End It, Don’t Mend It: What to Do with No Child Left Behind

CATO Institute

EXCERPT from Executive Summary, September 5, 2007

by Neal McCluskey and Andrew J. Coulson

"Virtually all of those analyses have assumed that the law [No Child Left Behind] should and will be reauthorized, disagreeing only over how it should be revised. They have accepted the law's premises without argument: that government-imposed standards and bureaucratic "accountability" are effective mechanisms for improving American education and that Congress should be involved in their implementation...

"We find that No Child Left Behind has been ineffective in achieving its intended goals, has had negative unintended consequences, is incompatible with policies that do work, is at the mercy of a political process that can only worsen its prospects, and is based on premises that are fundamentally flawed. We further conclude that NCLB oversteps the federal government's constitutional limits treading on a responsibility that, by law and tradition, is reserved to the states and the people. We therefore recommend that NCLB not be reauthorized and that the federal government return to its constitutional bounds by ending its involvement in elementary and secondary education."

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Get Congress Out of the Classroom

The New York Times

By DIANE RAVITCH

October 3, 2007

EXCERPT:

The main goal of the law ¬ that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 ¬ is simply unattainable. The primary strategy ¬ to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year ¬ has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools. Unfortunately, the Congressional leaders in both parties seem determined to renew the law, probably after next year’s presidential election, with only minor changes. But No Child Left Behind should be radically overhauled, not just tweaked.

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Proficiency Illusion

National Review

By Liam Julian

October 4, 2007

EXCERPT:

"One of the biggest flaws with NCLB, for example, is its insistence that all students - 100 percent - be proficient in reading and math by 2014. That won’t happen, of course. But no politician has the stomach to amend this irrational goal to a more manageable 70 or 80 percent, fearing that inevitable question: “Which 20 percent children don’t you care about?”

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Making No Child Left Behind Worse

The Heritage Foundation

By Dan Lips

EXCERPT:

An early draft of the new NCLB bill suggests that congressional leaders are working to make the already flawed program worse. As is well known, No Child Left Behind's problems are myriad. The law dramatically increased federal authority in education, eroding state and local control and imposing a heavy bureaucratic burden on school systems across the country. Its high-stakes testing requirements created a strong incentive for states to engage in a "race to the bottom" by weakening standards and making tests easier to pass. And few children have benefited from NCLB's very weak school choice options. These lackluster reforms were purchased with dramatic increases in federal spending. But even the current version of No Child Left Behind is significantly better than what Congress is now discussing.

November 1, 2007

Socrates in Sodom

School board president should resign

by CHIP MOSHER

NOTES FROM a school board meeting:

The usual prayer opens the meeting: God, grant these board members wisdom. (Poor God! What a daunting task!)

What's this? At the bell, Trustee Shirley Barber comes out fighting. She makes a motion to pull an agenda item. No one seconds the motion. Barber gets body-slammed instantly. Gonna be an interesting night.

Two PTA members speak out against the upcoming bond issue. Promises made to them during the last bond issue weren't kept. Interesting. (Note: Get their phone numbers before they leave.)

Whew. That was strange. A disturbed woman grabbed and pulled one of the two women away from me as I was getting their phone numbers in the lobby. The strange woman told the women not to talk to me and shouted that I was an evil person who writes "about farm animals fucking!" Which isn't exactly true. Rather, I've occasionally written about people having sex with farm animals -- a perfect metaphor for the behavior of dysfunctional administrators. After the agitated woman shouted this, the two ladies turned to me, color drained from their faces. All I could think to say (jokingly) to them was: "Apparently I was writing about this (odd) woman's family history." (Note: Write column about seemingly neurasthenic woman. Find out her name.)

I wonder if the Red Sox are winning tonight's game.

Trustee Larry Mason asks how many held-back 16-year-old students go to middle schools with our 12- and 13-year-olds. A school district spokesman evasively says he doesn't have those statistics. The implication is: TOO MANY. Was it Maine where a school board voted to give birth control pills to 11-year-olds? (Note: Buy some stock in Trojan condoms before our board members find out the actual number of 16-year-olds attending Vegas middle schools with 12-year-olds.)

Here's Barber again, pissed. She's ranting at a school board lawyer. Barber alleges something about secret (illegal?) meetings. The female lawyer is rattled. What's this? Here comes Barber's arch-nemesis, School Board President Ruth Johnson, to the rescue. She accuses Barber of open-meeting violations. Johnson attacks Barber for attacking the lawyer. Barber threatens to give the attorney general the above allegations. These two go at each other like teenage gang members. The pitch rises. Johnson is losing control, like she did last December. She seems emotionally disturbed.

Is it a full moon tonight? (Yes!)

Whew. The hoopla has subsided. Public agenda time. Johnson calls out for those who've signed up to speak. No response. The public speakers must've departed. We're five hours into the meeting. Wait. Child advocate Rose Moore stands to speak. Johnson angrily tells her she cannot talk because she didn't sign up properly. (Is Johnson transferring her emotional disturbance from the Barber brouhaha onto this elderly woman?) Moore says she did sign up, and starts talking. Is that Johnson hollering at the sound technician to shut down the microphone? Moore asks for a board member to recognize her to speak. Barber recognizes her. Johnson swiftly calls a recess. The board members, though not Barber, quickly exit the room. Puzzled, Moore returns to her seat.

What's this? Police officers suddenly burst in. They tell Moore she must leave. People sitting nearby protest she's done no wrong. The officers seize Moore, dragging her against her will from her seat. She starts screaming, apparently in pain. Jesus, what's happening here? Her friend shouts that Moore has a bad heart. Moore is moved toward to the lobby. The friend shouts Moore needs nitroglycerin. (Remember the similarly manhandled woman who died at a Phoenix airport?)

During this fracas, the board members return. Johnson seems unaware of the gravity of what just transpired. She says they've decided to let Moore talk. Oops. After a 10-minute hiatus, a battered, wobbly Moore approaches the microphone. Before finishing, she turns to walk away. And collapses. Johnson is oblivious to this. I shout to her that she'd better call paramedics. A deer-in-the-headlights stupor grips Johnson's face. I repeat: Paramedics! Eventually Moore is carted away in an ambulance. One witness says a paramedic said Moore could be having a heart attack.

Ruth Johnson made several horrible decisions that could have cost this woman her life. In her position, Johnson has become a danger and menace to society. Therefore, she should resign from the board immediately.

I think God stayed home to watch the World Series tonight.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher.

School advocates worry that inaction may extend current law for 3 years.

By David J. Hoff

Education Week

Published in Print: November 7, 2007

For all the discord over the No Child Left Behind Act, supporters and critics agree on one thing: It should be fixed, and quickly.

Now it’s looking increasingly likely that Congress won’t make much progress in addressing the law’s flaws this year, endangering the prospects that the task will be completed before President Bush leaves office.

Efforts to revise the law are mired in backroom negotiations in both the House and the Senate and show no signs of gaining the momentum necessary to ensure completion of the reauthorization in 2008.

With Congress’ agenda filled with other tasks, including a potentially protracted fight with President Bush over spending on education and other domestic programs, it will be difficult for lawmakers to meet their self-imposed goals of ensuring passage of NCLB bills in both the House and the Senate this year, followed by a compromise version the two chambers can approve in early 2008.

“It is unlikely that we will be able to get a bill off the House floor this year,” Tom Kiley, a spokesman for Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in an e-mail. “However, we continue to work hard on the legislation, and we continue to meet with Republicans and education organizations.”

In the Senate, there is more optimism about passing an NCLB bill in 2007.

“We’re negotiating [and] still hopeful it can get done this year,” said Melissa Wagoner, the spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Deadline Looms

Despite wide agreement that the NCLB needs revision, negotiating which changes to make will not be easy.

Lawmakers are “trying to find the center … in a way that preserves what’s meaningful in the law but doesn’t lose what makes it worthwhile,” said Gary M. Huggins, the director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, a private, bipartisan panel organized by the Aspen Institute that proposed a long list of changes to the law in February. “That’s a heavy political lift.”

But, Mr. Huggins added, it’s important that Congress make progress on the reauthorization soon. He and other supporters of the law acknowledge that its accountability rules need to be tweaked, such as by using students’ academic growth over time, rather than comparisons of different cohorts of students passing through a given grade, to gauge schools’ and districts’ progress.

Renewal Efforts in 2007

Significant events this year for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act:
• Jan. 8: President Bush marks the fifth anniversary of signing the law by meeting with the chairmen of Congress’ education committees and urging them to produce a bill to renew the law this year.

• Jan. 24: The day after the president’s State of the Union address, the Department of Education releases its “blueprint” for NCLB reauthorization, proposing to give vouchers to students in persistently low-performing schools.

• March 13: The Senate and House education committees hold a rare joint hearing on general issues facing the NCLB law. Throughout the spring and summer, both panels individually hold hearings on specific issues such as accountability, teacher quality, and supplemental educational services.

• July 30: In a speech at the National Press Club, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House education committee, says the law “is not fair, not flexible, and is not funded.” He says he wants his committee to approve a reauthorization bill by the end of September.

