[Senate Hearing 114-801]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-801
ESSA IMPLEMENTATION: PERSPECTIVES
FROM EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS
ON PROPOSED REGULATIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT IMPLEMENTATION, FOCUSING ON
PERSPECTIVES FROM EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS ON PROPOSED REGULATIONS
__________
JULY 14, 2016
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee, Chairman
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming PATTY MURRAY, Washington
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont
RAND PAUL, Kentucky ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania
SUSAN COLLINS, Maine AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
MARK KIRK, Illinois SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
Lindsey Ward Seidman, Republican Deputy Staff Director
Evan Schatz, Minority Staff Director
John Righter, Minority Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016
Page
Committee Members
Alexander, Hon. Lamar, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions, opening statement......................... 1
Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington,
opening statement.............................................. 3
Paul, Hon. Rand, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kentucky....... 4
Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 41
Burr, Hon. Richard, a U.S. Senator from the State of North
Carolina....................................................... 43
Murphy, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Connecticut.................................................... 47
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode
Island......................................................... 49
Witnesses
Pruitt, Stephen L., Ph.D., Commissioner of Education, Kentucky
Department of Education, Frankfort, KY......................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Darling-Hammond, Linda, Ed.D., President and CEO at Learning
Policy Institute, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education
Emeritus at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Pletnick, Gail, Ed.D., Superintendent, Dysart Unified School
District, Surprise, AZ......................................... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Harris Welcher, Alison, Director of School Leadership Project
L.I.F.T., Charlotte, NC........................................ 35
Prepared statement........................................... 37
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Response to questions of Senator Murkowski by:
Alison Harris Welcher........................................ 65
Gail Pletnick, Ed.D.......................................... 67
(iii)
.
ESSA IMPLEMENTATION: PERSPECTIVES
FROM EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS.
ON PROPOSED REGULATIONS
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in
room 430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lamar Alexander,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Alexander, Murray, Burr, Paul, Casey,
Bennet, Whitehouse, and Murphy.
Opening Statement of Senator Alexander
The Chairman. The Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions will please come to order.
Senator Murray and I will each have an opening statement.
Then we will introduce our witnesses. Senator Paul is here to
introduce the witness from Kentucky at that time, and then
after our witness testimony the Senators will have 5 minutes of
questions.
Senator Murray and I both have to leave at 10:15 for a
while. I have to leave for a while to go to a short event in
the House, but we'll continue the hearing. We'll be in the
question time by then. You will have already given your
testimony and we will have had a chance to ask you questions.
So we'll go right ahead until about 11:30 or 11:45, depending
on the number of Senators who come to ask questions.
This is our fifth oversight hearing on the law to fix No
Child Left Behind. There's not a lot of need to elaborate on
what we established in the first four hearings. The President
of the National Education Association said that a dark cloud
was lifted in December, and there was a broad consensus that
that was true among people who work with children in schools.
The President called the new law a Christmas Miracle that had
broad support from Governors to teachers' unions to school
superintendents to chief state school officers, and my hope is
that by restoring responsibility to the States and classroom
teachers, it inaugurates a new era of innovation and excellence
in student achievement. Gone are the Federal Common Core
mandates, the ``Mother, May I?'' conditional waivers, the
highly qualified teacher definitions from Washington, the
Washington mandates on teacher evaluation. Gone are the Federal
school turnaround models, Federal test-based accountability,
and Federal definitions of adequate yearly progress.
The new law placed some guardrails around State
accountability systems, but it also placed some guardrails on
the Secretary, who is specifically prohibited from telling
States how to set academic standards, how to evaluate State
tests, how to identify and fix low-performing schools, how to
create teacher evaluation systems, and how to set goals for
student achievement and graduation rates.
In May, the Education Department issued its first proposed
regulation on accountability systems, and I will focus today on
four areas that seem to me to be the most in need of overhaul;
that is, the regulation needs overhaul, and I'll just mention
them briefly.
One is the timeline for the new regulations. Senator Murray
and I both mentioned this in our last hearing with Secretary
King. The law requires States to establish a State-determined
methodology to identify schools beginning with the school year
2017-18, but the proposed regulation, requires States to start
identifying new schools for support and improvement by the
beginning of the 2017-18 school year. That timeline would
discourage States from doing exactly what we hoped they would
do, which is develop and implement new accountability systems.
States such as Hawaii and Tennessee have begun working with
State and local coalitions on innovative approaches to
accountability, expecting they will have until March or May
2017 to submit them to the Department. Under the regulations,
the State would have to start earlier. Dr. Pruitt from Kentucky
will be testifying about that. I look forward to his comments
in his testimony.
I asked Dr. King last week whether the proposed regulation
would allow a State to develop its new accountability system in
2017-18 and then begin to identify new schools the next year,
2018-19. He said under the current regulations it would not be
allowed, but he's open to comment on that. So my interpretation
is that the Secretary would be willing to let States wait to
identify new schools until the beginning of 2018-19 so long as
States are providing additional support to schools that have
already been identified under No Child Left Behind waivers.
That might sound a little complicated, but it's pretty
important to the States, and we are hearing a great deal about
it all across the board. The law's intention, in my view, is to
give States an opportunity to demonstrate innovation and
accountability systems, which is now their responsibility.
The second one--and Dr. Darling-Hammond mentions this in
her testimony--has to do with so-called summative ratings. The
law says it's up to the States to figure out how to annually
measure and differentiate public schools based upon a series of
indicators beyond just the federally required math and reading
tests. But the proposed rule invents out of whole cloth a
requirement that these accountability systems result in each
school receiving a single summative score such as an A to F
grading system for all schools. That's not in the law. The law
even prohibits the Secretary from providing specific
methodology used by States to differentiate or identify
schools.
The regulation was seen to put the government in Washington
back in the business of deciding which schools in Kentucky,
Tennessee, Washington, Hawaii are succeeding or failing. I look
forward to Dr. Darling-Hammond's comments on that.
Third, State academic standards. Under No Child Left
Behind, in effect, the Department mandated that States adopt
Common Core, and 38 out of the 42 States did that in order to
get the waivers. The law repeals that effective mandate with at
least five specific prohibitions. It no longer requires a State
to demonstrate, using that word, that they have adopted
challenging standards. They simply have to assure the Secretary
that they adopted those standards. Dr. Pletnick in her
testimony questions whether the proposed rule requirement that
the State must provide evidence at such time and in a manner
specified by the Secretary would equate to the ability of the
Federal Government to reject the State-developed standards. We
look forward to that testimony.
Finally, high-stakes Federal tests. The heart of the new
law is the end of Federal test-based accountability. We kept
the 17 tests, but we moved to States and classrooms what to do
about the tests. The proposed regulation seems to restore those
high-stakes mandates. Federally mandated tests would again, and
academic indicators would again become the primary means used
to determine whether a school is succeeding or not, because
once a school is identified as in need of improvement, it's
going to always be in need of improvement unless it shows
significant progress on a federally mandated system.
Those are some of the issues that I'm concerned about, that
the witnesses have mentioned in their testimony. We look
forward to hearing from you.
Senator Murray.
Opening Statement of Senator Murray
Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Chairman Alexander.
We have a diverse group of witnesses here today to share
their expertise and experience. Thank you all very much for
joining us.
I'm glad that we have another opportunity to continue our
discussion on implementing this important new law, the Every
Student Succeeds Act, effectively and faithfully to make sure
all our students have access to high-quality education.
For those keeping count, this is our fifth implementation
hearing and another great opportunity to ensure the law is on
track.
As I mentioned to Secretary King at our most recent
hearing, I'm encouraged to see the Department making progress
to provide much-needed clarity for States and school districts
as they work to use the flexibility provided under ESSA in
redesigning their accountability systems. This clarity is
helping States and school districts engage and collaborate
directly with parents and teachers and school administrators
and civil rights organizations across the country.
As I've mentioned before in these hearings, we were
deliberate in granting the Department the authority to actually
implement the law and to do so in a way that accomplishes the
clear goals we laid out. To me, one of the most important of
those goals is to maintain the strong Federal guardrails to
make sure the law truly is working for all students, because we
know what happens when we don't have true accountability and
when our education law is not working well. Inevitably, it's
the kids from our low-income neighborhoods and the kids of
color, kids with disabilities, kids learning English who fall
through the cracks, and that wouldn't just be against the
spirit of the law that was just passed, it would be against the
letter of it as well. And honestly, it would be an unacceptable
outcome.
I am reviewing the regulations being released by the
Department, taking a close look at the proposed parameters for
accountability systems and State plan requirements and
reporting requirements that are included in their draft; and,
when necessary, I will continue raising concerns and be pushing
for more clarity to make sure we maintain the focus on
preparing all students for success in college and career.
As we told the Secretary at our last hearing, I'm concerned
about a few provisions in the draft regulations; for example, a
provision that allows States to compare the performance of
individual subgroups to the average performance of all students
in the State. ESSA was clear: the performance of every single
student in every single subgroup of students matters.
We also need to make sure Federal investments in education
support State and local resources and do not simply replace
them. The regulation known as Supplement, Not Supplant, is an
important fiscal accountability measure. This is an issue that
I have raised at past hearings and I'm sure will be discussed
today and one I will continue to push Secretary King to get
right in the final rule.
Last, the deadline for public comments on accountability
and State plans and reporting regulations is quickly
approaching, August 1st. I hope all stakeholders, including
those that are represented here today, will provide the
Department with their feedback on those regulations.
It's up to all of us to work together on this and uphold
the legacy and promise of our Nation's primary education law so
every student has the opportunity to learn regardless of where
they live or how they learn or how much money their parents
make.
With that, I want to keep my remarks short so we can make
room for our testimony today, and I look forward to hearing
from all of you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murray.
Senator Paul, would you like to introduce our first
witness? And then I will introduce the others.
Statement of Senator Paul
Senator Paul. Yes. Thank you, Senator Alexander. I'm glad
to welcome Dr. Stephen Pruitt, our Kentucky Commissioner of
Education. He was elected unanimously, which is somewhat of an
anomaly to those of us in office, but he was elected
unanimously to be Commissioner last September. He has hit the
road with a lot of interest in finding out about what's going
on around Kentucky. He's had 11 town halls and met with over
3,000 students, parents, and people interested in education.
One of the things I'm interested to hear from his testimony
is that our intention was to allow more freedom with the new
rules and with the new formulation of ESSA. I'm interested to
hear from Dr. Pruitt on whether or not the new law is allowing
Kentucky more freedom compared to the old system of having the
wavier that we had previously in Kentucky.
Welcome, Dr. Stephen Pruitt, and thanks for coming.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Paul.
Our second witness is Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond. She is
currently President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute,
also Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford.
Third is Dr. Gail Pletnick, Superintendent of the Dysart
Unified School District in Surprise, Arizona. She is President-
Elect of the School Superintendents Association.
Senator Burr may be here, but in the meantime I'll
introduce the witness from North Carolina, Ms. Alison Harris
Welcher, Director of School Leadership for Project L.I.F.T. Her
organization works with school leaders to better use resources
to improve student outcomes.
Starting with Dr. Pruitt, would each of you take about 5
minutes and summarize your testimony, and then we'll go to
questions.
Dr. Pruitt.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN L. PRUITT, Ph.D., COMMISSIONER OF
EDUCATION, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, FRANKFORT, KY
Mr. Pruitt. Good morning. Thank you. Chairman Alexander,
Senator Murray, Senator Paul, and members of the committee,
first I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to come and
speak with you this morning on what I believe is one of the
great opportunities that I will ever see in my career. As the
chief state school officer for the Commonwealth of Kentucky,
I'm excited about the future of education in our State under
this new law, the opportunity to build on the significant
progress that Kentucky has made to date.
We have already started to work to engage a broad spectrum
of education stakeholders. This spring I held 11 regional
meetings, as Senator Paul has mentioned, met with over 3,000
Kentuckians in an attempt to find out really what our
Kentuckians value in their education system. This is not
something that's unique just to Kentucky. This has actually
been going on in States across the country. This past week we
heard from States like Oregon and New Hampshire, who are also
engaging in the same type of activities.
Kentuckians told us what they value in their schools and
how they want to define school success. We listened, and we're
using those comments to shape our work as we move forward. I've
assembled 166 diverse individuals and assigned them to work
groups to examine all of these issues based on the goals, and
make recommendations based on this new accountability system
that will be a catalyst for improvement for every child in
Kentucky.
The autonomy promise by ESSA is a welcome departure from No
Child Left Behind, and I appreciate the continued focus on
closing achievement gaps. Like many of you, I believe this is
an issue of civil rights. In Kentucky, we're working to move
all children to higher levels of learning while also
determining the root cause of achievement gaps which we believe
stem from opportunity and expectation gaps, access to rigorous,
high-quality learning opportunities. By making changes to
address these issues, our goal is not only just to close the
gaps but our hope is that we will eventually completely
eliminate those gaps.
I'd like to commend the U.S. Department of Education for
its quick response in drafting the regulations and releasing
them in a timely manner. However, in my opinion, the proposed
regulations go beyond what the statute intended.
To be clear, I'm not against accountability. I actually
think that it is a critical piece to helping our Nation move
forward. I'm also not against guardrails. I believe that
someone needs to watch the watchers. However, instead of
guardrails on a multi-lane highway, I believe the proposed
regulations are more like concrete barriers along a one-lane
rural road. With so many restrictions and requirements, the
State voices are severely limited. The proposed regulations
stifle creativity, innovation, and the sovereignty of States to
govern their own education policies. Additionally, the volume
and complexity of the regulations are in direct opposition to
Kentuckians' desire for a simple system that provides a broad
view of school performance.
For many, a new accountability system is a monumental task.
Despite our best efforts, I am concerned about the timeline and
States' ability to implement a new quality system that takes
full advantage of ESSA. I was heartened to hear the Secretary
say recently that perhaps the USDOE timeline was a little
optimistic. I would wholeheartedly agree. For example, instead
of using the data from our current accountability systems to
identify schools for comprehensive support and improvement
under the new system, as the proposed regulations suggest, we
feel it would be prudent to wait until the end of the 2017-18
school year to identify schools based on the measures in the
new system. This will be fairer for our schools, allow for a
clean transition to a new system, and eliminate an amalgam of
the two systems during the transition year.
In the meantime, as provided in Section 5 of the law, we
will continue to support our currently identified low-
performing schools. I would implore the Secretary to commit to
this timeline now and not wait until the regulations are
finalized.
On another point, while the proposed regulations claim to
replace NCLB's narrow definition of school success, the
requirement of a single summative score goes well beyond the
statute. The proposed regulations limit States' ability to take
a dashboard approach which is broader, fairer, and a more
accurate representation of school performance.
In Kentucky, we found that a summative score leads to
ranking and creates an unhealthy sense of competition rather
than the collaboration and collegiality that supports true
school improvement. We also found that in some instances it
becomes more about adults chasing points and trying to game the
system and to manage the appearance of performance rather than
the actual performance.
Now more than ever, what a State needs to implement ESSA is
an honest two-way communication, consistency and trust to make
good decisions. We need a commonsense approach that supports a
quality system of assessments, accountability, and school
improvement measures that can be implemented with fidelity and
will promote doing what is right for all students. However, a
compliance mentality prevails.
There has been a lot said about the peer review process,
and I would just issue as a caution that this can't be the
answer to everything, because within that comes the potential
for possible inconsistencies, impossible misinterpretations or
different interpretations of the law.
Kentucky is committed to fully realizing the congressional
intent of ESSA. If this law truly represents a new day for
education in America, States would have the support to take
action based on the quality and what is best for their students
and move away from a compliance mentality.
I didn't wake up 6 months ago thinking I'm going to write a
letter that is going to get some notice that's going to put me
in front of a Senate committee. I do wake up every morning
thinking today is a good day to make a difference for children,
and I have 650,000 students that are relying on me back home to
deliver to them a system that will be fair, equitable, and will
promote achievement.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky looks forward to revised
regulations that empower States with the freedom to plan,
innovate, design, and implement quality education systems that
will ensure opportunity for all students and for Kentucky to be
able to promote the pillars of equity, achievement, and
integrity in education policy.
I thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you
this morning.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pruitt follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stephen L. Pruitt, Ph.D.
Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, and members of the committee,
thank you for inviting me to testify about the implementation of the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
I appreciate the support of the Senate in the passage of this law.
It is important for Kentucky and other States to have a stable Federal
law that enables State and local decisionmaking so that we can
effectively support our schools and districts in their efforts to
educate all children.
In Kentucky, our Constitution mandates an efficient system of
common schools throughout the State and ESSA supports that idea with a
focus on the success of every student.
I believe we have both an ethical and moral responsibility to our
children to provide them with a world-class education regardless of the
color of their skin, their heritage, the language they speak, their
family income, where they live, or whether they have a disability. We
educate children--ALL CHILDREN --because it is the right thing to do
for them, for our State and for these United States.
As the Chief State School Officer for the Commonwealth of Kentucky,
I am excited about the future of education in our State under ESSA and
the opportunity to build on the progress we have made to date.
Kentucky has a long history of taking action in the best interest
of our children. We don't believe in doing what is easy. We believe in
doing what is right for our students. We understand that also was the
intent of Congress in passing the ESSA.
In Kentucky:
We value equity so that all of our students will have the
opportunity to graduate from high school with the education and skills
they need to go to college or start a career of their choice.
We value high achievement in academics as well as a well-
rounded education for every student.
We believe in integrity--being open, honest and
transparent with our students and the adults who support them. Sugar-
coating data so everyone feels good about themselves is a disservice to
our children, our parents and our educators.
And finally, we value quality in the programs and systems
that support excellence in teaching and learning, support continuous
improvement and support our schools and districts in meeting our goal
of every student graduating high school truly prepared to take the next
step in life, whether that be college, a career or service in the
military.
These values have served us well.
Not so many years ago, Kentucky ranked near the bottom of States on
education indicators.
Today, by many measures, Kentucky has become a national leader in
improving student achievement. We have climbed to 27th place overall
according to the latest Quality Counts report from ``Education Week.''
Kentucky students outperform their peers at most levels in
reading, mathematics and science on NAEP--the National Assessment of
Educational Progress.
While a wide achievement gap between low-income students
and their wealthier counterparts exists in every State in the Nation,
according to the Quality Counts report, with 60 percent of Kentucky's
students being considered low income, the poverty gap is lower in
Kentucky than in the majority of other States.
Our graduation rate is among the top in the country. In
fact, the 2015 Building a Grad Nation report released annually by the
Alliance for Excellent Education, America's Promise Alliance, Civic
Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins
University called Kentucky ``a beacon to all other States.''
According to the report, our graduation rate for low-
income students is nearly identical to the graduation rate for middle/
high-income students and well above the national rate for all students.
And, we have seen significant increases over the past 5
years in our readiness rates for postsecondary education and the
workforce.
Despite this progress, we readily acknowledge that we still have
achievement gaps--all States do. That is why I am excited about the
opportunity ESSA presents. I, like many of you, believe ESSA is both a
civil rights law and an education law.
In Kentucky, we are working to determine the root cause of
achievement gaps, which we believe stem from opportunity gaps and
access to rigorous, high quality learning opportunities. Kentucky's
plan for closing gaps is to move all children up, but to do so faster
for those at the lowest performance levels. We do not want to sacrifice
the performance of any child for the sake of another. We believe all
boats should rise and ALL children should perform at the highest
levels. We will make changes to not only close the gaps, but eliminate
them whenever possible.
In Kentucky, we seized the opportunity that ESSA presents. Before
the U.S. Department of Education (USED) even released the proposed
regulations, Kentucky started working to engage a broad spectrum of
education shareholders, through a series of 11 face-to-face Town Hall
meetings held across the State and one conducted virtually. More than
3,000 people participated. They told us what they value in their
schools and how they define school success. We listened and are using
those comments to shape the work ahead.
Also, we have been intentional in making sure we have
representation from all shareholder groups at the table--on our
steering committee and work groups--as we build a new accountability
system under ESSA that will promote quality programs, school
improvement, educational access and create more opportunities for low-
income and minority students. I have assembled 166 diverse individuals
and assigned them to work groups to examine the issues based on our
goals and make recommendations on a new accountability system that will
be a catalyst for improvement and every child succeeding.
We plan to go back out to the public for feedback on the new
system, as well as to gather advice on the development of District and
School Report Cards.
I assure you that Kentucky is invested in its young people and is
up to the challenge and opportunity that comes with the reauthorization
of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
positive aspects of essa proposed regulations
I commend the United States Department of Education (USED) for its
quick response in drafting regulations on the implementation of ESSA
and releasing them in a timely manner for public comment.
I am heartened by a number of items in the proposed regulations on
accountability and State plans published in the Federal Register on May
31.
In regard to supporting all students and providing a well-rounded
and supportive education and equitable access to such for students
(Section 299.19 (a)--p. 34620), I am excited that career and technical
education finally gets its due. Education and the economy are
inextricably linked. For many of our students, career and technical
education is a pathway to their future, and it is time we recognized it
as such through challenging standards and rigorous coursework. The
business community also is very enthusiastic about this as it will
result in a better prepared workforce.
The folks who spoke during our town hall meetings or who submitted
written comments will be very happy that the regulations recognize the
importance of subjects beyond math, reading and science. They
consistently told us how much they valued student participation in the
visual and performing arts, along with the benefits of health and
physical education. For many students, these are the areas that keep
them engaged in school and persisting to graduation.
I wholeheartedly agree with Secretary King's prior statement on the
proposed regulations that they ``give educators room to reclaim for all
of their students the joy and promise of a well-rounded educational
experience.''
I appreciate Senator Murray's assessment that the proposed
regulations fulfill the Federal obligation to protect and promote
equity, ensuring that ESSA implementation will uphold the civil rights
legacy of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as it was
originally approved.
I further welcome the statutory provision and the congruent
regulatory guidance on Subgroups of Students (Section 200.16(b)(i)--p.
34600) that maintains the inclusion of English Language Learners in
accountability up to 4 years to provide a more accurate picture of how
schools are continuing to support these students.
