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.

Strengthening America’s Competitiveness through Common Academic Standards

An official chat on national standards took place this morning in the House Education and Labor Committee. The hearing was intended to examine how states can better prepare their students to compete in a global economy by using internationally benchmarked common standards.

Congressman George Miller, Chairman, opened the hearing with the following comment:

Today our Committee will examine the great momentum that is building for improving our schools and our competitiveness though internationally-benchmarked common academic standards.

Our nation faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our competitiveness. We face an achievement gap within our schools but we also face an achievement gap between the U.S. and other countries whose educational outcomes are surging while ours are stagnating.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan recognize that our economy’s fate is directly linked to addressing both achievement gaps.

They know we won’t be able to build the world-class education system our economy needs and our children deserve unless all students are taught to rigorous standards hat prepare them for college and good jobs.

We all know the statistics – we’ve fallen to 21st in math achievement, 25th in science, and 24th in problem solving. We used to be number one in college completion. Now we are 18th...

... Let me be clear: I want this committee, and the Congress, to do whatever we can to support this state-led, bipartisan effort. That’s why we’re here today – to learn more about this work and to hear from you all about how the federal government can best support it.

We forged a good start by making historic investments in education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

We created an unprecedented, $5 billion Race to the Top fund that will allow Secretary Duncan to encourage states to innovate. This includes improving standards and assessments so they are aligned with career and college-readiness.

This fund will lay the foundation for the significant changes we’ll need to make to truly improve our schools, make sure students graduate with the skills they need, and cultivate a workforce that can compete globally...

As NAEP shows us year after year, the unintended consequences of a system that varies vastly from state to state is rather than striving for excellence, states are camouflaging poor performance.

The result is a generation of students without the complex skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the jobs of the future...

This from former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr:

Let me be clear from the very beginning. We need a set of common state standards that are rigorous and relevant, and we must stop fooling around. Today, the variability in state standards is off the charts. There should not be 50 different versions of algebra I across the nation. It’s just not logical; students in California learn the same as students in North Carolina.

We must be vigilant in our development of common standards that are fewer, clearer, and higher. The process for getting there must be based on evidence of what’s necessary and sufficient for students to succeed in college and in work—not on including everyone’s, or every interest group’s, opinion. It should be a tight common core that teachers can teach and students can understand and master.

This from former drive-by Fayette County Superintendent and current Educatin Commissioner of Arkansas, Ken James.

First and foremost, this is a voluntary, state-led effort to establish a common core of standards across the states. Let me be clear, this is not an effort to establish federal standards. The effort to establish a common core will build directly on the recent work of leading states and initiatives that have focused on college- and career-ready standards. Leading states will be called upon to participate and add their knowledge to the standards setting process, and it is expected that leading states, based on their prior work, will be furthest along toward adoption of the common core. Furthermore, no state will see their standards lowered as a result of this collaboration. Rather, the purpose of the common state standards initiative is to raise the bar for all states by drawing on the best research and evidence from leading states and experts regarding, among other things, college- and work-readiness, rigorous knowledge and skills, and international benchmarking.

KIPP co-founder David Levin testified:

When the KIPP network reaches 100 fully grown schools, it will serve the same number of students as the public school district in Atlanta, Georgia. And yet, as a national network the lack of common standards makes it difficult to gauge how well KIPP is meeting its ultimate goal: preparing all of our students with the character and academic skills for success, self-sufficiency, and happiness in college and in life.

Currently, states set their own standards and determine how hard or easy it will be for students to pass. The result? We have passing hurdles that are very high in some states and close to the ground in others. According to Education Next, which reviews the rigor of state standards each year, only three states—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Missouri—have established world class standards in reading and math. Some states, like Georgia and Tennessee, have established such mediocre expectations that nearly every student is considered to be on grade level.

With states held accountable for meeting the standards they set, there’s an unfortunate incentive for states to set the bar low...