• Aug. 28: Rep. Miller and his Republican counterpart release the first installment of a draft bill to reauthorize the measure, covering Title I of the law. A draft bill covering other sections is released Sept. 6.

• Oct. 15: President Bush says he would veto any NCLB bill that would “weaken” the law’s accountability requirements.

• Nov. 1: The month begins with no formal committee action on the next version of NCLB and little time left on the congressional calendar in 2007. Political experts say it would be difficult for Congress to complete reauthorization while the political world is focused on the presidential nominating process.

SOURCE: Education Week

If such changes aren’t made soon, he and others predict, too many schools may be unfairly tagged under the federal law as needing improvement.

Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress in raising achievement in reading and mathematics, whether for students overall or certain subgroups, face increasingly tougher sanctions under the law.

Many school officials at the local level and their representatives on Capitol Hill want more significant changes to NCLB than Mr. Huggins does, and they too want Congress to act soon to amend some of the law’s rules and align them with states’ accountability systems.

“At times, it’s very frustrating operating under the dual system that’s been established” under the federal law and Texas’ own legislation, said Randy Mohundro, the superintendent of the 700-student DeLeon Independent School District, about 80 miles west of Fort Worth.

What’s more, Mr. Mohundro said, the law’s requirements for assessing students with disabilities and English-language learners virtually ensure those students’ failure. “We’re causing kids to fail tests that they’re not ready to take,” he said.

At the beginning of the year, President Bush discussed the future of the law with the chairmen and Republican leaders of the House and Senate education committees. They all agreed that they would work toward reauthorizing the law.

Although funding authority for the law technically expired Sept. 30, the law includes a clause that automatically renewed it for the 2008 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

“We’ve all agreed to work together to address some of the major concerns that some people have on this piece of legislation, without weakening the essence of the bill, and get a piece of legislation done,” President Bush said after the Jan. 8 meeting. That occasion marked the fifth anniversary of Mr. Bush’s signing of the law, which he considers one of his top domestic accomplishments.

While the president and congressional leaders at the meeting didn’t announce a timetable for reauthorization, most Washington policy experts said it would be best to finish an NCLB bill in 2007. The presidential-nominating process will begin in earnest with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in early January, and will dominate the political world, making it hard for Congress to pass large, difficult bills such as the NCLB renewal.

If Congress doesn’t act soon, the current version of the law could stay in place for another three years.

Just as it’s difficult for Congress to enact major bills during a campaign season, particularly with a president nearing the end of his second term, the arrival of a new president can also delay the schedule. With a change in the White House, it often takes a year or more to finish detailed bills such as the NCLB law that have been left hanging since the previous administration.

Now ... or 2010?

President Bush signed the NCLB law two weeks before the first anniversary of his inauguration. It took almost two years of President Clinton’s first term for Congress to produce a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The NCLB law is the latest version of the 42-year-old ESEA.

State and local officials don’t like the prospect of waiting until 2010 to make significant changes to the law.

“State officials and others would be disappointed if Congress failed to act on the issue,” said Ronald R. Cowell, the president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based group that works with Pennsylvania schools.

In addition to the headaches of implementing a law they consider flawed, local officials fear that large numbers of schools would be declared in need of improvement under the current NCLB accountability system. Many of them wouldn’t deserve that label, argued Reginald M. Felton, the director of federal relations for the National School Boards Association, in Alexandria, Va.
“What does that do to the public buy-in for public education?” he said.

Democrats, Republicans and teachers see flaws in Calif.'s Rep. Miller's proposal to renew the 2001 education law. He's not giving up.

By Nicole Gaouette

Los Angeles Times

October 30, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) has never been one to back away from a brawl -- he once warned an adversary that if he wanted to fight, it was going to take a while, so he'd better bring lunch. But as Miller pushes to renew the landmark education law known as No Child Left Behind, he faces so many fights that the fate of the bill is increasingly in doubt.

As chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Miller is sparring with Republicans who see his proposed changes as an unacceptable watering down of the law's core standards.

Teachers object to his proposal to link pay to performance.

Even his fellow Democrats -- particularly freshmen who campaigned against it and members of the Congressional Black Caucus -- are giving him a hard time, largely for not doing enough to soften the law's most rigid requirements.

Some critics of the law say the emphasis on math and English testing has squeezed teaching time for history, science and other subjects. Others say that the law is too strict and punishes schools that are doing a fairly good job.

"People have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair, that it is not flexible and that it is not funded," Miller said in a recent speech. "And they are not wrong. The question is what we are going to do next."

The 2001 law, President Bush's hallmark domestic achievement, is supposed to be renewed every five years, although it remains in effect even if lawmakers fail to do that.

Democrats pledged to rewrite it this year, but time is short and political tensions are high. Congress plans to adjourn for the year in a few weeks. And some Democrats are loath to give Bush a victory on No Child Left Behind when he refused to compromise on the Iraq war.

The administration has also made clear it wants just minimal changes.

No Child Left Behind was designed to end what the president called the "soft bigotry of low expectations" by forcing schools to track data on low-income and minority students and holding the schools accountable if those pupils did not do well. Schools also have to show that all students are making adequate yearly progress in math and English, or face tough sanctions.

Miller drafted 1,036 pages of proposed changes with the committee's lead Republican, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita. But as Miller has tweaked that proposal to appeal to Democrats and teachers, he has lost Republicans.

The balance he seeks is between those who think the law's standards are too rigid and those who want them as tightly defined as possible.

A 33-year veteran of the House, Miller is known for his pragmatism, his ability to make a deal and his close ties to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), all of which may help him find an answer in the few weeks he has left.

"We're certainly not in full agreement," Miller said, mentioning talks with committee Republicans. "Not between my caucus and their caucus, not between Mr. McKeon and myself. Whether we can reach an agreement remains to be seen. We're pushing as hard as we can."

McKeon said he was hopeful that he and Miller could reach a compromise, but he expressed concern "that some provisions in the draft would weaken accountability, allowing schools to mask a lack of achievement in the fundamentals of reading and math and obscure the information provided to schools and communities."

For Miller, who has made children a focus of his career and has long advocated greater teacher accountability, working on the first No Child Left Behind bill was a natural cause. A staunch liberal, he was an odd partner for Bush, but they worked closely enough for the president to dub the burly former football player "Big George."

In the five years since Miller and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) helped write and pass No Child Left Behind, they complain, the administration has never fully funded the law in a way that would help schools meet their additional burdens. Republicans counter that few laws are fully funded.

The law has frustrated some parents and teachers who dislike its effect in local schools.

Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has told Miller that his draft continues to overemphasize standardized tests.

The cost, Wynn says, includes "extraordinary pressure placed on students and the loss of important instruction in music, art and other elements of a well-rounded education."

Some critics say that too many schools are sanctioned under the law. Schools that fail to meet goals for three years must offer students free tutoring or the chance to switch schools. After five years of failure, the law mandates, a school must be restructured with a new staff or new leadership or be converted to a charter school.

Miller's draft bill would broaden measurements of students and schools -- for instance, letting states measure how much students improve over a year and not just whether they meet the bar set by No Child Left Behind.

Miller also wants to expand the standards by which schools are judged beyond math and English scores -- a shift McKeon strongly opposes. Under Miller's proposal, up to 15% of an elementary school's evaluation could be based on assessments of history, science, and civics and government classes. For high schools, rates for graduation, dropouts, attendance and college enrollment could be considered too.

Some of the strictest sanctions would be relaxed under Miller's bill. For example, it would loosen a rule that puts an otherwise successful school on probation if a small group within it -- such as learning-disabled children -- fails to meet the standards.

The draft would also change the way English-language learners are evaluated, allowing them to be tested in their native language for up to five years instead of the current three years, and permitting a two-year extension for some. Republicans say this would mean a child who spoke no English could enter the public school system in fifth grade and graduate from high school without ever being evaluated in English.

Teachers unions have objected to Miller's proposal to allow high-needs school districts to give $10,000 bonuses to outstanding teachers and up to $12,500 for teachers of math, science, special education and other subjects that are short of instructors. Criteria for the awards would be developed with input from the unions.

Critics of the unions say teachers are trying to avoid accountability. The unions say Miller's plan -- which McKeon backs -- is not workable.

"You can be a better teacher than I am, but based on conditions that you have to work in, it makes it much more difficult for you to do the same job," said National Education Assn. President Reginald Weaver. "Plus, paying teachers based on student performance hasn't really made a difference in how students achieve."

In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans are in talks about the bill, and Kennedy hopes to begin formal discussions in the education committee in the next few weeks.

Miller, meanwhile, continues to search for a compromise that can win enough support to pass the House.

"We would be wrong to waver when it comes to the existing goals and standards of the No Child Left Behind law," he said. "We would also be wrong if we failed to respond to the serious concerns with the law raised by people who sincerely care about America's educational future."

Bridging Differences

Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch have found themselves at odds on policy over the years, but they share a passion for improving schools. Bridging Differences will offer their insights on what matters most in education.