Additionally, allowing students with alternate diplomas (Section
200.34(a)(1)(ii), p. 34612) to be counted in the graduation rate is a
much needed change. Formerly, only students graduating with a
``regular'' diploma counted in the graduation rate, which discounted
the hard work of students participating in an alternate assessment who
achieved the alternate diploma. We are happy to see that change
reflected in the statute and the proposed regulation.
concerns over essa proposed regulations
But, a law is only as good as its regulations and their
implementation. No education initiative ever died in the visioning
phase; it lives or dies dependent on its implementation.
As we saw under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), States do not achieve
quality teaching and learning or improved student outcomes simply by
checking a box that they complied with a law. There also must be
fidelity in the implementation of the law, which is especially
important with the autonomy that the ESSA provides States and local
school districts.
However, in my opinion, the proposed regulations go beyond what
statute intended. Instead of guardrails along a multi-lane highway, the
proposed regulations are more like concrete barriers along a one lane
road with so many restrictions and requirements, that State choices are
severely limited. The proposed regulations stifle creativity,
innovation and the sovereignty of States to govern their own education
policies.
Additionally, the volume and complexity of these regulations are in
direct opposition to Kentuckians' desire for a system that is simple
and yields clear, concise messages to the public and parents and
provides a broad view of school performance.
I question, based on the proposed regulations, do States truly have
the autonomy to develop an accountability system and State plans that
reflect their goals and values and are in the best interest of children
as was intended under ESSA? As the saying goes, the devil is in the
details.
I am concerned about several issues that have emerged in the
proposed regulations that could undermine our efforts to continue on a
path to genuine improvement for all students and clearly communicate
where on that path a school and district is. Certain of the proposed
regulations simply do not seem to be consistent with the intent of
Congress or Kentucky's values.
As a preface, it is important for the record to reflect that
Kentucky has no intention of backing off of accountability in any way
during our transition to the new law. Accountability is important to
ensure public dollars are spent wisely and that all students have
equitable opportunities to achieve at high levels.
point 1--identification of schools in need of comprehensive support and
improvement
Statutory Summary: Section 5(e)(1)(B) indicates that States which
receive title I funding must develop and implement a single, statewide
State accountability system beginning with school year 2017-18. Section
1111(c)(4)(D) of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, requires States to
begin identifying schools in need of comprehensive support and
improvement in the 2017-18 school year and to do so at least once every
3 years.
The proposed regulation would: Require States to use data available
in 2016-17 that was generated under the current accountability system
to identify schools for comprehensive and targeted support and
improvement under the new system beginning in 2017-18. (Section
200.19(d)(1)_p. 34603)
KY Reaction: Implementing a new accountability system in 2017-18 is
already a monumental task on an aggressive timeline, and I have concern
that States will be able to implement new systems that take full
advantage of ESSA by the 2017-18 school year. Instead, States will be
forced into continuing the status quo of their current systems or make
only minor tweaks to existing systems.
I was heartened to hear the Secretary say recently that perhaps
USED's timetable was a little optimistic. We wholeheartedly agree.
For example, instead of using data from our current accountability
system to identify schools for comprehensive support and improvement
under the new system as the proposed regulations suggest, we feel it
would be prudent to wait until the end of the 2017-18 school year to
identify schools based on the measures of the new system.
If States are forced to identify schools prior to the new system
being approved by USED, schools might not be accurately identified
under the new system. This means those schools that most need intensive
help may be prohibited from getting it, while those not really needing
additional resources could receive them.
In addition, misidentification can create confusion among
educators, parents and students and erodes confidence in the
accountability system. For example, when Kentucky transitioned to its
current accountability model, one high school was identified as a
Priority School under the former system. However, under the new system
it has grown to be high performing and has continued to improve. Since
there was no ``reset'' based on the measures of the new system, this
school is simultaneously identified in the bottom 5 percent and the top
5 percent--sending mixed signals and creating distrust of the current
accountability system. We do not want to repeat this problem in the
transition to a new accountability system under ESSA.
Identifying schools for comprehensive support and improvement using
data generated under the new accountability system would be fairer for
our schools, allow a clean transition to the new system and eliminate
an amalgam of the two systems during the transition year. In the
meantime, we would continue to support our currently identified low
performing schools.
I would implore the Secretary to commit to this timetable now and
not wait until the regulations are finalized.
If we are forced to implement an accountability system that does
not closely align with State policy priorities, it will strike a
devastating blow against the integrity of this agency and our State as
a whole. Our schools will suffer and stay mired in compliance rather
than accepting the shared responsibility for educating the students of
the Commonwealth. I am a firm believer in accountability, but I will
not allow the new system in our State to reflect anything other than
Kentucky's values and what is best for our students.
point 2--annual differentiation of school performance: performance
levels and summative ratings
Summary of the Statutory Language: Section 1111(c)(4)(C) requires
that a State, on an annual basis, meaningfully differentiate its
schools using all the indicators in the State accountability system.
The proposed regulation would require that State accountability
systems provide a single summative rating from multiple measures of
school performance. (Section 200.18 (4)--p. 3460)
KY Reaction: While the proposed regulations claim to replace NCLB's
narrow definition of school success with a more comprehensive picture
of school performance, the requirement of a single summative score
seems to go well beyond what the statute calls for and would limit
States' ability to leave data at a dashboard level, which is a broader,
fairer and more accurate representation of school performance. While
composite indices tie up school performance in a neat little package,
reporting school performance as a single number--like reporting
different student groups as one group--can mask true performance on the
various indicators.
In Kentucky, we found that a summative score leads to ranking and
creates an unhealthy sense of competition rather than collaboration and
collegiality among our schools and districts. We also found that, in
some instances, it takes the focus away from decisions based on what's
best for students. Instead, it becomes more about adults chasing points
and trying to ``game'' the system to manage the appearance of
performance, rather than actual performance. This is not good for
students and is diametrically opposed to Kentucky's desire to provide a
transparent system that has integrity and on which people know they can
count to get accurate information about school performance.
Furthermore, research \1\ shows that use of a summative score does
not spur improvement, whereas, quality feedback on multiple indicators
leads to greater improvement.
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\1\ Lipnevich, A.A., and Smith, Jeffrey K. (2008, June). Response
to assessment feedback: The effects of grades, praise, and source of
information. Princeton, NJ: ETS.
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point 3--annual differentiation of school performance: weighting of
indicators
Summary of the Statutory Language: Section 1111(c)(4)(B) requires
State accountability systems to include certain indicators. Most of
those are academic indicators (e.g., results on reading and math
assessments, high school graduation rates), but States also are
required to have one or more additional indicator(s) of school quality
or student success. Section 1111(c)(4)(C)(ii) specifies that each
academic indicator has to receive ``substantial'' weight in the State's
accountability system, and that in the aggregate, ``much greater
weight'' than the school quality indicators in the aggregate.
The proposed regulation: Requires States to perform back-end checks
to demonstrate their weighting systems meet the ``substantial'' and
``much greater'' standards required in the law, even though the
regulations do not prescribe the weight or offer a range of weights
States assign to each indicator, or the aggregate weights for the
academic and school quality or student success indicators. (Section
200.18 (6)(d)(1-3)--p. 34602) For example:
A school that gets the lowest score on one of the academic
indicators must get a different summative rating than a school
performing at the highest level on every academic indicator.
A school identified for statutorily defined comprehensive
support (bottom 5 percent, high schools with graduation rates below 67
percent, and schools with very low performing subgroups) or statutorily
defined targeted support (consistently underperforming subgroups)
cannot be removed from those categories based on the performance on
school quality or student success indicators unless significant forward
progress is happening on one of the academic indicators. The proposal
does not, however, define ``significant forward progress,'' thereby
leaving that determination up to States.
KY Reaction: The regulation goes beyond the scope of the statute
and adds additional provisions to what is supposed to be a State
determination. The back-end checks negate a State's ability to
determine the impact that ``substantial'' and ``much greater'' weights
have in the overall accountability system.
point 4--identification of schools--schools identified for
comprehensive support and improvement
Summary of the Statutory Language: Each State must create a
methodology, based on a system of annual meaningful differentiation,
for identifying certain public schools for comprehensive support and
improvement and must include three types of schools:
The lowest-performing 5 percent of all title I schools in
the State;
Any public high school failing to graduate one-third or
more of its students; and
Title I schools with a consistently underperforming
subgroup that, on its own, is performing as poorly as all students in
the lowest-performing 5 percent of title I schools and that has failed
to improve after implementation of a targeted support and improvement
plan.
The proposed regulations would: Reiterate the statutory requirement
for identifying three specific types of schools for comprehensive or
targeted support and improvement. They do not extend the authority of
States to identify schools for improvement beyond what is in statute.
The regulation should provide States further guidance on how they may
be able to provide support to schools in need beyond those currently
recognized. (Section 200.19(a)(1-3)--p. 34602)
KY Reaction: Currently States are able to identify schools for
supports if they are title I eligible; however, due to the prescriptive
nature of the proposed regulations, States are no longer afforded that
option. Since many, if not all, districts run out of title I money
before getting to high schools, the result would be there would be
middle and high schools that would not receive assistance, in spite of
really needing it.
point 5--identification of schools--methodology to identify
consistently underperforming subgroups
Summary of the Statutory Language: Section 1111(c)(4)(C)(iii)
provides that each State must establish and describe in its State plan
a methodology to identify schools for targeted support and improvement
and leaves the determination of consistently underperforming up to the
State.
The proposed regulation would: Define consistently underperforming
as failing to make progress for 2 years. (Section 200.19(c)(1)--p.
34602)
KY Reaction: The regulation oversteps the bounds of the statutory
language which leaves the definition of consistently underperforming up
to the States.
point 6--resources to support school improvement
Summary of the Statutory Language: The statute authorizes the SEA
to reserve 7 percent of the State's title I allocation to serve schools
identified for Comprehensive or Targeted Support and Improvement. At
least 95 percent of these funds must flow through to LEAs, unless the
SEA and an LEA agree to have improvement activities carried out by the
State or an outside provider. The statute provides other requirements
regarding local applications and the targeting of these funds.
The proposed regulations would: Require that the SEA, in allocating
funds, provide at least $50,000 for each Targeted Support and
Improvement school and at least $500,000 for each Comprehensive Support
and Improvement school, unless the SEA can conclude (based on a
demonstration by the LEA in its application) that a smaller amount
would suffice. (Section 200.24 (9)(c)(2)(ii)--p. 34608)
KY Reaction: With the proposed regulation setting an arbitrary
minimum allocation of $500,000 for Comprehensive Support and
Improvement Schools, there is no consideration of student population.
For small rural schools, this would likely be more than they need, but
the State would have no discretion in awarding less unless the district
requested and justified less, which few are likely to do. The result
would be less money for schools that may have larger student
populations and need more than the $500,000 to effect comprehensive
improvement, thus creating a funding inequity.
Furthermore, the State should not be forced through the onerous
process of establishing a $500,000 minimum, to have each LEA either
apply for the $500K or request and justify an exception, and then
consider each such request on a case-by-case basis--all when the State
knows from the beginning that $500K will be more than needed in many
cases.
By setting the minimum allocations in regulation, States do not
have the autonomy to make decisions based on actual school needs.
point 7--report cards
Summary of the Statutory Language: The law requires that each LEA
participating in title I produce and disseminate a report card,
containing information for the LEA as a whole and for each of its
schools.
The proposed regulations would: Require that the local report card
(for the LEA as a whole and for each school) begin with a clearly
labeled and prominently displayed overview section, be developed with
parental input, include certain information and be distributed to
parents on a single piece of paper. (Section 200.31 (3)(d)(2)(i)--p.
34610)
KY Reaction: With the volume and complexity of the reporting
requirements, a single sheet of paper is not adequate if we are to use
a font size that we expect parents and others will be able to read.
point 8--contents of the consolidated plan and the peer review process
Summary of the Statutory Language: Section 1111 (e)(1) prohibits
the Secretary from adding new requirements and criteria outside the
scope of the statute.
Section 9302 (b)(3) states that
``the Secretary shall require only descriptions, information,
assurances . . . , and other information that are absolutely
necessary for the consideration of the consolidated State plan
or consolidated State application.''
Section 1111(a)(4) provides that the Secretary establish a peer-
review process to assist in the review of State plans. The purpose of
peer review is to maximize collaboration with each State; promote
effective implementation of the challenging State academic standards
through State and local innovation; and to provide transparent, timely
and objective feedback to States designed to strengthen the technical
and overall quality of the State plans.
The proposed regulations would: Require States to undertake
burdensome, time-consuming documentation not required in statute to
provide detailed descriptions, reviews and evidences on multiple
elements within the consolidated State plan--presumably to support the
peer review process.
KY Reaction: We applaud the law's intent to provide collaboration
between State and Federal education agencies through the peer review
process and provide feedback designed to strengthen State plans.
However, history has shown that the peer review process, as it
currently operates, is subjective, secretive and often results in
inconsistent interpretations of the law.
The documentation that States must provide under the proposed
regulations on items such as challenging State academic standards,
performance management systems, strategies, timelines and funding
sources goes beyond the intent of the assurances required in statute.
As such, we have a concern that though prohibited in law, the peer
review process could be manipulated to allow the department to promote
its agenda outside of the regulatory process.
Furthermore, the requirement to provide massive amounts of
documentation, again presumably to support the peer review process,
adds many additional staff hours and expense. Recently, the Kentucky
Department of Education was required to spend more than $500 and
countless hours assembling boxes and boxes of hard copy documentation
for the assessment peer review. This does not seem to support the
collaborative process intended in the law and a trust in States to do
the right things for their students.
point 10--supplement, not supplant: section 1118(b)
Finally, while I understand the proposed regulations on assessments
and ``supplement, not supplant'' will be forthcoming, based on what we
have seen so far with the proposed regulations on accountability and
State plans, I have concerns.
Kentucky is committed to supporting equitable educational
opportunities for all students. I am concerned, however, that USED's
recent regulatory proposal on title I's Supplement, not Supplant (SNS)
requirement exceeds the scope of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
and will promote harmful consequences for students.
SNS is a long-standing rule that requires title I funds not be used
to replace the State and local funds an LEA would have spent in a title
I school if it did not participate in title I. ESSA retained the SNS
rule, but changed how compliance is tested. ESSA prohibits USED from
prescribing the specific methodology an LEA uses to allocate State and
local funds.
ESSA also contains a ``rule of construction'' stating nothing in
title I shall be construed to mandate equalized spending per-pupil for
a State, LEA, or school. USED's proposed regulation on Supplement, not
Supplant purports to permit each LEA to determine its own methodology
for allocating State and local funds to schools, but would require that
the methodology result in the LEA spending an equal or greater amount
per-pupil in its title I schools than the average amount it spends per-
pupil in its non-title I schools.
The Congressional Research Service recently released an analysis
that found ``a legal argument could be raised that USED will exceed its
statutory authority if it promulgates the proposed SNS rules in their
current form.''
In addition to exceeding the statutory scope of ESSA, the proposal
that USED presented during negotiated rulemaking may require districts
to force place teachers in schools to comply, place existing State and
local initiatives to promote diverse public schools at risk of
noncompliance, and penalize States and districts that use a weighted
funding methodology.
When the Department publishes its forthcoming proposed rule on
Supplement, not Supplant, I urge Congress to review it closely to
ensure that it conforms to congressional intent and avoids the
unintended negative consequences promoted by the Department's earlier
proposals in this area.
There are many other smaller technical points in the proposed
regulations that Kentucky will be addressing in its formal comments
submitted through the Federal Register website. Individually they may
seem benign, but collectively they add up to a very inflexible,
prescriptive and authoritarian approach to school improvement--the very
thing that doomed NCLB and the very thing ESSA was meant to avoid.
conclusion
Now, more than ever what States need to implement ESSA is a common
sense approach that supports a quality system of assessments,
accountability and school improvement measures that can be implemented
with fidelity and will promote doing what is right for students.
States need honest two-way communication, consistency and to be
trusted to make good decisions.
Let me share with you, however, an issue we recently encountered
concerning Kentucky's current science assessments. On March 31, 2015,
as part of the ESEA flexibility waiver renewal process, USED approved
Kentucky's plan to give only a Norm Referenced Test (NRT) at the
elementary and middle school levels in science, since the State had
implemented new science standards and aligned assessments were in
development, but not yet vetted and available for administration. The
alternative, a delay in teaching the new, more rigorous science
standards until a new test was complete, was not a decision Kentucky
entertained, since it would not be in students' best interest.
This spring, despite Kentucky's approved ESEA waiver, USED staff
informed the State that under a new interpretation by USED, the State
was out of compliance, unless it gave a science test for which student
performance levels could be assigned. USED staff suggested giving an
old test, not aligned to the new science standards and for which
student performance levels would not be an accurate reflection of what
they were learning.
This would be a violation of Federal requirements that assessments
be aligned with the State's challenging academic content and student
academic achievement standards, and provide coherent information about
student attainment of such standards. In order to maintain the
integrity of Kentucky's accountability system and to be honest with our
students, parents and teachers, I could not in good conscience agree to
USED demands.
Although informed that new high-quality science tests aligned with
the new standards would be field tested in spring 2017 and implemented
statewide in spring 2018, I received a letter that USED has placed a
condition on Kentucky's Title I, Part A and IDEA Part B Federal Fiscal
Year 2016 grant awards--all because we wanted to do what was right for
students, and not waste money on a meaningless test.
In one of our many conversations with USED on this issue, I was
told that if everyone took time off testing when new standards are
implemented it would be a problem. My response was no, it would be a
solution, because we would have time to develop high quality tests that
assess student knowledge at a much deeper level and provide more
meaningful feedback as a basis for improvement. We wouldn't just be
giving tests for tests sake.
Kentucky is committed to fully realizing the congressional intent
of ESSA. If this law truly represents a new day for education in
America, States must have the support to take action based on quality
and what is best for their students and move away from a compliance
mentality.
The word accountability ends with ``ability,'' which is what
Kentucky is seeking in proposed regulations--the ability to put OUR
students at the center of the decisionmaking process.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky looks forward to revised regulations
that empower States with the freedom to plan, innovate, design and
implement quality education systems that will ensure opportunity for
all students and, in Kentucky, promote the pillars of equity,
achievement and integrity in education policy.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Pruitt.
If the witnesses stay as close as you can to 5 minutes,
we'll have more time for back and forth with all the Senators.
Dr. Darling-Hammond.
STATEMENT OF LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND, Ed.D., PRESIDENT AND CEO AT
LEARNING POLICY INSTITUTE, CHARLES E. DUCOMMUN PROFESSOR OF
EDUCATION EMERITUS AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO, CA
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Thank you so much, Senators Alexander
and Murray, members of the committee. Thank you for your
invitation to participate in this hearing.
As a parent and a teacher and a researcher, I want to
congratulate the Congress on the many ways in which the Every
Student Succeeds Act builds on our knowledge of what works in
education and how schools can be improved. ESSA gives States
the opportunity to design accountability systems that both
support equity and continuous improvement across schools, and
it recognizes that educational improvement today must increase
students' ability to succeed in the 21st century.
I also applaud the U.S. Department of Education for
including a number of provisions in its proposed regulations
that will help support these goals, in particular the need to
ensure that the interventions are evidence-based and locally
determined and that they support the use of school indicators
for both identification and diagnostic purposes.
There are some areas where the proposed regulations,
however, could unintentionally undermine equity advances and
State efforts to support improvement in all schools for all
students. In my written testimony I identify five areas.
The first is allowing dashboards of information that do not
require a single summative score.
The second is allowing additional indicators of school
quality beyond the four federally required ones to be used
meaningfully in accountability decisions.
The third is to allow more detailed and informative
measures of achievement in addition to the percent of students
proficient on State tests for accountability determinations. We
learned under NCLB that the attention on what became the bubble
kids who were right at the cut score took away from attention
to kids above and below. We need information about how children
are progressing along the entire continuum.
The fourth is to allow sufficient time, as we've already
mentioned, for implementation of these rules.
And the fifth is to find ways to respond to low
participation rates that do not confuse actual student
performance with the number of students taking tests.
I'm going to focus really just on the single summative
score issue now, which is causing many States concern. Places
like California, Kentucky, Vermont and Virginia and others are
well along a path toward developing new accountability systems
that focus on more and better information for school
intervention and improvement that they believe will be
undermined by this requirement because it will mask important
information, make it more difficult to target the right
supports to the right schools in the right ways. Several of
these States have used a single measure like a grading system
or an index in the past. They found that it impeded useful
improvement, causing schools that are above the cut point to
become complacent because they don't have to worry about
improvement, and masking information both about subgroup
performance and about what we need to improve.
Some people have said that parents can't understand more
than a single summative score, but as the parent of three
children I would argue that those report cards that we get
every semester that tell us how our kids are doing in reading
and math and social studies and PE and art and whether they're
getting their homework done are completely interpretable to
parents and very much valued, and I included a redacted version
of one of my children's report cards in the testimony on page 5
to remind us that getting this information is very, very
valuable. In fact, in my own experience of parenting, I never
ever asked any of my children's schools for a single summative
score to describe my child. And because I have two children who
are dyslexic and performed well overall, we would never have
identified their reading needs if all I got was a single
summative score. Schools need to know which kids need help in
reading, which ones need help in math, just as States need to
know which schools need help to improve their English language
proficiency programs and pedagogies and which ones need help to
improve their graduation rates.
Many States are exploring and developing decision rules to
be able to use multiple indicators in a fair and consistent
way, giving more weight to the academic indicators, but also
paying attention to things like college and career readiness,
how many kids are completing good programs of career technical
and college preparatory education, things like suspension and
expulsion rates that civil rights groups in a number of States
like my own have been advocating for in the dashboard, as part
of a comprehensive approach both to monitoring schools for
continuous improvement and subgroups of students within those
schools, targeting interventions to those needs, using decision
rules to decide which schools with the greatest needs in each
of those areas and across the areas will get interventions from
the State.
I gave examples in my written testimony of how several
States are approaching this as they are developing their new
systems working with stakeholders, and I think it's really
important that we allow in the regulations the flexibility for
these important indicators to be part of the accountability
determinations and the continuous improvement systems that are
used to follow on that.
At the end of the day, our goal has to be providing as much
information as possible to identify and solve problems. Thank
you for the opportunity to discuss how we can make this law as
beneficial as it has the potential to be.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Darling-Hammond follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Ed.D.
i. introduction
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and members of the
committee, thank you for your invitation to participate in this
hearing.