President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten said

We should start with standards. The AFT supports the development of rigorous common state standards. Our reasons are straightforward. We live in a highly mobile, instantly connected world in which knowledge travels on highways we can’t even see. Our students need to be able to navigate through that world—to study, work and live in states other than the one in which they were educated, if they so chose or if circumstances demand it. Their ability to do that, and to do it well, will be limited if we don’t change our current patchwork of varying state standards.

Politics K-12 conducted a little Live Blogging: The Common Standards Hearing here.

Miller: Stimulus Changes the Conversation on NCLB

This from Politics K-12:

The $100 billion for education programs in the federal economic-stimulus bill gives the new administration and the secretary of education "credibility" with the public and with educators, just as Congress is gearing up to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the
chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, [said] today.

"I really think this changes the conversation dramatically," Miller said. "I think it makes things a lot easier." Miller said he'd like to reauthorize the law, which many educators have criticized as underfunded, this calendar year.

The unprecedented boost for education in the stimulus "tells the country and the education world where the administration would like to go" on K-12 policy, he said. "They would really like to make a substantial change." ...

... Miller fully expects Congress to continue increased support for programs like the Teacher Incentive Fund, state data systems, and probably even Secretary Duncan's new "race to the top fund," which is aimed at rewarding states and districts who are boosting student achievement...

...Miller really stressed the importance of state data systems, and emphasized that they're also a big priority for Duncan. Some educators, including in Miller's home state of California, are wary that state data systems could be used to tie teacher pay to student progress, but it sounds like the education chairman views them as a good way to measure student learning and wants to press full steam ahead.

Change is coming to the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

This from the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Experts urge more flexibility, funding

With Barack Obama heading to the White House and dozens of additional Democrats elected to Congress, President Bush's signature education bill almost certainly will face profound revisions, experts across the country say...

...The law requires every public school student to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. But educators have criticized the act for its one-size-fits-all reforms and its labeling of any school that falls short of perfection in six years as failing.

Already overdue for reauthorization, the 2002 law likely will be revised in the House Education and Labor Committee, chaired by Rep. George Miller, D-[CA].

“No Child Left Behind law is in need of significant and fundamental improvements,” Miller said in a statement released last week. “I look forward to working with the next administration to make the law more fair, more flexible and better funded.”

For many educators, change can't come soon enough.

“It's a good law in that it made us focus on what we should have been doing all along: student achievement, attendance, math and reading scores and other things,” San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Terry Grier said. “But it was so punitive from Day One.” ...

Pessimism on the Rise in NCLB Reauthorization

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee has previously been the resident optimist in Washington encouraging colleagues not to throw out NCLB. But that is changing.

Rep. Miller said last week it would be difficult for him and other supporters of the NCLB law to overcome the combination of its unpopularity with Democrats and the size of the president’s fiscal 2009 budget proposal, which Rep. Miller and other Democrats consider inadequate. “I just don’t see the Congress passing this legislation if the president is not willing to support it with the resources everyone knows are necessary,” Rep. Miller [told Education Week].

Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., who is the senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, said he hasn’t met with Miller to discuss the NCLB law since October.

“We’re in a climate where it doesn’t look very favorable to get the reauthorization done,” Rep. McKeon told a meeting of the Education Industry Association last week. In that meeting, Rep. McKeon said, the two still hadn’t agreed on more than a dozen significant issues, such as the measures to be used for school accountability and how students qualify for tutoring under the law.

College Opportunity and Affordability Act Would Specify State Higher Ed Spending

This from Stateline.org:

New legislation being considered by Congress would force states to spend a minimum amount on higher education based on their past spending — or lose some federal funds. The provision is being called a “dangerous precedent” by critics, but is seen by supporters as a stopgap for rising tuition at public institutions.

“One of the biggest factors driving tuition increases at public colleges and universities is states’ cutbacks in higher education funding,” said Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), the bill’s primary sponsor.

“With the federal government putting money in at the top, it’s important that states not take money out at the bottom,” she wrote in an e-mail.

The provision, part of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, would require each state’s higher education funding to be at or above the average it spent over the last five years. If states don’t commit that amount, they could lose their share of federal money from the $65 million Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership grant program to help low-income students.