October 30, 2007

This Is Not Good Education

Dear Deb,

There are times when I feel that we are on the same wavelength, and times when I know we are not. Right now, my frustration is multiplied because in the course of your last mini-essay, I found myself alternately agreeing and disagreeing with your assertions.

I said that many people who have spoken out about the recent round of NAEP scores seem not to have read the report in which the scores were embedded. I expressed the wish that the commentators would take the trouble to read the report before characterizing what they read in the newspapers, which is third-hand at best. This observation sent you into musing about how the original sources themselves are “an interpretation of data,” and how we all rely on the writers that we trust—or happen to agree with.

But that was not my point. The NAEP data are an original source for those who wish to discuss the latest round of national tests. They are not an “interpretation of data.” They are the data. I assume that you mean to say that you are unimpressed by NAEP, that you do not like the content of the NAEP frameworks or the methodology of the NAEP assessments. That is fair enough. But that is a different discussion from the one I raised.

Policymakers in Washington and the state capitols are influenced by the every-other-year reports from NAEP about state and national progress. It is your right to dismiss NAEP out of hand, but the people making important decisions about education policy are on a different trajectory. They look at the numbers and they see a reality that you dismiss as trivial and unimportant. Maybe you are right and they are wrong.

My point is that if public policy is going to be affected by NAEP—and I believe it is (and should be)—then at least the people who write about the NAEP scores should read the data and not rely on second-hand or third-hand accounts. Like the tests or hate them, they are the best measure we have right now. As the recent report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (“The Proficiency Illusion”) showed, the state tests vary widely and randomly in terms of their expectations and standards.

As I said in my last post, the progress on NAEP in most areas has been slight or insignificant from 2003-2007. I take this to mean that NCLB has had trivial effects on student achievement in reading and math, the subjects tested every other year. Now that the president and the U.S. Department of Education have made it their business to show that federal legislation can and will raise test scores, every release of NAEP data is accompanied by a press statement from the U.S. Secretary of Education that magnifies slight gains as huge achievements.

This is troublesome. It is troublesome because the federal government’s role as the honest, impartial collector and distributor of information gets corrupted when it acts as a cheerleader. And it is troublesome because it is unrealistic to expect test scores to make major leaps in a few years. When they do, one should suspect chicanery of some kind.

NAEP shines a light on state testing practices, as the Fordham report shows. Many states are reporting unrealistic leaps in achievement and high levels of proficiency to satisfy the absurd demand of NCLB for a trajectory that will bring every child to "proficiency" by the year 2014. NAEP shows how unlikely it is that any state will meet that goal and how inflated most of the states' claims of achievement are.

You make a transition from national testing to the dangers of a national curriculum. We have discussed this often. Like you, I would like to see schools where children have time to build, to create, to explore, to experiment, to play. I would like to see kids in the primary grades building castles and fortresses and stores with blocks. But unlike you, I don’t think this kind of playful learning is at odds with a national curriculum.

What is really frightening today—due in large measure to NCLB—is that we have a national testing mania without any curriculum at all. So now our schools are obsessed with preparing to take tests, getting good scores on tests, and then starting the test prep all over again. Out the window goes any thoughtful or playful engagement with history, literature, or the arts, as well as time for physical education (in many New York City schools, children are lucky to have one period a week for physical education). This is outrageous. This is not good education.

So here is where we find our differences and we find our agreements. Unlike you, I am not frightened by a national curriculum and national testing; I believe we already have both, supplied by commercial publishers of textbooks and tests. And what we have is low-level and antithetical to good education. Where we agree is that we have a vision of what good education is and should be. Even if we don’t agree on every detail, we do agree that what we have now is far from good education.

Diane

October 25, 2007

What Frightens Me About a National Curriculum

Dear Diane,

Your frustration about folks avoiding original sources is reasonable. Especially when it's actually easily available. But, of course, the "original source" itself is an interpretation of data. In short, we fall back on easier, less time-consuming ways. ("We" being me. See the back-and-forth comments about—presumably—the same data between Erin Johnson and myself.)

In fields that I don't feel deeply connected to, I mostly look for the experts I "trust". There's no way to be an expert in all the subjects I need to have an opinion about! So I go along with the consensus in some cases (like climate) and rely on "my" experts (generally via the magazines I read) on foreign policy and economics—e.g. Richard Rothstein, or Paul Krugman. So why should I expect folks to do otherwise about schooling?

But it's why it is so easy to get myths out there into the public sphere as though they were facts. In our field, there's the myth about the good old days. It rests in part on how often opinion leaders of all political stripes refer casually to the "decline" of public education; ditto for the assumption that most other nations are doing better at something called "schooling" or "education" without our having stopped to define what either means. We fall back on test scores whose contents and assumptions few question, whose methodology even education reporters know little if anything about, not to mention the narrowness of the measures—or the way scores are set. We use a language that assumes that being well-educated is a zero-sum game, in which the progress of others has to injure us.

We trust these assumptions because to think otherwise would require going against the grain and becoming an expert oneself. Rothstein's piece in American Prospect is not the first masterly complicating of the economic/schooling myths, but precisely by complicating it he loses part of his audience. For example, he reminds us that we "forget" that there's a 20-30-year gap between when the tests are administered and when that age group has an impact on the economy. In the information age, resources are also not evenly distributed. While, for example, FairTest—the only national organization that is in the business of being skeptical about test data, has a budget of less than half a million, the three or four leading testing agencies each spend many millions on promoting the idea that tests are the one true measure. (Disclosure: I'm on the board of FairTest.)

It leads me to wish we had a very different way of spending those 13-20 schooling years—preparing people to assess the events that surround them, independently sorting out pros and cons. I'm for the "liberal arts"—but not at the expense of "making sense" of the world around us, those "habits of mind" we build our curriculum around at schools associated with the Coalition of Essential Schools. The traditional liberal arts might even support such habits, if we designed them with this in mind. It would, for example, take a very different definition of advanced mathematics. The public's much-criticized lack of interest in advanced math may, in fact, betray their good sense, not their bad. Calculus-driven math may be foolish-driven math, that mis-prepares us, leaving us disarmed before the realities of our world. Perhaps a "statistics-driven" math would be equally tough and "advanced" but more suitable for a democratic citizenry?

In short, what frightens me about a national curriculum is not merely that I think it's more exciting to teach based on the particular interests and events that swirl around the young but because I think I can even "cover" more stuff of importance if I begin with what grabs our interest—from dinosaurs, mummies, castles, to modern Iraq or climate claims. I can better engage kids with the world they live in—including its history—if I make that the central aim of my work. Diane, it seems unlikely we can get a national consensus around the kind of experimentation that many of us think needs to take place. Nor should we! But suppose I'm right, that more "coverage" of the traditional fare won't make us either scientifically more sophisticated or mathematically more at home in this world? I'm not interested in banning traditionalism, but I'm also not interested in prohibiting us from the kind of exploration that needs to take place. Nor do I want to leave it all to private schools to experiment with the age-old conundrums. I think there are responsible ways to engage in this work, not just in private but also in public schools.

Our scientific future depends, I believe, on our remaining a nation that appreciates "play"—the non-utilitarian (or at least not immediately so) mindset that we're born with. We are systematically cutting ourselves off from the roots of human intellectual inventiveness. We need to find the equivalent of a generation-old practice of taking cars and radios apart to see how they work and building fortresses out of whatever is on hand. Computer-programmed games can't replace the old chemistry sets. Finding the modern equivalents requires us to experiment, not to return to the 1896 Ivy League consensus, great as it was. Some of us were lucky to have had both, but too many kids today have neither. They thus develop an acquiescent mindset or else a merely rebellious one, but an insufficiently curious and self-disciplined one.

As I meet with teachers and principals and parents I hear a lot of anguish and fear. Of course my sample is biased, but…. Read Dan Brown's book, "The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle" for a moving account of why we may be entering an era of temp teachers.

Deb

Teachers union gets wiggle room against rival

By Michael J. Mishak

Las Vegas Sun

The Nevada State Education Association's push to boost taxes on gaming offers the union an advantage on another front. The tax plan provides leverage as the association tries to fend off a rival union.

The education association is locked in a struggle with Teamsters Local 14, which is campaigning to represent Clark County teachers. To win, the Teamsters must persuade more than half of those teachers to oust the education association as their representative.

But the association has painted the Teamsters into something of a corner by asking voters to boost the gaming tax so the state could grant teachers a raise.

The Teamsters local and two of its sister locals have workers spread throughout the gaming industry. The union is likely to oppose the higher taxes, which would leave it working to defeat a statewide ballot initiative whose purpose is to help teachers.

The Teamsters said Wednesday they will continue their organizing campaign and predicted the education association would fail to raise gaming taxes.

The association needs to secure nearly 60,000 signatures to place an initiative on the statewide ballot in 2008. If it's approved, voters would need to pass it again in 2010. The association seeks to bump the tax on gaming revenue from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent.