My name is Linda Darling-Hammond. I am the Charles E. Ducommun
Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University and serve as the
President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute (LPI).
The Institute conducts and communicates independent, high-quality
research to improve education policy and practice. Working with
policymakers, researchers, educators, community groups, and others, we
seek to advance evidence-based policies that support empowering and
equitable learning for each and every child.
I am honored to be here today.
As a parent, an educator, and a researcher, I want to begin by
congratulating the Congress on the many ways in which the Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA) builds on our knowledge of what works in education
and how schools can be improved. To a much greater extent than its
predecessor, ESSA affords States the opportunity to design
accountability systems that both support continuous improvement across
all schools while accurately identifying and assisting schools that are
struggling to meet the needs of all students. It recognizes that
educational improvement must increase students' ability to succeed in
the 21st century, fostering such skills as critical thinking, complex
problem-solving, effective communication and collaboration, and the
ability to learn independently in a rapidly changing world.
The main point of my testimony is that the regulations for the law
must allow for accountability that leads to this equity and
improvement, by providing transparency and clarity for action both for
schools that are failing overall or struggling in certain regards and
for all schools to continually improve. At the same time, it must allow
for the innovation that will carry this country and its people into the
21st century innovations in learning, teaching, and schooling that are
necessary for our national success.
Changes are clearly needed in our educational systems. According to
the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a
test of applied learning and higher order thinking skills released by
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the
United States ranked, among 34 countries, 27th in mathematics, 17th in
reading, and 20th in science.\1\ Between 2000 and 2012, when No Child
Left Behind was in place, U.S. scores and rankings on PISA declined in
all areas tested. The greatest challenges are in the schools serving
our lowest-income students. And poor children are a growing share of
the U.S. population, now comprising more than half all public school
students.
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\1\ Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development,
``Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Results from PISA
2012: United States'' (Washington, DC: Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development, 2013).
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It is clear that we need to do some things differently than we have
attempted in the past. While we have some wonderfully successful
schools, our system as a whole is not ensuring that all students can
graduate from high school well prepared for their futures. To achieve
this goal, we will need to redesign accountability and improvement
systems to support these efforts.
As the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) works toward
finalizing regulations to support the successful implementation of
ESSA, these regulations must allow States to develop accountability
systems that increase equity in educational opportunities and outcomes
and that drive continuous improvement for all students and schools.
These systems should offer transparency, without sacrificing the
specific information needed to determine supports and interventions.
And the regulations should support innovation, so that States can
implement changes that will support and measure the kind of 21st
century teaching and learning that are necessary for our national
success.
Congressional intent to support these types of systems is evident
throughout ESSA. I join many educators who applaud the wise approach
Congress took to create a law that allows States to move away from the
restrictions of NCLB that hampered continuous improvement and
innovation. While well intentioned, NCLB resulted in rigid
accountability systems that were often counterproductive to increasing
equitable and meaningful educational opportunities for all students.
I also applaud the U.S. Department of Education for including in
its proposed regulations a number of provisions that will help support
the goal of creating accountability systems that drive improvement for
all schools and all students. For example, the proposed regulations
emphasize the need to ensure that interventions are not only based on
each school's unique situation but they must also be evidence-based and
locally determined. The proposed regulations also support the use of
indicators for both identification and diagnostic purposes. The use of
diagnostic indicators can provide additional data to inform the use of
funding for professional development, direct student services, and
school improvement.
There are some areas, however, where the proposed regulations could
be counterproductive to State efforts to support continuous improvement
in all schools for all students. Other regulations could reduce the
opportunities for States to develop much more effective systems for
addressing inequalities and improving schools. The following testimony
highlights these areas and provide recommendations on how the final
regulations can support States in developing, implementing, and
improving upon accountability systems that drive continuous improvement
to ensure that all students develop the skills necessary to succeed in
the 21st century.
ii. key issues
The final regulations issued by the Department, as well as any
subsequent Guidance and Technical Assistance should:
1. Allow States to develop useful dashboards of information that
provide transparency and guidance for productive action. The
regulations should not require a single summative score, which could
limit a State's ability provide the data needed for schools and States
to act wisely and well on behalf of the students and families, while
hindering the ability of parents and community members to advocate
wisely and well on behalf of their children.
2. Allow States to use additional indicators of school quality,
beyond the four that are federally required, in meaningful ways that
recognize and incentivize schools for their progress on these measures.
The proposed regulations would essentially render the ``5th
indicator(s)'' meaningless in the process of identifying schools, thus
undermining efforts to eliminate disparities and increase student
opportunities to learn. The regulations should not restrict State
options for weighting and using these additional measures in meaningful
ways to add to the information that is used to examine school success.
This should include the meaningful use of extended-year graduation
rates in State accountability systems, which incentivize schools to
keep in, rather than pushing out, students who cannot graduate in 4
years and to re-attract those who have left.
3. Allow States to use continuous measures of achievement (such as
scale scores, and movement across performance categories), in order to
better measure progress and equity gaps. This approach encourages
schools to pay attention to students at all points along the
achievement continuum, and provides States with better information
about progress and outcomes for all students. The regulations should
not require reporting of student performance by the percentage of
students who have met a single cut-point which has, under NCLB, focused
attention disproportionately on assisting students near that cut point
(the so-called ``bubble kids'') to the detriment of others.
4. Ensure sufficient time to implement thoughtful and effective
accountability systems which incorporate stakeholder feedback and have
the capacity to drive effective strategies for improvement in schools.
The regulations should give States until the 2017-18 school year to use
new systems for evaluating school progress and identifying schools for
intensive assistance.
Finally, it seems advisable for the Department to reconsider its
approach on how States respond to low participation rates on statewide
assessments. The proposed regulations outline very specific
consequences to be applied when there is a participation rate of less
than 95 percent for any group in any school. The Department proposes a
menu of options for States dealing with schools that fall below the 95
percent participation rate threshold, including:
lower summative performance ratings
lowest performance level on academic achievement indicator
identified for targeted support and improvement
State determined action that is equally rigorous and
approved by ED \2\
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\2\ Page 34548: Section 200.15
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These consequences would confuse actual student performance with
the numbers of students taking tests, and reduce the clarity and
transparency of ratings, decisions, and actions. A number of officials
and educators have indicated that these approaches could backfire and
cause greater challenges for them as they seek to build a culture of
engagement in new assessments and systems. Encouraging States to
determine and clearly articulate how they will factor the requirement
for 95 percent participation in assessments without federally
prescribed sanctions will likely better help address the previous
misuse of and current responses to high-stakes testing.
For the purposes of my oral testimony, I will focus on the first
item--how the Department, in its final regulations, can support States
in developing accountability systems that are transparent, while also
providing the information needed to drive improvement across all
schools for all students.
iii. 200.18 meaningful differentiation of school performance:
preserving a robust dashboard to guide improvement
ESSA requires that States identify at least 5 percent of their
title I schools for comprehensive assistance based on their new
accountability systems, which will include multiple measures, such as
literacy and math achievement, English proficiency gains, graduation
rates, and other indicators. The law does not prescribe a particular
method for this identification, aside from noting that the 4 academic
measures specified must have ``much greater weight'' than other
measures the States add. However, the proposed regulations would
require States to produce a ``single summative score'' on which to rank
all of the schools in order to choose the ``bottom 5 percent.''
Many States--including California, Kentucky, Vermont, and Virginia,
among others--are well along a path toward developing new
accountability systems focused on better information for school
intervention and improvement that they believe will be undermined by
this requirement, because it will mask important information and make
it more difficult to target the right supports to the right schools in
the right ways. Several of these States have used a single measure,
such as an index or a grading scheme, in the past and have found that
it impeded useful improvement.
Their experience was that large amounts of resources and attention
were directed to the single summative score at the expense of many
other factors that impact teaching and learning. Schools could rest on
their laurels if they ranked above an arbitrary cut point, rather than
paying attention to continuously improving performance on every
indicator. Important factors and data were forgotten because they were
buried underneath the score. And important needs for groups of students
and schools as a whole went unaddressed.
Parents and educators who work directly with children understand
this from their personal experience. A single summative score is not
needed and can get in the way of understanding where and how
improvement efforts should be focused.
Years ago, when my three children were young, I eagerly awaited the
report cards that told me how my children were doing in each of their
school subjects, such as reading, writing, math, science, social
studies, art, music, and physical education. The most useful of these
report cards also provided information on such things as homework and
study habits and citizenship. This information was clear and easy to
understand, while also revealing specific areas where I could praise or
help my child--and where the teacher and school needed to provide
additional support.
In all of those years of parenting, it never once occurred to me to
ask any of these schools for a ``single summative score'' to describe
my child. I didn't need it to understand how my child was doing, and in
fact it would have gotten in the way. I wanted and needed to know
exactly where they were doing well and where they were in need of help,
so that I could support them. The school needed that information as
well. In fact, in my own personal experience, two of my children are
dyslexic and while they performed well overall, the need for additional
support in reading would have been masked if a single rating were the
measure the school focused on. Ranking all the first graders against
each other, giving each an overall rating, and then identifying only
the bottom 5 percent for extra help, would have missed the mark.
The use of a single summative score would provide neither myself
nor my child's teacher the information necessary to identify areas of
improvement and act on them. Similarly, schools and districts need
reporting systems that allow them to identify individual students and
groups of students who may need intensive help in reading or math in
order to design, target, and implement interventions like Reading
Recovery or math lab. And they need to know which students are
chronically absent in order to provide organized outreach to the home
for students who are not getting to school. This requires specific
indicators that are individually reported, not a single summative
score. And it requires a set of interventions that are targeted to the
specific needs that are identified.
Some States are thinking about the same approach to identification
and improvement of schools: On each of the indicators they use, they
could identify schools that are low-performing and not improving (or
that have large, persistent equity gaps), and provide focused intensive
assistance to those schools to really help them improve in that area.
For example, the State could identify and work with a group of schools
that are not making sufficient progress in supporting English-language
proficiency gains by organizing research about what works, examples of
local schools that have strongly improved and can be visited and
studied, curriculum materials and program models that can be adopted,
professional development for educators, and coaches who work directly
in the schools.
Just as targeted interventions can be organized for students who
are struggling in a particular area, so such interventions can be
organized to support networks of schools that share a common need. The
same thing could be done with schools that are struggling in
mathematics performance, for example, or graduation rates or high
suspension rates, overall or for specific groups of students. The State
might identify the neediest schools in each indicator area for
intensive intervention. The total number of schools assisted might be
more than 5 percent, but each could receive help for the specific areas
of need. Across the set of indicators, some schools will be low
performing in several and could receive more comprehensive services.
Research has demonstrated the power of the targeted interventions
for networks of schools that share similar needs. As we describe in our
LPI report, written in partnership with the Stanford Center for
Opportunity Policy in Education, Pathways to New Accountability Through
the Every Student Succeeds Act,\3\ a number of States are developing
accountability systems that incorporate this type of approach to school
identification and continuous improvement. These systems aim to
identify schools that are low-performing and not improving within each
of several indicators, and/or have large equity gaps. Once identified,
these schools can be provided with focused, intensive assistance to
improve in the area or areas that are identified, such as English
language proficiency, chronic absenteeism, or math assessment for a
particular student subgroup.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Darling-Hammond, L., Bae, S., Cook-Harvey, CM., Lam, L.,
Mercer, C., Podolsky, A., and Stosich, E. (2016). Pathways to new
accountability through the Every Student Succeeds Act. Learning Policy
Institute: Washington, DC. Retrieved from: https://
learningpolicyinstitute.org/our-work/publications-resources/pathways-
new-accountability-every-student-succeeds-act/.
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Like some other States, California is exploring ways to examine
both performance and improvement simultaneously on its dashboard of
indicators and to classify school performance on each indicator. The
example below--for a college and career readiness index--would be
replicated with the others, with data on subgroup performance also
added. Schools falling within the red zone on any indicator would be
identified for assistance. With the full set of indicators shown in the
Figure 2B, the State could also identify all schools that are in the
red zone (low performing and not improving) on at least 3 indicators,
for example, as part of the group of schools to receive comprehensive
intervention and assistance.
Vermont is also in the process of determining ways to assess school
performance and display the data for the purpose of identifying schools
for targeted and comprehensive interventions. The State is in the
process of piloting Education Quality Review protocols, or EQRs. EQRs
comprise a system of inspection and improvement that is locally
developed and implemented, which evaluates schools by measuring five
dimensions of school quality:
academic achievement in English language arts,
mathematics, and science, plus graduation rates,
personalization, including personalized learning plans,
safety and school climate,
high-quality staffing, and
financial efficiencies.
The Vermont EQRs will include two complementary processes for
assessing these criteria: an Annual Snapshot Review, a multiple
measures dashboard of quantitative data conducted by the State; and the
Integrated Field Review, a system-level qualitative site review similar
to the inspectorate model used in other countries. The Snapshot Reviews
are designed to occur annually, whereas the more intensive Integrated
Field Reviews occur at least every 3 years. Educators at all levels of
the system, State and local, are invited to conduct the Integrated
Field Reviews, including but not limited to members of the Vermont
Agency of Education (AOE), superintendents, curriculum coordinators,
principals, and teachers. During the Integrated Field Review, the
review team will ``engage in classroom observations, reviews of student
work, panel discussions or interviews with parents, students and staff
and collaborate to generate their assessments of school system
performance.'' \4\ If data from the EQR suggest that there is evidence
of substantial inequity and insufficient improvement taking place, the
Vermont AOE will intervene with support and sanctions designed to
promote improvement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ http://education.vermont.gov/documents/edu-oped-education-
quality-reviews.pdf.
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In the course of consulting with stakeholders on developing a
usable report card and school identification system, the State has also
been evaluating several approaches (see figures 3A--3C) which provide
different kinds of information. Of note is the fact that, while a
weighted index would identify a school like Frakes Secondary as the
bottom 5 percent (figure 3A), it would miss the even lower graduation
rates at Madson and Solina High Schools, the lower mathematics
performance at Darwish, and the lower reading performance at Lindsay
High School which are shown in the dashboard approach (figure 3B).
This critically important information could be taken into account
with several kinds of decision rules for identifying the lowest-
performing schools, including one that counts the number of struggling
areas. (These counts could also be weighted to emphasize the 4 required
academic indicators without losing valuable information from the
dashboard.) Including improvement or growth information along with
information about status (as in figure 3-C) would tell decisionmakers
even more about what is happening in each school, including which of
these schools is making progress and which is not.
None of these valuable kinds of information for deciding where and
how to intervene would be available with a single summative score.
Figure 3-B
Kentucky is another example of a State using a multiple measure
approach which does not plan to rely on a single summative score to
drive identification and improvement. Kentucky's Multiple Measures
Dashboard ``was designed to have a more balanced approach to determine
school success by incorporating achievement, program reviews and
effective teaching measures.'' \5\ The Dashboard includes three
components: (1) Next-generation learners, which measures performance on
areas of achievement, gap, growth, college- and career-readiness, and
graduation rates; (2) Next generation instructional programs and
support, which includes program reviews for key instructional areas;
and (3) Next-generation professionals, which includes data on educator
qualifications and effectiveness. The State indicators are able to
identify gaps in subgroup student performance and use the data to
ensure that all students are developing the skills necessary in the
21st Century.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ http://education.ky.gov/AA/Acct/Pages/default.aspx.
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By contrast, when multiple indicators are aggregated together to
yield a summative score, student subgroup performance can also be
hidden from view. For example, in one State with an A-F system, the
average proficiency rate for African American students in schools that
received an A rating was only 58 percent.\6\ In another State, 183 high
schools received the highest rating within the State accountability
system while having at least one subgroup with a graduation rate below
70 percent.\7\
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\6\ https://edtrust.org/resource/making-sure-all-children-matter-
getting-school-accountability-signals-right/.
\7\ Alliance for Excellent Education analysis of accountability
data for Colorado.
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Efforts by States that are working to develop new models for
driving school improvement that privilege equity and innovation could
be undermined by a requirement that they produce a single summative
score. Their efforts to provide more nuanced, actionable data that is
aligned with contemporary learning demands would be traded for
simplicity that masks school needs and distracts attention from what
should be done to improve performance.
ESSA does not require the use of a summative score and not every
State would prefer to use a weighted index to combine indicators into a
numerical score and a letter grade or similar rating scheme. There are
a wide variety of methods that could meet ESSA's accountability
requirements beyond the use of indices, such as a matrix approach that
identifies where schools fall in terms of performance and growth with
respect to each indicator--and includes schools for intervention on
each of the separate measures--and/or decision rules that result in
school classifications based on the number of areas in which schools
fail to meet a standard.
The Department's regulations should seek to ensure that
transparency is a major criterion for identifying schools, along with
clear, rational decision rules based on actionable data. While some
States may choose to have a system that produces a summative score, the
Department should leave open the possibility of other systems of school
identification, based on a robust data dashboard that provides
information to stakeholders and informs improvement efforts.
iv. 200.18--weighting of indicators
ESSA shifts from an old framework that primarily relied upon
performance in math and reading to define a school's success or
failure, to a new approach that measures school quality based on a
combination, at the very least, of five separate measures. Section
1111(c)(4)(C)(i) of ESSA empowers States to design their own
accountability systems to fit within a minimum set of Federal
parameters: academic achievement in reading and math, the high school
graduation rate, English proficiency gains for English learners, and
one or more State selected measures of school quality and student
success.
These measure(s) of school quality or student success offer the
promise of a more comprehensive view for parents, students, educators,
and stakeholders on how their school is performing on a variety of
meaningful indicators. Each element of a State's emerging
accountability system, if well-chosen, can create incentives and
opportunities to move school practices forward in ways that better
ensure all students are successful. With a well-designed dashboard of
measures, educators and community members can track information about
inputs, processes, and outcomes to inform a diagnosis of what is and
what is not working in schools, along with the types and level of
intervention needed.
States have the flexibility to determine the weights of the
indicators used within each measure so long as academic achievement in
English language arts and math, graduation rates, and EL proficiency
are each considered substantial factors and in total, ``afforded much
greater weight'' than the school quality/success indicator(s) within
any State-designed accountability system.
However, the Department's proposed regulations under Section 200.18
of the proposed rule would essentially render these additional
indicators as meaningless in the accountability system. The Department
describes how the first four indicators must be substantially weighted
separately and much greater in weight together against the ``fifth
indicator'' (which could be a set of multiple indicators) when
identifying the lowest performing 5 percent of schools for
comprehensive support and improvement. This identification also impacts
which schools with consistently underperforming subgroups of students,
specifically those performing as poorly as the lowest performing 5
percent of schools as one of the criteria, will be identified for
targeted support and intervention. Specifically, the Department
proposes that in order to meet the requirements for meaningful
differentiation:
A school's performance on the fifth indicator may not be
used to change the identity of schools identified for Comprehensive
Support and Improvement, unless it is making significant progress for
the ``all students'' group on at least one of the indicators that is
given substantial weight;
A school's performance on the fifth indicator may not be
used to change the identity of schools identified for Targeted Support
and Improvement, unless each consistently underperforming subgroup in
that school is making significant progress on at least one of the
indicators given substantial weight; and
A school performing in the lowest performance level on any
of the substantially weighted indicators does not receive the same
summative rating as a school performing in the highest level on all of
the indicators.
Based on these rules, it is unclear how any indicator of school
quality or success could be affirmatively used for its intended purpose
unless a school shows major improvement on test scores, graduation
rates, or EL progress. In other words, the school quality/success
indicator only serves as a downward ratchet for identification
purposes: A school is unlikely to be recognized for positive
performance on this indicator, significantly compromising its utility
or effect on improving practice.
Yet these indicators can be critically important for leveraging
equity and greater opportunity for students. For example, many
community groups and civil rights advocates have fought hard to include
suspension and expulsion data as a measure of school success, given the
research which demonstrates both the strong relationship with
graduation and the disproportionate rates by which students of color
are often excluded from school due to suspensions and expulsions.
Evidence shows that removing students from school for disciplinary
purposes has a negative impact, sharply increasing the likelihood that
they will drop out of school \8\ and expanding the achievement gap, as
students of color are typically suspended out of school at higher rates
than their white peers.\9\
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\8\ American Psychological Association. (2008, December). Are zero
tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and
recommendations. American Psychologist, 63(9), 852-862. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.9.852. See also Losen et. al. 2012;
Lee, T., Cornell, D., Gregory, A., & Fan, X. (2011). High suspension
schools and dropout rates for black and white students. Education and
Treatment of Children, 34(2), 167-192; Fabelo, A. (2011). Breaking
schools' rules a statewide study of how school discipline relates to
students' success and juvenile justice involvement. New York, NY:
Justice Center, Council of State Governments and Public Policy Research
Institute. Retrieved from https://ppri.tamu.edu/breaking-schools-rules/
\9\ Skiba, R.J., Michael, R.S., Nardo, A.C., & Peterson, R.L.
(2002, December). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender
disproportionality in school punishment. Urban Review, 34(4), 317-341.
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Research also indicates that tracking suspension and expulsion data
by student groups can help highlight racially disparate practices and
promote positive behavioral interventions in schools that will improve
student engagement and academic success.\10\
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\10\ Skiba, R., Chung, C., Trachok, M., Baker, T., Sheya, A., &
Hughes, R. Parsing Disciplinary Disproportionality. American
Educational Research Journal, 51(4), 640-670.
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Our experience in California, where the State includes this measure
among the State priorities regularly tracked, is that changes in school
policies have sharply reduced the rate of exclusions; school practices
are beginning to support more productive approaches to behavioral
interventions and social-emotional learning; and graduation rates have
been climbing, for this and other reasons. Civil rights groups that are
part of an Equity Coalition in my home State have advocated for
consideration of these measures and other indicators of school climate
as key levers for improving how schools serve all their students.