The act, which moved one step closer to giving higher education its most significant overhaul in a decade when the U.S. House passed it on a 354-58 vote Thursday (Feb. 7), boosts grant money for college students and aims to hold down the cost of tuition.

The bill is a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 — last renewed in 1998 — and would increase the maximum Pell Grant, a need-based award for college students, from $5,800 to $9,000; bar lenders from giving perks to colleges to get on a “preferred lender” list; create a “higher education price index” to allow students to see how much tuition has increased over time; and place colleges that radically increase tuition on a “watch list.” ...

NCLB Plan Risks ‘Slippery Slope’

By Howard P. “Buck” McKeon

This year’s reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act has extraordinarily high stakes, and with high stakes comes heated rhetoric.

After more than a year of public hearings and private consultation with parents, educators, and experts, Congress is drawing nearer to introduction of a bill to reauthorize the landmark law. Unfortunately, it seems the closer we come to introducing a bill, the more our dialogue deteriorates into finger-pointing and a game of “he said, she said.”

U.S. Rep. George Miller of California, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, has offered a thoughtful Commentary entitled “Ending Accountability Loopholes.” His premise is one with which surely no one could argue. A fundamental principle of NCLB was, and is, its unprecedented commitment to accountability for results. Put another way, the law for the first time ever demands that in exchange for billions of dollars in federal education spending, schools must show academic progress for their students.

I strongly agree with Chairman Miller’s assessment that loopholes in the law must be closed, and the issues he identified are prime candidates for bipartisan reform. However, rather than blaming the U.S. secretary of education, I believe our time would be better spent focusing on the future of the law, not its past implementation. But even more than that, I strongly disagree that the solution to our accountability challenges is to close some loopholes while opening others.

The issue of N-size—the minimum number of children needed in a subgroup for that group to be counted in determining adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the law—is a valid concern. I agree that reducing the maximum N-size to a reasonable figure, such as the cap of 30 proposed in the current legislative draft, is a simple, common-sense solution to ensure that significant student populations are not excluded from NCLB’s accountability systems.

Chairman Miller also takes exception to the use of “confidence intervals” in calculating student proficiency. Here, too, we agree that by inserting these mechanisms into their accountability systems, states may intentionally or unintentionally be skirting genuine accountability and shortchanging their students. These intervals add unnecessary complexity and confusion for schools and states, not to mention the parents who need good, reliable information about student achievement.

Chairman Miller has proposed a cap on confidence intervals, which he describes as margins of error or “wiggle room.” I appreciate that proposal, and would advocate closing this loophole completely by eliminating altogether the use of this statistical subterfuge that could mask the true number of students who are not proficient in reading and mathematics.

Unfortunately, in closing some accountability loopholes, we run the risk of opening new ones through the creation of new mechanisms for assessing school performance—mechanisms that could lead us down a slippery slope of complexity and confusion.

Proposals to introduce new metrics for school performance pose a real threat to the law’s focus on the fundamentals of reading and math. They could dilute current accountability structures and divert attention from the most critical areas. These so-called multiple measures could also greatly increase the number of tests students are required to take. That means increasing the number of tests teachers are required to administer and states are required to develop, all of which runs counter to the most common refrains we’ve heard from parents and teachers.

I also have grave concerns about any proposal that would limit the options available to parents of children in underperforming schools. A hallmark of the No Child Left Behind law is its commitment to offering parents new options when their children are in schools that aren’t making progress. This includes the option to transfer to a better-performing public or charter school or to receive free tutoring, also known as supplemental educational services, or SES. The SES provisions are particularly important to students who may have fallen behind in core subject areas. By getting help quickly, students can catch up. But without the help and support they need, students can fall further behind with each passing academic year that they remain trapped in underperforming schools.

That is why I have proposed making supplemental services available to students even earlier, after two years in which a school does not make AYP. I cannot lend my support to any bill that significantly diminishes existing options for parents. I think we should be doing more to offer meaningful educational choices, not less.

