address

Rhetoric vs. Action: State of the Union Promises and the House Republican Agenda

Harkin Statement on President Obama’s Third State of the Union Address

Rehberg Response to President Obama’s State of the Union

DELAURO RESPONSE TO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Enzi response to President’s State of the Union address

Miller Statement on President Obama’s State of the Union Address

President Obama Proposes a Race to the Top Program for Higher Education

In a speech President Obama delivered this morning at the University of Michigan, he proposed a $1 billion competitive grant for states to improve their higher education systems.

As stated in Education Week, “To snag the grants, states would have to smooth the transition between K-12 and college education by aligning entrance and exit standards between the two systems. That proposal would appear to build on an incentive in the original, $4 billion Race to Top for K-12 (Race to the Top Classic), which rewarded states for many things, including if they signed onto the Common Core State Standards Initiative—an effort by states to create more uniform, rigorous standards that prepare students for post-secondary education.

That may be a tall order in the current cloudy economic forecast, in which nearly every state has squeezed funding for post-secondary education in recent years.” Read the entire article here: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/01/white_house_proposes_new_race.html.

More States Encouraging Students to Graduate Early

More states are increasing the pace of high school curriculum and giving college scholarships as strategies to encourage students to graduate early in order to save district money and allow students to start their post-secondary careers or education sooner. New scholarship programs for early high school graduates are being introduced in Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, and South Dakota, while legislation is pending in other states.

As quoted in Education Week, “Still, the model can face opposition when state money to districts walks with the departing students. And others are skeptical that students can be truly ready for college a semester or two early. With a growing emphasis on individual and online learning, as well as continued budget pressures, experts anticipate that the option of graduating early will continue to be debated in statehouses in the new legislative sessions.” Read the rest of the article here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/01/25/18graduation_ep.h31.html?tkn=PLRFiP4FV0m%2FB%2B7SDbe4P7FQdSVDqNgVEUBp&cmp=clp-edweek.

Center on Education Policy Report Finds Progress with Common Core Implementation but Challenges with Budgetary Constraints

In a report published this Wednesday, Center on Education Policy staff report on the progress of implementing common core standards now that efforts are in year two. While the report finds that the “vast majority of survey states are taking steps to familiarize state and district officials with the new standards and to align curriculum and assessments,” most of the states surveyed for the report do not expect to implement the standards until the 2014-2015 school year or later. Further, most states prophesied the challenge of adequate resources to fully implement the standards. Read the report here: http://www.cep-dc.org/displayDocument.cfm?DocumentID=391.

Research

States Vary on Special Education Enrollment: “An analysis of Department of Education data shows that the percentage of students in special education varies widely among states. While Rhode Island tops the country at 18%, Texas, at 9%, is at the bottom. The average percentage across all states is 13%.” See: State Special Education Rates Vary Widely

Resources

CEP Report: The Center on Education Policy recently issued: A Public Education Primer: Basic (and Sometimes Surprising) Facts about the U.S. Education System, 2012 Revised Edition.

ECS Report: 12 for 2012: Issues to Move Education Forward in 2012

Events

Chairman Kline ESEA Event: Chairman Kline will speak about his ESEA bills at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event on February 9. For details and to register: Chairman Kline Unveils GOP Vision to Fix No Child Left Behind

The rare act of bipartisanship from Republican and Democratic staff members offers us all a glimmer of hope, as both groups will be responsible for writing legislation to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and other federal laws affecting the day-to-day activities in our nation’s schools.

During their day at Woodbridge, the congressional staff sat in on seventh-grade personal learning community (PLC) meetings, visited a mix of single-sex and coed classes, and met with the school’s leadership team and a group of teachers, parents, and students. As one of the congressional staff members explained to the larger group, the visit was an opportunity for them to see what’s working in high-achieving schools and help others replicate those activities through the development of federal legislation.

Principal Skyles Calhoun was pleased to share Woodbridge’s success with the congressional staff. “The media is full of coverage about the low performance of some public schools, but it’s a rare occasion to be able to showcase what’s going right in public education,” he said. “I would encourage all principals to invite their members of Congress and staff to visit their schools in order to gain a more accurate picture of our challenges and successes.”