The association's proposal is the latest in a series of hurdles facing the Teamsters local. From the outset, the union faced the challenge of organizing a largely apathetic and transient membership. Fifty percent of Clark County's teachers typically leave within five years. Also working against the Teamsters is the absence of a record of ever representing public educators.

The Teamsters originally expected their organizing drive would last through most of 2008. But the education association and Teamsters recently agreed to shrink the timeline. The campaign is now expected to conclude by the end of next month.

To be sure, the teachers union has weaknesses, and the Teamsters clearly see an opening. Members are frustrated by years of small raises and saw their union as largely ineffectual in this year's legislative session.

Education lobbyists made the mistake of going around Assembly Democrats to cut a deal with Senate Republicans on education funding. The move irritated the teachers' natural allies and could mean less clout with Assembly Democrats in future Legislatures - not a comforting thought.

The Teamsters say the education association's leadership is now lashing out at the most powerful interest in Nevada - the gaming industry - to deflect attention from its failures.

Ron Taylor, a district teacher who launched a grass-roots effort to decertify the education association and now works for Teamsters Local 14, said the tax proposal was a direct response to the Teamsters organizing effort, which he said is picking up steam.

"It's obvious this action was done because of us," Taylor said. "The NSEA is trying to protect their cash cow - the Clark County Education Association. They have no shot, but this is a way to tell teachers, 'We're fighting for you.' It's transparent."

The state education association represents more than 18,000 teachers across Nevada, including about 13,000 in Clark County.

The Teamsters say they have collected more than 2,000 signed authorization cards. The union needs 7,500 cards by the end of November to make the case for an election, which, if sanctioned by the state labor board, could take place next spring, said Gary Mauger, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 14.

As for the teachers union tax plan, Mauger said he would consult with the Teamsters executive board and the Nevada AFL-CIO before rendering judgment. Still, he added, "Going and putting the burden on the hand that feeds you sometimes doesn't make for a good way to go."

Richard Hurd, a labor expert at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said the gaming tax proposal could galvanize the teachers union, slowing - if not killing - the Teamsters' momentum.

"It could be that what the education association is doing now is attempting to demonstrate that they have the potential to deliver," Hurd said.

Terry Hickman , the education association's executive director, said the union's plan was purely a response to a state that chronically underfunds education. Nevada ranks 49th in the nation in education spending.

"It's not enough to complain," Hickman said. "If you are not solution-based, get out of the way. Any association that opposes funding for our kids, I wonder what their values are."
And yet, the teachers union is going it alone.

Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said the 200,000-strong labor federation would vote on the teachers' tax plan, but he said support was unlikely. The AFL-CIO supports the Teamsters organizing effort.

"We support broadening the tax base away from one industry," Thompson said. "If you raise the gaming tax without raising others' taxes, you increase your dependency even more."

October 3, 2007

Contact: Heather Reams

Director of Communications

Association of American Educators

1-877-385-6264

heather@aaeteachers.org

Teacher Survey Sheds New Light on Performance Pay Debate

Alexandria, VA—Today the Association of American Educators (AAE), the largest national independent non-union teachers’ association, released its second survey on No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Survey results showed distinct differences in opinion with teacher labor unions, particularly with regard to performance pay and the use of “growth models” for accountability, both of which give teachers credit for student academic gains made during the school year.

The 1,286 respondents, all of whom are active classroom educators, appear to agree with the language that is currently in a draft bill of NCLB in Congress that encourages districts to implement some kind of performance-base pay system for teachers.

“Teachers know better than anyone what parts of NCLB work and what parts need to be improved or removed all together,” said Gary Beckner, AAE Executive Director. “This survey shows, however, that there are thousands of teachers who do not agree with the agenda for NCLB that is being pushed by the teacher unions.”

Some results of the survey are as follows:

70% of respondents say that traditional compensation systems based simply on the highest degree earned and time in the system should be improved upon; 63% say they would accept additional compensation based on the tested academic growth of their students over a school year; 59% say they should receive a bonus if their students achieve higher student achievement gains than other teachers teaching the same type of students; Members stated that student achievement gains and classroom evaluations were the top two measures of their work.

“Clearly educators want to be evaluated and compensated just like other professions,” said Beckner. “If teachers want different pay options to reward them for good work, they should have them.”

When teachers were asked about “growth models” for accountability, 81% supported adding a growth model component to NCLB.

A growth model gives credit to teachers and schools for academic gains each student makes from their initial baseline during the school year. This is especially important for teachers working with students who begin the school year several grade levels behind. Most educators agree that this is a more fair and accurate representation of a child's true academic progress.

The majority of teachers – 84% – agree with both the state and federal criteria for Highly Qualified Teacher status.

The responses were not all positive. Teachers believe that it is an unrealistic goal for all students to be on grade level by 2014.

Complete results of the survey, which ended on September 17, can be found at http://www.aaeteachers.org/AAE%20Survey%20October%202007.pdf

Dedicated to the academic and personal growth of every student, the Association of American Educators is the premier educators’ network that advances the teaching profession through teacher advocacy and protection, professional development and promoting excellence in education so that educators receive the respect, recognition and reward they deserve. AAE has members in all 50 states and welcomes professionals from all education entities. www.aaeteachers.org

They are giving schools, teachers and students more reasons than ever--there were already too many--to neglect the humanities, to marginalize the arts, and to skimp on the social sciences. Moreover, they miss at least half of the true wellsprings of American competitiveness, which are not just skills but also knowledge, habits of mind, modes of inquiry, traits of character, among others. (For a longer exposition of this point, see our original essay and the longer Fordham volume that we edited, Beyond the Basics.)

The stir we did not anticipate came from friends worried that we had abandoned results-based accountability, turned against testing, and even declared war on standards.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. We support those important education reforms as ardently as ever. But we're also more mindful than ever of the truism that "what gets tested gets taught" and are alarmed that too narrow a conception of what schools are accountable for, by way of results, yields too narrow a definition of what teachers are responsible for imparting to their pupils. Good tests are efficient ways to determine how well students have learned what the curriculum sets forth. (That's why we admire the Advanced Placement exams, for example.) But bad tests, and an over-emphasis on test results at the expense of solid instruction across a balanced curriculum, can lead to damaging ends. There we stand.

by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Diane Ravitch

Conventional wisdom holds that this landmark law cannot be revamped--though it could probably be extended as is, just to keep the money flowing--absent a fairly broad consensus. Miller and Pelosi could indeed bring a bill before the House and possibly ram it through on a near-straight party line vote (though such a move would likely provoke more Democratic defections than GOP supporters) but it would come unglued in the Senate, where it's essential nowadays to have 60 firm votes for anything controversial. Which this would surely be.

The United States Congress these days is a near-to-dysfunctional institution. It accomplishes little of anything and less of importance. Call me cynical after too many years inside the Beltway but it appears to me that, on any but the most routine matters, lawmakers now act only when at least one of three (overlapping) conditions is met-and not always then. (1) There's a bona fide national crisis (e.g., 9/11, Katrina). (2) There's a huge public outcry. Or (3) there's a full-fledged Washington-style scandal needing to be redressed.

NCLB satisfies none of those conditions. Yes, a flock of educators, a pride of politicians, and a bestiary of policy wonks are unhappy with it, but nobody could claim that a crisis exists. Most people still have scant awareness of it, and there's surely no clamor from the public at large. And it has no Washington-style scandal associated with it. Sure, one could argue that the variability and slackness of state standards is an education scandal, that the unkept promise of public-school choice is a scandal, etc., but that's not the same as saying that someone has walked off with the payroll or is profiteering at children's expense. (To see a true, action-forcing scandal at work, observe what's been happening--and what's been revealed--about college student loans, which may finally lead to reauthorization--four years late--of the Higher Education Act.)

But Congressional dysfunction isn't the whole story. There's also perilously little agreement on what ails NCLB and how to cure it. Indeed, I submit that today there is near-consensus on precisely one point: the desirability of some sort of "growth model" for determining AYP, i.e. the proposition that schools' performance should be judged by examining the additional academic "value" that they add to their pupils rather than (or in addition to) the absolute number of kids reaching a single fixed standard. Here, too, however, even if there's rough agreement at the conceptual level, widespread discord still prevails on just about every element of how growth models should be designed and implemented--and how many places are capable of doing it.

Regarding other aspects of NCLB, there's no shortage of advice. A five foot shelf of books, studies, reports, commission recommendations, etc. is rapidly accumulating. (I plead guilty to having helped contribute half a linear foot or so.) Its very amplitude attests not only to the length and complexity of the law but also to the disputed nature of what, exactly, is awry in NCLB 1.0 and what are the essential attributes of version 2.0. Even more important, underlying all the technical specifics are four immense (my granddaughter would say "hunormous") dilemmas that go to the heart of the matter.