Similarly, the final regulations should encourage the meaningful
use of extended-year graduation rates in State accountability systems,
thereby incentivizing schools to keep in, rather than pushing out,
students who cannot graduate in 4 years and to re-attract those who
have left. The law explicitly allows for reporting of extended year
graduation rates, along with 4-year graduation rates; however, the
proposed regulations appear to restrict the ability of States to
meaningfully count these extended-year rates in accountability
determinations. Schools should be rewarded for keeping and ultimately
graduating students who need extra support or time to catch up, such as
students who may have immigrated to the U.S. as teenagers with little
previous education, those returning to school after dropping out for
work or child-rearing, those who have been incarcerated, or those who
simply need more time to reach high standards. Thus, the regulations
should allow States to use--and meaningfully count--extended-year
graduation rates in their accountability reporting and decisionmaking.
Importantly, many States are working to create indicators of
college- and career-readiness that can leverage much higher quality
opportunities that are provided much more equitably to students. There
is strong research demonstrating that taking college preparatory
coursework in high school is correlated with several indicators of
college readiness, from college enrollment \11\ to grades \12\ to
persistence and completion.\13\ Similar research shows that students
who are enrolled in career academies enroll in community college at
higher rates,\14\ are more prepared for college coursework,\15\ and
experience higher wages and greater employment stability.\16\
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\11\ Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. (2006). Closing ``dropout
factories'': The graduation-rate crisis we know, and what can be done
about it. Education Week, 25(42), 42-43.
\12\ Adelman, C. (2006). The toolbox revisited: Paths to degree
completion from high school through college. Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education.
\13\ Long, M.C., Conger, D., & Latarola, P. (2012). Effects of high
school course-taking on secondary and postsecondary success. American
Educational Research Journal, 49(2), 285-322: Willingham, W.W., &
Morris, M. (1986). Four years later: A longitudinal study of advanced
placement students in college (College Board Research Report No. 86-2,
ETS RR No. 85-46). New York: The College Board.
\14\ Center for Advanced Research and Technology, (2011). A model
for success: CART's Linked Learning program increases college
enrollment. Clovis, CA: Center for Advanced Research and Technology.
\15\ Dayton, D., Hester, C.H. & Stern, D. (2011). Profile of the
California Partnership Academies, 2009-2010. Berkley, CA: Career
Academy Support Network, University of California.
\16\ Bishop, J.H., & Mane, F. (2004). The impacts of career-
technical education on high school labor market success. Economics of
Education Review, 23(4), 381-402.
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As examples, Hawaii, Connecticut and New Jersey use the total
percentage of students who enroll in any institution of higher
education within 16 months of earning a regular high school diploma as
one way to indicate college- and career-readiness.\17\ Georgia,
Pennsylvania and Arkansas use evidence of rigorous course offerings,
including the availability of Advanced Placement, International
Baccalaureate, or college credit courses as part of their college- and
career-readiness indicator.\18\ Over 11 States, including Alabama,
Florida, Kentucky and Illinois also use the percentage of students who
receive industry certification to measure college- and career-
readiness.\19\
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\17\ Alliance for Excellent Education. (2009). Reinventing the
Federal role in education: Supporting the goal of college and career
readiness for all students. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from
http://all4ed.org/reports-factsheets/reinventing-the-federal-role-in-
education-supporting-the-goal-of-college-and-career-readiness-for-all-
students/.
\18\ Ibid.
\19\ Ibid.; Eleven States include: Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana,
and Missouri.
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Working hard to get more of these opportunities for a greater share
of students could transform the futures of millions of young people.
Diminishing the importance of indicators that are not in the set of
federally prescribed measures indirectly limits the ability of States
to meaningfully tackle many of the structural and societal challenges
they face in locally relevant ways. In addition, the added language in
the proposed rule essentially removes an aspect of State
decisionmaking, which arguably oversteps the statutory boundaries
surrounding State determination in the design of new State
accountability systems.
The Department should allow States to make these kinds of
indicators important and meaningful in their State accountability
systems. By overly prescribing the weighting requirements and the uses
of additional indicators, the proposed rule could create a perverse
incentive for States actually to do less to solve pervasive problems
that strongly affect student outcomes. Unless the Department adjusts
the language, this provision as currently written would in effect
discourage the use of these potentially powerful indicators for States
and rollback community efforts underway to address the root cause of
educational inequity.
The Department's final rules should support States in their efforts
to implement accountability systems that advance equity by highlighting
and measuring what matters most for student success and what provides
the most useful levers for school improvement.
v. 200.33--calculations for reporting on student achievement and
meeting measurements of interim progress
Another area of concern is the way in which States are asked to
demonstrate how students are progressing on academic measures. Although
the law does not require a particular method of tracking students'
proficiency levels, the proposed rules (see p. 34575) indicate that the
determination of whether all students and each subgroup of students met
or did not meet these State measurements of interim progress must be
``based on the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the State's
proficient level of achievement'' and would be calculated using the
method in proposed 200.15(b)(1), in which the denominator includes the
greater of--
95 percent of all students and 95 percent of each subgroup
of students who are enrolled in the schools, LEA, or State,
respectively; or
the number of all such students participating in these
assessments
This rule replicates the ``percent proficient'' standard that was
used under No Child Left Behind. However, research has found that a
focus on the percentage of students who reach a particular cut point or
proficiency standard incentivizes schools to focus only on a selected
few students hovering around the proficiency cut score rather than
paying attention to all students at all levels of achievement. Studies
during the NCLB era characterized this well-documented practices as
``educational triage,'' which resulted in focusing especially on
students near proficiency and emphasizing test-specific rather than
generalizable skills.\20\ Furthermore, research found that the
improvement gap was largest in the low-achieving schools, where
focusing on students near the proficiency cut score came at the expense
of attention to the lowest achieving students.\21\ Measures that rely
upon moving students across a threshold, for example from ``Basic'' to
``Proficient'' create the incentive to over-direct attention to
students on the ``bubble'' at the expense of others.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Jennings, J., & Sohn, H. (2014). Measure for measure: How
proficiency-based accountability systems affect inequality in academic
achievement. Sociology of Education, 87(2), 125-141.
\21\ Lauen, D., & Gaddis, S. (2015). Accountability pressure,
academic standards, and educational triage. Educational Evaluation and
Policy Analysis; Sparks, S. (2012). Study finds ``bubble student'
triage a gut reaction to rising standards.'' Education Week. Retrieved
from: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/indside-school-research/2012/03/
study_finds_bubble_student_tri.
html.
\22\ Jennings, J., & Sohn, H. (2014). Measure for measure: How
proficiency-based accountability systems affect inequality in academic
achievement. Sociology of Education, 87(2), 125-141.
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The use of the ``percent proficient'' measure also fails to make
distinctions among students or schools who are farther away from or
closer to the cut points, and those who have made significant progress
or have largely stagnated in their progress. It is an uninformative
measure for most purposes--and particularly useless for tracking gains
and changes equity gaps in meaningful ways that can describe how
students are actually doing and that can inform improvement efforts.
There are other, much more informative ways to report performance
and growth, including progress along the entire scale used to reflect
scores. For example, such reporting can reveal that students moved, on
average, from a score of 234 to 250, while English learners moved from
208 to 240, a rate of improvement twice as great. All of these changes
could occur without affecting the ``percent proficient'' measure at
all, or in ways that do not show the actual gains made.
Many States are moving to use this kind of information in their
systems in line with evidence which suggests that all test-based key
indicators, including English Learners' progress toward English
proficiency, should report progress using scale scores to demonstrate
student growth and cohort improvement.
For example, Vermont has been collaborating with stakeholders to
generate greater understanding around the importance of operating on a
continuum of improvement that values growth rather than simply looking
only at ``above or below'' cut scores. State officials note that a
school that is 1 percent below an arbitrary target is not substantially
different from a school that is 1 percent above the same target.
However, a school that falls 1 percent below the target is likely
substantially different than one that falls 30 percent below the
target--yet both would be treated in the same say under a ``percent
proficient'' reporting system. As opposed to cut scores, using scale
scores can help reveal actual performance and showcase how far students
progressed toward proficiency and gauge how much learning is taking
place.
Although less severe, the Department's proposal in Section 200.18
that would require each State to have a minimum of three performance
levels for each indicator could similarly distort the understanding of
achievement and exacerbate continued misunderstandings about school
quality. The category approach would provide much less information than
scale scores, while insisting on status labeling rather than growth
measures as the best way to understand school performance.
In the last decade, we have learned that status measures at
particular cut points are not the most productive way to measure school
contributions to student learning. Many States are moving to include a
focus on both student-level achievement and growth over static measures
for the well-understood reason that all students arrive at school with
varying levels of preparedness--and schools should be recognized for
having increased student learning. The construct as currently proposed
does not actually describe change or measure the amount of academic
progress each student makes over time. Instead, reverting to the old
NCLB measures, the Department should make clear that States are allowed
to report achievement in more productive ways by encouraging methods
that provide increased accuracy and usefulness with information that
shows status, progress, and improvement across the full range of
proficiency levels.
vi. 200.19--timetable for identification
As you are well aware, many States officials have expressed concern
over the feasibility of implementing new systems that maximize the
potential of ESSA by the 2017-18 school year. Without the benefit of
more deliberation and thoughtful planning, the currently proposed
timeline precludes that opportunity. While calling for urgency for the
sake of improving struggling schools is laudable, the unintended
consequence may be that States end up resorting to only making minor
tweaks to an existing system or worse, locking educators into old
measures that maintain the status quo. A rushed timeline also
undermines the public engagement process that is needed to ensure
strong stakeholder input.
Using 2016-17 school year data to identify schools for intervention
and support means relying on old information to inform a brand new
system and restricting the entire accountability system to measures
already in use, rather than taking advantage of the new opportunities
for better information under ESSA.
States need time to revise their new accountability systems; this
includes adding new indicators of English language proficiency and
school quality or student success. Working in close collaboration with
teachers, parents, civil rights groups, community-based organizations
and other stakeholders, States also need to agree on how to combine
indicators and establish criteria and procedures for school
identification, all of which requires substantial time and effort. In
addition, many States will need legislative or administrative approval
in order to collect the data needed for school identification,
including data for the indicators that might not yet exist. In essence,
the Department's proposed timeline is unworkable.
As the Department take steps to make these regulations more
workable for States, extending the timetable will allow for real
stakeholder engagement and enhance the ability of States to implement
high-quality accountability systems in 2017-18 while also using these
systems to identify underperforming schools.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide my views on the Department
of Education's proposed regulations on accountability and State plans.
I would be happy to answer any questions that members of the committee
may have.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Darling-Hammond.
Dr. Pletnick.
STATEMENT OF GAIL PLETNICK, Ed.D., SUPERINTENDENT, DYSART
UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, SURPRISE, AZ
Ms. Pletnick. Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray,
and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
address you today. As was shared, I am a superintendent, and as
a member of the School Superintendents Association, I have an
opportunity to work with and collaborate with superintendents
from across the Nation. I'm here today because I believe the
underserved populations in our schools deserve the educational
promise that Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA, was designed to
deliver.
The power of ESSA is the flexibility it provides to States
and schools, allowing them to focus on each student. The ESSA
environment promises to be in stark contrast to the
prescriptive and restrictive one-size-fits-all landscape of No
Child Left Behind. I understand the value of carefully crafted
regulations in supporting ESSA implementation, but it is
critical that those regulations reflect the carefully
constructed language that speaks to the intent of this law,
State and local flexibility and leadership.
For example, ESSA statute requires evaluation of local
educational agencies on academic and non-academic factors, but
it stops short of requiring the rating to be a single indicator
and, as has already been mentioned, that is a concern. The
proposed regulation summative score approach may hinder a
State's effort to design a fair and transparent accountability
system. We have the ability to utilize current research, to
utilize technology, and hopefully now the flexibility of ESSA
to build much stronger accountability and reporting systems
with meaningful multiple indicators. Let the States do what
they were tasked to do, take responsibility for building
transparent and fair accountability systems. We should not
handicap that work by dictating a single score accountability
system.
Compounding my first concern is another concern that's
already been mentioned, and that is the timeline for labeling
schools under the new ESSA law. In 2017-18, States would be
required to identify failing schools. The proposed timeline
will rush the implementation of accountability system decisions
and may result in some schools in that first year of ESSA label
implementation being identified as failing based on 2016-17
data, which is probably more aligned to NCLB mandates. How does
that support driving meaningful change in the highest-needs
schools?
There were questions posed with the release of the
regulations related to areas such as 95 percent participation
rate, N size and others. I would just caution the Department of
Education from going any further in regulating these areas.
ESSA maintains the requirement that 95 percent of students be
tested. The concerns that create the problems with meeting
those mandates are related to local issues and conditions, and
they have to be solved at the State and community level.
Consequently, it follows that States should determine the
actions to be taken and the consequences.
ESSA is meant to change the role of the Federal Government
from dictating to supporting solutions for States and schools.
I have concerns with the proposed regulations related to
transportation of foster children. Under this proposal, when
there is no agreement regulating transporting, the LEA is
fiscally liable for the transportation costs. If that were to
occur, then it would really undermine the negotiated language
in the statute and diminish the responsibility of the child
welfare agency to meaningfully engage in discussions with the
district.
I want to offer input related to the assurances that may be
included as part of ESSA requirements. It is critical that
States have rigorous standards that ensure students have the
academic foundation that they need to be successful. In
Arizona, we wasted a great deal of time and energy in a Common
Core debate. To ensure challenging and relevant standards,
States need to work collaboratively with stakeholders to
evaluate and revise standards to drive those improvements, not
spend vast amounts of time debating whether to reject them.
In Section 299.16 of the proposed regulations, language is
included requiring States to provide evidence of adopting
challenging standards. Does that equate to the ability to
reject the State-developed standards based on someone's opinion
they are not challenging? If the Department of Education is
viewed as dictating standards work, I fear once again in
Arizona and really across the Nation resources and energy will
be focused on debating federally mandated standards rather than
improving those standards.
I am concerned that an unintended consequence of adding a
large number of regulations and/or additional reporting
requirements will be an increase in the resources needed to
address those mandates, resulting in a decrease in the
resources that can be allotted to supporting students. Data
collection and reporting is important for transparency and
accountability. However, we need to move away from burdensome
reporting to meaningful collection and reporting of information
that is important to the stakeholders.
In closing, I want to thank you for the work that you have
done and continue to do to ensure that the Every Student
Succeeds Act drives the change we all want to see in our
schools, equity in our classrooms, regardless of students'
background or circumstances. Your work has ensured our States
and local communities have a voice in what happens in our
districts and in our schools. I know, given the opportunity,
educational leaders across the country will use that voice to
deliver on the promise of ESSA. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pletnick follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gail Pletnick, Ed.D.
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray and members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to join you today.
My name is Gail Pletnick and I am the Superintendent of the Dysart
Unified School District in Surprise, AZ and serve as the President-
Elect for the AASA, The School Superintendents Association. To give you
a sense of my district, we serve over 25,000 students with 51 percent
of the population receiving free or reduced lunches, 16 percent
identified for special education services and approximately 51 percent
classified in a sub group other than Caucasian.
From both a professional and personal standpoint, I view the
passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as very important to
the future of education. Growing up in northeastern Pennsylvania and
being from a family of coal miners, I would have fit into more than one
of the subgroups that ESSA focuses on in terms of closing the
achievement gap. The power of education is that the achievement gap can
be addressed and, like me, students can be the first ever in a family
to attend college. I am here today because I believe the underserved
populations in our schools deserve the educational promise that ESSA
was designed to deliver for every child.
The power of ESSA is the flexibility it provides to States and to
schools allowing them to focus on each student. The ESSA environment
promises to be in stark contrast to the prescriptive and restrictive
``one size fits all'' landscape of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In my
district, we have 23 different schools, each with its own unique school
community, united in the reality that each school is filled with
students who must be prepared for the challenges and opportunities of a
21st century world of work and life. ESSA and the resources it provides
allow schools to address equity issues that impact school communities
and the students they serve.
I understand the value of carefully crafted regulations in
supporting ESSA implementation, but it is critical those regulations
reflect the carefully constructed language that speaks to intent in
this law: State and local flexibility and leadership. I am concerned
with unnecessarily rigid regulations that may hinder the very State and
district innovation that we know is needed to serve our underserved
students.
For example, ESSA statute requires evaluation of local education
agencies (LEAs) and schools on academic and non-academic factors, but
stops short of requiring the rating to be a single indicator. The
proposed regulations require a summative score--an approach that may
hinder a State's effort to design a fair and transparent accountability
system. Reliance on a summative score provides a distorted view of the
strengths and weaknesses of programs and practices in our schools, and
can be misleading. In reading a report card, many readers look at the
summative indicator and move on, and that one score does not provide a
complete picture. We have the ability to utilize current research,
technology and, hopefully, now the flexibility of ESSA to build much
stronger accountability and reporting systems with meaningful multiple
indicators.
Education is the civil rights issue of this generation, and given
its roots in the civil rights era, ESSA must continue to protect the
rights of each and every student by providing access to high quality
education. Why are we trying to reduce what should be a fair and
comprehensive picture of schools to a single score? Data tracked on
student sub groups indicate many schools still lag behind in terms of
the number of low SES and minority students participating in advanced
placement and dual credit courses. Absenteeism can be utilized as a
predictor of student failure. Multiple measures are important in
determining if schools are failing to support student success. Logic
tells us if each of these components have value, we need to be careful
not to build a system that muddles the data producing a confusing
picture that lacks meaning and clarity. Let the States do what they
were tasked to do: take responsibility for building transparent and
fair accountability systems. We should not handicap that work by
dictating a single score accountability system.
I applaud the mandate to have stakeholders play a significant role
in the State's development of an accountability system. People buy into
that which they have a hand in crafting. Having input from parents,
students, community members, teachers, support staff, administrators,
and business and civic leaders will ensure building understanding and
the buy-in needed to successfully implement ESSA at the State and local
levels. Predetermining the use of a summative score in a system is
unnecessarily prescriptive and will hinder this collaborative work. The
goal must be for the local stakeholders, the leaders of educational
institutions, to take responsibility for the schools and outcomes.
I understand the Department of Education is indicating there will
be an opportunity to adjust the States' systems if those accountability
systems are not fully functional by the proposed date for labeling
schools under ESSA. My experience has shown that is a flawed approach.
In Arizona under NCLB, the State's accountability system was tweaked
after implementation. When you use the same summative labels, such as A
through F, but tweak the components in the system, you cause confusion
and lose trust. Building an accountability system as you implement it
will result in a system that does not compare apples to apples, even
though the same summative labels are utilized for schools. The
Education Secretary indicated the rationale for summative labels is to
``. . . send a strong signal to educators and school leaders to focus
on improving school performance across all indicators in the system.''
I believe the proposed regulation will result in just the opposite. If
I utilize three indicators to determine my summative score and the
school scores 100 percent in indicator one, 100 percent in indicator
two and 50 percent in indicator three, the summative score is 83
percent plus. Does that give a complete and true picture of how the
school is doing in all key indicators? A summative number from 1-5 or a
letter grade provides little information.
In Arizona, research is being done on utilizing multiple measures
as we work to revisit the State's accountability system. Legislation
was passed recently to allow assessment options at the high school
level. Additionally, a committee of stakeholders has been established
to provide input on an accountability redesign that will ensure a
system that is fair, transparent and identifies schools that prepare
all students for college/career readiness. These are small steps
forward, but with the hope of the flexibility promised by ESSA, we can
collaborate on meaningful change driven by research and innovation. If
States are forced to continue to utilize a one score defines all
approach, I fear we will fall back to what easily fits into that
restrictive labeling system and replicate much of what was created
under NCLB.
Compounding my concern with the regulation mandating a summative
score is the proposed timeline for labeling schools under the new ESSA
law. In 2017-18, States would be required to identify schools that are
failing or in need of ``comprehensive support'' based on their
performance data from the 2016-17 school year. In some States,
including Arizona, we are a few weeks away from the start of the new
2016-17 school year. States may not have their redesigned
accountability plans finalized and in place to collect 2016-17 data
that will be included in that redesign. The proposed timeline will rush
the implementation of accountability system decisions and may result in
some schools, in the first year of ESSA label implementation, being
identified as failing based on 2016-17 data. That data may be more
aligned to NCLB mandates. Once again, we risk losing trust when we use
one set of data to label schools and then tweak the system, possibly
changing some or all of the data sets utilized, and pretend the
summative labels given are accurate and fair. How does that support
driving meaningful change in the highest need schools? Given that 2017-
18 is the first year of ESSA implementation, it follows that
identification under ESSA would come only after ESSA related data has
been collected and applied at the end of the 2017-18 school year.
Treating the 2017-18 school year in a manner consistent with how the
2016-17 school year was addressed after ESEA waivers expired is the
most logical approach. We should freeze accountability ratings/labels
for that year.
There were questions posed with the release of the regulations
related to areas such as 95 percent participation rate, n-size and
others. I caution the Department of Education from going any further
beyond the regulations as proposed.
Leaving the n-size determination up to the State, unless the State
wants to go above an n-size of 30, makes the most sense. This language
is clear and there is no need for further clarification or regulation.
ESSA maintains the requirement that 95 percent of students be
tested. This is a requirement to be taken seriously, but I am concerned
that the proposed regulations do not allow for meaningful input to
address this concern at the local level. The concerns that create the
problem with meeting the 95 percent test mandate are related to local
conditions or issues and must be solved at the State and community
levels. Consequently, it follows that the States determine actions to
be taken and consequences. Further prescription in this area may impede
solutions. ESSA is meant to change the role of the Federal Government
from dictating to supporting solutions at the local level. Language in
the regulations indicate there are options for States in defining
consequences for not reaching the 95 percent test rate, but then the
language goes on to add restrictions that really limit possibilities.
That is the equivalent of saying you can paint the house any color you
wish, as long as it is green. So what option do you choose? This is not
true flexibility and runs counter to ESSA's framing principles,
empowering State and local education agencies in their work to provide
all students with educational opportunities of ESSA.
I have concerns with the proposed regulation related to the
transportation of foster children. This proposal requires, if the child
welfare agency and district cannot reach an agreement regarding
transportation for a foster child, the LEA be fiscally liable to cover
transportation costs. The ESSA statute requires a collaborative
approach between child welfare agencies and LEAs. The statute
deliberately stops short of identifying any specific entity as fiscally
liable. This regulation undermines the negotiated language in the
statute and diminishes the responsibility of the child welfare agency
to meaningfully engage in discussions with the district. The regulation
in this area is overreach.