Leading a middle school of more than 1,000 majority low-income and diverse students is no easy task. As they explained to the representatives, Calhoun and his two assistant principals are each predominately responsible for one grade as well as the content areas, special education, and “encore” or elective classes. The school leaders make a concerted effort to be visible to students and teachers: they sit in desks conspicuously placed in the hallways, frequently visit classrooms, and cover cafeteria duty each day.

Teachers also spend a lot of their time in meetings, talking about data, instruction, and how they can improve the performance of individual students. To give extra assistance to struggling students who are not able to attend afterschool tutoring sessions, the school employs a modified schedule on Fridays.

Calhoun disclosed that one of the school’s major strategies to motivate and engage students is their rewards program, “Very Important Students Academically” or “VISA.” Students who make all As or Bs during the previous grading period receive a VISA card with a red lanyard to wear to school. The card allows them to go to the front of the line in the cafeteria and to be the first ones to get on the buses in the afternoon. As one teacher noted, the program is of little-to-no cost for the school, but its perks mean a lot to the students who agreed that it’s a great motivator to perform better academically.

Classroom visits highlighted the exemplary teaching that contributes to the success of the school. In a same-sex math class for seventh-grade girls, students played the role of teacher and used the Smartboard to present lessons while their peers calculated answers on their personalized whiteboards. In a same-sex English class for eighth-grade boys, students were being taught how to express tone by writing letters to the school janitor after taking part in an imaginary cafeteria food fight. Posted in each classroom was the lesson objective along with friendly reminders about assignments, field trip dues, and upcoming projects.  

The visit ended with a question and answer session attended by the school leadership team, teachers, parents, and students. Much of the conversation focused on Woodbridge’s same-sex education program where students can participate in all-boy or all-girl math, science, language arts, and history classes. Parents can opt-in to have their children participate in the program, and because it’s the only same-sex education program in Prince William County, the school serves 100 out-of-district students.

Students participating in the program raved about their classes, describing how in the all-boys class the teacher may throw a football to an individual student before he answers a question, but in the all-girls’ class the students may work more collaboratively and pass each other notes with the answer. One parent whose son was enrolled in the program said that he seemed to enjoy middle school more than elementary school. On the other hand, another parent explained that because her son is autistic, he prefers the more structured environment of the co-ed classes. One congressional representative, in particular, expressed concern that the program was reinforcing gender stereotypes, but Calhoun and his team defended the same-sex strategy, citing the academic success of the students participating in the program and noting that the girls seemed more empowered and confident.

The congressional staff members were also interested in learning about the parental engagement of low-income parents and non-English speakers, how sixth graders felt about their transition from elementary to middle school, professional development opportunities for teachers and school leaders, bullying, and the students’ career aspirations. They also tried to “recruit” the aspiring lawyers in the room to instead consider a profession on Capitol Hill.

It’s a deal schools will happily make, provided the right supports are in place. Such supports include a commitment to strengthen the entire education profession through better preparation programs and professional development for teachers, principals, and other instructional staff. This development extends to meaningful educator-evaluation systems that resist a focus on student test scores to assess educator performance.

Such supports include formula funding to balance out the Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation grant programs that drive competition among states to the detriment of low-income students in states that lose. Dedicated resources for programs like Title I will provide ALL students—regardless of state or district—a chance to succeed.

And most immediately, if we’re to no longer “teach to the test,” such supports include policies that are no longer written to the test. We call on the President to renew his pressure on Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and fix what is not working for all schools in No Child Left Behind. While the current law did some good in highlighting the achievement gap, the law’s high-stakes testing and onerous AYP provisions do little to reduce the gap. If education is indeed to become our national mission, the commitment must begin with a fairer and more flexible federal law.

The flexibility of a reauthorized ESEA would arrive just in time for schools to accept the President’s challenge to keep all students in school until age 18 or until they graduate. States with such a policy already in place point to a number of benefits, according to a 2010 NASSP position statement, including greater social mobility for students in poverty who are required to remain in school longer. Raising the compulsory age alone, however, will have no real affect. The policy must be accompanied by a comprehensive school renewal, as encouraged in the Breaking Ranks framework for school improvement, to empower students as owners of their own learning and as the innovators who will fulfill the broader vision of America that President Obama described.

