Principals Group Calls Obama's Four Strategies for Low-Performing Schools "Misguided"

This from NASSP:

Oppose Principal Firing through the Four Models!

NASSP has been steadfast in our opposition to the four models for school reform that would all require the principal’s replacement as a condition for receiving funds under the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program.

We remain very concerned that the U.S. Department of Education will try to expand this misguided strategy as part of its proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). We therefore, encourage you to visit the Principal’s Legislative Action Center (PLAC) at www.principals.org/plac, and urge your members of Congress to oppose any legislation that encompasses the four models for school improvement.

Specifically, the SIG guidance requires districts to use SIG funds to implement one of four interventions in the identified, low-performing schools:

Turnaround Model, which includes replacing the principal and at least 50% of the school’s staff, adopting a new governance structure, and implementing a new and revised instructional program;

Restart Model, which would require a district to close the school and reopen it under the management of a charter school operator, a charter management organization, or an educational management organization;

School Closure, which would require a district to close the school and enroll the students who attended the school in other, high-achieving schools within the district; or

Transformation Model, which would require a district to replace the principal and develop and increase teacher and school leader effectiveness by implementing comprehensive instructional reform strategies such as extending learning time, creating community-oriented schools, and providing sustained support and operating flexibility with staff, calendar, and budget.

Congress does have the authority to modify the SIG requirements through legislation, although it is unlikely to do so outside of reauthorizing ESEA.

As you may know, the current SIG guidance requires states to target funding only to the lowest-performing schools in the state, including middle and high schools that are eligible for, but not currently receiving, Title I funds. But there is concern among the education community that the proposal could be expanded to impact additional schools, and as a result, the principals that lead them.

In December 2009, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) introduced the Graduation for All Act (H.R. 4122) to authorize a $2 billion competitive grant program for districts to support high schools with low graduation rates and their feeder middle schools. The bill requires districts to implement one of the four Models of Success in each of the schools being served.

NASSP Executive Director Gerald N. Tirozzi has expressed his concerns with the legislation to Chairman Miller and the other cosponsors, and submitted formal comments on ESEA reauthorization that include our recommendations for middle level and high school reform.

What Secondary Principals are Supporting

National Association of Secondary School Principals Executive Director Gerald N. Tirozzi outlined the following recommendations, and shipped them off to Arne Duncan:

National Standards: NASSP is an endorsing partner of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is a state-led effort to develop a common core of state standards in grades K–12 for English/language arts and mathematics. Building on our position statement in support of national standards, we urge the development and implementation of common, high-quality assessments aligned with standards and call upon ED to evaluate the progress being made by states to adopt and implement the standards. We also recommend that the federal government offer incentives for states and districts to develop graduation requirements that allow students to choose from multiple pathways to graduation and ensure that students have access to academic supports that help them stay on track toward graduation.

School Leadership: Reiterating our support for additional funding for principal training and professional development, NASSP encourages Congress to enact the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act (H.R. 4354/S. 2896) and the Instructional Leadership Act (not-yet-introduced) as a part of ESEA reauthorization. The bills would authorize grant programs to prepare principals to lead high-need schools and incorporate standards of instructional leadership into state principal certification or licensure requirements. We also urge the administration to consider our position statements on highly effective principals and professional compensation for principals in developing proposals for principal evaluation and pay-for-performance programs. Finally, we encourage Congress and the administration to support the National Board Certification for Educational Leaders recently launched by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Literacy: NASSP urges the administration to support the Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation (LEARN) Act (H.R. 4037/S. 2740), which would authorize comprehensive state and local literacy initiatives and build on the best components of the federal Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers programs. The goals of the bill are very much in line with Creating a Culture of Literacy, a guide written for principals to use as they team with staff members to improve their students’ literacy skills by assessing student strengths and weaknesses, identifying professional development needs, employing effective literacy strategies across all content areas, and establishing intervention programs for struggling students.

Middle Level and High School Reform: Building on the Breaking Ranks framework for school reform, NASSP has called upon the federal government to provide additional resources for our nation’s middle level and high schools. We support legislative proposals that would create a new funding stream for school improvement at the secondary school level, implement an early warning and intervention system to identify at-risk students, and provide differentiated and evidence-based interventions in eligible schools. Enacting the Success in the Middle Act (H.R. 3006/S. 1362) hand-in-hand with the Graduation Promise Act (H.R. 4181/S. 1698) would strengthen ESEA by providing the support necessary to turn around our nation’s lowest-performing middle and high schools and give our struggling students the help they need from preschool through graduation.

Graduation Rates: NASSP supported the final Title I regulation that requires states to use a uniform and accurate method of calculating graduation rates, but has concerns with defining the graduation rate as the “four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.” Because not all students enter the ninth grade reading and writing at grade level, we have long recommended that the graduation rate be extended to within at least five years of entering high school. State should be required to use, as a supplement to the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, extended adjusted cohort graduation rates that are approved by ED. In addition, identified special-needs students who complete high school with a state-approved exit document should have until age 21, inclusive, to be counted as graduates as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Act.

Growth Models: As stated in the NCLB Task Force recommendations, states should be allowed to measure adequate yearly progress (AYP) for each student subgroup on the basis of state-developed growth formulas that calculate growth in individual student achievement from year to year. NASSP has been very pleased with the expansion of the growth model pilot program, which was first announced in 2006, and we hope that growth models will have a permanent place in a newly reauthorized ESEA.

Multiple Measures of Student Performance: NASSP recommends that states should be allowed to use multiple measures of student performance in determining AYP, including state assessments in subjects beyond reading and language arts, mathematics, and science; portfolios, performance tasks, and other examples of a student’s accomplishments; traditional quizzes and tests; interviews, questionnaires, and conferences; end-of-course exams; comprehensive personal academic or graduation plans; assessments aligned with high school and college entrance requirements; and senior projects.