Holliday's chances. Wanna Bet?

While attending the P-20 Innovation Conference at the Lexington Center this week, I had the opportunity to catch up with a few folks who are tuned in to national education politics and get their assessments of Education Commissioner Terry Holliday's chances of getting the Obama administration to waive the onerous parts of the NCLB accountability model.

At present, NCLB's fixed targets unfairly label many schools as failing, even when they show significant progress toward desirable goals. As Kentucky educators will recall, it was this measure, when layered on top of the pre-existing CATS assessment, that took the CATS' 9th life.

Kentucky, Vermont and other states sought waivers from the US Office of Education under Margaret Spellings, but were turned away empty-handed. Initially, Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan appeared to some pundits as Maggie's mirror image, but he has since taken a clear stand against NCLB's blindness to the benefits of valuing growth as a measure of improved student achievement.

Therein lies Holliday's hope.

This week the Kentucky Board of Education took its first step toward building a better mouse trap. In approving a white paper outlining a possible future "Senate Bill 1 test" they have solidified just what a better set of school and district goals might look like. KDE Assessment guy Ken Draut told the assembly in Lexington today that the "plans are getting very firm." The state Board will take a first reading on the new system in February, a second in April and receive public input for a 60-day period after that. By July, we should know the plan.

Draut describes the new plan, as consistent with the prescription in SB1. It is a "balanced" assessment that gauges student achievement, assesses teachers and principals, considers support systems, program reviews, and provides accountability for schools and districts. More on this later.

Over at Prichard, Susan Weston suggests that the Commish can effectively argue that our new goals (based on the Obama-supported national core standards) will be tougher than the NCLB's more pedestrian expectations, as well as fairer. This is true. But persuasive arguments have been known to pale in the face of political motivations, and right now, it would take a savant to figure out the national politics. Events of this week have certainly convinced me that I don't have a clue.

Council of Chief State School Officers honcho Gene Wilhoit told KSN&C today that reauthorization of NCLB may be a couple of years away and rest with the well-tanned and mercurial soon-to-be-Speaker of the House John Boehner. But in the lurch, President Obama can handle some changes administratively, if he will.

Will he?

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday told KSBA's Brad Hughes recently that he is very optimistic that the AYP waiver can be obtained.

“We think (the Obama administration) is very open to replacing AYP,” he said. “We think Kentucky will be the first state to take that waiver request forward, but we think there will quite a few others. It’s all based on the new common core standards and growth models that could replace AYP.”

KSN&C asked AdvancED President & CEO Mark Elgart if he was a betting man, what odds would he give that Holliday's gambit wil pay off. "Better than 50%," Elgart said.

But UK Ed Leadership Chair Lars Bjork worries about the competing tensions the Obama administration faces between their desire to continue driving change and their reservations about AYP. He opined that if Kentucky goes it alone under the banner of a reform state, it might not go too well. But all-in-all, he too gave Holliday a better than 50-50 chance.

This sentiment was echoed by Wilhoit, who when asked about Holliday's chances said, "If he goes it alone, not very good. But if he goes with a group, I think he will be successful." And Wilhoit wants to help. He thinks the CCSSO can pull together about 15 states to go to Education Secretary Arne Duncan en masse.

Duncan is on the record as disapproving of NCLB's rigid (anti-research based) accountability model which seems to have been designed to identify an increasing number of schools as "failing." But nationally, Republicans have, and continue to, dangle NCLB Reauthorization in the balance. Elgart, Wilhoit, Draut...virtually everybody I talk to (and read) seems to think ESEA reauthorization is still a couple of years away. And at least one well-placed national observer thinks Boehner may be looking to position NCLB reauthorization as a Republican political victory just in advance of the next presidential election.

But what if Holliday fails in his quest? During the Q&A following his presentation on assessment and accountability, I asked Draut about the impact.

KSN&C: Specifically, what waiver is Commissioner Holliday seeking [from the Obama administration] and what impact will their decision have on [Kentucky’s] plan?

Draut: Oh, that's a great question. The picture right now, we've got NCLB and this model of AYP that we're living with, and reauthorization is not on the fast track. So we might be living with that in 2011 and 12, and I don't know - 13. We don't know where this is going. We have this new state accountability model coming and what we are trying to avoid is having two models - just like we have now - where one says you're terrible and the other says you're great... And in NCLB, for years and years, there has been this waiver procedure where you could appeal to the US Office of Ed for a waiver of your accountability model outside of the NCLB model. It's just that until recently...

KSN&C: They didn't grant any.

Draut: ...they were kind of closed ears...but now, in support of innovation and these kinds of things, they are talking, and Gene, you can jump in here, they are talking achievement gap, growth, college readiness and graduation rate, and BINGO, that's us. So, what the thought is, is that we take our model, and present it as a waiver...We will still identify persistently low [schools] as required, identify low achieving and high achieving...still do what they'd like us to do.
KSN&C: But if they say "No," is it back to the drawing board?

Draut: Well, I think we'd probably push forward with ours.

KSN&C: But we'd have the same problem we've got now?

Draut: We'd have the same problem we've got now.