Is NCLB's goal itself naïve and unrealistic? Politicians pledge that no child will be left behind, yet I don't know a single educator who seriously thinks 100 percent of U.S. children can become "proficient" (according to any reasonable definition of that term) by 2014 in reading and math. Indeed, exemptions have already been made for seriously disabled youngsters. In truth, getting American kids from their current 30 percent or so proficient level (using NAEP standards) to 70 or 80 percent would be a remarkable, nation-changing achievement. Yet I can't imagine a lawmaker conceding that this would be worth doing. The first thing hurled back at him would be "which 20 percent of the kids don't matter to you?"

Is the program upside down? It's no surprise that we at Fordham think NCLB 1.0 inverted a fundamental design principle: Congress opted to be tight with regard to means and loose with regard to ends--trusting every state to set its own standards while micro-managing any number of measurement systems and highly prescriptive sequences of school and district interventions. Far better to promulgate a single national standard and assessment system, then trust states, districts and educators to devise their own means of getting there on their own timetables. But half of Congress will recoil in horror from the freedom and flexibility implied therein while the other half will be put off by uniform standards.

Is the architecture usable for this purpose? As Gadfly has noted before, in 1965 it made sense, indeed was practically inevitable, for Uncle Sam to distribute his new education dollars via the traditional structures of state education departments and local school systems. Four decades later, however, the main focus of federal policy is altering the behavior and performance of those very institutions in ways they don't want to be altered (while also still distributing dollars to and through them). It's beyond imagining that the old multi-tiered architecture can satisfactorily handle the new challenges. Yet nobody is thinking creatively about alternative structures by which NCLB's goals might more effectively be pursued.

Can the federal government successfully pull off anything as complex and ambitious as NCLB in so vast and loosely coupled a system as American k-12 education? Unfortunately, the executive branch is as dysfunctional as the legislative. It can't keep our levees strong, our bridges standing, or our airplanes on schedule, much less provide health care to the needy or root out terrorists in our midst. Sure, we ask it to do too much and we're terrible at prioritizing. That said, however, let's face the reality that education is even harder to change because it's so decentralized and so many of its street-level bureaucrats can ignore, veto, or undermine the plans of distant rulemakers.

So long as these monster questions lack agreed-upon answers, I don't see much hope for an NCLB 2.0 that's markedly better than NCLB 1.0.

by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Debate Over Merit Pay Heats Up

By The Associated Press in Teacher Magazine

Washington

The head of the nation's largest teacher's union and a top House Democrat had a testy exchange Monday over the inclusion of merit pay in an updated version of the No Child Left Behind education law.

California Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, criticized National Education Association President Reg Weaver for rejecting the merit-pay proposal.
The exchange occurred during a hearing into the renewal of the five-year-old education law, which requires annual testing in reading and math and imposes sanctions on schools that fail to hit progress goals.

Miller included the teacher pay plan in draft legislation circulating on Capitol Hill.
The proposal would give bonuses, worth up to $10,000 in most cases, to "outstanding" teachers. The proposal doesn't spell out who would be eligible for the extra money but says raising student test scores must be a factor.

Weaver said that level of detail should be bargained locally, not spelled out by Congress. The NEA has long opposed linking individual student scores to teachers' pay, though many local teachers unions across the country are agreeing to such proposals. Most notable is a popular plan in Denver.

Miller noted that Weaver previously supported teacher-related legislation that included the same merit-pay proposal, but Weaver said the union gave general support for that overall bill, not the pay plan specifically.

That nuance didn't sit well with Miller. Growing visibly angry, he said: "You can dance all around you want. You approved the language."

The union, which has more than 3 million members, is actively lobbying against the draft legislation. The union is influential, particularly with Democrats who often benefit from the NEA's political backing.

"Our members are united and will stand firm in our advocacy for a bill that supports good teaching and learning and takes far greater steps toward creating great public schools for every child," Weaver said during the hearing.

The draft bill also would change the law to allow schools to get credit for tests in subjects other than math and reading. And it would measure the performance of individual students over time rather than comparing the scores of students in a certain grade to students in that grade the year before, a change that is generally popular.

Miller said he hopes the full House will take up the renewal of the law this fall. Senate lawmakers also are in the process of writing legislation.

Sep 06, 2007 by Julie Rose

(KCPW News) The top education official in the nation continues to use Utah's public school system as evidence that No Child Left Behind is necessary. In a speech yesterday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings suggested that Utah officials oppose No Child Left Behind because it judges the state's public schools too harshly.

Associate State Superintendent Brenda Hales bristles: "Every state has a unique population and unique challenges," says Hales. "That's where you get in to trouble - when you have big government trying to dictate how states should perform. It almost becomes a 'Big Brother' situation."

Utah education officials and lawmakers have been vocal in their disdain for federal education mandates found in No Child Left Behind. Secretary Spellings yesterday said states need to embrace the goals of the law rather than making excuses for why it won't work. Hales says the basic goal of improving student performance is worthy.

But Utah officials take issue with the federal government claiming it knows best: "We've always felt like No Child Left Behind's goals are meaningful and essential, but how we meet them should be decided on a state level," says Hales.

Low-income and minority students in Utah continue to lag in basic skills, but Hales says the state is working to address the gap. Federal officials have denied many of Utah's requests for flexibility in how it qualifies teachers and handles school testing.

Utah Congressman Rob Bishop has vowed to fight reauthorization and revisions of No Child Left Behind set for debate next year.

Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, This Week in Education covers education news, policymakers, and trends with a distinctly political edge.

September 6, 2007

Spellings Letter; Teacher Quality Draft Later Today

Thanks to the Ed Trust, here's a PDF of the Spellings letter to Miller that she promised yesterday, listing problems she and others have with the M&M discussion draft. Speaking of which, Miller said that Title II and the rest would be posted sometime today, which will help us see whether the teacher quality elements of NCLB are going to be strengthened or -- is such a thing possible? -- weakened. (There's a nod to teacher quality in the form of an attempt to close the equitability loophole in Miller's Title I proposal, according to EdWeek's David Hoff, but if they couldn't do that in 2001 they don't seem likely to take care of it now.)

Weighing Miller's NCLB Proposal

Three different takes on how Cong. Miller's proposal is going over. Compare and contrast:

'No Child' Loopholes Decried Washington Post

Should suburban schools that barely miss federal learning targets be allowed to escape penalties, while inner-city schools that never even hit the dart board are required to give free tutoring and let students transfer to better schools?

Secretary of Education Criticizes Proposal NYT

The education secretary criticized a Congressional proposal to soften provisions of the President’s Bush signature education law.

Spellings Criticizes No Child Proposals AP

The administration and congressional lawmakers agree on one key change. They want schools to measure the performance of individual students over time rather than comparing the scores of students in a certain grade to students in that grade the year before.

New NCLB Bill "Isn't Wonkery," Says Chairman Miller;
Criticisms Are "Hokum"

The public mud-slinging between Spellings and Miller is really heating up. Makes you wonder what they say about each other behind closed doors. And, substantively, it bodes poorly for a strengthening of the current NCLB law.

Responding to Spellings' criticisms read to him by USA Today's Greg Toppo at a conference call with reporters today, Chairman Miller said that what he's trying to do with NCLB isn't just "wonkery" (as Spellings describes it) but rather much-needed changes to an imperfect law. "I know she wants to add confusion and doesn't like the debate," said Miller of Spellings. He also repeatedly mocked the "99.9 percent pure" claim Spellings once made (fire the writer who came up with that one), and called claims that multiple measures would muck up accountability "hokum."

Obviously, Miller's got to do what he's got to do, and -- this sentence is already so vague -- is going to go ahead and do it. But still it's sad to hear him denounce the current NCLB system which he created and defended for so long, now using much the same language as his detractors had (ie, a single test on a single day determining AYP). Such is politics. Somewhere, Joel Packer is smiling.

House Education Leaders Issue Draft NCLB Renewal Plan

By David J. Hoff and Alyson Klein

Education Week

The leaders of the House education committee today released a draft of a plan for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, outlining proposals that would revise how adequate yearly progress is calculated and overhaul the interventions for schools failing to meet achievement goals.

In releasing the long-awaited plan, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., said that they were inviting comments from educators so that they can incorporate their ideas into the bill they hope to introduce shortly after Labor Day.

You can read the rest of this Education Week article by clicking here.

Congress Passes ‘Competitiveness’ Bill

By Sean Cavanagh

Education Week
Congress approved legislation Thursday that seeks to bolster mathematics and science education through improved teacher recruitment and training and promote successful classroom practices through federal grants.

The bipartisan legislation, which the House approved by a 367-57 vote and the Senate passed unanimously, had the backing of numerous business and education organizations. Members of Congress have dubbed the proposals, now consolidated into one bill, “competitiveness” legislation, because they believe it will strengthen the quality of the U.S. workforce and gird the American economy against foreign competition.

The bill now goes to President Bush, who lawmakers believe will sign the bill.

"In my mind, there will be no more important legislation that passes the Congress this year," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., one of its sponsors, told reporters this week. "This is the prime model of bipartisan cooperation."

The bill would establish several new federal math and science programs and expand existing ones. If Congress appropriates money for all the programs, it would cost $43.3 billion over three years, though much of that spending would be devoted to research programs in technology, energy, and other areas.