There’s another area of accountability that I think all too often is left out of the discussion, and that’s the issue of highly qualified teachers. Too often, we separate the issue of teacher quality from the broader conversation about accountability and results for students. But research and experience have shown us that one of the single most important factors when it comes to improving student achievement is the quality of the teachers in the classrooms.

Chairman Miller and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings deserve great credit for their willingness to explore innovative strategies to encourage and reward teachers for their success in improving student achievement. It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the major teachers’ unions have lined up in opposition to even the very modest proposals that have been floated to provide these types of incentives to teachers.

I have long been an advocate of pay-for-performance mechanisms that give teachers the credit they deserve for student achievement. I have championed the creation of a Teacher Incentive Fund to help states design and implement systems for rewarding teacher performance. I commend both Chairman Miller and Secretary Spellings for standing up to the education establishment on this important issue, and I urge them to work together to include even stronger teacher incentives in the final legislation. After all, teacher quality and accountability go hand in hand.

The debate over NCLB reauthorization stirs passion in stakeholders of all stripes, and it’s no surprise that critics are speaking with loud voices. As policymakers, I do not believe we need to join the shouting match. Instead, we can work together on common-sense reforms that close accountability loopholes without opening new ones; add new options for parents without taking away existing ones; and adhere to the principles that produced a bipartisan bill in the first place. We have made great progress by listening to stakeholders and, most recently, releasing a discussion draft and seeking public input. We have not yet produced legislation that achieves our shared objectives, but with continued cooperation, I believe we can.

This from Education Week.

Draft Bill Heats Up NCLB-Renewal Debate

House panel floats plan to adjust law’s accountability measures.

The release this week of a preliminary proposal for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act starts a busy fall in Congress, as both the House and the Senate try to revamp the NCLB accountability system and ramp up efforts to improve struggling schools.

Lobbyists and advocates spent the last week of the August congressional recess reading through the 435-page draft bill that outlines key House members’ plans to change the accountability system by measuring students’ academic growth and adding other indicators to those in reading and mathematics.

Most education groups reacted cautiously to the draft as they considered the impact of changes proposed in the House Education and Labor Committee document, which committee leaders called a “work in progress” in an open letter to “education stakeholders” .

“The committee has not endorsed this staff discussion draft,” wrote the panel’s chairman, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and his colleagues. “However, we believe it represents a starting point from which to receive input.”

The ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, also signed the Aug. 27 letter, as did the chairman and the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.

On the Senate side, lawmakers worked on an NCLB bill throughout the August recess and are aiming to have their bill win the Senate’s approval by the end of the year, said Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee....

This from Education Week.

House Plan Embraces Subjects Viewed as Neglected

Advocates for broadening the curriculum hope a draft House proposal for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act will give a boost to history, art, music, and other subjects that they believe have been marginalized in many districts under the 5½-year-old federal law.

The draft of changes to Part A of the Title I program, released by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, RCalif., and key colleagues late last month, features potential incentives for states to test students in core subjects other than those now required—mathematics, reading, and, beginning this school year, science.

“It’s a good start … and encouraging that Congressmen Miller and McKeon are showing sensitivity to the criticism that there has been a narrowing of the curriculum” under No Child Left Behind, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, and a former aide to House Democrats. “If school districts can include testing in other subjects [in gauging how well their schools are doing], it allows them to pay more attention to those other areas.”

A report released in July by the CEP, a research and advocacy organization based in Washington, found that most districts have significantly increased instructional time in reading and math in the hope of improving student achievement and helping schools meet goals for adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the federal law. The law requires testing in those two subjects annually in grades 3-8 and once during high school.

As a result of that emphasis, nearly half the nation’s school districts pared down instructional time in other critical subjects by more than two hours each week, according to the report. ("Survey: Subjects Trimmed To Boost Math and Reading," Aug. 1, 2007.)

...The preliminary House Education and Labor Committee plan would allow states to include student scores from state tests in history and other subjects as additional measures of how schools were performing. Those test scores would be given a fraction of the weight of math and reading results in determining AYP. The use of multiple measures would give states more information on school performance, said Mr. Miller, the chairman of the committee, whose ranking Republican is Mr. McKeon....

