President Barack Obama spent a lot of his first term focusing on education policy, but voters have barely heard anything about it this election season.
That changed yesterday in Nevada, when Obama gave what’s probably his most significant speech on the issue during the campaign, bragging about everything from the administration’s plan to offer states waivers from pieces of the No Child Left Behind law to the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes said that the passage of AB 5, the teacher evaluation bill that he authored, could “potentially serve as a key piece” of the state’s application for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law – and free up hundreds of millions of federal dollars to fund districts’ evaluations and other education needs.
Erin Gabel, director of legislative affairs of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, said that AB 5 would make a waiver application “more attractive” to the feds.
Sue Burr, executive director of the State Board of Education and adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown on education, said that key federal education officials have given encouraging signs that AB 5 would satisfy the teacher and principal evaluation requirement for a wavier.
via AB 5 conflicts with federal NCLB waiver requirements – by John Fensterwald.
There’s been a lot of chatter in Washington lately on whether Congress will decide to extend language allowing teachers in alternative-certification programs to be considered “highly qualified” for an additional two years.
The question of how—and whether—the federal government should encourage alternative-certification programs is likely to be an area of debate whenever Congress actually gets around to reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. They’re not there yet, not even close, and won’t be for awhile.
So, for now, issues like how to interpret the No Child Left Behind law’s “highly qualified” provision(which includes having a bachelor’s degree in the subject they teach and state certification) are being dealt with in spending bills and regulation. Way more background on the issue here.
In fact, last week, two different coalitions sent letters up to Capitol Hill expressing totally different sentiments on whether Congress should continue to allow teachers in alternative certification to be considered “highly qualified.”
No word yet on California’s application for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law. Literally, no word.
At a press conference last week, in which he announced that six more states would get waivers from NCLB sanctions, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan declined to answer a reporter’s question regarding California’s status, according to Education Week. Read into that what you want, but no comment is probably not good news for California’s non-conforming application.
So far, the federal Department of Education has approved waivers for 33 states, with three more in the hopper. Vermont has dropped out and Iowa, for now, has had its application denied. The states with the waivers won’t have to meet the looming demand that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014, and they won’t have to label additional schools as failing to meet targets. In return, they have to create their own plans for turning around the worst-performing schools, describe how they will meet career and college readiness goals, describe how they would meet the needs of underperforming subgroups of students, and commit to a teacher evaluation system that includes measuring student progress.
Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Board rejected the teacher evaluation requirement as a state mandate for local districts. Instead, they submitted a different, more limited request for a waiver. It calls for changing the state’s Academic Performance Index to improve instruction in schools with the lowest scores and largest achievement gaps.
via Mum’s the word on California’s request for NCLB waiver – by John Fensterwald.
by Merrill Vargo
It often seems as if the rest of the nation – and certainly education policymakers in Washington – wants to avert its eyes from California. Many of the large national foundations have stopped or curtailed their investments here, and the federal government seems to have followed suit: California has yet to receive Race to the Top money, there is no word on California’s request for a waiver on NCLB, and when researchers cite “cutting-edge” work, it is usually happening somewhere else. The message we get is that state policy in general and education policy in particular in California is pretty much a mess and until we get our house in order, we shouldn’t expect either any help or any respect. The fact that six million kids go to school here is apparently their tough luck.
via It’s still true: The future tends to happen first in California – by Merrill Vargo.
The disability advocacy community has been worried that a provision in federal law about who is considered a highly qualified teacher would be perpetuated as lawmakers take up new spending bills for the coming fiscal year.
Earlier this year, the Senate merely left the door open to extending a provision that allows teachers still working on their certification to be considered “highly qualified”—a designation created by 2001’s No Child Left Behind law. The law says teachers must already be certified to qualify, but Education Department regulations created about the law allowed for teachers in alternative routes to be considered highly qualified, even if they were still working on their certification. For example, people in the classroom as part of the Teach for America training program would fall into this category.
The department’s regulations on these alternative routes were set to expire, but as my colleague Alyson Klein explains over at the Politics K-12 blog, the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday extended the provision through the end of the 2014-15 school year.
via House Extends Labeling of Trainee Teachers as ‘Highly Qualified’.
Last week the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, or as I like refer to it, “Federal RomneyCare.” While the majority of coverage and interest in the case centered around the ACA’s “individual mandate,” a somewhat lesser known issue involving Medicaid has interesting implications for federal and state education policy, particularly in California.
Before getting to that, a quick refresher on health care policy. Medicaid is a cooperative federal/state program whereby the federal government sends money to states so that the states may provide health care to certain vulnerable groups – for example, the blind, the elderly, and the disabled. The ACA as drafted required states to expand the Medicaid program to cover all individuals below the age of 65 with incomes below 133% of the federal poverty line, thus extending health-care coverage to 17 million previously uninsured Americans. If a state refused to expand Medicaid in this fashion, the ACA empowered the Secretary of Health and Human Services to withhold all of the state’s Medicaid funding.
via John Roberts on health care, Jerry Brown on NCLB: similar logic.
Special education advocates are worried that a provision in federal law about who is considered a highly qualified teacher could be perpetuated when the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee meets today.
Although a Senate subcommittee didn’t address the issue during a vote about the budget on Tuesday, groups including the National Center on Learning Disabilities, Easter Seals, and the National Disability Rights Network say the issue isn’t dead just yet.