The measure would broaden the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, which provides grants of $10,000 a year to college majors in math- and science-related subjects who agree to teach in high-need schools. Among other changes, the bill would provide awardees of the program, which is administered by the National Science Foundation, up to three years of scholarship funding, instead of the current limit of two years. In addition, scholarship recipients would be given additional time to complete their teacher training, under the legislation.

Furthermore, the proposal addresses some of the math and science priorities identified by President Bush. It would create "Math Now," a program in which the U.S. Department of Education would award grants to states to attempt to implement proven strategies in math instruction. The legislation says the goal is to help students reach grade level in math and prepare them for algebra, a subject most students take in 8th or 9th grade.

In the past, Bush administration officials have likened Math Now to the federal Reading First program, a $1 billion-a-year effort that seeks to improve instruction through the promotion of researched-based practices in reading. Department of Education representatives have faced charges of favoring certain commercial reading products in awarding grants to states, but Reading First has also won praise for improving instruction and achievement from state officials and researchers. ("White House Suggests Model Used in Reading To Elevate Math Skills," Feb. 15, 2006.)

'In Harmony'
The "competitiveness" legislation also appears to address another of President Bush's goals by authorizing new grant programs to increase the number of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes in schools nationwide.

Additionally, the bill calls for the secretary of education to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to convene a national panel to "identify promising practices in the teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in elementary and secondary schools."

Last year, the White House set up the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a 17-member group charged with studying effective classroom strategies in math and presenting recommendations to the president. Lee Pitts, a spokesman for Sen. Alexander, said the panel established in the new legislation would "extend the work of the math panel into science, technology, and engineering." It is not meant to duplicate the math panel, he added.

The House and Senate originally approved separate versions of the math and science legislation. Lawmakers from both chambers met in a conference committee in an effort to resolve those differences and produce a final bill for consideration by the House and Senate.

Speaking with reporters Aug. 1, two sponsors of the House and Senate bills, Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and Sen. Alexander, said negotiations over the final bill were not difficult.

"We were very much in harmony," Rep. Gordon said. "The conference was short and sweet."

The bill would establish two new competitive grant programs within the Education Department, according to a conference report released by lawmakers this week. The first is aimed at expanding master's degrees in science- and math-related fields. The other would support programs that encourage undergraduates to obtain bachelor's degrees in science- and math-related fields and foreign languages at the same time they are gaining teacher certification. The legislation authorizes $151 million for the bachelor's degree program and $125 million for the master's degree program in fiscal 2008, according to a summary of the conference report.

The bill only authorizes new spending on federal math and science programs; it does not guarantee they will get that money. Appropriations for those programs are currently included in three separate spending bills under consideration by Congress, said Mr. Pitts.

Francis M. "Skip" Fennell, the president of the 100,000-member National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, in Reston, Va., said his organization was pleased with the legislation, especially provision within it that seek to provide support and assistance to inexperienced and struggling educators.

"We know that the lack of proper mentoring and support for teachers is one reason so many leave the profession in the first years of teaching," Mr. Fennell said in a statement. Math coaches, he said, "will help early and midcareer teachers and afford better learning opportunities for students."

John J. Castellani, the president of the Business Roundtable, also praised the congressional action. "If we are to maintain our competitive edge, we must improve the education our students receive in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," he said in a statement. "America's ability to compete in a 21st-century economy rests on our continued investments in math and science education. The U.S. Congress has confirmed its commitment to ensuring that we are prepared to continue to lead the world in research and technology-well into the future."

Associate Editor David J. Hoff contributed to this story.

Doubts Cast on Math, Science Teaching Lures

By Sean Cavanagh

Education Week

Few strategies for luring more students and working adults into math and science teaching have proved as popular among elected officials as financial incentives, which try to make one of the least appealing aspects of the job—low pay—a little less daunting.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering a number of bills that would expand existing incentives, such as scholarships and loan forgiveness for aspiring educators, and create new monetary inducements. Dozens of states, meanwhile, already offer their own incentives for teachers in subjects with shortages, including mathematics and science.

But those who have studied financial incentives say evidence is scant that they are attracting substantial numbers of college students and career-changers to math and science teaching, despite years of investments in those programs.

Opinions vary on why incentives have not shown greater results. Some believe the money available is relatively insignificant when weighed against potential job candidates’ worries about poor salaries and working conditions. Others say the hodgepodge of federal, state, and local incentives is so fragmented that few potential teachers are aware of what’s available.

“There’s been virtually no research on how effective [these] options are,” said Dan Goldhaber, a research professor at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, based at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We ought to be making decisions about these programs based on something more than what might be effective, and instead base it on empirical evidence.”

Yet backers of incentives believe they can offer an important carrot for college students and for people already in the work world. Even if that extra money is of secondary importance to job candidates, it can make the teaching profession more appealing to math and science majors who are likely to have more lucrative options in the private sector.

Teaching for Dollars
In addition to the myriad state financial-incentive programs, the federal government oversees a number of monetary hooks to recruit and retain teachers in high-need fields, including math and science:

The Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, administered by the National Science Foundation, offers scholarships of $10,000 annually, for two years, to students majoring in math- and sciencerelated fields, as well as to working professionals.

The Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, signed into law in 2006 and administered by the U.S. Department of Education, makes teachers of math, science, and special education eligible for up to $17,500 of loan repayment.

Teachers of math and science also can have up to 100 percent of their Perkins Loans canceled, with the amounts depending on years of service in the classroom.

The federal Transition to Teaching program provides money to school districts and colleges to pay for financial incentives of up to $5,000, total, to midcareer professionals, including paraprofessionals, interested in becoming trained as teachers in high-need schools.

SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education; National Science FoundationAnna M. Swenty, 26, credits an incentive program with having changed her thinking about teaching.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Missouri-Columbia three years ago, Ms. Swenty was considering graduate school and research jobs, but those career paths seemed too specialized. It wasn’t until she learned about the federal Robert Noyce Scholarship Program that the idea of teaching began to take hold.

The program, which is financed through the National Science Foundation at about $9 million a year, provided her with a total of $10,000 to return to school and earn a teaching certificate. In return, she agreed to work in a high-poverty school. She now teaches biology and earth science at Narrows High School in western Virginia.

“It was a godsend,” Ms. Swenty said of the scholarship. “I was worried about going into debt. … No one ever told me in my [undergraduate] program that teaching was a viable option.”

Financial Hook
Noyce money flows to colleges and universities, which give it to qualified applicants: college majors in math and science subjects who want to go into teaching, and working professionals with expertise in those areas. The program’s effectiveness is being evaluated, a process that is expected to be complete next year, said Joan T. Prival, the program’s lead director at the NSF. Separate bills approved by the House and the Senate would expand the program.

House lawmakers also recently approved a bill that would provide scholarships of as much as $16,000 to college students who agree to work in high-need subjects in schools serving large numbers of low-income students A measure that cleared the Senate this month would tie loan forgiveness to teachers’ income levels and lengths of service.

Low pay is just one of the factors that most frustrate teachers about their profession. Surveys show lack of administrative support and poor working conditions are of equal or greater concern.

Schools nationwide struggle to find qualified teachers in math and science. About 36 percent of secondary school math classes are taught by teachers who lack even a minor in math or a related subject, compared with 24 percent in all core academic subjects, according to the Education Trust, a Washington-based policy organization.

The pressure on schools to find teaching talent is likely to grow. About one-third of today’s teaching corps is expected to retire by 2010, according to one estimate. And the United States will need about 280,000 new teachers in math and science by 2015, a recent report says.

Although he believes financial incentives can make a difference to potential teachers, Gerald F. Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, in Arlington, Va., said pay plans that offer higher salaries to math and science teachers have greater potential, because they bring educators’ yearly pay closer to those of jobs in the private sector.

“It doesn’t have to be equal” to other professions, he said, “but they have to be able to play in that marketplace.”

But grants and scholarships have proved more politically palatable in states than such differential-pay plans or pay-for-performance proposals, which tie teacher compensation to student achievement, said Tricia Coulter, the director of the teaching-quality and leadership institute at the Education Commission of the States, a research organization in Denver.

Thirty-one states have financial incentives for recruiting and retaining teachers, the ECS estimates. They vary in size and scope. Kansas offers $5,000 a year to college juniors and seniors who agree to become teachers in high-need subjects, including math and science.

During the 2006-07 academic year, the state awarded 248 scholarships, 45 of which went to math and science teachers, said Diane Lindeman, the director of student financial assistance for the Kansas board of regents. The state spent $778,000 on scholarships during that year.

The program helped only a small fraction of the number of teachers needed to fill math and science vacancies, Ms. Lindeman acknowledged. “There are so many factors in this other than just throwing money at people for going to college,” she said. “You’ve got to have the people who are actually eligible to do this and want to do this.”

Little Advertised?
Kansas’ scholarships require recipients to teach at a public or private school in the state for at least two years. About 40 percent of awardees in the most recent recorded year did not complete their obligation because they moved out of state or lost interest in teaching, among other reasons. Awardees who do not fulfill that obligation must repay the scholarships. Recouping money from those who renege can be a cumbersome process, Ms. Lindeman said.

