On Saturday, March the Obama administration released its Blueprint for Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the current version of which is the infamous No Child Left Behind. On Wednesday Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will go before the relevant committees in the House and Senate, chaired respectively by George Miller of CA and Tom Harkin of IA. Those of us who are teachers are more than disappointed by what we have read. Those who care about teachers worry about the thrust of the proposal. And those in educational policy circles with which I associate worry that the committees will do little to rein in what we see as the destructive tendencies of the proposal - it is not coincidental that the roll-out took place in Iowa with Sen. Harkin accompanying Secretary Duncan.
The proposal is a 45 page PDF (realistically, 41 pages of actual content). I cannot in a diary of readable length explore all of what is wrong with the proposal. But let me give at least a sense - from others as well as me - of the problems with this proposal.
The administration will in its talking points argue that it is increasing funding for elementary and secondary education. True, but . . .
And the administration will be attempting to pound its interpretation into the American public's consciousness before there can be any opportunity for critical voices to be heard. The Secretary made the rounds yesterday of the Morning shows, pushing a message that the administration is "fixing" the worst effects of NCLB. Except that it is not, a point to which I will get.
Let me address the funding. I am using as a source a document marked "Confidential Draft" that was distributed over the weekend by Politico in PDF form, but which appears to be intended as a Powerpoint. It is one of two such documents, this one titled "ESEA REAUTHORIZATION" and the other, shorter one, "Before and After: Broad Principles" which emphasizes the points the administration wishes to implant about changes from NCLB - this second document is labeled "CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT - INTERNAL USE ONLY - 3/13/2010."
Turning to the first of these two documents, the administration provides a graphic intended to show that it is increasing funding for Elementary and Secondary Education from 25 billion in FY 2010 to 28 billion in FY 2011. This does not include an additional billion promised by the president should reauthorization be completed this year.
That sounds like a substantial increase, and in some ways it is. But one needs to look more carefully, even at this graphic. The current FY funding is 20.8 billion for Formula grants and 4.2 billion for competitive grants (about which more in a moment). For FY 2011 the funding for Formula grants DROPS by half a billion to 20.3, while that for competitive grants almost doubles to 7.8 billion.
Let me stop on this point for one minute. We saw as a result of the education funding through ARRA, specifically the Race to the Top (RttP) program, that Secretary Duncan - and the President - seem to believe that competition is the way to improve education, even though there is no evidence such an approach will work, especially in helping those students most in need, from economically poor circumstances, in schools in communities that lack resources of funding and community support. Yesterday I heard Diane Ravitch say that education should not be a matter of competition but rather of cooperation. And if our intent was indicated by the title of the previous version of ESEA, ripped off from the Children's Defense Fund, please explain how a competition which inevitably has winners and losers guarantees leaving no child behind?
Formula funding includes the basic Title I funding. ESEA was established in the Johnson administration to provide resources to offset the impacts of poverty. Yesterday at an event at the Education Policy Institute a representative of the Education Department, Carmel Martin, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, was challenged on cutting basic funding for Title I by Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers. Martin insisted that the administration was not cutting basic funding, even though the graphic to which I refer makes clear that non-competitive funding is being cut significantly, even without including the additional funds needed because of inflation just to stay even - and that is without the increasing levels of poverty as the effects of the recession linger and in some cases worsen.
The administration claims that it is broadening the measures that can be used for evaluating schools to more than just reading and math tests. Except a key portion of its proposal is a mandatory closing of lowest performing schools - 5,000 nation wide - and of restructuring of another chunk. The determination of which schools fall into these two categories can be made only using the tests for math and reading, a point Richard Rothstein of EPI made to me yesterday. To avoid falling into such a category continues - even exacerbates - the pressure to narrow the curriculum to prep for those two tests, one of the worst of the results of NCLB over the most recent years.
This administration has made it clear it is no friend of teachers, despite the rhetoric of its broad strokes in the proposal. We note the support of both Duncan and Obama for firing all of the teachers at the school in Rhode Island. We can note Duncan's praise for New Orleans, calling Katrina a blessing because of the restructuring it allowed of the schools - to a system that is now almost entirely charters, but without significant improvements.