This from Education Week (subscription).

The debate over NCLB Reauthorization: PR v Realism ?

Andrew Rotherham has an interesting discussion on NCLB politics over at Eduwonk.

He describes the philosophical divide over NCLB reauthorization in terms of two groups:

Some people see the accountability and performance issue as a public relations one. That's why you hear a lot of complaints about "labeling" schools. In other words, the argument goes, there are some problems sure, but overall things are pretty good and any accountability system that says otherwise threatens support for the public schools. Call these folks the Public Relationists...

...Other people, let’s call them the Achievement Realists, say that given the grim outcomes for a lot of kids (50 percent on-time high school completion rates for minority kids, low rates of college-completion, substantial gaps, multiple grade-levels, in achievement between white an minority students, etc…) any reasonable accountability system is going to identify a lot of schools as needing to do better...The Achievement Realists tend to believe that the best way to really help the public schools is to make them better and doing that might require some bad news and tough facts.

...There is a reasonable political and substantive middle ground between the Public Relationsists and the Achievement Realists...

Politically, there does have to be a way to delineate between genuinely lousy schools and ones that aren’t doing as well as they should be with some groups of students. And substantively different things should happen to those schools (the law allows for that now but it’s not really happening because of widespread evasion around really dealing with low performing schools).

What the Achievement Realists can’t budge on, however, is real transparency about performance so that this doesn’t turn into ... the “Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007.”

So, within those broad parameters there is room for some multiple indicators beyond math and reading and graduation rates as long as they are statewide, valid, reliable, and consequently comparable.

And encouraging states to develop accountability systems that measure achievement in other subjects and introduce more stretch into the systems for
high performers, in a real way, by including those measures in federal accountability makes sense.

But, in my view and this is why I’m an equity hawk, those systems should in no way be able to prioritize the achievement of any group of students over the achievement of under-served students...

...All things considered [draft NCLB legislation presents] a reasonable place to start and if House Ed and Labor Chairman George Miller is really ready to hold the line and not let all this get whittled away, then he should be able to strike a middle ground that preserves the core tenets that the Achievement Realists want while not giving the Public Relationists the outs that they want.

In fact, done right, it could take some of their arguments off the table, something the Achievement Realists should want to see happen going forward.

Congress Passes Overhaul of Student Aid Programs

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Congress gave final approval to a broad overhaul of federal student loan programs Friday, sharply cutting subsidies to lenders and increasing grants to needy students.

In quick succession, the Senate and the House approved the changes, allowing Democrats to say they had made good on one of their campaign promises last year, to ease the strain of rising college costs. In the Senate, the bill passed 79 to 12, reflecting broad bipartisan support, while the House approved it 292 to 97 .

The federal education secretary, Margaret Spellings, said she was recommending that President Bush sign the bill because it “answered the president’s call to significantly increase funding” for Pell grants for low-income students. The administration had issued a veto threat against an earlier House version of the legislation.

Republicans in the House expressed disappointment at the administration’s change of course, arguing that the cuts in lender subsidies went too far.

The final bill, hammered out this week in a House-Senate conference committee, alters many of the ground rules for financing higher education, offering forgiveness on student loans to graduates who work for 10 years or more in public service professions like teaching, firefighting and the police, and limiting monthly payments on federally backed loans to 15 percent of the borrower’s discretionary income.

It also raises the maximum Pell grant, the basic federal grant for middle- and low-income students, to $5,400 from the current $4,310 over the next five years. To pay for the changes, the bill reduces federal subsidies to lenders by roughly $20 billion over the same period.

Democrats likened the legislation to the G.I. Bill that sent millions of veterans to vocational training and college after World War II. “Today we’ll need a similar bold new commitment to enable the current generation of Americans to rise to the global challenges we face,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the education committee. “Today we’ll help millions of students achieve the American dream.”

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee, said that last year, Republicans took nearly $12 billion from federal student aid programs. “We took $11.39 billion and put it back into Pell grants,” Mr. Miller said. “That’s the difference that an election makes.” ...

This from the New York Times.