Some policy experts warn that incentives can have the unintended effect of encouraging new teachers who lack the necessary talent or enthusiasm for the job to stay to meet financial commitments.

“You lock in some people who you probably do not want to be teaching,” said Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Several observers said a greater flaw is that aspiring teachers do not have a single source to tell them about the available federal and state incentives—a common problem in financial aid. A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., would require the federal government to set up a database of public and private scholarships in math- and science-related fields.

“There’s a whole lot of stuff out there, but people kind of stumble across it,” said Margaret E. Heisel, a lead coordinator for the California Teach/Science Math Initiative, a program aimed at recruiting educators into the profession. Students, she said, need a system that tells them that “if you are interested in math or science teaching, we have a way of making sure you don’t have a lot of debt at the end of college.”

The UC and California State University systems in 2005 announced a plan to try to raise the number of math and science teachers who graduate from their collective teacher programs from 1,000 to 2,500 a year. The systems, with private-sector support, offer a host of financial incentives to teachers, including waiving up to $19,000 in college loans.

One state program that appears to have achieved some success is in North Carolina, where teachers of math, science, or special education in high-poverty or academically struggling schools were given an extra $1,800 a year, according to a 2006 study by researchers at Duke University. Turnover among those teachers fell by 12 percent from 2001 to 2004, and might have fallen more if the program, which the state eliminated in 2004 for lack of legislative support, had been better understood by teachers, researchers found.

Many state incentive programs “are new, and they’re relatively small in scale,” said James Brown, the co-chairman of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Caucus, a Washington-based group that is backing federal legislation to expand incentives.

“The states are grappling with this just as the federal government is, and it’s going to take a while to get it right,” Mr. Brown said. “The problem is large enough that you need a national role that will get national attention.”

Coverage of mathematics, science, and technology education is supported by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, at www.kauffman.org.

Includes correction(s): August 1, 2007

Miller Outlines Proposed Changes for NCLB

By Mark Walsh

Washington

Education Week

The chairman of the House education committee said today that the No Child Left Behind Act is not working as well as it should, and that there was no support among lawmakers for continuing the law without significant revisions.

“Throughout our schools and communities, the American people have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair, not flexible, and is not funded. And they are not wrong,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said in remarks at the National Press Club to outline his priorities for reauthorizing the law.

Rep. Miller said that both Democrats and Republicans on the Education and Labor Committee had listened closely to various critiques of the law and were working toward ironing out a bipartisan reauthorization bill that he hopes the House could pass early this fall.

“I can tell you that there are no votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for continuing the No Child Left Behind Act without making serious changes to it,” Mr. Miller said. “It is my intention as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee to pass a bill in September, both in committee and on the floor of the House.”

The NCLB act passed Congress with broad bipartisan support and was signed into law in early 2002 by President Bush as a five-year reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Its centerpiece is a requirement that schools test students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8, and once in high school. Schools that fail to meet performance benchmarks face a series of consequences.

Adjusting Accountability
Rep. Miller said his first goal for the next version of the law will be to provide schools with more flexibility and fairness. His bill will introduce so-called growth models, accountability approaches that give schools credit for the progress that students make over time instead of just comparing one cohort of a grade of students with its predecessor.

The U.S. Department of Education is conducting a growth-model pilot program in which 12 states have been approved to use the method for complying with the NCLB law.

See Also
For more discussion on this topic, see our blog NCLB: Act II.Mr. Miller said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings deserved credit for her leadership on making the law more flexible and for the growth-model pilot.

Meanwhile, another change in the law’s accountability framework that Rep. Miller plans to propose is the use of so-called multiple measures to determine whether a school is achieving adequate yearly progress under the law. He said the law would continue to include annual tests of reading and mathematics in most grades.

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

Pressed about the extent of relief from test scores that such other measures might provide schools, Mr. Miller said students would have to be close to scoring proficient on math and reading tests for such measures to play a role.

“This is not an escape hatch,” he said.

Performance Pay
Rep. Miller said his bill would provide for performance pay for principals and teachers “based on fair and proven models.”

Joel Packer, the director of education policy and practice for the National Education Association, said the teachers’ union would oppose the inclusion of performance pay as a requirement for schools and districts to receive funding under the reauthorized NCLB.

“We are opposed to, in this bill, for the federal government to tell schools and school districts that if you take this pot of money you must include test scores as one of the measures of evaluating or compensating teachers,” Mr. Packer said. “The other thing with linking evaluations to test scores is that there is not much of a track record to see where it works. So if it is relatively unproven, why would the federal government require it?”

Mr. Miller’s bill will also include more emphasis on improving U.S. high schools.

“The bill will include comprehensive steps to turn around low-performing high schools,” he said, including uniform standards for measuring graduation rates.

Rep. Miller declined to put a specific price tag on his bill, but he called for “a greater and sustained investment in American education.”

Warning on Veto
He swung a minor political jab at President Bush by saying that the president’s legacy on education “cannot be established if he vetoes the education funding in the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.”

The White House has threatened a veto for the fiscal year 2008 bill that covers Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education department programs. The measure has passed the House with a nearly 8 percent increase in Education Department spending.

But Rep. Miller praised the administration’s input on reauthorizing the law and stressed that his committee had a tradition of bipartisanship.

“There are differences between us,” he said, in reference to Democrats and Republicans on the education committee. “We’re trying to iron them out. We’re trying to not let any of them be a deal breaker.”

Steve Forde, a spokesman for Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, the ranking Republican on the House education committee, agreed in a phone interview that Rep. Miller has included Republicans in the process.

“It’s been a bipartisan process,” Mr. Forde said. “Will it be a bipartisan product? That’s debatable. The devil is in the details.”

A statement by Rep. McKeon said he was “disappointed by the pace of negotiations” over the reauthorization.

“The content of the legislation is far more important than the calendar,” Rep. McKeon said, “and any attempts to weaken the law will be met with stiff resistance from House Republicans who have already joined with the civil rights community and business leaders in expressing concerns that some of the Democrat proposals will undermine transparency for parents and the ability to hold schools accountable for student performance.”

Change of Outlook?
William L. Taylor, the chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, a Washington watchdog group that has been a strong supporter of the NCLB law’s accountability measures, praised Mr. Miller’s priorities for reauthorization.

“It’s clear that whatever adjustments are made” to the law, “we’re going to have accountability remain the key,” said Mr. Taylor, who attended the National Press Club event.

Mr. Packer of the NEA, who was also present, said he noticed a change in tone on Rep. Miller’s part with regard to reauthorization of the school law.

“He has been much more of a defender of the existing law,” said Mr. Packer, who is the NEA’s chief lobbyist on NCLB. “But I think he is changing his view based on what he is hearing from educators, and based on what he is hearing from his fellow members, especially House freshmen.”

Teacher Magazine
August 2, 2007

Principal Pulls Rank, Teacher Quits

According to a New York Times article, Austin Lampros, a New York City math teacher, resigned from his teaching post at the High School of Arts and Technology in Manhattan this year after the school’s principal altered a student’s grade so she could graduate. Lampros told the Times that, although the student rarely attended class, failed to turn in homework assignments, and even missed the final exam, a school administrator gave her special treatment and a passing grade.

When a representative from the teachers’ union complained, Lampros was permitted to fail the student. Using an override privilege granted by her contract, the principal reversed that student’s grade again.

The article suggests that Lampros is one of many teachers in New York City who feels pressured by administrators to pass marginal students in order to boost declining graduation rates. “It’s almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you’ll end up without a job,” he said.

Little Rock

A one-year moratorium on new teaching guidelines set to take effect this fall is being sought by historians upset with what they say will be a watering down of the teaching of Arkansas history in the public schools.

Tom Dillard, president of the Arkansas History Education Coalition, suggested Saturday that the new guidelines for social studies, approved by the state Education Board this year, violate a 1997 state law on teaching Arkansas history and effectively reverse the group's effort of at least the last 20 years to incorporate the subject into school curricula.

"We now face the prospect of Arkansas history being removed from the curriculum in the schools of our state—at least effectively removed, if not completely so," Dillard said at a news conference at the main library in Little Rock.

Last year, the Arkansas Education Department led a committee of educators to study revising the guidelines, as the agency routinely does for the various subjects. The board then approved the guidelines, combining social studies and Arkansas history into one subject for kindergartners through sixth graders and requiring the teaching of world history in seventh and eight grades, typically when Arkansas history is taught. Dillard noted that the 10-year-old state law, adopted he said after the state Education Department failed to follow through on a promise to beef up Arkansas history instruction in the schools, requires that schools teach a unit of Arkansas history as a social studies subject at each elementary grade "with greater emphasis at the fourth and fifth grade levels."

In addition, he said, the schools must teach a full semester of Arkansas history to students between the seventh and 12th grades.