President Obama to Deliver the State of the Union Address January 25

President Obama will give his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress next week on Tuesday, January 25 at 9 pm EST. White House staff have indicated that to get a sense of the themes that will likely be in the speech, to look at the speech President Obama recently gave in Osawatomie, Kansas. White House staff has also indicated that this speech will be the policy and message guide for the White House for this year. Read the speech here: Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas.  The word “education” is mentioned 11 times and “school” 6 times.

FY 2012 Budget and Appropriations

The following articles will give you a good sense of the political outlook for this 2^nd session of the 112^th Congress:

GOP returns with New Year’s hangover,

On the Hill, the worst is yet to come,

House GOP Looks to Regroup After Short Workweek and

2012 Budget Debate: Like “The Hangover, Part II”

News

Duncan Implies Most of FY 2012 Race to the Top Funding Will Go to Districts

In the final FY 2012 appropriations bill that includes education spending, the competitive grant Race to the Top received $550 million (down from $700 million in FY 2011). U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan indicated that most of this FY 2012 money will award districts this time around, instead of states. Secretary Duncan said in an Education Week interview last week, “You can do different things. You can do early childhood as a piece of that, or STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] as a piece of that…I don’t want to commit, but the bulk of the money will go through districts. … What we’ll be asking of districts is still very much up for consideration.” Read the full article here.

Apple Unveils E-Textbook Strategy for K-12

Apple has created a partnership with three major textbook publishers-McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt-to move into the K-12 space and offer interactive textbooks at its iBooks store priced at $14.99 or less. According to Education Week, “The textbooks feature multimedia elements, including video, three-dimensional graphics, and photo galleries. They also allow students to highlight text to create flashcards and search within a glossary.” Read more about Apple’s move into e-textbooks here.

Secretary Duncan Sits Down For a Comprehensive Interview

This week U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sat down with an Education Week reporter to discuss many issues, including waivers, Race to the Top, reauthorization, and the election. On the topic of waivers, here is one of the questions and Secretary Duncan’s response: “Q. How does the Education Department monitor dozens of different, sophisticated state accountability systems?

A. I think about that a lot. Part of the business we should be in is managing a portfolio of states. And so it’s 50 relationships. It’s not insignificant, but I think it’s really manageable. … And then the other thing, just like Race to the Top, I’m not promising anyone we’re going to bat 1,000. We may grant a waiver to a state that makes its commitments in good faith, but doesn’t keep them. And just to be very clear, and just as in Race to the Top, if we need to revoke the waiver six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, because folks can’t deliver on what they said, we’re more than prepared to do that.” Read the entire interview here.

Research

Editorial Projects in Education (EPE)

“The EPE Research Center is a division of Editorial Projects in Education, the non-profit organization that publishes Education Week.

The Research Center conducts annual policy surveys, collects data, and performs analyses that appear in the Quality Counts and Diplomas Count annual issues of Education Week. The Center also manages the Education Counts database of state policy indicators, releases periodic special reports on a variety of topics, and contributes data and analysis to coverage in Education Week.” Explore their research here: http://www.edweek.org/rc/?intc=thed.

Resources

Center on Education Policy Releases Public Education Primer

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) has released the new and updated version of its popular Public Education Primer. The Primer packages national data about students, teachers, school districts, schools, and other areas of elementary and secondary education. It includes easy-to-read facts and figures on the distribution of students, student demographics, funding, student achievement, teachers, and much more.

CEP’s Public Education Primer uses the most recent data available. In many cases, data are compared over the past decade or projected into the future.

Click here to access the full report, which is available for free.

ED Strategic Plan: The Department of Education has posted its draft strategic plan for fiscal years 2011 through 2014 on its website for public comment.  From January 13-27, 2012, the Department is seeking comments on the content of the document.  Any comments can be sent to strategicplancomments@ed.gov before the period closes on Friday, January 27^th. The draft plan can be found here: www.ed.gov/about/reports/strat/index.html.

Jobs Council Report: The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness this week “released “Road Map to Renewal,” a year-end report addressing the broader factors influencing American prosperity and competitiveness in a global age.” A large section of this report deals with education and life-long learning issue