I want to offer input related to assurances that may be included as
part of the ESSA requirements. It is critical States have rigorous
standards to ensure students have the academic foundation they need to
be successful. In Arizona, mandating what was viewed as national
standards was hotly debated. In the last State election, candidates who
strongly opposed Common Core standards, including those running for the
Governor's Office and the Office of the Superintendent of Schools, won
the elections. It was unfortunate that we wasted a great deal of time
and energy in an emotional and divisive Common Core debate. The dialog
around what was viewed as federally mandated standards was an all or
nothing conversation. To ensure challenging and relevant standards,
States need to work collaboratively with stakeholders to evaluate and
revise the standards to drive improvements, not spend vast amounts of
time debating whether to reject them.
In Section 299.16 of the proposed regulations, language requires
States to
``provide evidence at such time and in such manner specified
by the Secretary that the State has adopted challenging
academic content standards and aligned academic achievement
standards . . .''
Does that equate to the ability to reject the State developed
standards based on someone's opinion they are not challenging? The new
law explicitly changed NCLB language that required States to
``demonstrate'' they have challenging academic standards to requiring
States ``assure'' they have challenging academic standards. This was
intentionally done to return responsibility for developing standards to
the States. In Arizona, we are now just starting to be able to move
forward and work on improving the standards. If the Department of
Education is viewed as dictating standards work, I fear, once again,
Arizona resources and energy will be focused on debating the idea of
federally mandated standards rather than improving the standards.
I am concerned that an unintended consequence of adding a large
number of regulations and/or additional reporting requirements will be
an increase in the resources needed to address these mandates resulting
in a decrease in the resources that can be allocated to support
students. Data collection and reporting is important to ensure
transparency and accountability. However, there is such a thing as
being data rich and information poor. We need to move away from
burdensome reporting, and toward meaningful collection and reporting of
information that is important to the stakeholders. The intent is to
return authority to the States and have input from community members
into the building of an accountability system. We should be cautious,
once again, that if the States are bound by assurances that are viewed
as dictates or by unreasonable reporting requirements, the same type of
mistrust, unnecessary debate and concern we had with NCLB waivers and
Common Core will re-surface. I can assure you that will be the case in
Arizona, and I know we were not the only State where these concerns
caused major upheaval and stalled productive and meaningful change.
Please, do not allow that to happen again.
We also need to be mindful of possible changes within the
supplement, not supplant provision. With teacher salaries the largest
expenditure in a school district, it is a false premise to require
schools to use teacher salaries in evaluating compliance with
supplement, not supplant provisions, as it is a policy built on the
false assumption that teacher salaries are a single indicator that can
meaningfully and reliably be used in an undisputable manner to indicate
effectiveness and quality in programs within title I schools. That
thinking is flawed on many levels. Perhaps most importantly, it assumes
States and schools across the Nation employ one single approach to
determining teacher salaries. This is not the reality. In my State
alone, districts and schools maintain discretion over teacher salaries,
the years of credit that teachers receive when changing districts and
other factors that will impact final teacher salary. Regulations on the
supplement, not supplant provision must remain consistent with the
intent of ESSA, which included a deliberate action to not change the
comparability provision and maintained the focus of the supplement, not
supplant provisions ensuring that the methodology or construct used to
allocate resources within a district is blind to whether or not an
individual school receives title I dollars.
In closing, thank you to the committee for the work you have done
and continue to do to ensure the Every Student Succeeds Act drives the
change we all want to see in our schools--equity in our classrooms
regardless of a student's background or circumstances. Your work has
ensured our States and local communities have a voice in what happens
in our districts and schools. I know, given the opportunity,
educational leaders across this country will use that voice to deliver
on the promise of ESSA.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Pletnick.
Ms. Welcher.
STATEMENT OF ALISON HARRIS WELCHER, DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL
LEADERSHIP, PROJECT L.I.F.T., CHARLOTTE, NC
Ms. Harris Welcher. Good morning, Chairman Alexander,
Ranking Member Murray, and other distinguished members of the
committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
today on the Department of Education's proposed accountability
guidelines.
For the past decade, I have dedicated my life to educating
the students of Charlotte, NC, first as a classroom teacher and
then 7 years as a school leader. When I became principal of
Ranson IB Middle School in 2011, it was one of the lowest
performing schools in the district. We had many teenagers who
could not read and many who were not making the growth needed
to be successful.
Just 4 years later, Ranson was one of the top 25 schools in
the State on growth composite index measures.
School transformation is hard. School transformation takes
time, but it is possible. Most recently, I've had the privilege
to work with Ranson in eight other high-needs schools in
Project L.I.F.T. as the Director of School Leadership.
The Every Student Succeeds Act ushers in a new era of local
control and exciting opportunity for innovation, but it also
poses challenges that we must address with thoughtful
implementation.
The proposed State plan requirements recognizes the
relationship between educator quality and school improvement,
but they could do even more to encourage investments in
leadership. The success of any school intervention comes down
to the capacity of the educators, not enough of whom receive
the training and support they need to be effective in demanding
turn-around environments. Yet we know teachers thrive and stay
in schools that are led by principals, and together these
educators get stronger results for students faster.
The proposed regulations should ask States and districts
how they will ensure all schools, especially those identified
for improvement, are led by well-prepared, well-supported
principals. And in light of the disastrous consequences
leadership transitions can have on teachers and students, those
plans also must address strategies for sustaining quality
leadership over time.
Next, State accountability systems will now provide a more
holistic picture of our students' school experience, and they
should continue to direct our efforts toward ensuring all kids
achieve at high levels. The academic gains that we achieved at
Ranson came only after we addressed the culture and
intentionally built an environment that was conducive for
learning.
What gets measured gets done. The new indicators of school
quality reflect underlying conditions for effective teaching
and engaging learning. Add resource equity to the mix and we
get an accountability framework that is truly based on multiple
measures and in many ways addresses No Child Left Behind's
over-reliance on test scores alone. At the same time, I
appreciate the regulations keeping the focus on academic
outcomes. Ultimately, our job as educators is to grow and gain
academic mastery so that all of our scholars can be ready for
life beyond the classroom.
Finally, report cards will now provide a more detailed,
multifaceted snapshot of our schools that must also be clear
and actionable. Principals rely on underlying data from report
cards to make decisions about how to marshal school resources
to support teachers and students and communicate that progress
to families and communities. We need transparent, timely data
on all kids and student subgroups, keeping us focused on our
most vulnerable students and holding everyone accountable for
ensuring that we have resources to succeed.
Though there is a considerable debate surrounding the
merits of a summative school rating, I see no world in which we
can empower our parents and communities to hold us accountable,
offer support, and advocate for change without them. Let me be
clear: There is no perfect way to summarize the beautiful,
complex, and sometimes very messy work that happens in a
school, but that does not give us the right not to do it.
Before I conclude, I want to make one last plea. Though not
required by the law, I urge States, with appropriate
encouragement from Federal officials, to include growth
measures in the new accountability systems. One of the greatest
struggles I faced as a principal was convincing the parents and
the community that I serve that we were truly turning things
around at Ranson IB Middle School.
I chose a career in education because I am committed to
making a difference for students who desperately need our
school systems to give them a fair shot at success in life.
Educators making progress in the lowest-performing schools,
they absolutely need our support and they need recognition to
keep up the momentum.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to share my
perspective on the importance of investing in leaders,
responsibly using non-academic measures, making report cards
useful and user-friendly, and emphasizing growth for schools in
transformation.
And thank you for your willingness to listen, learn, and
craft a Federal accountability framework that includes
appropriate checks and balances while unleashing educators to
help our students, all students, grow, thrive, and fulfill
their potential.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris Welcher follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alison Harris Welcher
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and other distinguished
members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify
before you today. And thank you for your leadership in passing the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
For the past decade, I have dedicated my life to ensuring students
in Charlotte, NC, have access to an outstanding education that inspires
them to dream big and prepares them to become productive, successful
citizens--first as a classroom teacher and, for 7 years, as a school
leader.
When I became principal of Ranson IB Middle School in 2011, it was
one of the lowest-performing schools in the district. We had teenagers
who couldn't read. There were classrooms full of kids where no learning
was happening. I chose to lead Ranson because I am committed to serving
students who desperately need our education system to help give them a
fair shot at success.
Within 4 years, we moved Ranson from a report card grade of ``D''
to ``C.'' What that shift means for kids is that we exceeded all of our
growth targets and were in the top 25 schools in the State on the
growth composite index measure. There is a real difference between
maintaining excellence and building it--and I am incredibly proud of
the educators at Ranson for their tireless efforts that continue to
this day. School transformation is hard, it takes time, and it is
possible.
Most recently, I have had the privilege to work with Ranson and
eight other high-need schools as the Director of School Leadership for
Project L.I.F.T., a public-private partnership that supports educators,
students, and families in Charlotte's west corridor.
I am honored to bring that experience to this committee to provide
feedback on the U.S. Department of Education's proposed regulations
regarding accountability systems, State plans, and data reporting.
ESSA ushers in a new era of local control for our education
system--one in which States will have greater autonomy to define and
set benchmarks for acceptable school performance and in which districts
and schools will be charged with developing evidence-based, locally
tailored strategies to close achievement gaps and improve schools that
don't make the cut.
For those of us working in the highest-need communities--where the
challenges of school transformation have often been amplified, rather
than alleviated, by one-size-fits-all accountability mechanisms--this
shift presents an exciting opportunity for innovation.
But it also poses significant challenges that we need to address
via thoughtful implementation.
The success of any school improvement strategy comes down to the
capacity of our educators. And while many teachers and principals are
deeply committed to serving our most vulnerable students, not enough
receive the training they need to effectively support students, their
families, and one another in demanding turnaround environments.
Even when we are successful in attracting well-prepared educators
to the schools most-in-need, if the conditions are not supportive and
the school climate is dysfunctional, strong teaching and learning
cannot happen. Though a safe, supportive environment does not itself
result in academic gains for students, dramatic and sustained
improvement simply cannot occur without it.
Addressing school culture requires strong leadership and a shared
vision, as well as effective communication and collaboration between
educators, students, families, and community members. Unfortunately,
State accountability tools--particularly school report cards--have not
historically lent themselves to clear, productive interactions between
schools, families, and communities. Educators need better tools and
resources, and parents deserve clear, transparent, accurate information
on how schools are performing for all students.
Many aspects of the regulations the Department proposed in May are
a good first step toward addressing these challenges. I want to
highlight a few key areas where Federal officials have an opportunity
to leverage the regulatory process to promote strong practices at the
State, local, and school levels.
The first is related to school leadership and school improvement in
State plans.
Everything that happens in schools--setting high expectations for
students, helping teachers grow and improve their practice, engaging
families, managing change, everything--depends upon the caliber of our
Nation's school leaders. They account for one quarter of a school's
effect on student learning,\1\ and a highly effective principal can
increase student achievement by as much as 20 percentage points.\2\
Clearly, strong leadership, school improvement, and student success go
hand in hand.
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\1\ Leithwood, K., Louis, K. S., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K.
(2004). How Leadership Influences Student Learning. New York, NY:
Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/
knowledge-center/school-leadership/key-research/Pages/How-
LeadershipInfluences-Student-Learning.aspx.
\2\ Marzano, R.J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B.A. (2005). School
leadership that works: From research to results. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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As decisionmaking shifts away from the Federal Government, it is
more important than ever that our Nation's schools be led by
individuals who possess the skills and technical prowess to design and
adopt school improvement strategies that truly make a difference for
kids. The proposed regulations rightly ask States to develop plans that
detail how they will strengthen the preparation, support, and
development of not only teachers but also principals and other schools
leaders--particularly those serving our most vulnerable students.
Moreover, the regulations require States to describe their
strategies for ensuring historically underserved students have access
to experienced and effective teachers. Principals are a key lever for
ensuring students have equitable access to great teachers in every
classroom, every year. Our ability to recruit, develop, and retain
outstanding teachers is deeply connected to the quality of our school
leaders. No one wants to work for a bad boss. In fact, 97 percent of
teachers say school leadership significantly affects their career
choices.\3\ Teachers thrive--and stay--in schools led by outstanding
principals and leadership teams and, together, these educators get
stronger, sustained results for students.
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\3\ Scholastic Inc. (2012). Primary Sources: America's Teachers on
the Teaching Profession. New York, NY: Scholastic and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/
primarysources/pdfs/Gates2012_full.pdf.
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The proposed regulations could address educator capacity and equity
by asking States to ensure districts have strong plans in place to
ensure all schools--particularly those identified for comprehensive
support and improvement--are led by a well-prepared, well-supported
principal. And, in light of the unacceptably high turnover rates of
principals serving low-income schools,\4\ those plans should also
address strategies for sustaining quality leadership over time--
including system-wide efforts to make the principal role more effective
and sustainable and to build robust leadership pipelines that can be
tapped into for succession planning.
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\4\ U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences,
National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). Principal Attrition
and Mobility: Results From the 2012-13 Principal Followup Survey (NCES
2014-064rev). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/
2014064rev.pdf.
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Regarding State accountability systems, I am pleased they will now
include an indicator that looks at ``school quality or student
success,'' providing a more holistic picture of our students' school
experience.
When I first took the helm of Ranson, it was clear I had to make
major structural adjustments before we could embark on the critical
work of upgrading the instructional program and practices. In
particular, I had to get all teachers on the same page that all of our
students were capable of excelling and rebuild a sense of trust and
safety among staff and students, alike. It was only after addressing
our school culture and climate that we could more deeply focus on
academics.
I have since visited countless schools that aren't achieving great
results because there are issues with the culture or conditions that
make it extremely challenging for students to engage in learning and,
frankly, make the work exhausting and unsustainable for teachers. Often
these conditions are the result of or are exacerbated by gross resource
inequities, which I am pleased the regulations require districts and
schools to address in their plans to improve the lowest-performing
schools and close large achievement gaps.
What gets measured gets done. Incorporating other measures of
school quality into accountability systems means there is an incentive
to focus on the underlying conditions for effective teaching and
engaging learning. Add to the mix a strong focus on resource equity,
and we get an accountability framework that is truly based on multiple
measures and in many ways addresses No Child Left Behind's overreliance
on test scores alone.
At the same time, I appreciate that the Department's proposed
regulations keep the focus of accountability systems on academic
outcomes, due to the statutory requirement to place ``much greater
weight'' on the academic indicators in State systems. Ultimately,
everything we do as educators to address school conditions is in
service of helping our students grow, improve, and gain academic
mastery so they are ready for their next steps in life. The parameters
included in the proposed regulations place reasonable constraints on
the school quality indicator and I urge the Department to retain those
guardrails in the final version.
Finally, we must consider data reporting. Though report card data
cannot tell the entire story of a school, it is critical that
information on report cards is presented in a way that is easy to
understand and captures as much of the full picture as possible.
School leaders rely on the underlying data from report cards to
make decisions about how to marshal school resources to support
teachers and students to reach our shared goals. We need timely data
that are disaggregated by student subgroups and capture the performance
and progress of all kids--keeping us focused on meeting the needs of
our most vulnerable students and holding school system leaders
accountable for ensuring we have the resources necessary to help all
children succeed.
Moreover, we use report cards to communicate progress with families
and community members. Parents deserve to know how schools are
performing so they can hold us accountable, offer support, and make
informed decisions about the learning environments that will meet the
needs of their children. They need snapshot data on key indicators as
well as an overall summary. Ideally, these resources are radically
transparent, including as much information as possible on student
subgroups and school resources, while meeting the equally important
charge of being easy to understand. Our job as educators is to engage
with stakeholders and use the data to tell the story of our schools and
advocate for our students.
As a practitioner, I also want to know which of my colleagues are
working in schools that are getting results--for all kids and for
individual groups of students--so I can seek them out to learn and
collaborate, particularly if they are doing great work in areas where
we need to improve.
Though not required by statute, my plea to policymakers is that
they take advantage of the opportunity to ensure report cards and
underlying accountability systems include growth measures, particularly
for schools in transformation. One of the greatest struggles I faced as
a principal was convincing parents and members of our community--many
of whom attended Ranson when they were young and watched its slow
decline over the course of many years--that we were truly turning
things around. Educators making progress in the lowest-performing
schools need support, encouragement, and recognition to keep up the
momentum.
Ultimately, the purpose of our education system is to meet students
where they are--whether they're three grade levels behind (like many of
our students), at grade level, or above--and support their development.
No matter their proficiency level, our job is to move students forward.
That's called good pedagogy and that's what it takes to do right by all
of our kids.
Thank you, once again, for the opportunity to share my perspective.
And thank you for your willingness to listen, learn, and ensure
Federal policies retain appropriate checks and balances on behalf of
our Nation's most vulnerable children while unleashing States,
districts, and schools to execute plans that help all students grow,
thrive, and fulfill their potential.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Welcher.
Senator Murray.
Senator Murray. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'm going to
submit my questions for the record because I have another
commitment. But I really want to thank all of you for your
input today and wise counsel, and I look forward to working
with all of you as we implement this.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murray.
We will now begin a round of 5-minute questions, and I'll
start.
Three of you mentioned the timeline that States have, and
Senator Murray and I have both asked Secretary King about it.
Dr. Pruitt, let me be specific about it. Would it make
sense to you that Kentucky could develop its new accountability
system during the 2017-18 school year, the next school year,
the one coming up, and then begin to identify new schools in
the following school year, which would 2018-19? And in the
meantime, you would continue to support and work with those
schools that are in trouble that you've already identified. Is
that what I understand you to say would be a solution, a
sensible way to go?
Mr. Pruitt. Yes, sir, absolutely. Of course, if our schools
have already been struggling, we would not leave them out. We
would definitely continue to support them. But what giving us
that extra time would do is give us more time to really engage
our stakeholders to ensure that we actually have buy-in on the
system. For me, a big part of our new accountability system has
to be built on more trust between the State and local levels.
The Chairman. Would it be helpful if Secretary King did
agree with that schedule? Would it be helpful if he announced
that soon so that you could make your plans according to that
schedule?
Mr. Pruitt. Absolutely, it would. In Kentucky, we have to
start on our regulatory process actually in January for us to
have it through all of our systems to submit to U.S. Ed. If he
would announce it right now, it would mean that we would have
more flexibility in our timeline, and I believe we could do a
better job.
The Chairman. Dr. Pletnick, you're a superintendent. Does
that make sense to you?
Ms. Pletnick. It absolutely does make sense. Another
concern that we have is that in order to really get the voices
of all the stakeholders in a large State, that does mean going
out there, bringing all that information in. We need that time
to do research. Because we were locked into that compliance
with No Child Left Behind, we didn't necessarily have the
opportunity to look at those multiple indicators that would
make sense. We need that time because we need to make good
decisions.
My concern is if we start using some of that data and
labeling these schools, and then we tweak the system, we really
are losing trust from the stakeholders because even though you
might have that same summative A through F label, you've
changed components. So that A score really isn't an apples-to-
apples comparison the next year when you label it A or F or
whatever other label.
The Chairman. Let me move on. I've just got a couple of
minutes left.
Dr. Darling-Hammond, you've talked about California and
other States that are using this opportunity, which I would
hope they would. This is an unusual opportunity. We have a new
law which may set the policy for 10 or 15 years. It means every
State will be developing new plans which won't need to be
changed unless they make major plans. This should be a period
of great innovation and excitement and enthusiasm school by
school and district by district.
Is it your thought that too short a timeline would
discourage that? And what would you think of the schedule that
I just described with Dr. Pruitt?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. The schedule makes perfect sense. Too
short a timeline both means you'll make worse decisions about
the structure and the data in the accountability system and
lose the stakeholder input. I know our State board is meeting
this week, and there were hundreds of people there giving
commentary. They're trying to model the way the data would look
to identify schools. The time is needed to do a good job.
The Chairman. It is my hope that Secretary King will
announce before long that it would be appropriate under the new
law, because it was my intention at least, and I think for many
of us, that States would create their accountability systems in
the school year coming up, keep working with the already-
identified schools, but then begin to implement the new system
in the following year.
I have about 30 seconds left. Dr. Pletnick, in about five
different places in the law we try to make clear that the U.S.
Department of Education cannot tell Arizona what its academic
standards should be. We changed the word from ``demonstrate''
to ``assure.'' We put specific prohibitions in the law. Is the
way you read this new regulation, do you believe that the U.S.
Secretary of Education could decide to reject Arizona's
academic standards if he chose to?
Ms. Pletnick. I believe that is the way that I would
interpret it, and my fear is others would as well. This debate,
whether that was the intent or not, this debate could start
again over Common Core when we're just starting to move forward
and really look at our standards and improve them.
The Chairman. Yes. Do you read anything in the law that
suggests that the U.S. Secretary of Education ought to be able
to tell Arizona what its academic standards should be?
Ms. Pletnick. I did not, and as Arizona, we did not. We
started the work on reviewing and revising standards so that
they would better reflect what our State's needs were.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Now I'm going to excuse myself for a few minutes to go to a
meeting, and I'll be back. But in the meantime I'm going to
hand the gavel to Senator Paul.
Senator Paul [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Alexander.
I've been wanting to be chairman for quite some time.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Senator Casey would be next.
Senator Paul. OK. At this time I'll recognize Senator Casey
for questions.
Statement of Senator Casey
Senator Casey. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman, officially.
I want to thank the panel, and I'm sorry I wasn't here
earlier for your testimony. We are grateful that you're here to
provide testimony and answer questions, but really to bring
your experience and expertise to these issues.
I do want to start just on a brief personal note. I noticed
from the biographies, Dr. Pletnick, you've got significant
Pennsylvania roots.
Ms. Pletnick. I have.
Senator Casey. Born in what town?
Ms. Pletnick. Edwardsville.
Senator Casey. OK. Luzerne County.
Ms. Pletnick. Most people don't recognize that. I have to
say ``close to Philadelphia,'' but I knew you would.
Senator Casey. There's an Edwardsville, IL, too, I know
that. But also it says you were principal in four districts in
Pennsylvania before going to Arizona. Is that right?
Ms. Pletnick. In four different schools.
Senator Casey. Schools.
Ms. Pletnick. Right, yes. My last job was in Wallenpaupack.
Senator Casey. OK, not far from where I live. I just want
to make that connection, highlight your biography a little more
than it might have been before.
