Most States Fail Demands in Education Law

Also included below is a strongly-worded letter dated July 18 from Doug Christensen, Commissioner of Education, to all Nebraskans regarding compliance with the requirements of NCLB. My next post is Maine's response. -Angela


July 25, 2006
Most States Fail Demands in Education Law

By SAM DILLON
Most states failed to meet federal requirements that all teachers be “highly qualified” in core teaching fields and that state programs for testing students be up to standards by the end of the past school year, according to the federal government.

The deadline was set by the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s effort to make all American students proficient in reading and math by 2014. But the Education Department found that no state had met the deadline for qualified teachers, and it gave only 10 states full approval of their testing systems.

Faced with such findings, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who took office promising flexible enforcement of the law, has toughened her stance, leaving several states in danger of losing parts of their federal aid.

In the past few weeks, Ms. Spellings has flatly rejected as inadequate the testing systems in Maine and Nebraska. She has also said that nine states are so far behind in providing highly qualified teachers that they may face sanctions, and she has accused California of failing to provide federally required alternatives to troubled schools. California could be fined as much as $4.25 million.

The potential fines are far higher than any the Education Department has levied over the law, and officials in several states, already upset with many of the law’s provisions, have privately expressed further anger over the threat of fines. But Ms. Spellings faces pressure for firm enforcement of the law from a broad array of groups, including corporations and civil rights organizations.

“In the early part of her tenure, Secretary Spellings seemed more interested in finding reasons to waive the law’s requirements than to enforce them,” said Clint Bolick, president of the Alliance for School Choice, a group based in Phoenix that supports vigorous enforcement of provisions that give students the right to transfer from failing schools. “More recently, she seems intent on holding states’ feet to the fire.”

In an interview, Ms. Spellings acknowledged her shift in emphasis.

“I want states to know that Congress and the president mean business on the law,” she said. She has stressed that message in part, she said, because the deadlines, which expired this month, were not met, and because lawmakers have been asking her whether states are meeting the law’s requirements.

“I’m enforcing the law — does that make me tough?” she said. “Last year it was, ‘We’re marching together toward the deadline,’ but now it’s time for, ‘Your homework is due.’ ”

Douglas D. Christensen, the Nebraska education commissioner, has accused Ms. Spellings and her subordinates of treating Nebraska in a “mean-spirited, arbitrary and heavy-handed way” after their announcement on June 30 that the state’s testing system was “nonapproved” and that they intended to withhold $127,000 in federal money.

In an interview in Lincoln, Neb., Mr. Christensen said he first realized the administration’s attitude had changed in April, when Raymond Simon, deputy education secretary, addressed most of the 50 state school superintendents at a gathering in Washington.

“Ray went on a 12-minute diatribe of ‘You folks just ain’t getting it done’ and said the department would be strictly interpreting the law from here on,” Mr. Christensen said.

Mr. Simon disputed that account — “I’m not a diatribe type of guy,” he said — but acknowledged that he had spoken bluntly.

“I tried to emphasize that we continue to be partners,” Mr. Simon said, “but that there are some things we cannot be flexible on.”

Mr. Bush signed the act into law in January 2002. Under his first education secretary, Rod Paige, legislators, educators and teachers unions criticized the law’s many rules and what they said was its overemphasis on standardized testing.

After Ms. Spellings took office in January 2005, she allowed some states to renegotiate the ways they enforced the law, and on major issues she offered ways to comply that prevented thousands of schools from being designated as failing.

Her efforts softened the outcry from states. But they brought criticism from corporate executives who hoped the law would shake up schools to protect American competitiveness. Criticism also came from civil rights groups that wanted the law to eliminate educational disparities between whites and minorities, and from groups angry that although the law required districts to help students in failing schools transfer out, only 1 percent of eligible students had done so.

Some experts say most parents do not want to remove children from neighborhood schools. But others say districts have subverted the program, partly by informing parents about their options too late.

Mr. Bolick’s group, the Alliance for School Choice, used a similar argument in a complaint filed this year against the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 250,000 students were eligible for transfers in 2005-6, but only about 500 successfully transferred. That complaint generated considerable news coverage and moved Ms. Spellings to action.