Dillard said the new guidelines could effectively reduce Arkansas history to a mere mention to young students and could eliminate the subject altogether from a high school student's coursework. He said the world history requirement in the new guidelines most likely would bump Arkansas history into the higher grades, where teachers have no textbooks and few materials on the subject and when students can elect to take other social studies courses to graduate.

"We contend that the new social studies frameworks are in violation of Act 787 of 1997 and we believe it's in violation probably in a variety of ways," Dillard said.

Coalition members will meet with state Education Commissioner Ken James on Thursday, when they plan to ask for the moratorium. Also, Dillard said, the group will ask that Gov. Mike Beebe appoint a blue-ribbon panel to study the guidelines and arrive at changes that preserve the teaching of Arkansas history.

Last week, two new textbooks on Arkansas history were published but they are geared for middle school classes. Dillard said the two decades since Arkansas' 150th sesquicentennial have been a building process with the mission to change the poor condition of Arkansas history education in the schools. He, other historians, and teachers stressed the importance of continuing with that progress.

"What this latest action by the Department of Education has done is to cut the legs out from under the people who have spent time, effort and money in creating these materials," said Tom DeBlack, president of the Arkansas Historical Association and professor of Arkansas History at Arkansas Tech University.

DeBlack stressed the importance of teaching children "where they came from."
"We need to give our students a real awareness of who they are, of how they came to be as a people and what their possibilities are in the future as part of the great American scheme," Dillard said.

Dillard and others expressed disappointment with what they said appeared to be an almost secretive process used by the Education Department to arrive at the new guidelines.
But Julie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said in a telephone interview Saturday that the agency went to great lengths to involve historians and educators in making the revisions.

She acknowledged that committee members were asked not to discuss preliminary changes. But the agency used this "security feature," she said, to prevent a problem that occurred in 1992. In that year, preliminary guidelines for math were released and some schools ended up teaching to the wrong guide, she said.

Thompson said the new guidelines on Arkansas history do not violate state law, and they maintain an emphasis on state history at the lower levels. The guidelines for elementary schools provide more detail and, therefore, create a greater likelihood that students will get more instruction in Arkansas history, she said.

Thompson acknowledged that it was "unfortunate" that the textbook review occurred the same year as the standards were revised, and said the agency might have to take a closer look at what materials are available for teaching Arkansas history in the high schools.

This would be an excellent time to phone in your
questions and comments on the Teamsters, CCEA, and
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Hope you can join in on this stimulating conversation.
If you have any questions, please forward them to me
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Ken

House Freshmen Could Be Pivotal on NCLB Renewal

Some opposed the law on campaign trail, but have refined their views.

By Alyson Klein

Last fall, when New Hampshire social worker Carol Shea-Porter was a long-shot candidate for Congress, she told voters she wanted to scrap the No Child Left Behind Act and get the federal government largely out of the business of school accountability.

Now, U.S. Rep. Shea-Porter, a Democrat who pulled off an upset victory in November, says she’s willing to give a second look to the federal education law that she once referred to as an attempt by right-wing Republicans to “undermine our confidence in our public schools.”

But in taking that second look, she and other freshmen seem likely to have the leverage to help reshape some provisions that concern them. And they’re signaling that their support can’t be taken for granted.

Many of the other 41 freshman Demo-crats in the U.S. House of Representatives criticized the 5-year-old No Child Left Behind law while on the campaign trail as an unfunded federal mandate that forces schools to narrow their instruction so that students can pass standardized tests.

But like their New Hampshire colleague, many of those members are now seeking common ground with key Democratic architects of the NCLB law, most notably Rep. George Miller of California, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. For his part, Rep. Miller must build support among the newest members of his caucus, particularly the 10 freshman Democrats on the education committee, including Rep. Shea-Porter.

The law, which passed Congress with big, bipartisan majorities in late 2001, is up for reauthorization this year.

“I think they’re a key group that he will have to accommodate,” Jack Jennings, a former Democratic counsel to the House education committee, said of Chairman Miller and his new members. “They’re large; they’re the reason the Democrats are in the majority.”

Ear to the Ground
Mr. Jennings, who is now the president of the Center on Education Policy, a research and advocacy group in Washington, said the need to work with freshmen might be part of the reason Rep. Miller has yet to introduce a comprehensive NCLB reauthorization measure. “I think he would have charged ahead” otherwise, he said.

Freshman members say Rep. Miller is open to their views.
“George Miller has said that at one point he was very resistant to [making] many changes” to the law, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., an education committee member, said in an interview. “But in our discussions with him, he understands that there are things that need to be fixed, and he’s open to a thorough discussion and any ideas” the newcomers present, the freshman congressman said.

Rep. Shea-Porter, who won with 51 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Rep. Jeb Bradley, said she’s had frank conversations with Rep. Miller about her concerns over the NCLB law. He even visited her district last month and met with educators and state lawmakers there.

The congresswoman says she’s willing to see what sort of reauthorization proposals the education committee puts forth before deciding whether to support renewing the law at all.
“I’m in a holding pattern,” she said in an interview last month.

There are nine newly elected U.S. sensators who caucus with the Democrats, but most of them weren’t as critical of the NCLB law during the 2006 campaigns as some House Democrats were.

Despite their desire to reach accord on renewing the NCLB law, many freshman Democrats in the House continue to use heated rhetoric to describe the law. And a few haven’t completely given up on the idea of repealing many of its provisions.

“Reform is definitely on the agenda. Repeal probably is not, but could be if we mount a strong enough effort,” Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said during a conference call last month with voters in his district. The call was sponsored by Communities for Quality Education, a Washington-based education advocacy group.

Other new members expect the law to be reauthorized, but they appear to favor significant changes to it.

Under the law, English-language learners are counted toward a school’s annual achievement targets after they’ve been in U.S. schools for one year. Rep. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, a freshman member of the education committee, said in an interview that she wants to consider giving such students at least three years to learn English before they must be counted for AYP.

Rep. Hirono, who immigrated to the United States from Japan as a child, said she would have “been deemed a dummy” if she had been tested within a year of her arrival.

United Front
Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a teacher on leave from Mankato, Minn., said his Democratic colleagues in the freshman class generally feel a “greater sense of urgency” to address issues such as the narrowing of the curriculum and an overemphasis on testing.

“Most of them came through really tough elections,” he said. “Many of them very, very much had their ear to the ground for these issues, so they seem to get it.”

Rep. Walz said he would vote against renewing the law in its current form. Among other changes, he would like to see schools be permitted to use multiple measures, including portfolios of student work, to demonstrate learning outcomes.

But other freshman Democrats were more muted in their comments. “We can’t afford to return to the status quo that existed before NCLB, but we do have to make improvements to the law that will help us move forward,” Rep. Dave Loebsack of Iowa said during a recent conference call with his constituents.

New members of Congress interested in amending the law may be satisfied by some of the proposals for change that Rep. Miller appears likely to favor anyway, said Cynthia G. Brown, the director of education policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.

Such ideas could include permitting states to use growth models and establishing separate tiers of consequences for schools that miss AYP solely because of a subgroup and those whose student populations as a whole are struggling.

“I think they’ll be a few folks [for whom] that’s not enough,” Ms. Brown said. “But I basically think new members will follow the lead of their chairman.”

Rep. Miller is proposing incentives for schools to improve teacher quality, as well as pushing for more money for Title I. Those moves will help address a major criticism by Democrats that NCLB is underfunded, Ms. Brown said.

Rep. Miller will need to garner as many votes as possible from within his own party, in part because 60 GOP members—including at least four of the 13 freshman Republicans—have signed onto a bill sponsored by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., that would allow states to opt out of NCLB’S accountability requirements.

Rep. Miller was unavailable to comment for this story, his spokesman, Aaron K. Albright, said last week.

House freshmen have their own incentives to work with Rep. Miller, since he is a leading adviser to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. But perhaps more importantly, after more than a decade in the minority, Democrats believe they must present a united front, now that they’re again in control, Mr. Jennings of the Center on Education Policy said.

“They got the message, being out of power, that they can’t fight among themselves,” Mr. Jennings said.

Some opposed the law on campaign trail, but have refined their views.

How I joined Teach for America
— and got sued for $20 million

Well, when push came to shove, I didn’t want to devote my life to helping the rich get richer or crunching numbers to see what views were most popular for the vice president to adopt. This wasn’t what my 17 years of education were for.

My doctor parents had drummed into me that education was the key to every door, the one thing they couldn’t take away from my ancestors during pogroms and persecutions. They had also filled me with a strong sense of social justice. I couldn’t help feeling guilty dismay when I thought of the millions of kids who’d never even tasted the great teaching—not to mention the supportive family—I’d enjoyed for my entire life.

I told the Al Gore guy, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Weird as he might have thought it, I had decided to teach in an inner-city school.

By Yippee

One of the biggest problems in our public schools today, based upon my 23 years of employment experiences in three public high schools in two public school districts, is what I will refer to as 'doubletalk'.

School leaders, at the district level and the school level, talk about increasing standards and improving learning but do many things and create numerous programs that undermine any efforts to truly achieve these things.
read the rest of Doubletalk