Ms. Pletnick. Thank you.
Senator Casey. But thank you so much.
I guess I wanted to start and try to get to as much of the
panel as we can in a short time on the question of early
learning, which has been a priority for me a long time. I'm not
just a believer in the value of early learning but the good
news is all the research validates that belief, which is
literally that kids will earn more later if they learn more
now. That learning and earning connection is substantial, but
we haven't really made the kind of national commitment that we
need. A lot of States have done some good work and have really
advanced, especially in the last decade, but we have a lot more
to do, and I think part of that can be Federal Government
policy, working with the States in partnership.
I know that, Dr. Darling-Hammond, your organization
recently released an analysis of several high-quality, State-
based early learning programs, so I wanted to ask you a little
bit about that. This is the one-page overview of it. But I
wanted to ask you, I guess in the context of the work that your
study undertook, what would you tell us about the best ways to
expand access, knowing that this cannot be a Federal Government
program only, but I think it's an area where we can work in
partnership with the States.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Thank you, glad to talk about that,
and happy to send you the 250-page-long report, if you'd like
it, as well. By the way, I was credentialed at Temple
University as a high school teacher and taught in the
Philadelphia area, while we're identifying Pennsylvania roots.
Senator Casey. Thank you.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Yes. Our study that was released last
week, which looked at four States' exemplary preschool
programs--Washington, West Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina,
and there are others--found that the key things that make a
difference, which ESSA gives us some inroads on in the law, are
the investments in quality standards and coaching programs to
those standards, staff development, increased coordination of
programs, Federal and State, in very strategic ways. It's a
complicated system, and simplifying and streamlining that so
that people can manage all those funding streams is very
important, and strategically using those. Then, creating those
transitions between preschool and kindergarten, and designing
targeted interventions through early childhood education, which
ESSA could allow for as well.
There's a very substantial agenda that is needed for early
childhood education in this country. We know that it can really
dramatically close the achievement gap that exists before kids
get to school, and that is the purpose of our major Federal
laws. It's a good step in the right direction. Obviously, as
you know, there is more that can be done.
Senator Casey. I'm grateful for that. I know that in our
coming together here in the Senate and the House to pass ESSA
that we do now have early learning alignment improvement
grants. I don't know if you or anyone else has any advice or
guidance on how best to manage that part of the legislation.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. I do think that there are places in
different parts of the law where alignment, transitions,
professional development are created, and one of the things
that will be helpful in the regulations, guidance and
implementation is having a holistic view about how States can
use those provisions to create a seamless system as they make
those investments.
Senator Casey. I'm out of time, but maybe we'll ask others
to submit something in writing on early learning if you wanted
to comment further, but I'm down to zero.
Thanks very much for your work, and I'm grateful to be with
you today.
Senator Paul. Senator Burr.
Statement of Senator Burr
Senator Burr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Welcher, I apologize to you. I had every intention of
getting over here to introduce you, as I look forward to having
North Carolina talent in the U.S. Senate. But, welcome, and I'm
sure the Chairman did an adequate job, but not like somebody
from North Carolina could have introduced you.
Ms. Welcher, you're passionate. That's what I love. And not
only do you have the experience in the classroom, you were
tasked with a turn-around, and you succeeded. And now in your
capacity here, you're not only teaching, you're inspiring other
teachers to improve.
Senator Casey and I had a little spat last year. It wasn't
something that lingered on, but we changed title II funding,
and over the next 7 years North Carolina is going to get $24
million more to go to specifically that. What does that mean
for North Carolina?
Ms. Harris Welcher. Yes, thank you so much. I think it
means a great opportunity for innovation. We really have to
look at doing things differently in how we support school
leaders. At the end of the day, as great as a teacher is, a
great teacher is not going to stay in a school. People don't
leave organizations because of the organization. They leave
because of a not-so-great boss.
I think we have a great opportunity to really look at how
we train and develop and support school leaders, how we build
pipelines for school leaders.
We also have an opportunity to think about what other
transformational opportunities can we create for teachers. We
see the numbers of teachers who are leaving the profession, and
those who are just not even entering to begin with. We have to
think more creatively about how we support our teachers and
give them something they know they can hold on to and create a
career out of.
Last, I really believe we have an opportunity to provide
some innovative spaces for our schools of how they serve our
students. We have some major achievement gaps in subgroups.
Every child does not learn the same way. Every school cannot
turn around the same way. We have to give that flexibility to
our districts to really research, explore, and understand what
are the ways that they can truly increase student achievement
and sustain that achievement over time. The point of a turn-
around is to turn it around. A school should not perpetually be
in turn-around. So we've really got to figure out a way to
allow schools and districts to find innovative ways that will
work for their school so that all students can succeed and the
community can have a great school forevermore.
Senator Burr. Which is one of the reasons we tried to be as
specific about empowering States and local communities. Listen,
I understand. This is not my first rodeo of 22 years up here.
Agencies have to write regulations. But writing a regulation
and interpreting that regulation correctly, I want to make sure
you maintain the flexibility that you need.
When Erskine Bowles was president of the university system,
he came to me 1 day and he said I need a grant to be able to
follow teachers that we educate at the University of North
Carolina so that we can figure out whether we're teaching them
how to teach the right way in the 21st century. How important
is that?
Ms. Harris Welcher. It's hugely important. Many of us, as I
look around this room, the way that students are learning today
is not the way that we were taught, right? We're taking
strategies and saying, oh, this is how I did school. That
doesn't work anymore for our students. We have to really
understand how do students learn, and we have to understand
what works. If it's not working, then we need to fix it. We're
not going to get any different result, we know that, if we keep
doing the same thing.
We have to spend that time to explore and understand what
are the great teachers, the most effective teachers doing, what
are the most effective schools doing, and figure out how we can
replicate that. We don't need to keep reinventing the wheel.
The reality of it is our students don't have any more time for
that. A student has 1 year to get it, and many of the students
that I've worked with, we have to advance their learning more
than a year's worth because they're coming to us so far behind.
It's imperative that we absolutely figure out what the most
effective teachers, most effective schools and leaders are
doing so that we can replicate that as quickly as possible.
Senator Burr. I thank you for that, and thank all the
witnesses for their valuable testimony today. I'll conclude by
saying this, that K through 12 has no partisanship in
Washington because I think we truly all not only believe but
strive to make sure that the current generation in K through 12
is provided the tools they need to compete in the 21st century,
and with every child that we don't get across the goal line of
graduation, their options for life are so much more diminished.
I think we have a moral obligation to make sure that every one
of them has an equal opportunity, and that starts with a great
education.
Thank you very much for being here.
Senator Paul. Thank you, and thank you to the panel.
I was never a big fan of No Child Left Behind. I thought it
federalized too much, took away too much power from the States,
the teachers, the parents, everybody. I think to have
innovation you need more local control of schools and more
empowerment of local people who are seeing the problem up close
and personal.
The intent of the legislation was to allow more creativity,
innovation, and more sovereignty of States. When I hear from
Commissioner Pruitt that the proposed regulations stifle
creativity, innovation, and the sovereignty of States, I wonder
to myself how can a piece of legislation that was intended to
give you more power somehow still be running into the same
problems that we all thought were a problem with No Child Left
Behind? How could the intent of both sides somehow be ignored,
and what do we do to fix it? If Senator Alexander were here, I
would actually ask him that question. How do we create
legislation better where the intent actually is fulfilled in
the regulations?
But since Dr. Pruitt said this about the proposed
regulation, I'd like to hear your theory of how can we get the
intent of the legislation to actually work. Is it just a
misinterpretation of what our intent was? Will the hearing
further that? What is the consensus among--and we'll go to the
rest of the panel. What is the consensus among people from all
different political persuasions on this issue?
Mr. Pruitt. I actually believe that this is not a political
issue as much as it's an issue of doing what's right. Recently
I heard a quote that basically said there's a difference
between what you have a right to do and what you should do to
be right, and I believe that a lot of what these regulations do
is it's something that could actually cave in under its own
weight, which is sort of what NCLB did. There were so many
regulations and inconsistencies within that that it created so
many goals that schools couldn't possibly meet all of those
goals, and that's one of my concerns with the current
regulations, that there's such a vast amount of regulation that
it could actually implode.
Senator Paul. One of the things that we were talking about
is when the accountability standards will be enforced on this
timetable that Senator Alexander brought up. What would happen,
just hypothetically, if there were no accountability standards
coming from the Federal Government? Wouldn't each individual
State have accountability standards? When you had a waiver from
No Child Left Behind, it didn't disappear and you said we're
not going to be accountable. You just simply made those
decisions within your State.
Mr. Pruitt. Absolutely. I believe accountability is
necessary, and I believe my colleagues around the country are
fully embracing the idea that accountability is important. But
I also think that we're moving away from just accountability
and more into shared responsibility for all of these students.
If there were none, I believe we would still have
accountability. In fact, in Kentucky, we were under the waiver,
and I believe that we actually had a system that in many ways
exceeded what the Feds would have liked for us to do.
But we are going to make sure that our students are held to
a consistent and equitable outcome. I also believe that just
because we disagree does not mean that we're not supportive of
equity. I think there are different ways to get to that. For me
and for Kentucky, we're going to ensure that every single
child, regardless of where they live or what their needs are,
they're going to be met.
Senator Paul. From the other members of the panel--we'll
start with Dr. Pletnick--do you think we are having some
problems between the regulations actually coming forward and
representing the true intent of what the bill said? And do you
think that's a problem?
Ms. Pletnick. I do see that there is that disconnect, and
sometimes I think we're well-meaning when we try to provide
those supports, but there are unintended consequences. I thank
the committee for hearing from the practitioners who are
looking at these regulations and saying we understand that the
intent may have been for support, but what you're actually
doing is stifling us, keeping us from doing the innovative
things.
From a very local perspective, a superintendent's
perspective, if I weren't serving my students, I would hear
from the owners of our system, and the owners are those
taxpayers, those community members that are supporting our
public school system, and they would not allow us to continue
to do things that were harmful to children.
Senator Paul. Dr. Darling-Hammond.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. I think it may be unintentional. As
regulations get written and you think about how will people
figure out how to do this law, it may be unintentional that
they sometimes get so narrow. But what ESSA has done across the
country is really unleash a lot of creative energy. A lot of
people--constituents, advocates, State officials, educators,
civil rights groups--are all working on developing these new
systems. I think that as we get information about what States
are planning to do and preparing to do, which would come
through the system for peer review, it should be easier to
right-size the regulations so that they allow for those good
solutions that are already being developed in the States that
maybe were hard to imagine a few months ago, before the energy
really took hold.
Senator Paul. I think important to remember, though, that
the goal of the bill was not to have no regulations but to have
them closer to home where you are deciding those in your
States, not at the Federal level, and to make sure that it's
not so overbearing in its application that we do exactly what
we did with No Child Left Behind. In my medical practice, I
would see teachers all the time. I never met a teacher who
liked No Child Left Behind, not one.
Ms. Welcher.
Ms. Harris Welcher. Yes, I'll just add to what the panel
has already stated. As practitioners, we need to understand
what the regulation really wants us to do to improve outcomes
for all students. As it relates to accountability across States
in the Nation, the reality of it is we need high expectations
for all students, whether it's in North Carolina, Kentucky,
Arizona, California. The students I serve are going to be
competing with students in all of these States and, the
reality, across the world. My concern is that we must have high
expectations for all students.
It varies, and it has varied across the Nation, and that's
not OK. I want my students to have the same opportunity to go
to Harvard 1 day, but that may not always be the case if States
are left to develop whatever their own accountability system
may be. That may be a lower standard.
Senator Paul. Or a higher standard.
Ms. Harris Welcher. Or higher.
Senator Paul. Senator Murphy.
Statement of Senator Murphy
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, all of you, for being here. I'm sorry that I was
in and out. I caught most of your opening statements.
I was one of the primary authors of the accountability
sections which we're talking about here today with respect to
the new regulations, and I think that when we wrote those
provisions in the bill, had we imagined that upon the release
of the regulations that we would have received statements of
support from both the Council of Chief State School Officers
and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we
would have figured that we got it largely right. I'd like to
offer those two statements into the record, if there's no
objection, and admit that, of course, none of this is going to
be perfect.
[The information referred to was not available at time of
print.]
I want to ask you, Dr. Darling-Hammond, about this question
of measuring what is good versus what is perfect. I agree with
you that a summative score for a school is going to be
imperfect in that there is no perfect way to measure anyone's
performance with a numerical grade, with a letter grade, with
one simple number attached to it. But, of course, we do it all
the time in education, and we often, as you mentioned with
respect to report cards, engage in a practice where we have a
summation of a student's performance and then determinations
underneath that summation of how they have done in particular
subjects. I know that because I remember in high school that I
had a class rank that was the thing that most people paid
attention to. But underneath that class rank I also had grades
in all of my subjects. I paid attention to that class rank, but
I also paid attention to the grades. It didn't seem to be
mutually exclusive, that I only paid attention to the class
rank or I only paid attention to the grades.
I'd like to ask you two things. One, why don't you think
that parents or policymakers would pay attention to all of the
sub-measurements simply because there's a summative number or
letter or score sitting on top of it? And second, how would we
determine what the lowest 5 percent of schools are if we don't
have a summative assessment of schools? How do we do that in a
transparent way if you don't have an overall measurement of a
school's performance?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Those are great questions, and thank
you very much. You did get a GPA at the end of high school, but
you probably didn't have one for most of the years in-between.
From kindergarten until about 10th or 11th grade, it's all
about how are you doing in each subject and what are we going
to do as a school to support you in improving. When you're
looking at the continuous improvement, you have to know how
people are doing in these different areas. There are some
examples in my written testimony from the way in which Vermont
is looking at this, where you see that the single summative
score, which would identify a particular school as being in the
bottom 5 percent, for example, misses the fact that several
other schools have lower graduation rates or lower math
performance that will not necessarily get attended to if only
that one school is identified.
The law does not require that we identify exactly 5
percent. It requires that a State identifies at least 5
percent. So the question is how do you go about doing that?
California had an academic performance index before NCLB. We
used that single summative score for years and years and years,
and there were things underneath it, and they were reported.
But what ended up happening, as Commissioner Pruitt mentioned,
is that people were spending all their time trying to game the
single summative score.
Take the GPA, for example. If I really want to hide GPA,
I'm not going to take that really hard class because it might
give me a B instead of an A. I'm going to game the GPA. And
some people, when they're focused on that, that happens, and we
saw that in many States, that gaming the single summative score
overtook making progress on each of the indicators.
Senator Murphy. But let's say you had three indicators. Why
wouldn't that same tendency play out with the indicators? Why
would it only play out with a summative score?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Let's say we have six indicators,
because there are four required by the Federal Government. Most
States have to add at least one more, and some are adding more.
If you have a continuous improvement system, what you might
want to do is identify, as we're talking about in California
and some other States, the schools that are low performing and
not improving, to your point about improvement, on each of
those indicators, 5 percent of the schools, and then we're
talking about just as your school might say you're going to get
reading recovery because you're not doing well in reading, the
schools that are struggling with English language learners will
get a whole intervention with research and coaching and
professional development and opportunities to work with other
schools. If they're in that low-performing group, they will
have to have access and will be involved in that intervention.
Others might even opt in. But we're going to attend to the fact
that they are not making progress there.
We would miss a lot of those schools if we were just
identifying the bottom 5 percent on a single summative score
because they might be doing OK in some other areas, so they get
above the line, and then they're not getting identified and
supported. The same thing in each of the other areas.
How do you identify that you've got at least 5 percent
getting intensive intervention for the right things? You would
say if you're low performing and not improving on four of the
six, then you're going to get intensive intervention that's
more like a SWAT team, in addition to the intervention you're
getting for the need that you have, and that's the same way
you'd think about improving children's experiences in schools
as a teacher or a principal, and it's a much better way to
ensure that everybody is working on continuous improvement.
Subgroup performance doesn't get lost, and the area where you
need the help gets attended to.
In the old system, when you just had AYP, you made it or
you didn't make it. A lot of the interventions that were
prescribed for schools were completely inappropriate for the
actual needs that they had because it was just you're in or
you're out, and here's the standardized intervention we're
going to give you. I think the States' experiences who have had
a single summative score suggest that it distracted them from
really focusing on the specific needs of the schools, and they
can use decision rules that are consistent to identify at least
5 percent of the schools that have the needs that the
interventions would address.
Senator Murphy. I thank you for the answers. I guess I
don't think we give enough credit to school officials and to
superintendents to be able to continue to pay attention to the
underlying indicators even though they will have a score
sitting on top of it. I'm not sure that I'm convinced that
there won't be a tendency to game the indicators that sit down
beneath, just like there might be a tendency to game the top
line indicator, and ultimately I think you can probably walk
and chew gum at the same time when it comes to both having a
measurement of the overall school and having a measurement of
these indicators.
I worry that if you don't have a clear top-line indicator
summative score, then the transparency of the determination of
who gets stuck into the bottom 5 or bottom 10 percent gets a
little muddled. I hear what you're saying, that you could make
it clean, right? You could just decide that if you're not
hitting measurements on four of the six, then you're in. But
you could also make it really confusing as well, and it would
be largely up to the State as to what they chose to be the mix
of performance on those sub-indicators. So there could be
States in which it's really clear how you get into that group,
but then there could be States in which it's really not clear
how you get in, and that's where I worry that it becomes a
little bit difficult for parents and for policymakers to parse.
But I appreciate your time, and I've gone way over.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Paul. Senator Whitehouse.
Statement of Senator Whitehouse
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
I have two questions. I'll just ask them together, and you
can decide which one each panelist would care to answer.
One is that I'm hearing from folks at home in Rhode Island
some concern about the timeframe that has been laid out for
getting the new accountability system dashboards up and
running. Getting that right is really at the heart of what the
whole Every Student Succeeds Act is all about, so I'm
interested in your thoughts on what you think an appropriate
timeframe would be to work out that new accountability system.
The second and sort of related point is that one of the
reasons we took this step was to get rid of the scourge of
testing of schools that was so badly deforming the behavior of
schools in order to be successful on the tests. And one of the
worst ways in which that deformation of our educational system
took place was in curriculum being jettisoned over the side in
schools that felt themselves at risk of the testing program so
that the kids had nothing to learn except what the school was
going to be tested on when the tests came.
For us, one of the measures of the success of this Act is
going to be how quickly curriculum can grow back in these
schools, and I'd be interested in your assessment of what
good--we don't want to add more control, we don't want to add
more regulation. You guys have enough of that nonsense all over
you in this area already. But what would be the best ways to
measure the success of returning curriculum to these schools
that had jettisoned so much of it to make the tests?
Those are the two, timeframe on dashboards and measuring
the return of curriculum without burdening schools.
Mr. Pruitt. I guess if it's OK, I'll take the first crack.
The timeline that Chairman Alexander laid out earlier with us,
being able to work on the actual system in 2017-18, identifying
new schools the next year, would be a fantastic opportunity for
us. The way the current regs are, basically you would be
overlapping two systems. We in Kentucky have actually seen
that. As a result, we had two schools that entered into
priority status at the end of our last accountability system,
and now in our current accountability system, because it takes
3 years to come off that list, we have two schools that are
simultaneously in our top 5 and bottom 5 percent. It creates a
lot of distrust in the system.
Giving us that extra time will allow us to model data. It
will allow us to really dive into the system to make sure that
what we have really measures what we want it to measure and
builds a lot of trust.
Senator Whitehouse. Does anybody disagree with that, or
does Dr. Pruitt speak for the panel?
Ms. Pletnick. As a superintendent, we were talking about
that same kind of difficulty. If we move too quickly, actually
we'll be forced to use NCLB data. So these schools will be
labeled as failing under an old system, versus having that time
to transition to the new system.
Senator Whitehouse. It sounds like it's unanimous that a
little bit more time would be good. I see all the heads
nodding, for the record. OK.
The next question is what would be the best way for this
committee, without seeking to add burdens or encouraging the
U.S. Department of Education to add burdens, a tendency that
seems rather strong in that department, to get a sense of the
resurgence of curriculum in these schools that had been
deprived of so much curriculum?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. I think there are a couple of ways in
which we can encourage the return of rich curriculum into our
schools. As you know, under the earlier era, the State tests
became not only more plentiful but lower in quality, much more
multiple choice assessment rather than open-ended and a variety
of ways to show what you know. Rand Corporation did a study
that found that only 2 percent of the items on the best State
tests were higher-order thinking skills in math, 98 percent
low-level rote skills.
The rest of the world has been moving on to develop richer
assessments that are more focused on 21st century skills. One
thing in the law is the opportunity for the innovative pilot
assessments that will--some seven States will have access to
initially, and then three more. Hopefully that will be
regulated in a way that States are encouraged to really broaden
the conception of curriculum that is aimed at thinking and
problem-solving and measuring those things so that other States
can take that up. That will be an area to be mindful about and
encouraging of.
There's also more room in the law for innovative
assessments outside the pilot space, and again how that gets
both regulated and implemented could allow States to really
move from rote learning to much more ambitious and
intellectually challenging learning.
In addition, these additional indicators after the first
four that are federally required in some States are taking up
ways to look at a full, rich curriculum. Are kids getting
access? We have this as an indicator for our State
accountability in California for science and history and all of
the content areas that they need.
Senator Whitehouse. Music, arts. Yes.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Yes, which disappeared in a lot of
schools. Also, are kids getting access in high school or are
they completing international baccalaureate or AP or dual
credit courses? Are they getting a college preparatory or a
high-quality career technical sequence? All of those--actually,
many States are looking to put those in the accountability
system because we know that ultimately that will drive
performance. Research shows that that's one of the most
powerful drivers of ultimate skills, and those have to count.
Right now, the regulations would make any of those additional
indicators fairly meaningless in the accountability
determinations because they can't improve a school's rating,
they can only bring it down.
I think that allowing room for the measurement of higher-
order thinking skills and curriculum that is rich and powerful
will also help schools make that transition as they hopefully
spend their title II dollars to do the professional development
that will also be needed.
Senator Whitehouse. I'm over my time. I thank you for your
courtesy.
Senator Paul. The great thing about being the acting
chairman is I can take the prerogative of asking an additional
question, and you're welcome, Senator Whitehouse, to do so as
well. But I have a question.