Both Duncan and Obama are for major expansion of charters, even though the record on charters is at best mixed. There are some outstanding charters, there are just as many charters that perform far worse than the public schools from which they draw their students, and for most there is little if any difference from the sending schools. We have not as yet been able to clearly define what makes a charter successful. Yet this administration wants to spend $400 million on Supporting Effective Charters. Compare that proposed funding to these proposals, appearing on the same slide: Promoting Public School Choice ($90 million) and Magnet School Assistance ($110 Million). In other words, this administration will commit twice as much to charters as it will towards more traditional public schools of choice.
It would take too long to fully explore the current problems with charters. One issue to note: for many hostile to teachers charters are a way of busting the unions, since often they are free from union contracts (although a few operators, such as Green Dot, are beginning to enter into union contracts). This means teachers have few protections from abusive administrators and operators, and little due process protections. And for all the people who praise certain operators, note this: most charters do NOT have to accept or keep all students. They are often allowed to exclude the most difficult to educate - English Language Learners, Special Ed kids - an even if they admit by lottery the parents have to take the initiative to sign up for the lottery. KIPP and others often require a further commitment from parents, and many - KIPP in San Francisco being notorious on this - "counsel out" the students who are not performing well (one really needs to look at the retention rates in charters, both of students and of teachers).
As far as restructuring of schools, much of this administration's proposal is based on Duncan's experience running Chicago schools. And yet, any honest examination of his tenure would recognize the lack of success. The reconstituted schools were usually not comparable to those they replaced, because somehow the more difficult to educate students were NOT in the new schools. And despite all of the publicity put out by the school administration, independent examinations of performance were devastating. In fact, Chicago's performance was near the bottom of large city school districts. What is interesting is that tendency seemed consistent with mayoral control, whereas the big city school districts that were performing well on the kinds of measures Duncan wants to use, such as Austin, did not have mayoral control.
Let me offer a few reactions from others. First I want to quote statements issued in the names of the two presidents of the teachers' unions. While I am sure you can find them on their web sites, I am pressed for time this morning and am quoting from an email that is available in the archives of FairTest's Assessment Reform Network - if I have a chance, I will come back and provide a link.
From the NEA:
NEA president to Administration: "Takes working together to improve schools"
"Blueprint" proposal needs redrafting if it is to fulfill America's education promise
WASHINGTON-The White House has announced that the Obama administration's "blueprint" for reauthorization will be forwarded to Congress on Monday, March, 15, 2010. The following statement can be attributed to Dennis Van Roekel, president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association:
"We are disappointed by this first effort by the Administration to rectify the considerable problems in the current federal education law.
"What excited educators about President Obama's hopes and vision for education on the campaign trail has not made its way into this blueprint. We were expecting to see a much broader effort to truly transform public education for kids. Instead, the accountability system of this 'blueprint' still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers. We were expecting more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations. Instead, the 'blueprint' requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario. We were expecting school turnaround efforts to be research-based and fully collaborative. Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration.
"The public knows that struggling schools need a wide range of targeted actions to ensure they succeed, and yet the Administration's plan continues to call for prescriptions before the actual problems are diagnosed. We need proven answers along with the deep insight of the experienced professionals who actually work in schools.
"We know that it takes all stakeholders working together to improve our schools. The Administration's plan leaves out students' first teachers-their parents. There is no attempt in the 'blueprint' to support parents' efforts to be more involved in their children's education.
"The National Education Association cannot support the Administration's plan at this time. We are sharing the 'blueprint' with our members so their voices are heard. We intend to engage in a productive dialogue to meet the needs of students, educators and public schools."
For more information about NEA's principles for the reauthorization of ESEA, visit www.nea.org/esea.
Last modified: Sunday, March 14, 2010
From the AFT:
AFT Disappointed with Administration's ESEA Blueprint
Based on an initial review of the U.S. Department of Education's plan for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it appears that despite some promising rhetoric, this blueprint places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them zero percent authority, AFT president Randi Weingarten says. The plan was released on March 13.