In essence, the provision allows teachers still working on their certification to be considered “highly qualified”—a designation created by 2001’s No Child Left Behind law. The law says teachers must already be certified to qualify, but Education Department regulations created about the law allowed for teachers in alternative routes to be considered highly qualified, even if they were still working on their certification. For example, people in the classroom as part of the Teach for America training program would fall into this category.
via Advocates: Don’t Call Teachers-in-Training ‘Highly Qualified’.
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today released the results of the 2011–12 California English Language Development Test (CELDT) that show gains among English learners, with an increasing percentage becoming proficient in their new language.
“We want every English learner to become proficient while making progress in all academic subjects,” Torlakson said. “These results show our students are making important strides toward English language fluency, which will help them tremendously as they work toward their educational goals.”
The CELDT assesses the English-language proficiency of students in kindergarten through grade twelve. The results are used to calculate Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs) for federal accountability requirements.
Students with disabilities were largely excluded from state testing programs before changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1997 and the 2001 No Child Left Behind law. A new report looks at how many schools were held accountable for the performance of students with disabilities when it comes to state tests. It shows that some of the fears about students with disabilities dragging down the performance of a school under the No Child Left Behind law weren’t realized.
But the new report from the Institute of Education Sciences says that in 37 states with relevant data, 9 percent of all public schools missed AYP during the 2008-09 school year because of how students with disabilities performed and at least one other reason, and only 5 percent missed it solely because of students with disabilities’ performance on state tests.
via Including, Excluding Students with Disabilities under NCLB.
WASHINGTON—Presumptive GOP nominee Gov. Mitt Romney called today for making federal funding for special education and disadvantaged students portable—meaning the money would follow students to any school their parents choose, including a private school.
Under his proposal, parents could also choose to use the funds under Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act at charter schools, for online courses, or for tutoring. Title I is funded at $14.5 billion this year, and IDEA is funded at $11.6 billion, and any proposal to radically shift the use of that money would be almost certain to face a host of administrative, budgetary, and political hurdles from the Congress and statehouses on down.
Romney, who unveiled his education agenda at the Latino Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit in Washington Wednesday, is also calling for an expansion of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which President Barack Obama has sought to eliminate. He would also make it easier for high-quality charter schools to expand, a position that the Obama administration has also embraced.
via Romney Calls for Using Title I, IDEA Funds for School Choice.
With the state casting a watchful eye on improving student scores on STAR tests, are the arts in Vacaville schools, particularly in elementaries, being undervalued, if not de-emphasized, and, thus, putting at risk the district’s goal of graduating well-rounded students?
via Do state mandated tests devalue arts in Solano County schools?.
By Peter Schrag
You don’t have to look far to understand why California, like many other states, wants a waiver from key provisions of NCLB, the ten-year-old federal No Child Left Behind law. If we don’t get it, it may start to cost us.
But what California wants is unique. We want not only a waiver but also a waiver from the conditions U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has imposed for getting a waiver. Is that reasonable, or is it chutzpah?
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Three months ago, California’s proposal for a waiver from parts of the No Child Left Behind law was considered so weak that critics said it wouldn’t pass the federal government’s giggle test. Yesterday, the State Board of Education approved sending a more robust waiver request to Washington, although not through the same channels as most other states.
At issue is the part of NCLB (now commonly referred to by its original title, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA) that requires every student to be proficient in math and English Language Arts by the end of the 2013-14 school year. Last fall, Education Secretary Arne Duncan publicly acknowledged what teachers and administrators have known foryears: There’s no chance of reaching that goal.
via California seeks to dump Adequate Yearly Progress – by Kathryn Baron.
Thousands of teachers in training in California can remain in their classrooms and be regularly assigned to low-income and minority areas at least through mid-2013, because Congress approved it, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The decision came from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which had ruled in September 2010 that the state was violating federal law by classifying the inexperienced instructors as “highly qualified.”
SAN FRANCISCO — California education leaders agreed Thursday to join 37 other states that have sought relief from the most strenuous requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which expects all students to be at grade level in math and reading by 2014.
Saying the measure had confused parents, demoralized teachers and drained money from programs that would do more to boost student achievement, the state Board of Education voted unanimously to ask the U.S. Department of Education for a waiver from certain funding and achievement requirements.
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The State Board of Education on Wednesday waded into what’s expected to be a yearlong process of revising the state’s standardized-test-heavy school accountability system. First up: discussing whether to reshape an existing tool, the School Accountability Report Card, or SARC, an annual data dump that every school collects and is supposed to post online, and whether to consider adding a new dimension – school inspections.
via First pass at school inspections – by John Fensterwald – Educated Guess.
As state education leaders consider whether to seek a waiver from the most onerous provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind, they are also proposing a “comprehensive review” of the state’s accountability system put in place in 1999.
The State Board of Education will start discussing what an updated state accountability system might look like at its meeting in Sacramento today.
via Education leaders call for overhaul of state’s school accountability system.
So far, 11 have states have gotten wiggle room from No Child Left Behind’s accountability system, and 27 more are waiting to hear. Who’s not on the list? California, which has already said, basically, that it doesn’t think Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s waiver plan fits its needs.
But that doesn’t mean the state wants to stick with NCLB as it is. Instead, Michael Kirst, the state board president, and Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, have readied their own waiver request, which borrows some things from the department’s principles—but skips a key component: teacher evaluation.
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The State Board of Education will once again consider applying for a waiver from some of the more untenable requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, only this time the request is personal.
Instead of applying for the waiver package that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has offered to states, which requires a substantial quid pro quo, the Board next week will discuss seeking relief from some NCLB mandates under a separate waiver provision written into the law.
via CA may try for personalized NCLB waiver – by Kathryn Baron.