I'm a bit of a contrarian when it comes to education. I
went through a lot of the educational system--public schools,
private schools, graduate degrees, doctorate. But what we get
bogged down in is we're talking about accountability standards,
assessments, measuring. We're talking about how we're measuring
whether we're doing a good job, but I don't think anything
we've talked about, other than just a little bit of this rich
curriculum that I hear, almost nothing we've talked about today
is how do we go from being 25th in the world to 1st in the
world again.
We have to have measurements, but I kind of go crazy with
all the measurements, whether they're Federal or State. I'd
rather have them State. Whether they're State or local, I'd
rather have them local. But those really aren't making any kids
smarter. This is how we're measuring our success. How do we get
more success?
I'd like to propose something, and this is something that
excites me, and this is the concept of the extraordinary
teacher. I think this is something where we could take our
education to another level if we utilized it.
We have the Internet. We give all our kids smart phones,
smart tablets, and we think they're going to get smart with a
smart tablet. I think they'll get smart if we connect them to a
smart person.
What I would propose is an extraordinary teacher program
such that we pick the thousand best teachers maybe in the
country, or maybe in the world. We become sort of like the NFL
or the NBA of teachers, and they teach everybody. So instead of
having a classroom of 15 kids in a classroom, we have a million
kids in the classroom. What I mean by that is if Sal Khan is
the best teacher or explainer of physics problems, we have him
teach everybody. That still means you have a teacher in the
classroom who reinforces that. But why wouldn't you want to go
get a lecture from the person who can explain calculus better
than anybody in the world and can apply it to everyday life and
who can say why it would be exciting to know calculus, because
you can be an engineer that works in NASA or does this, and
we're going to work on a problem on jet fuel that's needed and
parabolic curves of how the rockets are launched, et cetera.
But you would get that by beaming these people in and not
being stuck with just your local set of teachers, who aren't
bad people, but everybody knows, like in my kid's high school,
there's a man and a woman who are extraordinary. Everybody knew
they were extraordinary. They were both teachers. They came
before school, they stayed after school. They were just
amazing. Pay them more, but have them teach all of the kids in
Kentucky, not just the kids in that one high school for that
one class. And maybe it's one area within that one class that
they're the best at teaching and they specialize in that. You
beam their lectures to everybody in Kentucky, or maybe
everybody in the country.
Above and beyond that, if the extraordinary teacher idea
was a good idea, then maybe the people who are in college that
want to be teachers, when they do their classroom teaching,
let's only put them in extraordinary teacher classes. Everybody
knows these people are out there, and sometimes we lose them to
other parts of business because we don't pay them enough.
One is the concept of having an extraordinary teacher
program, having them teach beyond the walls of their school,
connecting us. Are we doing any of that? Do you like the idea?
And then the second question would be should we train our
teachers not just in any old teacher's classroom but in an
extraordinary teacher classroom, and do we do any of that?
Since I'm from Kentucky, we'll start with Dr. Pruitt.
Mr. Pruitt. Thank you. Thank you for the question. It's a
great question.
A lot of what we're looking at with this new system is to
start to develop a collaborative nature within Kentucky. That's
one of the reasons why I've been fairly critical of the new
regs, because I felt like when you put people into that
summative score, why am I going to share? Because if I share,
you're going to beat me. Whereas if you actually reward people
for working together, you can actually do things like expand
the purview of those great teachers.
If District A has a program that is fantastic, but District
B does not, having those two districts actually come together
to work together is actually something that I do hope we can
really promote within our new system, that we do allow people
to get outside of their classroom, that we do expose more
students to our great teachers, but also to great programs,
especially around the areas of career and technical education.
As to the second, I think that the best thing we could do
for our pre-service teachers is put them in an incredible
teacher's classroom who is fired up, who is passionate about
what they're doing, who understands that a good teacher learns
continuously.
Senator Paul. Does anybody know, are we doing any of that
around the country? Let's start with Dr. Darling-Hammond.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. We are doing some of that. One program
that does that is the residency model, which is funded under
the Teacher Quality Partnership grants federally, and some
States have put money into it. What it does is it says,
particularly in high-needs communities, urban and rural
schools, you're going to study under the wing of the very best
expert teachers we have who know how to teach our kids right
here in this community for a full year as an apprentice while
you're working in the university courses that are connected up
to get you credentialed and get your Master's degree. District
and Federal funds, sometimes some State funds pay for that, and
then the resident owes that district 3 or 4 years of service in
high-needs schools in that community.
The outcomes are very strong, very high ratings for these
teachers who are trained by the best teachers in those
districts, and very high retention rates in these high-needs
communities. Some university programs have also moved in the
direction of this model school where you get the very best
teachers and you make that tight connection.
There are some places with career ladders, where teachers
who are very expert, like the two that you described in that
school, can move up a career ladder, and some of their time and
some compensation is attached to this, is really spent being a
mentor and a coach for other teachers so that they get this.
Finally the distance learning kind of idea. Sal Khan is a
friend of mine, and I'm very appreciative of the work that he
does. I think some people are bringing that in. Of course, you
need teachers on the ground too who can work with kids, because
every kid learns differently, and the lecture that works for
one kid may or may not work for everyone. Using that expertise,
bringing it in, and then having teachers learn how to work with
kids around the other----
Senator Paul. One other thing I would add to the
extraordinary teacher concept is to bring people into the
school system who are not teachers for lectures. You could
bring them in remotely or physically. For example, I always got
the feeling as a physician, nobody wanted to hear from me in
the public schools because I don't have a teaching degree,
whereas I think it should be the opposite. You should have
physicians, physicists, great innovators in our society,
computer technology, coming in, exciting the kids, giving a
lecture, giving one lecture. It doesn't mean they become the
teacher, but who wouldn't want to have these extraordinary,
successful people outside of teaching come in also and help
with the teaching?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. There are some districts that are
really taking advantage of that. I think it's less prominent
than it could be as a tool and a resource for schools.
Ms. Pletnick. I can give an example. In our district, we're
doing just that. We're fortunate because we have five major
retirement communities right in our backyard. We have retired
engineers, we have retired physicians, and they come in and
actually work side by side with our students, not only our high
school through CTE, but actually in our elementary schools, in
our STEM programs. They are there adding their expertise.
In addition to that, the students really learn, then, from
them how this is applied in the real world. It makes sense.
The other thing we're doing in our district we call Your
Call, Your Community of Leaders and Learners. We don't want to
be losing our expert teachers from the classroom. We don't want
them to believe that the only place they can be experts and
leaders is when they leave and go into administration. They
have complete control over their professional development. They
adopt a problem of practice, and then have to work collegially
to solve that. Through that, we're identifying those teacher
leaders who others can learn from, and it really provides that
ability for those folks to have a voice in what happens, but
also to feel appreciated as they lead and learn.
Senator Paul. Thank you.
Ms. Welcher.
Ms. Harris Welcher. Senator, your idea I think is quite
intriguing, and I think at scale certainly could be possible
given the experience that I've had of extending the impact of
great teachers. Much of what you're saying is exactly what we
did at Ranson IB Middle School. We looked at who were our most
effective teachers, and we said you've got this, you know how
to move students, and you also know how to teach other
teachers, so we're going to give you a greater responsibility
to own that success. While we didn't expand it outside of our
school building, we did that model exactly. We used blended
learning. We gave one person who was an expert teacher, like
Ovi Miles, the responsibility for all of science and had 350
students that he was responsible for, and ultimately ended up
with the highest growth in our entire district.
It's absolutely possible. I think your idea of placing our
most novice teachers and those who want to go into teaching
with the most effective teachers is absolutely necessary. When
you're a first-year teacher, you are literally just mimicking
what you see. We want our beginning teachers to mimic the best
so that our students can grow better faster.
Senator Paul. Thank you all for coming. That's my plea to
you as educators, and also to those across the country. Let's
not get lost in measuring our success that we forget that we're
trying to create success, and that's also what we discussed a
little bit in the rules today, that we don't want the rules to
be so overbearing in how we measure our success or how we test
our children that we're losing sight that we need a richer
curriculum. Grades shouldn't overwhelm everything. Measurement
of grades and measurement of teachers and measurement of
schools shouldn't distract us from the purpose of getting the
best education for our kids.
Thank you all.
The hearing record will remain open for 10 business days.
We're going to recess for 5 minutes. I believe the Chairman
is on his way back.
[Recess.]
The Chairman [presiding]. The hearing will come to order.
Thanks to the witnesses for your patience. We worked pretty
hard for 2 or 3 years on legislation involving opioid abuse,
and today was the signing of that. I know I missed some
interesting comments, but let me take advantage of this
opportunity to ask a few more questions, if that's all right
with you.
Let's go back to the timeline we talked about, because
there seemed to be general agreement about that. And let's talk
about, in the different States, what we mean when we say
accountability system. What I said in my questioning was that
my hope is, and I believe this is what Secretary King said, is
that Kentucky, say, California, North Carolina, Arizona, would
develop its accountability system during the school year coming
up and then implement it in the following year, and in the
meantime continue to work with the schools already identified
as having some problems. States do that in different ways now.
Some do that every 3 years, some do it every year, that sort of
thing.
Dr. Pruitt, the whole heart of the law is that we move the
accountability system from Washington to Kentucky and North
Carolina and California and Tennessee, all the States, but
people don't always know what we mean when we say
accountability system. So could you describe briefly but with
some specifics what you're doing in Kentucky to create an
accountability system? Put it on that timeline we discussed and
let's see how does it work.
Mr. Pruitt. Sure. We have to start with the idea that it is
a system. I have a background in sciences, so I have a tendency
to think in terms of systems, and when you evaluate a system,
you break it into its parts and you reintegrate it.
We have five groups that are currently working on pieces of
that system--assessment, school improvement, college and career
readiness. Two that I think are a little bit unique are
opportunity and access, because we want to move away from it
being just about test scores, and innovation, how we can really
promote innovation within our districts.
We have a committee that will take those findings and
integrate that into a system that actually works like a system.
So as one thing affects another part of a system, we evaluate
it.
The Chairman. What's your schedule for doing that? What
would you like for it to be?
Mr. Pruitt. What I'd like for it to be is to have all of
this year to really get into that, work at it, and actually be
able to model the data.
The Chairman. All of this calendar year or all of this
school year?
Mr. Pruitt. I would love all of this coming school year to
be able to do it. As it stands, because of how the regulatory
process works in Kentucky, we have to be finished by December
because of the requirements of when we would have to submit it
to the Federal Government, because I have to get through my
State board and through our regulatory process before I can
actually submit it. So we're operating on a ridiculously short
timeline.
The Chairman. So if you had to do it during the upcoming
school year you would have to, in effect, do it before
December, which is 6 months from now. Would that limit the
number of Kentuckians that you could consult about different
approaches for those five areas?
Mr. Pruitt. I believe so. Not only would it limit the
number of Kentuckians, it would limit our ability to actually
put it through testing, through modeling what it might look
like to actually identify issues. I have a specific group
called the consequential group review team, that's dedicated to
finding unintended consequences of the system. And if we had
more time, we could actually really dig into that to make sure
that--what the accountability system does, or at least in my
opinion, is it drives adults to make good decisions for kids
and not decisions about adults.
The Chairman. If we had the schedule that Dr. King
indicated he might entertain and that I recommended, I
suggested, when would you anticipate you would finish your work
and submit your plan?
Mr. Pruitt. It would be great if we could have this entire
academic year, fiscal year, if you will.
The Chairman. Would that be until June 2017?
Mr. Pruitt. Correct, and then to be able to submit it to
the Federal Government at the end of the summer, and then be
able to continue on in the following school year, identifying
our first group of low-performing schools in the following
fall.
The Chairman. In the year that begins in 2018?
Mr. Pruitt. Correct. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Dr. Hammond, you were talking about what
California is doing. California is a pretty big place. It also
has a reputation as an innovative place. Californians like to
say their good ideas, or bad ideas sometimes, spill across the
country. How does this timeline affect what's happening in
California? And please give me some dates so I can get an idea
of what a short timeline would do and what a longer timeline
would do in terms of encouraging innovation and consultation or
whatever else you think is important.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. I think the basic outline is very
similar to what Dr. Pruitt just described. In addition to
figuring out what indicators we want to have in the
accountability system, you've then got to sometimes build a
data set to allow for that indicator. Just this week I think
the board has adopted the idea of a college and career
readiness index, which will have many things in it. Well, you
have to build the data set for that. You have to model it, see
how it would work out.
The Chairman. How many schools are there in California?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Oh, my. There are 1,000 districts, and
then there are lots of schools. I don't know the exact number,
but it's large, 6 million kids, and it's a lot to model. We
have counties involved as well that are part of the
accountability improvement structure. Deciding on the
indicators, modeling the data, building the data sets. Then, of
course, you don't just want data; you want to use it, so you
have to figure out how to have decision rules for deciding
which schools will get which interventions and supports and
assistance, but also what is your school improvement plan.
All of those things have to be both vetted with
stakeholders and then come through the State board, and there
may be some legislation necessary at some point, depending--
because we have an accountability law, and then you have to
look at the new law, the new ideas and say does it fit with the
old law, do we have to amend the old law. All of that needs to
take place in this coming school year, 2016-17, at the end of
which you could be ready to say, OK, we know what we're about
to do, we have gotten through all of our processes, and at the
beginning of 2017-18 we could start to collect the data that
would allow us to fully implement the system, ideally in 2018-
19.
The Chairman. So collect and then implement the following
year.
Ms. Darling-Hammond. Yes, still keeping supports going on
with the schools that are already identified. We have both a
State law and a Federal law for identifying schools in need of
improvement.
The Chairman. If you had to deal with a short timeline, the
one that seemed to be required by the proposed accountability
regulation, when would California have to finish its plan and
submit it, would you guess?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. If it had to be submitted to be
implemented in the fall, we'd be talking about just in the next
few months settling on everything. What you'd lose, in addition
to the stakeholder opportunities, is the opportunity to
actually add new indicators to the system, because you wouldn't
have time to build the data set to incorporate the new
indicators, and you'd also lose the confidence that when you
implemented it, it would work well, because you wouldn't have
had time to test it to see if, in fact, things play out in a
reasonable way.
The question has come up many times about the 5 percent of
schools, or the at least 5 percent of schools. That kind of
thing needs to be understood and modeled, and you need to
figure all of those components out. We'd basically either be
pushed into doing what we did in the past rather than adding
the new components that people have been really working hard to
advocate for and figure out, or doing it on the fly and sort of
crossing fingers and seeing what happens, and you could imagine
with a State the size of California that you'd have some
problems.
The Chairman. In your institute, you look at many States.
My impression is that States work together first to develop
common standards, then they work together to develop a few
tests, and more recently States have been working on so-called
accountability systems, working together, borrowing ideas from
one another. So this next year-and-a-half provides an
opportunity to put all of that work and knowledge in place in
an innovative way, does it not?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. It does. The Council of Chief State
School Officers and other groups have brought States together.
There is a lot of State sharing and learning going on. We've
done a couple of reports from the Learning Policy Institute
documenting the progress that States are making. It would also
short-circuit that learning process and that sharing process
that's going on.
The Chairman. Dr. Pletnick, what about Arizona? What's the
schedule for--what will you be doing with an accountability
system in Arizona, and what would the difference be between the
short timeline and the longer timeline?
Ms. Pletnick. In Arizona we were very dependent on that
single test for our accountability system. We basically sliced
and diced that test score a million different ways to come up
with an A through F system. We have to go back to redefining.
For us right now, we want to be looking at multiple indicators.
We know that college and career indicators are very important
if we want to really accomplish what we say we do, and that's
graduate every child college and career ready.
That's the piece that we've been working on. In fact, the
State has gone out for an RFI for information. They have
convened some committees of stakeholders to talk about it.
They're going out doing listening tours. Our Governor has a new
Office of Education, and they're doing research. All of those
groups are still in that redefining.
Next we have to go to redesign. And again, much as what has
already been indicated, we want to make sure we are selecting
the right indicators and that we can collect that information.
So that takes a great deal of redesign, and also really
building those systems that will allow us to do that. That's
the technology side of the house. And then we can re-imagine,
which means then we get the product. You cannot do that in 3
months. If you're going to take that short period of time,
we're going to have a lot of errors. We did that when we moved
to a new assessment, and we're still trying to figure out how
to clean up the mess we created because we moved too quickly.
We don't want to do that with an accountability system
because it impacts trust with our community. It also then gives
you those results that don't help the schools that really need
that help because you don't have a true system that's
indicating where the strengths and weaknesses are.
The Chairman. My impression, and you made some allusion to
this, is that I'm very much for higher standards, and when I
was Governor of Tennessee we became the first State to pay
teachers more for teaching well, over the opposition of a lot
of people. But what I noticed--and I would concede that some of
the mandates under the waiver in No Child Left Behind moved us
in a good direction. But they also created a massive backlash
on standards and on teacher evaluation, which in a way set us
back. I mean, you alluded to that. I mean, most States were
adopting Common Core, some version of it, until they found out
Washington was making them do it. Then they all got mad about
it. We spent the last 2 or 3 years having a massive political
brawl over Common Core.
It seems to me that if we were to create new accountability
systems and cram them down the throats of schools and teachers
and parents, that we might create the same sort of backlash
because there wouldn't be the opportunity to buy into whatever
you're doing. So you either cram it down their throats and run
the risk of a backlash or you don't make any changes at all and
you just do what you were already doing.
Ms. Pletnick. That's exactly what my fear is. After 40
years in education, what I have found is that when I bring the
stakeholders to the table and I ask for those ideas, we come up
with the best solutions because we see it from all
perspectives. However, if it's top-down, there is no buy-in,
and so automatically there is that question about is this the
right thing, or an indication we could have done it better. But
by bringing people around the table, I think we're going to
find the best solution and we're going to have the buy-in.
I will tell you, with the standards, I ended up spending a
lot of time as a superintendent in my community being asked to
debate whether we should or we shouldn't, answering questions.
There was really so much misinformation about what was or was
not happening in the school, and no matter where it was
happening across the Nation, somehow it became are you doing
this in this school. It was such a waste of our resources and
our energy, and we have so much work to do that I don't want to
go back to that place.
I think we really have to take the time to get it right,
build that trust, build that buy-in, and together we are going
to be able to support each and every child. I no longer want to
talk about all children. That's not important to me. It's each
and every child, and we have an opportunity, and we have
resources that we can utilize now, including technology that
could help us with these metrics, but we have to have the time
to build it.
The Chairman. Ms. Welcher, what about North Carolina? What
about building an accountability system there?
Ms. Harris Welcher. Yes, absolutely. I think in terms of
the timeline, I love what was said around trying to redefine
then redesign. I often think about this idea of slowing down to
speed up. At the end of the day, school leaders, building
school leaders, they're going to be the ones who are going to
have to re-imagine and implement.
In my short years in education, I have been a part of way
too many new ideas that were just thrown at me and told go do
it, and in all cases it just didn't survive. It didn't live and
it was not deeply implemented with fidelity.
The reality of it is, as a school leader you actually start
planning your next school year in January. You start thinking
and assessing, and you know what has gone well, you know what's
not gone well. You start thinking about that. If we expect
schools and districts and States to start implementing
something in 2017-2018, I can tell you right now we're not
going to get a really strong outcome and result. We need time
for the States to get it right, for our district
superintendents to get it right, and then to filter that down
to the school leaders and the school buildings so that they
feel comfortable and feel very confident in what they're about
to do for kids.
If not, we're going to have folks going through the
motions, and we just don't have the time to do that for our
children.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Well, you've got until
August the 1st to send those comments to the Secretary. He has
indicated he may agree with you, and so I'm going to urge him,
if he does, to go ahead and let everybody know so you can make
your plans.
There are lots of different laws that are passed in
Congress, and some are better than others. Some are passed in
the middle of the night in a snowstorm or sometime, and they're
not carefully read and not carefully structured, and when
they're implemented people are wondering how in the world, what
does this mean.
This law is not perfect, but it was carefully considered
over a long period of time in the open, with lots of
participation by lots of people, and it went through the entire
process of both bodies of Congress and the House, and I think
it's pretty well crafted, not just good policy but pretty well
crafted. In other words, we meant what we said. So it has the
promise of creating stability in Federal elementary and
secondary education policy so, Ms. Welcher, you don't have that
``here's the big new idea every year'' and you're in your
school and say where does that come from, I was just working on
the one they gave me last year.
Hopefully, you have a new law that might settle things for
a decade or so, and then States will have time to develop their
new plans for their title 1 and title 2 Federal dollars, and in
doing that those plans will stay in place for a decade or so,
or until they're significantly changed. They don't have to be
changed every year. And then the superintendent and the school
leaders can say, OK, that takes care of that, and now let's go
to work and do our job, maybe less uncertainty, less politics,
more education.
Let me go back to the summative rating question. That just
kind of dropped from the sky because those words aren't in the
law. In fact, the law says that States develop accountability
systems that measure and differentiate all public schools based
upon a series of indicators beyond just the federally required
math and reading tests. The law says that we envision an
accountability system that is not based on a single test at the
end of the year.
If you wanted to do that, you could do that. We're also
trying to say if you want Common Core, you can have Common
Core. If you don't, you can't. If you want this, you can have
that, or if you don't. And the law also says that the Secretary
``is prohibited from prescribing the specific methodology used
by States to meaningfully differentiate or identify schools.''
Dr. Pletnick, would you consider the words ``single
summative score'' to be a specific methodology?
Ms. Pletnick. I believe it drives you to have to, again,
work within a framework that is going to, unfortunately, cause
many States to think more like the NCLB mandates and
environment than it would under ESSA, because if I've already
determined what that answer has to be, then I've limited the
possibilities of what I could build in order to comply with
that outcome that's being mandated. My fear is by putting that
limitation there, then we're going to limit the innovation.
When I think about multiple indicators, I know we all want
to go back to the traditional way, for instance, of doing
report cards, with one single score. But if my child receives
an A in reading, I don't really know whether there might be
comprehension issues or maybe there's something with their
vocabulary. It doesn't tell me enough. I think when we limit
ourselves and say that has to be the outcome, we're also
limiting what the possibilities are. And with technology, the
new ways that we can use that to work with metrics, I don't
think that we need to limit ourselves to that summative score.