"For a law affecting millions of schoolchildren and their teachers, it just doesn't make sense to have teachers-and teachers alone-bear the responsibility for school and student success," Weingarten says.
"Teachers are on the front lines, in the classroom and in the community, working day and night to help children learn. They should be empowered and supported-not scapegoated. We are surprised and disappointed that the Obama administration proposed this as a starting point for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We will work to make this law, which is the lifeblood for millions of disadvantaged students, work for kids and their teachers. Our next step is to share this blueprint with teachers in America's classrooms to elicit their opinions."
Hundreds of AFT members already have weighed in on the future of ESEA-the main federal education law-by responding to an AFT Voices question on the union's public Web site. [AFT press release]
March 13, 2010
Not quite as critical is this statement from the National School Board Association:
NSBA: Encouraged by New Education Blueprint and Overhaul of No Child Left Behind
Statement by Anne L. Bryant
Executive Director, National School Boards Association
Alexandria, Va., - March 14, 2010 - "The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is encouraged by the direction that the administration is taking in its blueprint to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
"Overall, the efforts are a vast improvement over the flawed No Child Left Behind program which it would now replace. We are pleased that the plan would provide a comprehensive set of initiatives by which the federal government could support local school districts to raise student performance and close the achievement gap for academically struggling students in our public schools.
"However we do have some concerns that will need to be addressed or clarified. For example, a state's funding for Title 1 and other federal programs should not be conditioned to it adopting common standards or a specific standard setting or approval process. More local school district flexibility is needed for how the lowest performing schools are turned around including not automatically replacing principals and there should be less reliance on competitive grants as opposed to formula grants.
"Additionally, more details are needed regarding the use of multiple assessments in measuring student achievement, how school districts of varying sizes and capacity will be able to take advantage and manage this broad and integrated array of strategies, and how the fiscal challenges that school districts will be facing over the next few years will impact the implementation of this initiative.
"As a blueprint, we recognize that there are details yet to be developed that will also determine the ultimate success of the program and our decision whether to support it."
Founded in 1940, the National School Boards Association (www.nsba.org) is a not-for-profit organization representing state associations of school boards and their 95,000 local school board members throughout the United States. Its mission is to work with and through all its State Association members to foster excellence and equity in public education through school board leadership. NSBA achieves that mission by representing the school board perspective in working with federal government agencies and national organizations that impact education, and provides vital information and services to state associations of school boards throughout the nation.
Again, from a publicly available email to the Assessment Reform Network, some comments from Monty Neill:
The Obama Administration's "Blueprint for Reform" continues to rely far too
heavily on standardized tests to control schools and define learning. As a
result, it provides far too little reform of the discredited No Child Left
Behind law (NCLB). It has merely rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Congress must reject this Blueprint and craft a law that thoroughly
overhauls NCLB and puts the federal government on track to provide
substantial assistance to schools while supporting genuine accountability
that helps schools improve.
The Administration proposes to improve tests, but provides no meaningful
detail on how it will do so. It provides no evidence that it will support
multiple measures (multiple sources of different types of evidence of
student learning) instead of slightly revised standardized tests. It assumes
"growth" can be reduced to scores on tests and pretends that two ways of
looking at one test - growth and status - are actually two different things.
It continues to insist that states test all students in grades 3-8, even
though such extensive testing is not necessary for accountability or
improvement and the requirement to have so many tests only ensures each one
is cheap and of lower quality. It will make the situation worse by
encouraging states to add standardized tests in more subjects. (The
Blueprint uses the word "assessment," but provides no evidence that it means
anything more than standardized test.)
The Administration also would intensify some of NCLB's worst characteristics
by requiring states and districts to judge teachers in significant part on
student test scores, as required in Secretary Duncan's "Race to the Top"
(RTTT). Combined with these other misuses and overuses of tests, the
Administration's proposals will continue the push to reduce the nation's
schools to test prep programs.