Democrats Try to Soften Bush’s Education Law

As Congress returns next week, leading Democrats are struggling for the formula that can attract bipartisan support to extend the life of President Bush’s education law, No Child Left Behind. In doing so, they are proposing to ease the pressure on suburban schools.

A draft proposal being floated by Representative George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, would soften many of the law’s accountability provisions while maintaining its overall strategic goal: to bring every student to proficiency by 2014 by requiring states to administer standardized tests and to punish schools where scores do not rise.

The changes, circulated this week by Mr. Miller, a California Democrat, and the committee’s ranking Republican, address the most persistent complaints against the law, by suburban districts, by middle-class parents, by states with large immigrant populations and by teachers unions who are crucial to Democrats’ 2008 electoral fortunes.

For the suburbs, for example, Mr. Miller’s draft would draw a distinction between schools failing across the board and those where only some student groups failed to meet annual testing goals. It would give a nod to teachers’ concerns by allowing states to consider not just annual math and reading scores in deciding whether a school passes muster but other measures, including tests in history, science and civics; graduation rates; and Advanced Placement tests.

For states with many immigrants, it would allow students not fluent in English to be tested in their native language for five years.

But in a sign of the difficult political calculus in extending a measure that has opponents on both the right and the left, for every supporter of the proposed changes there has emerged an opponent. ...

This from the New York Times.

More on multiple measures and NCLB

An interesting post, and comments, over at This Week in Education on multiple measures.

It seems that US Rep and education committee Chairman George Miller's speech at the National Press Club last month struck a nerve with conservative Stanford researcher Erik Hanushek.

Miller had signalled his openness to looking at some additional measures of success, like high school graduation rate in assessing the success of our schools. This make perfectly good sense to me.

We ought to clearly define it so that "graduation" in Georgia means the same thing it does in Kentucky, then keep the data and track it.

I'm not a fan of Hanushek's. Some of his sworn testimony in school funding cases has appeared to me to be deliberately stupid. I say deliberately, because clearly, he is not, in fact, stupid. Sometimes, what he says is. To hear him tell it, money just doesn't matter much when it comes to quality schooling - it can't be shown scientifically to have an impact. But I'll bet he understands that it costs you more if you want fries with that burger. If he wants the BMW with the navigational system, he knows it will cost him more. Just like hiring an extra high quality teacher who will make a difference for a bunch of kids. But I digress...

This time, I think Hanushek is a little smarter.

Haunshek is worried by some of the discussion over multiple measures and argues for measures that are clear and, in fact, measurable. Me too. Some argue that school assessment ought to include such measures as portfolio assessment, writing assessments and public speaking. Talk about an undefined measures. These may well be the right idea - but as assessment goes - it will be difficult to agree that one teacher's assessment of student writing would match anther's.

It is an inter-rater reliability nightmare.

Hanushek also correctly points out the powerful effect that disaggregating student achievement data has had on forcing schools to focus on all groups of students, rather than hiding behind mean scores while persistently allowing the same groups of children to fail year after year...without accountability.

Without arguing whether federal imposition of NCLB's federal accountability system is actually constitutional - it would be the right way to go, even under a state accountability system.

And Hanushek concedes that adding a growth model improves NCLB.

But Hanushek only wants to look at data that focuses on "basic cognitive skills."

Why?

We collect a ton of data about the performance of our schools. School leaders across the country pour over that data (some of it demographic like graduation rates) gauging the relative success of school programs; looking for trends. The data tell a story.

Part of that story is what it will take for all school and all students to be successful; what it takes to close achievement gaps.

Perhaps what Hanushek really fears from an expanded data set, is not so much that it might damage kids, but what it might reveal; that it's not enough for us to simply declare our best aspirations - that no child will be left behind - reaching that goal is going to require a greater, more comprehensive effort, than simply putting the thumb screws to America's principals and teachers.

Of course, some of the broader discussion of multiple measures is at cross purposes.

Hanushek is thinking of an accountability system.

Many teachers look at assessment - quite properly - as a useful tool for guiding and adjusting instruction. The teachers are correct. But when policy makers wanted accountability, their heads were in a different place.