On May 15, she wrote every state, linking the “unacceptably low” participation in transfer programs to the “poor and uneven quality” of many districts’ implementation. “We are prepared to take significant enforcement action,” she said.

At the California Department of Education, Diane Levin, the state’s No Child Left Behind administrator, said she had assumed that California was on solid ground because a federal review of its enforcement of the law was ending positively.

But then California received a letter from Ms. Spellings’s office demanding extensive new documentation by Aug. 15 on the transfer programs in the state’s 20 largest districts. Officials warned California that if the documentation proved inadequate, the government would withhold part of the $700 million the state was to receive this fall for high-poverty schools, said Ms. Spellings’s spokesman, Kevin Sullivan.

Ms. Levin said California felt whipsawed. “We’re doing everything the law asks us to do,” she said, “which in a state this size is a huge amount of work, and we’re treated like we’re doing nothing.”

Dozens of other states have also felt the tougher enforcement.

In May, federal officials ruled that nine states were so far from meeting the teacher qualification provision that they could lose federal money. Ms. Spellings said she would decide on the penalties after August, when states must outline plans for getting 100 percent of teachers qualified.

At the end of June, Henry L. Johnson, an assistant secretary of education, wrote to 34 states, including New York and New Jersey, saying that their tests had major problems and that they must provide new documentation during a period of mandatory oversight.

Dr. Johnson warned some states that federal money might be withheld. And he rejected the testing programs in Maine and Nebraska. His letter to Maine said $114,000 would be withheld unless the state could change Washington’s mind.

Nebraska is the only state allowed to meet the testing requirements with separate exams written by teachers in its 250 districts rather than with one statewide test.

Dr. Johnson’s letter to Nebraska said that although locally written tests were permissible, the state had not shown it was holding all districts to a high standard.

Before announcing that decision, Dr. Johnson visited the Papillion-La Vista School District, south of Omaha.

Harlan H. Metschke, Papillion’s superintendent, said he had told Mr. Johnson that Nebraska’s tests helped teachers focus on students’ learning needs, unlike standardized tests, which compared students from one school with another.

“But federal officials have the mentality that there has to be one state test,” Mr. Metschke said.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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Memorandum to All Nebraskans from Doug Christensen, Commissioner of Education
Tuesday Jul 18, 2006
Memorandum

TO: All Nebraskans

FROM: Doug Christensen, Ph.D.
Commissioner of Education

RE: Statement of The Commissioner of Education Regarding State's Assessment System And Its Compliance With The Requirements Of NCLB

DATE: July 5, 2006

Today, we received word that our state assessment system, STARS, does not, at this time, meet the federal requirements for compliance with No Child Left Behind. According to the United States Department of Education (USDE), there are numerous criteria which Nebraska will have to meet in order to be approved. The USDE letter is posted on the Nebraska website or on the USDE website.

We have 20 days in which to challenge the findings, request a formal review of our concerns and submit additional data. We will challenge the findings. We have invested too much time, energy, expertise and resources to back away now. This decision by USDE is not labeling our system "rejected" or "failed." It is a statement of the work to be done to provide evidence that our system is valid, reliable and fair and that our system is in compliance with NCLB.

I am disappointed by the federal decision and disappointed by the way we have been treated by them. In fact, I cannot recall a professional issue in my over 40 years as an educator over which I have been so disappointed. This is not the way a partnership is run and not a way for anyone to be treated. If we treated our schools in a one-sided and mean-spirited way, we would be out of business. We would not even consider being so arbitrary and/or heavy-handed.

We feel blind-sided by the decision of the U. S. Department of Education. First, the decision is a blatant violation of the "partnership" around which this work was to be created and documented. Second, it is a violation of the process that was to be fair, open, and evidence-based. Third, it is a violation of past agreements reached. And fourth, it is a violation of the law itself.

First, the partnership, as claimed by USDE, was to provide the basis on which each state would be treated individually so that each state could "negotiate a way to yes." Each state was to be reviewed separately to reflect each state's unique context and policy environment.