The RTTT requirements for overhauling low scoring schools have failed in
Chicago, but the Administration now wants to make them part of ESEA. As a
result, its specific proposals for low-scoring schools would greatly damage
urban public schools systems, not improve them, and similarly hurt
low-income rural and suburban schools. ESEA must establish a different
approach to helping schools in dire trouble, starting with ensuring they
have adequate resources, and then helping them implement improvement efforts
tailored to their specific needs, with actual evidence they have a chance of
working. Further, such schools must be identified by more than test scores
leavened only slightly by other factors.
There are some positive steps in the Blueprint, such as proposing support
for school quality reviews or requiring states to develop plans to improve
equity across its schools. But even where it does move somewhat positively,
the steps are usually too limited. For example, school quality reviews
apparently would be only for low-scoring schools, rather than being part of
a comprehensive replacement for test-based accountability that the federal
government should help the states develop. It says it supports professional
collaboration, but its specific language fails to make central that approach
to strengthening the education workforce central.
Finally, in many places it is difficult to know what the Administration
actually intends or how it would spell out the often too-vague language of
the Blueprint. This leaves it up to Congress to fill in the details. But
Congress must not merely insert positive details, it must reject this
Blueprint and construct its own.
And from Jan Resseger, Minister for Public Education and Witness,
Justice and Witness Ministries, of the United Church of Christ, who leads the National Council of Church's working group on public education (the entire piece from which I quote can be read here - and she provides some useful additional links). Resseger notes the positive aspects of the plan, but part of what is wrong can be seen in this:
The "Blueprint" incorporates untried turnaround plans for the bottom 5 percent of public schools. The Obama proposal requires extremely punitive interventions for 5 percent of public schools that have been unable over time to raise their test scores. These are the schools that have, under NCLB, been commonly called "failing" schools. Because these schools are located primarily in highly segregated, big-city districts, the children most affected by these radical plans will be primarily very poor urban children, many of them children of color. These "Challenge Schools" will be required to implement one of four prescribed turnaround plans, none of which is supported by research, as a way to improve public education. This proposal is, therefore, the latest in a long series of experiments on our nation's most vulnerable children and their schools. Very few parents who have the political power to affect what happens in their children's schools would accept this sort of radical experimentation. One wonders, if over time the bottom 5 percent of schools continue to be subject to these turnarounds, how many teachers will be fired or schools closed, charterized, or privatized.
I do not think either Obama or Duncan fully understand the nature of public education. Neither man attended public schools. Obama's daughters first attended the Lab School at the University of Chicago (Duncan's alma mater) and now attend Sidwell Friends School. I think both men think they mean well, but I am appalled by how they are willing to put so much of the blame on the shoulders of teachers.
There are teachers we should move out. Most never should have been in the classroom in the first place. How we train and screen teachers is dysfunctional, and most educators know it. Yet it is a constant struggle to recruit and retain teachers, in part because of pay, in part because of working conditions. And working conditions are getting worse, as they were under NCLB, and as clearly they will if anything close to this proposal becomes law.
I wish I had the time for a series of posts going through the problems with the proposal in detail, and pointing at different ways of addressing our problems. Los Angeles is trying something different: Superintendent Cortines is turning 30 schools over to groups of teachers with the power to reshape them to meet the needs of the students they are already serving. That is an experiment worth watching.
And if unions are the problem that Duncan in particular seems to think they are, why is the highest performing state Massachusetts, which is completely unionized, why is the highest performing nation Finland, which is completely unionized. Diane Ravitch, who makes that point, argues that the issue of unionization has nothing to do with the overall performance and should be removed from the discussion.
I am a teacher. I am a union member. I have been a building rep = shop steward. I work with both teachers' unions to address issues of importance.
You will not reform education without the active and enthusiastic support of teachers. Making us the target, putting the blame on us, will not get our support.
And crafting policies without the voices of teachers at the table will not result in programs that will work. We have a long history of failed "reforms" most of which ignored the input teachers could have given.
Unfortunately, even though this Blueprint has some positive things in it, the overall thrust is something that if enacted would seriously harm America's public schools and thus America's school children.
Which is why I cannot support it.
Peace.