Of course, it would have been best if we first built a strong instructional assessment system which started with the content and then provided teachers timely feedback on their student's progress on specific objectives... and then, built an assessment system around that.

But it didn't work that way for political reasons.

Policy makers wanted accountability more than improved instruction...so that's where they put their effort. The two ought to be the same, but they are not.

High School graduation rate as a measure of school success

Dick Innes posted a thoughtful item on graduation rates this afternoon over at the Bluegrass Policy blog.

He worries that as Congress considers the reauthorization of NCLB that requirements might be reduced.

I think I heard House Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller tell the National Press Club that the house bill he introduces in September will allow the use of additional measures to assess school performance more comprehensively and that "one such measure for high schools must be graduation rates."

But he stopped short of saying there would be a uniform definition of what that means. Without an agreed upon definitions - as with "proficiency" -the term "graduation rate" will remain meaningless.

Innes talks about a recent Ed Trust report and the circumstances in Kentucky.

Text of Chairman Miller's National Press Club remarks on the Future of NCLB

The following are excerpts of U.S. Rep. George Miller's (D-CA), comments at the National Press Club, Monday, July 30, 2007. Miller is chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.
~

...Over 40 years ago, President John F. Kennedy had a vision of sending a man to the moon and bringing him home again.

That vision fueled a massive investment by this nation in all levels of education – an investment that drove nearly four decades of discovery, innovation and economic growth, allowing America to have the world’s strongest economy and lead the community of nations for generations.
Sadly, this investment fell off over the years.

With the report A Nation at Risk, America woke up and saw an education system that no longer served all its children and was failing our future.

America had an education system that was operating under a policy of acceptable losses. Where only about half of all minority children could read proficiently. Where black and Hispanic 17-year-olds were being taught math to the same level as white 13-year-olds. Where 40,000 teachers in California were without the credentials necessary to teach in the schools.

Nearly four decades after President Kennedy’s decision, America realized that its education system was threatening the country’s world leadership.

Six years ago we decided to do something bold about it.

We made a decision as a nation to raise our expectations of what America’s schools and schoolchildren could achieve. We made a decision to insist upon high standards.

We said that it was not good enough for a majority of the children in a school district to be learning and performing at grade level if their success was allowed to mask the fact that many other children were falling behind....

...Today, five-and-a-half years after its enactment, the No Child Left Behind Act has brought some positive changes....

...We didn’t get it all right when we enacted the law.

Throughout our schools and communities, the American people have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair. That it is not flexible. And that it is not funded.
And they are not wrong.

The question is what we are going to do next....

I can tell you that there are no votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for continuing the No Child Left Behind Act without making serious changes to it.

It is my intention as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee to pass a bill in September, both in Committee and on the floor of the House.

...The legislation I will introduce will contain a growth model that gives credit to states and schools for the progress that their students make over time....

...These growth models will give us fairer, better and more accurate information. The information will be timely and helpful to teachers and principals in developing strategies for improvement and in targeting resources....

...Our legislation will continue to place strong emphasis on reading and math skills. But it will allow states to use more than their reading and math test results to determine how well schools and students are doing.

We will allow the use of additional valid and reliable measures to assess student learning and school performance more fairly, comprehensively, and accurately. One such measure for high schools must be graduation rates....

...The legislation will also drive improvements in the quality and appropriateness of the tests used for accountability. This is especially important for English language learners and students with disabilities who should be given tests that are fair and appropriate, just as they should continue to be included in our accountability system...

...In my bill, we will ask employers and colleges to come together as stakeholders with the states to jointly develop more rigorous standards that meet the demands of both. ...

...This requires that assessments be fully aligned with these new state standards and include multiple measures of success.

These measures can no longer reflect just basic skills and memorization. Rather, they must reflect critical thinking skills and the ability to apply knowledge to new and challenging contexts.

These are the skills that today’s students will need to meet the complex demands of the American economy and society in a globalized world...

...These skills cannot be developed solely by simple multiple choice exams....

...I have heard from so many teachers who feel they are no longer viewed as critical partners in an educational system but merely an instrument to satisfy a minimum attainment goal.

As a nation we are not offering teachers the respect and support they deserve today, and as a result we are facing a very real teacher shortage crisis. Particularly in urban and rural communities, in subjects like math, science, foreign language, and for children with disabilities and children learning English, we must hire, train, and retain excellent teachers.

For these reasons, the legislation I will introduce will provide for performance pay for principals and teachers based on fair and proven models, teacher mentoring, teacher career ladders, and improved working conditions....

...Under current law schools whose students have not made adequate achievement gains are all treated the same under the law today – with the same interventions and sanctions taking place over the same period of time.

We need to distinguish among different schools and the challenges facing them, as well as their needs for addressing those challenges...

...The bill will include comprehensive steps to turn around low-performing middle and high schools. It will include uniform standards for measuring graduation rates that are fair, accurate, reliable, and will do more to keep students in school...

...In the new Congress, the Democratic Leadership has begun this new era of investment – first with the continuing resolution funding, then the appropriations bill, the Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, and the College Cost Reduction Act.

I expect this legislation to follow suit....

...The legacy of a great American education system for our children and our country cannot be built on the cheap. America deserves better....

Complete text here.

Russo sees shift toward multiple measures in Miller's speech on NCLB

Alexander Russo at This Week in Education, opines that George Miller's speech this week could mean a broken heart for Pro-NCLB groups.

Is Miller Breaking Up With Pro-NCLB Groups?

Perhaps the most compelling interpretation I've heard of the Miller speech ...is that Miller was emphasizing that (a) the reauthorization process is still moving along despite recent delays, and (b) multiple measures are going to be part of his bill no matter what.

If multiple measures are definitely in, then this represents the first big break by Miller from the groups that helped craft and defend NCLB 1.0 and the EdSec -- and a big win symbolically at least for NCLB 1.0 critics like the NEA who have been clamoring for years now that annual standardized tests were a bad way to go and, more recently, working hard on freshman lawmakers that previous compromises (like the growth model or the idea of treating schools that just miss AYP one year differently from those that miss it all the time, every year) aren't enough.

Miller: No Child Law Should Be Changed

WASHINGTON — A revised No Child Left Behind law should include merit pay for teachers and new ways of judging schools, the chairman of the House education committee said Monday.

"We didn't get it all right," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

The law, which is now up for renewal, requires annual math and reading tests in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools that miss progress goals face consequences, such as having to offer tutoring or fire their principals.

Miller said the law places too much emphasis on the math and reading tests, although those are still important indicators. Other tests or graduation rates could also be used to judge how schools are doing, he said.

The teachers unions have called for that kind of change, but the Bush administration and some Republicans in Congress say it could weaken the law.

Miller also said the law should pay teachers extra for boosting student achievement, an idea generally opposed by the national teachers unions.

Miller said he hopes the full House will vote on the legislation this September.

Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy, who chairs the Senate education committee, said he hopes the bill gets through his committee in September.

The legislation is a priority for President Bush, who pushed for its initial passage in 2001.

A majority of Americans want the law to be renewed as it is or with minor changes, according to a poll out Monday by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Education Next, a publication of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

This from the Associated Press @ Newsvine.

U.S. House education chair wants college lender cuts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee Tuesday introduced a bill to slash subsidies to student loan firms such as Sallie Mae and boost student grants.

The proposals come as Congress is considering numerous reforms to college student financial aid, and as federal and state investigators probe kickback schemes and conflicts of interest across the $85 billion student loan business.

California Rep. George Miller's bill represents a measured step toward compromise with Republicans over an issue that Democratic leaders want to wrap up soon, said Jaret Seiberg, a student loan industry analyst at Stanford Group Company.

"There has been a lot of pressure to get student loan reform done," Seiberg said, adding that if Miller gets his bill through committee, the outcome will be decided in the Senate.

Miller calls for a cut in a lender subsidy, known as the special allowance payment, of 0.55 percentage point. President Bush has proposed a cut of 0.50 percentage point.

This from CNN.