The Chairman. We'll wind this up. Dr. Pruitt, I know you
have a meeting at 11:30 that I want you to be able to go to.
Would you like to be able to say anything and then leave after
that, and then I'll wind up the hearing in the next 5 or 10
minutes after you leave?
Mr. Pruitt. Thank you so much. I thank you for having me,
for allowing us to come in and really talk about what is the
most important issue in K-12 education today. We have an
incredible opportunity ahead of us. I believe with regard to
the summative score, there is a significant amount of research
out there that shows that even at the student level, when
grades are put on writing assignments, that actually it doesn't
lead to the improvement that they thought, as opposed to just
giving good feedback.
For us, we want to end with a system that we can be proud
of that will drive adults toward making good decisions for
students, and I believe that the way you envisioned this law
allows that to happen, that we actually have something special
that leads to each and every child having opportunity that they
would not have had to not just graduate high school but
actually be contributors to our society.
I appreciate the time and effort that you've put into this
law, and I appreciate the opportunity to have come and shared
my concerns.
The Chairman. Thank you, and the person you're about to see
played a major role in the passage of the law, so you can tell
him we're up here trying to implement it the way it was
written.
You're free to go, Dr. Pruitt, if you'd like to do that.
Mr. Pruitt. Thank you.
The Chairman. Dr. Darling-Hammond, I just have a couple
more questions. I want to go back to the summative rating. It's
pretty clear to me it's not in the law, and it's a little, just
to be blunt about it, it's kind of a tricky maneuver. If the
law says you're prohibited from doing X, and then the
regulation says we're going to require you to do something that
results in X, that's a little maneuver they use over at the
Department of Education to get around specific prohibitions.
Specific prohibitions are very unusual in Federal law, and the
only reason they're in there is to keep people from doing
things that Congress has agreed on.
But let's go back to the summative rating. Maybe that's
just a mistake by the Department. Maybe they didn't think it
through. But let's talk about what we mean by summative rating.
A summative rating to me means something like Florida had or
New York City had, which means the whole school is A to F.
Dr. Hammond, am I right about that? What does single
summative rating mean to you?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. It conjures something along a single
scale, like A through F or you got a 92 versus a 43, some kind
of a numerical scale. It may be that really what the
regulations ought to focus on is a rational way to make a
summative decision. You do have to make a summative decision
about which schools are going to get identified for additional
assistance. But a single summative rating does seem to connote
a single scale.
The challenge with doing it that way is that, like kids,
you may have a child who has an A in reading but they're really
struggling in math, and you want to understand that you're
going to give them extra help in math. In an improvement and
accountability mindset, we really want to be sure that you
don't just say you're a 42 or you're a C-minus or whatever that
is, that you actually say if you're really struggling and have
low graduation rates or have that for a subgroup of kids, we
can identify you to be getting assistance in that area, and we
can add those up in a way that's more focused on the actual
help you need than just saying you're in or out of that 5
percent group.
The Chairman. Is California far enough along? The law says
you would develop an accountability system that annually
measures and differentiates all public schools based upon a
series of indicators. What does that mean in California?
Ms. Darling-Hammond. We're still debating the final
versions, and they're all getting refined, as you've described.
But there will probably be six or seven indicators, and on each
of them there will be a scale, and there will be some way of
categorizing. Right now we have five dimensions or five areas
where we're looking at whether a school is high or medium or
low and whether they're improving or declining or staying the
same. So on each indicator you find that out. There's a little
picture of it in my written testimony if people want to look at
it. After you've done that, anyone who is low and not improving
on any indicator would be identified, even if they wouldn't
have been in the bottom 5 percent of a single summative score.
They would be identified to get intensive assistance, and then
you could count up--for example, you could have a decision rule
that says if you are in the low and not improving group on four
of the six, then you're going to get a kind of help that is
more comprehensive and intensive.
Our view has been that if it's at least 5 percent of the
schools that are definitely low and not improving on those
indicators, then we can organize the assistance indicator by
indicator with those summative ratings that have to do on each
indicator with whether they're high, low, in-between, improving
or not improving.
There are ways to think about that that allow you to really
say, as the teacher would say, you really are going to need
that extra help in reading, and we're going to make sure you
get it even if you didn't fall into the bottom 5 percent on
everything, and you're going to get help in math if you need
it, and some people are going to get help in a lot of areas
with a very special approach.
There will be summative ratings on each indicator. There
will be a way to see where every school is, and there's also a
way to go underneath and look at the subgroups of students on
those, but then to make the decision about how and what
assistance they get and whether they get it in a way that
doesn't just roll it up and lose all that good information.
The Chairman. I'll ask my last question about standards. We
had some pretty good differences of opinion, as you could
imagine, when we wrote this law, so we voted, and some things
passed and some things didn't. For example, I wanted to let
States have the option to take most of their Federal dollars
and turn them into scholarships for low-income children and
follow those children to whatever school the local attendance
policy put them in. But that only got 43 votes, and it needed
60. Some Senators would have liked to have had more Federal
mandates about various things, but the major legislation on
that got 43 or 44 votes and it needed 60. So those aren't in
the law, and they're not supposed to be in the regulation.
Something about which there was almost no disagreement--I
don't want to overstate it, but I'm trying to think if any of
my Democratic colleagues ever disagreed with this. I don't
think they did. We did not want the U.S. Department of
Education defining for States what their academic standards
were to be, period, and my thinking on that was what I said a
little earlier. I thought the States were doing a pretty good
job of working together for the last 20 years of trying to
create higher standards. Some States, including my own, were
using lower standards, and we had a Governor, a Democratic
Governor named Bredesen, who blew the whistle on that, so
Tennessee actually adopted Common Core, but it did it itself,
it did it itself.
There was almost unanimous agreement that the U.S.
Department of Education, that not only did we not authorize the
Secretary to set State standards, we prohibited it from doing
so in about five different places in the law.
Arizona, for example, Dr. Pletnick, no longer has to
demonstrate that you have challenging standards. All you have
to do is assure the Secretary that you adopted those standards.
That's what the law says. What does that mean to you?
Ms. Pletnick. For me, it means that we have the flexibility
at the State and local level to develop the standards that best
reflect what we believe will prepare students for college and
career, and that in so doing we would have to have that set of
standards in place and all of our districts assuring that
they're using those standards as the framework for the
curriculum. It does not mean to me that we would have to send
them anywhere. I would hope that we would not have to send them
somewhere and say, yes, we agree or, no, we reject these,
because then we've just discounted the voices of our entire
community who have input into that.
The other thing is by having our assessments in place, then
I think we are assuring that we have those rigorous standards,
because if our assessments are aligned to those, and they must
be, then I don't think we need to go beyond that in terms of
what we have to assure.
The Chairman. The regulation says, the proposed regulation,
that a State must ``provide evidence at such time and in such
manner specified by the Secretary that it has adopted
standards.'' What does that mean to you?
Ms. Pletnick. That means to me we're submitting something
for approval or for it to be rejected, because if you're given
the timeframe that you have to do that and you're going to have
to have that approval, then to me that again still has control
over what's done at the local level. I, quite frankly, believed
that we should have been working on our Common Core standards
to improve them as soon as we began to work with them, because
they don't reflect everything that we need to do in school. But
instead we spent all of this time arguing over whether they
should be completely rejected or completely adopted. In my
State, especially in my school, we're looking at not only
knowledge but we're looking at skills and disposition that
prepare students for the 21st century, and right now those
standards need work in order to include them.
The Chairman. I thank the four of you for your time and
your expertise and for coming today. This has been very useful.
There seems to be a unanimous judgment that the longer
timeline, which is what I thought the law envisioned, would be
the correct thing to do because it would allow States to
consult with the largest number of stakeholders, carefully
consider their new accountability systems, make whatever
innovations they wished to make, and develop support and buy-in
from the individual school leaders, and then everybody can
settle down and try to implement that for a period of time.
That especially is helpful, and I would urge you if you
have other thoughts that you would like for the Secretary to
have, that you've got the rest of this month to get those in.
In the meantime, I hope that North Carolina and Kentucky and
California and Arizona see this as a tremendous opportunity for
innovation and showing other States and other school districts
and parents everywhere that we know how to have higher
standards and better teaching and real accountability State by
State, community by community, and school by school. So it's
very helpful to us in the process, and I thank you for your
time.
The hearing record will remain open for 10 business days.
Members may submit additional information and questions for the
record.
Thank you for being here.
The committee will stand adjourned.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Response to Questions of Senator Murkowski by
Alison Harris Welcher and Gail Pletnick, Ed.D.
alison harris welcher
Question. If you had the freedom to design a school accountability
system for your State without any regulatory oversight by the U.S.
Department of Education, what would that system look like? In broad
strokes.
Answer. Over the course of 4 years as principal of Ranson I.B.
Middle School in Charlotte, NC, I led our team to move Ranson from a
report card grade of ``D'' to ``C.'' Although a ``C'' rating doesn't
sound like much to rave about, what that shift meant for kids is that
we exceeded all of our growth targets and were in the top 25 schools in
the State--the top 1 percent--on the growth composite index measure.
Our students still weren't where they needed to be, but the truth is
our growth shows that we were doing better work for kids--specifically
our most vulnerable students who were far behind their peers--than many
schools that received a higher grade. There is a real difference
between maintaining excellence and building it.
Therefore, in designing an accountability system that works for all
schools, my top priority would be thoughtfully including measures of
student growth in addition to performance.
Ultimately, the purpose of our education system is to meet students
where they are--whether they're three grade levels behind (like many of
our students at Ranson and in similar schools across the country), at
grade level, or above--and support their development. No matter their
proficiency level, our job is to move students forward. That's called
good pedagogy and that's what it takes to do right by all of our kids.
I cannot emphasize this enough: educators making progress in the
lowest-performing schools need support, encouragement, and recognition
to keep up the momentum.
I would also ensure the system includes multiple measures of school
success, with a special focus on the most vulnerable and at-risk
students.
As educators, we are preparing students for college, career, and,
for many, a life beyond the here-and-now of their current
circumstances. It is critical that we define school success in relation
to how well students are progressing toward college- and career-
readiness, which requires that we understand their mastery (and growth
toward mastery) of subjects like reading and math as well as their
access to civics, history, geography, literature, foreign languages,
science, technology, engineering, music, drama, and art. The former are
critical building blocks and the latter ensure our children have access
to a well-rounded education in disciplines that reflect and prepare
them for the careers in which many students will later work. Other
data, such as rates of chronic absenteeism and information on
disciplinary practices, can help provide a better picture of school
culture. We also know that physical activity and social and emotional
skills help our students lead happy, healthy lives, so an
accountability system could include indicators, as appropriate, that
assess such non-academic measures (e.g., related to student health and
access to high-quality early learning opportunities) that are
correlated with improving student achievement and other academic
outcomes. And, ultimately, we need to know whether students demonstrate
college- and career-readiness, including by looking at matriculation
and completion rates for a wide range of postsecondary options
(especially without the need for remediation).
In our work to ensure all students have access to a high-quality
education that inspires them and prepares them for success in college,
career, or whatever their next step in life may be, we must pay special
attention to groups of students who are not being served as well as
they can and must be. It is critical that information on student
performance and progress is disaggregated so we know how well our
schools are serving different populations of students who have special
educational needs, who have been historically underserved by our
education system, and/or who are at-risk for educational failure. This
information can help us celebrate success and identify areas where
faster growth is needed or where we need to do more to support
students' unique learning needs. To the extent possible, this
information should be cross-tabulated so we know, for example, how our
Black girls are doing or how well Hmong students perform relative to
other Asian students and their peers of all races and ethnicities.
The system must also provide data on the underlying conditions
necessary for effective teaching and engaging learning.
A strong accountability system holds educators responsible for
effectively supporting all students, and it should also hold school
system leaders and entire communities accountable for providing the
resources--financial, personnel, technology, and advanced and well-
rounded coursework, among others--that enable student success. It is
particularly important that we ensure there is an equitable
distribution of effective teachers and leaders, including educators of
color.
By providing a more holistic picture of our students' school
experience and a more detailed, multi-faceted snapshot of the
underlying conditions necessary for effective teaching and engaging
learning, we can more efficiently identify and address resource
inequities that contribute to achievement and opportunity gaps.
To make data understandable and actionable, the system would also
need to include information and tools to effectively communicate
progress.
Obviously, I have struggled with whether our ``C'' grade really
captures the great work happening at Ranson. But I cannot imagine
having conversations with staff, students, and families without being
able to somehow summarize our school's status.
One idea that I find very promising is to consider rating schools
by category rather than letter grade. In addition to highlighting the
schools most in need of improvement (to help marshal community
resources to support change), categories could also highlight lower-
performing schools that have made tremendous gains for students,
celebrating those schools even though they may still be in the middle
of transformation.
If you look at the list of ``Reward'' schools in North Carolina, we
see a set of outstanding schools, to be sure, yet only a handful are
recognized for progress and not a single school was recognized solely
for making gains. It would mean so much to educators, students, and
families making progress in the highest-need schools if our leaders had
the courage to publicly celebrate and put their stamp of approval on
schools that are not yet high-performing, but that are closing gaps and
making gains.
Categories would need to be simple to understand (like report card
grades), but could also be designed to provide a more accurate--if not
entirely comprehensive--description of a school's status that didn't
essentially rank them by performance (e.g., color categories or matrix
analyses that lead to specific classifications). I understand such
categories are already being used (e.g., the District of Columbia
identifies ``Rising'' schools), so we can learn from their experience
and figure out ways to make designations, which will never be perfect,
even better.
We would also need tools that help us communicate progress to a
wide range of audiences. The tools must be radically transparent, yet
also easily digestible for families and other stakeholders.
Particularly as we move toward accountability frameworks based on
multiple measures and report cards that include more information on the
underlying conditions and resources necessary for effective teaching
and engaging learning, it will be all the most important that we
develop thoughtful methods for summarizing that information so it is
clear and digestible for parents.
I am a huge proponent of data transparency--I believe we owe it to
ourselves and our family and community supporters to be clear about
where we stand as a school in preparing every student for success. It's
about accountability, yes, but it's also about building support to
advocate for change, secure necessary resources, and bring parents and
families into their child's education in new and deeper ways. This type
of engagement--even or especially if it requires tough conversations
about where we're not meeting our goals--is good for schools and it's
good for kids.
Though snapshot data on progress and performance from the current
(or most recent) year is critical, for those of us working in low-
performing schools it is also incredibly valuable for us to be able to
easily point to how an individual data point fits into a larger growth
trajectory. Including select multi-year data on report cards or other
tools would help.
Finally, the accountability system should pair information on
school performance and progress with a suite of resources tailored to
student, educator, school, and community needs.
All of the information and resources above should then be used to
direct resources to where they're needed. Labeling schools and telling
them they are not making the grade and failing to serve students is not
an impetus for improving. We must ensure States develop systems that go
beyond transparency to aggressively demand and support action. Even the
best educators need help to transform underperforming schools, so
accountability systems should include robust funding, technical
assistance from experts, and ongoing professional development and other
supports for schools identified for improvement.
Note: While this question specifically asks about my vision for an
accountability system without Federal oversight, we know that the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act is fundamentally a civil rights
law. As we move in what I see as a promising shift toward State, local,
and school-level decisionmaking, we cannot forget that Federal laws
have played a key role in advancing equity and justice in our education
system and society. Despite our best efforts, Federal protections are
still the last, best, or only hope for some of our country's most
vulnerable students.
gail pletnick, ed.d.
Question 1. Have you had the opportunity to review the Department's
proposal to add a new priority for all of the Department's K-12 and
postsecondary competitive grants? This priority would require all
applicants to seek to increase schools' racial and socioeconomic
diversity by investigating the barriers to diversity, changing school
assignment policies, creating or expanding school choice, or changing
how funds are allocated to schools. Clearly these options would be
impossible for many of Alaska's rural communities and other rural areas
of the Nation. If you have reviewed this proposed priority, what are
your views, and do you anticipate submitting comments to the Department
about it?
Answer 1. I am aware of the competitive grant process and would
like to first respond to this question by voicing my concern with
utilizing a competitive process for programs designed to reduce the
barriers faced by children from underserved populations. Competitive
grants do not provide equitable opportunities for K-12 and
postsecondary institutions to access the funding provided through such
grants. The process and the resources it takes to complete the
competitive grant applications often eliminate the institutions most in
need of the resources those grant moneys provide. The amount of
paperwork and red tape associated with a competitive grant may
frustrate innovative educational systems, who, if given an opportunity,
would utilize additional funding to contribute to solutions and best
practices. Rural, smaller, and more isolated systems find it hard to
participate in these competitive processes. Even mid-sized districts or
postsecondary institutions find it too time consuming and often elect
to concentrate their efforts elsewhere, even though the grants could be
very beneficial to designing and/or implementing effective programs.
A review of the outcomes from competitive grant initiatives, such
as the Race To The Top, indicate that this approach did not
consistently yield the results desired, especially in terms of programs
being able to be replicated nationwide. I remain concerned that
continued reliance on competitive allocation of Federal funds is not
only inherently inequitable, it actually exacerbates the gap between
the ``haves'' and the ``have nots'' and perpetuates a system of winners
and losers. In a time where education is widely touted as the civil
rights issue of this generation, and in a law like ESSA, where the role
of the Federal Government is to help level the playing field for a
historically disadvantaged population, competitive allocation is in
absolute conflict of the stated purpose of truly addressing school and
community needs, equity, and educational opportunity. I strongly urge
that the limited resources available to support K-12 and postsecondary
systems in the work of removing barriers related to racial and
socioeconomic diversity, not be distributed through a competitive grant
process that may create inequities in accessing funds.
Additionally, I would offer points to consider regarding the impact
of grants that require the applicants to investigate the barriers to
diversity and find ways to address those barriers through strategies
such as changing school assignment policies, creating or expanding
school choice, or changing how funds are allocated to schools. Looking
across our Nation, attempting to limit the way the individual needs of
our unique school communities are addressed does not serve our students
well and often creates impossible restrictions that impede rather than
advance the work being done in schools. There is an important
distinction between reaching ALL students through ``one size fits all''
compared to ``each and every'' student. While both approaches focus on
ALL students, only the latter option ensures school districts are able
to address the individual needs of our school communities and the
students they serve.
The work to address these issues looks very different in rural
areas where school boundaries are not reported in single or even double
digit miles, but are often described as boundaries with hundreds of
miles. In turn, this type of work fits a different mold in a school
located in a neighborhood in the center of a large city. Effective
policies, the option of choice and the efficient use of funding to
support students will, also, look very different in these two places.
We must not lose focus of the educational goals of serving each and
every student and finding ways to deliver personalized learning in
order to effectively break down those barriers that impede student
success. Students from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds must
be prepared to succeed in an information-driven age of innovation. That
is where time and money needs to be invested and not in one-size-fits-
all solutions framed by limitations that require those solutions to fit
in prescribed areas that may or may not truly define the problem.
Question 2. If you had the freedom to design a school
accountability system for your State without any regulatory oversight
by the U.S. Department of Education, what would that system look like?
In broad strokes.
Answer 2. The design of an effective accountability system must
start with the end in mind. In 1813, John Adams stated:
``The object [of my education bill was] to bring into action
that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every
country for want of the means of development, and thus give
activity to a mass of mind which in proportion to our
population shall be the double or treble of what it is in most
countries.''
If that is a founding principle of public education then we must be
focused on that outcome. Success in achieving that goal should be
measured by supporting college, career, and life ready graduates who
can use their knowledge and talents to take on the challenges and
opportunities of the world where they live and work. It would make
sense to have an accountability system aligned to that desired goal and
those outcomes.
To accomplish that we must have multiple measures drawing from what
research has shown are valid indicators of readiness. That research
exists and clearly indicates one test score, one piece of demographic
data or one non-academic indicator, such as attendance, does not
provide a complete picture. Creating an accountability system that
collects and analyzes a number of valid indicators is critical.
Utilizing a formula that analyzes the information not to label a
system, but to support the success of that system must be the focus.
Knowing a school is an A, B, or F tells me nothing about the system's
weaknesses and strengths. In the compliance heavy NCLB system a great
deal of emphasis was on one test score as the determiner of a school's
success in meeting all children's needs.
The lesson we learned during that period in education is an over
reliance on one indicator, may result in the weakening of areas of
strength due to neglect, and thus damage the entire balance of the
system. Utilizing multiple indicators, in for instance a dashboard
approach, would provide a balanced and transparent view of the school.
It would allow focused supports to be provided in crucial areas while
still monitoring and sustaining all other critical indicators.
Identifying the most at need schools (bottom 5 percent) is still
possible by identifying those schools where a certain percentage of
indicators are below acceptable range. These schools would warrant more
intense and comprehensive interventions.
Question 3. The NPRM allows public and tribal schools that provide
instruction in a Native American language to assess student proficiency
using assessments in that Native language. But the NPRM also sets out a
number of requirements before such Native language assessments can be
approved and used. In Alaska, we have a very few schools that teach
academic content through the Alaska Native language of the community
but Native leaders in all regions of the State are working to create
and expand those opportunities. Knowing that there are a number of
long-standing Native language immersion schools in Arizona, such as
those serving Navajo children, have you had the opportunity to
collaborate with Arizona's Native educators leaders in reviewing that
section of the NPRM? If so, what conclusions have you drawn? And, do
you know whether the School Superintendents Association has reached out
to the National Indian Education Association to consult with them and
perhaps provide comments to that section of the NPRM?
Answer 3. I can provide limited input regarding proposed Department
of Education regulations dealing with requirements for the approval and
use of Native language assessments. I have connected with
superintendents from districts in Arizona who serve a high percentage
of Native language students, but these individuals are not active in
the Indian Education Association. Some of these Arizona districts are
working with their communities on programs such as dual language
program (Navajo and English), but have not addressed the assessment
issue. However, local control is an important element as each community
addresses how to support local needs and goals in this area; therefore,
prescriptive Federal regulations can impede this work.
From the AASA perspective, the association did talk with the
National Association of Federally Impacted Schools, which covers Impact
Aid districts. Impact Aid districts do include districts serving Indian
reservations. AASA, however, has not had any explicit conversations
with the National Indian Education Association.
[Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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