The current partnership has flat-out rejected our request to fulfill an earlier agreement to produce a list of the concerns and issues and meet face-to-face before a decision was made. This partnership is about one partner that contributes less than 9% of the funding but leverages 100% of the accountability.

Second, the process of reviewing each state's plan was to use "peer reviews" which in our case were neither "peer-based" nor "reviews." The teams sent to our state did not reflect local knowledge of our policy or eductional context of the state. Further, the team did not represent individuals with expertise in local assessments. And, in the words of a peer reviewer, the teams were advised in their training to be as "nit picky" as possible.

The peer review process required the teams to review all of the documentation of each state. Nebrasks provided 6 large boxes of data and documentation. The documentation could not have been reviewed in its entirety. In fact, it appears that it was searched by the peer team for reasons to reject rather than reviewed for evidence to approve our model.

Third, past agreements have been ignored constituting changing the rules in the middle of the game. In 2003, then Secretary of Education Rod Paige visited Nebraska at the request of our congressional delegation adn Governor, Mike Johanns. Before the day concluded, the Governor asked the Secretary, "How much flexibility do you really have?" Secretary Paige replied, "I am not sure, but I want Nebraska's system to succeed and whatever flexibility is there, I will find it."

In addition, all states had to have plans approved by July 1, 2004. Our plan which included clear outlines of our local assessment model was approved by USDE. We have proceeded on the basis that our model would be approved if we could document its technical quality. I would challenge USDE that no state has done as much to document technical quality as Nebraska. Through our national panel and portfolio reviews, our annual independent evaluations, our independent studies of the data quality, and our independent assessment benchmarks, there is little more we could do. All of these studies and data acknowledge the high levels of technical quality and power of the STARS model.

Fourth, this decision is also a violation of the law itslef. In 1994, the forerunner to NCLB, the Improving America Schools ACT (IASA) was re-authorized and included "carve out" language for Nebraska and Iowa. This provision carries forward into NCLB but is now being ignored. Also, included in Section 1111 of NCLB is a provision for local assessments that is also being ignored.

The use of Peer Review guidance as a condition of compliance/regulation is also a clear violation of NCLB. Peer Review findings are to be guidance only, not regulation.

There is no explicit authority for USDE to withhold funds as a condition of forcing copliance. If an agency, such as Nebraska, is to get the work done to be in compliance, how is it to do that work when the resources to do it are being withheld? Withholding funds appears to be a clear violation of the NCLB provision that requires the federal government to fund the requirements of this Act.

In summary, it is time for USDE to be held accountable, too. USDE must be accountable for the consequences of the law which is a far stretch from the law's laudable intentions. THe intentions of the law are meaningless unless htey are matched by outcomes. How can a law be "good for kids" that demoralizes educators, devalues their work and is punative to schools?

This law has yet to demonstrate its good intentions. This law requires tremendous energy to be spent trying to make misaligned policy and practice work. This law ransoms assessment as an accountability policy when accountability policy should be defined as the amount of improveent realized.

I want assessment returned to the toolbox of teachers so they can use assessments to improve practice in the classroom.

We have tried to be partners. We acted in good faith in negotiating our way through the compliance requirements. We have been open, transparent and forthright.

It is time for USDE to be the partner it professes to be. It is time for USDE to stop trumping good and promising practices in schools by hiding behind the phrase "it's the law." It is time for USDE to come to the table in good faith. It is time for them to recognize the leadership role of states--state legislators, state boards of education, Governors and Chief State School Officers. It is time for them to play fair. It is time for them to accept the same accountability for evidence of good practice tha they demand of states. It is time to stop misrepresenting actions of states to the public and the media. It is time for USDE to stop changing the rules as they go.

While this is not the way we had hoped this would go, it is not a defeat or a step backwards. At best, it is place from which we move foward. At worst, it is a side step.

— Doug Christensen, Nebraska Commissioner of Education
Memorandum to All Nebraskans RE: Compliance with the Requirements of NCLB
2006-07-05

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/education/25child.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin