[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE ELEMENTARY
AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT:
CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE FLEXIBILITY
UNDER NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 7, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-46
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Chairman California,
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Kenny Marchant, Texas
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Tom Price, Georgia
Linda T. Sanchez, California Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Louisiana
David Loebsack, Iowa Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania York
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky Rob Bishop, Utah
Phil Hare, Illinois David Davis, Tennessee
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Joe Courtney, Connecticut Dean Heller, Nevada
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan, Chairman
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Michael N. Castle, Delaware,
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Susan A. Davis, California Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Judy Biggert, Illinois
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Linda T. Sanchez, California Rob Bishop, Utah
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Ric Keller, Florida
David Loebsack, Iowa Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
Phil Hare, Illinois Louisiana
Lynn C. Woolsey, California John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas York
Dean Heller, Nevada
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 7, 2007..................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Castle, Hon. Michael N., Senior Republican Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary
Education.................................................. 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Hare, Hon. Phil, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, submission for the record:
Prepared statement of the Coalition Promoting School
Success for All Children............................... 20
Kildee, Hon. Dale E., Chairman, Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.............. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Submissions for the record:
Prepared statement of Eva L. Baker, distinguished
professor, director, UCLA, Center for Research on
Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) 6
Prepared statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles
E. Ducommun professor, Stanford University School
of Education....................................... 12
Statement of Witnesses:
Finn, Chester E., Jr., president, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
and chairman, Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University........................... 43
Prepared statement of.................................... 45
Jennings, Jack, president, Center on Education Policy........ 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Johnson, Dr. Carol, superintendent of the Memphis City
Schools.................................................... 37
Prepared statement of.................................... 39
Melmer, Hon. Rick, South Dakota Secretary of Education....... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 31
Straus, Hon. Kathleen N., president, Michigan State Board of
Education.................................................. 33
Prepared statement of.................................... 35
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT:
CURRENT AND PROSPECTIVE FLEXIBILITY
UNDER NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
----------
Thursday, June 7, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary and Secondary Education
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:30 p.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dale Kildee
[chairman of the subcommittee] Presiding.
Present: Representatives Kildee, Kucinich, Davis of
California, Payne, Sarbanes, Loebsack, Hirono, Hare, Woolsey,
Castle, Hoekstra, Ehlers, Biggert, Bishop of Utah, Wilson,
Kuhl, and McKeon.
Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Hearing Clerk; Alice Cain,
Senior Education Policy Advisor (K-12); Adrienne Dunbar,
Legislative Fellow, Education; Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor
for Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary
Education; Lamont Ivey, Staff Assistant, Education; Thomas
Kiley, Communications Director; Danielle Lee, Press Outreach
Assistant; Jill Morningstar, Education Policy Advisor; Joe
Novotny, Chief Clerk; Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director; Lisette
Partelow, Staff Assistant, Education; James Bergeron, Minority
Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Robert
Borden, Minority General Counsel; Kathryn Bruns, Minority
Legislative Assistant; Steve Forde, Minority Communications
Director; Taylor Hansen, Minority Legislative Assistant; Victor
Klatt, Minority Staff Director; Chad Miller, Minority
Professional Staff; Susan Ross, Minority Director of Education
and Human Services Policy; Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk/
Assistant to the General Counsel; and Cameron Coursen, Minority
Assistant Communications Director.
Chairman Kildee. A quorum being present, the hearing of the
subcommittee will come to order. First of all, I love being in
the majority, but on a day like this the minority seems rather
attractive. I have got three things going on and you are one of
the major ones here, so I literally ran over from the other
building. Good to see all of you. You are all friends of mine
and I have known most of you for many, many years and welcome
you.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 12(a) any member may submit an
opening statement in writing which will be made part of the
permanent record. I would now recognize myself followed by
Ranking Member Castle for opening statements.
I am pleased to welcome my fellow subcommittee members, the
public and our witnesses to this hearing on
Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act. We very often use the term ``expert witnesses.'' today the
table speaks for itself. We have expert witnesses here today.
I would like to talk about the current and prospective
flexibility of No Child Left Behind. This is the eighth hearing
that this subcommittee has held on No Child Left Behind this
year. The full committee of course has held many hearings as
well. I think it is safe to say there is no subject we hear
more about than flexibility.
As written, the law provides for certain flexibilities and
the Department of Education has provided others. But many State
and local educators have told us that while they strongly
support the law's goals and the discussion about accountability
that it has fostered, better flexibility would help them to
reach those goals. I take their comments very seriously because
I always have believed that education is a local function, and
Jack Jennings used to hear me say this all the time years ago,
a State responsibility but a very important Federal concern.
As our society and the world have become more mobile and
more interconnected that national concern has grown. People
educated in one State wind up in another and we are competing
in a global economy and education and training will give us the
edge in that competition. And regardless of where in the United
States students live, they ultimately will compete with
students from around the world. But a greater national concern
does not mean less emphasis on State responsibilities and local
functions.
And so I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and how
flexibility under No Child Left Behind has been implemented and
how we can improve that flexibility. Their testimony as well as
the countless conversations that I know each member has had
with educators and parents in their district and here in
Washington will play a critical role in the committee's efforts
to understand how we can best help to provide every student
with a world class education, a goal we all share.
I also look forward to hearing from Mr. Jennings about his
center's recent studies on trends and student achievement since
No Child Left Behind took effect. The title of that study,
``Answering the Question That Matters Most, Has Student
Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind,'' is well
chosen since in the end the point of all this is student
achievement.
Of course one factor that has not increased enough under No
Child Left Behind has been funding. We owe it to our children
to ensure that their schools have the resources and support to
provide them with the education they need and deserve. Since
2002, Congress and the President have underfunded No Child Left
Behind by $56 billion. And the President's proposed budget for
2008 would underfund the law by another $15 billion for a total
of $71 billion. However, I am hopeful that with the changes in
Washington this year we will start to do better. Our budget
resolution calls for that.
But I look forward to continuing to work with my ranking
member, Mr. Castle, our full committee chairman and ranking
member, Mr. Miller and Mr. McKeon, and with all the members of
the committee on a bipartisan reauthorization of No Child Left
Behind this year. And I yield to my friend and the ranking
member, Governor Castle.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kildee follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Dale E. Kildee, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education
I'm pleased to welcome my fellow subcommittee members, the public,
and our witnesses, to this hearing on ``Reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Current and Prospective
Flexibility Under No Child Left Behind.''
This is the eighth hearing that this subcommittee has held on No
Child Left Behind this year.
The full committee, of course, has held many hearings as well.
And I think it's safe to say that there is no subject we hear more
about than flexibility.
As written, the law provides for certain flexibilities, and the
Department of Education has provided others.
But, many state and local educators have told us that while they
strongly support the law's goals and the discussion about
accountability that it has fostered, better flexibility would help them
to reach those goals.
I take their comments very seriously, because I always have
believed that education is a local function, a state responsibility and
a national concern.
As our society and our world have become more mobile and more
interconnected, that national concern has grown.
Many students from the home state of each member of this
subcommittee will one day move to the home states of every other member
of the subcommittee.
And regardless of where in the united states students live, they
ultimately will compete with students from around the world in the
global economy.
But, a greater national concern does not mean a lesser emphasis on
state responsibilities and local functions.
And so, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how
flexibility under NCLB has been implemented and on how we can improve
that flexibility.
Their testimony, as well as the countless conversations that I know
each member has had with educators and parents in their district and
here in Washington, will play a critical role in the committee's
efforts to understand how we can best help to provide every student
with a world-class education--a goal we all share.
I also look forward to hearing from Mr. Jennings about his center's
recent study on trends in student achievement since NCLB took effect.
The title of that study ``Answering the Question That Matters Most:
Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind?'' is well
chosen, since in the end, the point of all this is student achievement.
Of course, one factor that has not increased enough under No Child
Left Behind has been funding.
We owe it to our children to ensure that their schools have the
resources and support to provide them with the education they need and
deserve.
Since 2002, Congress and the President have underfunded No Child
Left Behind by $56 billion.
The president's proposed budget for 2008 would underfund the law by
another $15 billion, for a total of $71 billion.
However, I am hopeful that with the changes in washington this
year, we will start to do better.
But, I look forward to continuing to work together with my ranking
member, Mr. Castle, our full committee chairman and ranking member, Mr.
Miller and Mr. McKeon, and with all the members of the committee, on a
bipartisan reauthorizaton of NCLB this year.
I now yield to Ranking Member Castle for his opening statement.
______
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
you for holding today's hearing. As far as your comments and et
cetera being in the majority and the minority, having a busy
extremely day myself in the minority, I don't think it makes
much difference in terms of how busy we are around here. And if
you want to switch at any time just let me know and we'll try
to work out political party differences.
This is the latest in a series of hearings on No Child Left
Behind. Some of you out in this audience have followed that.
One thing nobody can ever accuse this committee of is not
having sufficient hearings on No Child Left Behind. We seem to
have had them almost on a weekly basis last year and this year
as we get ready to go up to the reauthorization.
We obviously welcome all the witnesses here today. I look
forward to your testimony. No Child Left Behind represents a
comprehensive overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act and was passed to adjust the achievement gap that
exists between low income and minority students and their more
affluent peers.
Earlier this week the Center on Education Policy released
the results of a study of trends and State test scores since No
Child Left Behind became law, and I am pleased to have the
President of CEP with us today to discuss these findings in
greater depth because the results are promising. For instance,
students are doing better on State reading and math tests since
the No Child Left Behind was enacted. And the greatest is being
made on elementary school math tests. While these findings are
encouraging additional flexibility for States in school
districts which have differing priorities will help a greater
number of their students reach proficiency.
Flexibility is already a key element within No Child Left
Behind. Currently individual States are given the flexibility
to determine a variety of student achievement factors,
including the definition of proficiency, the starting point for
progress measurement and the amount of progress that must be
made from year to year. States also have the flexibility to
develop their own tests to determine if existing teachers
should be deemed highly qualified.
Additionally, No Child Left Behind includes a number of new
and existing flexibility provisions that aim to increase the
ability of States and local school districts to use Federal
assistance to meet their own priorities, including the
transferability of Title I funds, school-wide programs to
improve services to all students and State and local
flexibility demonstration programs.
In addition to the valuable information each of our
witnesses will share with us today about flexibility provisions
under No Child Left Behind, Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican
of the full committee recently introduced the State and Local
Flexibility Improvement Act. This legislation builds upon the
success of No Child Left Behind by further strengthening
flexibility under the laws for States and local school
districts. As an original cosponsor of this legislation, I
believe this legislation gives States and local school
districts the freedom to target Federal resources to best serve
the needs of their students, while maintaining strong
accountability standards to measure would allow States to waive
certain statutory or regulatory requirements under law,
consolidate Federal education programs and use an alternative
method for making allocations in local school districts instead
of their current formula if their new proposal targets funds
more effectively to those areas with high concentrations of low
income families, measure individual student growth, including
through well-designed growth models, expand the poverty
threshold for school-wide programs and most notably allow
States and school districts to transfer 100 percent of their
Federal programs within certain programs, up from 50 percent
under current law, into the Title I program.
As I said, I believe strongly in No Child Left Behind. The
importance of closing the achievement gap cannot be overstated
and I believe Mr. McKeon's bill will help States and local
school districts close that gap even more quickly. I look
forward to hearing from today's witnesses about flexibility
under No Child Left Behind as Congress begins to reauthorize
this law, and I thank you all very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Castle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
Good Afternoon. I'd like to thank Chairman Kildee for holding
today's hearing, the latest in our series of hearings on the No Child
Left Behind Act. I also would like to welcome our witnesses and thank
you all for being here to testify today.
NCLB represents a comprehensive overhaul of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act and was passed to address the achievement gap
that exists between low-income and minority students and their more
affluent peers.
Earlier this week, the Center on Education Policy released the
results of a study of trends in state test scores since NCLB became
law. I am pleased we have the president of CEP with us today to discuss
these findings in greater depth because the results are promising. For
instance:
Students are doing better on state reading and math tests
since the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted
And the greatest progress is being made on elementary
school math tests.
While these findings are encouraging, additional flexibility for
states and school districts, which have differing priorities, will help
a greater number of their students reach proficiency.
Flexibility is already a key element within NCLB. Currently,
individual states are given the flexibility to determine a variety of
student achievement factors, including the definition of proficiency,
the starting point for progress measurement, and the amount of progress
that must be made from year to year. States also have the flexibility
to develop their own tests to determine if existing teachers should be
deemed highly qualified.
Additionally, NCLB includes a number of new and existing
flexibility provisions that aim to increase the ability of states and
local school districts to use federal assistance to meet their own
priorities including the transferability of Title I funds, school-wide
programs to improve services to all students, and state and local
flexibility demonstration programs.
In addition to the valuable information each of our witnesses will
share with us today about flexibility provisions under No Child Left
Behind, Mr. McKeon, the Senior Republican of the Full Committee,
recently introduced the State and Local Flexibility Improvement Act.
This legislation builds upon the success of NCLB by further
strengthening flexibility under the law for states and local school
districts.
As an original cosponsor of this legislation, I believe this
legislation gives states and local school districts the freedom to
target federal resources to best serve the needs of their students.
While maintaining strong accountability standards, the measure
would:
Allow states to waive certain statutory or regulatory
requirements under law, consolidate federal education programs, and use
an alternative method for making allocations to local school districts
instead of their current formula if their new proposal targets funds
more effectively to those areas with high concentrations of low-income
families;
Measure individual student growth, including through well-
designed growth models;
Expand the poverty threshold for school-wide programs; and
Most notably, allow states and school districts to
transfer 100 percent of their federal funds within certain programs, up
from 50 percent under current law, into the Title I program
As I have said, I believe strongly in No Child Left Behind. The
importance of closing the achievement gap cannot be overstated, and I
believe Mr. McKeon's bill will help states and local school districts
close that gap even more quickly. I look forward to hearing from
today's witnesses about flexibility under NCLB as Congress begins to
reauthorize this law.
Thank you.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you, Governor. Without objection,
all members will have 7 calendar days to submit additional
materials or questions for the hearing record.
[The prepared statement of Eva L. Baker, submitted by Mr.
Kildee, follows:]
Prepared Statement of Eva L. Baker, Distinguished Professor, Director,
UCLA, Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
(CRESST)
I thank Chairman Miller for the opportunity to provide testimony.
Below is a summary of the main ideas of testimony related to No
Child Left Behind*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Note: In the interest of brevity, I will not discuss aspects of
the legislation that may be regarded as positive and rather focus on
areas that I believe need attention. I attach a draft of my AERA
presidential address, which spells out a justification for my
recommendations. Because the presentation is intended to be oral, it
does not contain the research citations you may want. If you desire
citations, I can provide them upon my return to Los Angeles the week of
April 15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Reduce the number of subject matter tests required, keeping the
focus on elementary education.
2. If multiple measures are to be used, involving student
performance, consider they are compensatory rather than conjunctive use
in elementary school, so they do not add risk to schools AYP.
3. Provide incentives for States to develop and use valid tests
that assess students' ability to transfer and apply knowledge.
Encourage flexibility to determine the relative value that should be
accorded broadly sampled knowledge compared to evidence of depth of
study.
4. Consider multiple studies of the validity of measures now in
use, sampling over States.
5. Provide incentives for States to experiment and validate
``opportunity to learn'' in classroom practice, to determine the
breadth and range of teaching.
6. Conduct validity studies related to the performance and types of
instruction experienced by groups such as English learners and low
scorers on State Examinations.
7. Change achievement criteria for secondary school by immediately
authorizing the use of qualifications for students to be completed by
their graduation. These qualifications are not single tests, but
provide integrated choices for students to acquire and demonstrate
expertise in subject matter, in tasks related to societal needs, e.g.,
environmental studies, or in topics such as the performing arts.
Qualifications may be relevant to future work or postsecondary study
but not restricted to them. They must count in accountability formulae.
(Note that excellent examples may be seen in Web sites of education
ministries in other countries, for instance, in the New Zealand system:
See http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications/index.html)
8. Revise the Adequate Yearly Progress requirements to permit more
flexibility. Flexibility may be attained by recording performance on
subsets of examinations, that could be taken at various times during
the year, by considering periods longer than a year or two for the
computation of sanction-related AYP performance, and by reducing the
artifacts (such as number of groups) that influence AYP.
Take a moment and consider the following question. What needs to
change in your life? I have a confession to make. You may be surprised
to learn that I want a life with more balance. Over the years, I've
asked many AERA members to name a professional who lives a balanced
life and always with the same result. Long stares and no names. For
most of us, however, balance is victim of competing values, looming
obligations, unfulfilled ambitions, and in my case, wearable media. I
think it no accident that balance is a metaphor for justice. The lack
of balance takes different forms but is found across the entire
economic spectrum--for all groups and all kinds of people--for the old,
for the young, and relevant here, for those in schools.
In particular, U.S. adults consistently report in surveys that
their lives are out of whack. I think we have inadvertently projected
this imbalance onto the lives of schools.
So this talk--The End(s) of Testing--is about balance--what we have
now, and ways to move to a new equilibrium--where we reconnect
achievement to learning, equity to more than equal test scores, and
students to their own paths. With advance apologies, I'll use a few
examples from other countries and liberally incorporate ideas from
research here and around the world, without oral citation because of
time.
Consider Jerome Bruner's statement ``Life in culture is, then, an
interplay between the versions of the world that people form under its
institutional sway and the versions of it that are products of their
individual histories.'' Accountability tests have swung education
strongly toward institutional goals and away from those of the
individual. We need common goals and measures to identify and fix
inadequacies and inequities. But these accountability indicators have
dramatic effects on teaching and learning. Cramped by requirements, we
harden instruction, drop electives, and shorten time for in-depth
engagement. Students' voices and choices are fainter. Since the world
is flat in testing, too, test results everywhere strongly affect
classroom realities and public perceptions of learning and schooling.
Balance is a goal, and a fundamental design principle essential to
quality itself. Balance invariably involves trade-offs, so what do we
give up to gain educational balance? Let's start with what we have.
On Current Standards and Accountability Measures
Daily, or more often, researchers and education writers bemoan the
technical shortfalls of tests now used in accountability, contending
that the content of these tests is off, their sampling is odd, and deep
cognition is lost. Nor do the institutional tests seem to matter much
to students. I add to that litany that these tests virtually ignore
learning research and transfer of knowledge, that is, the application
of learning to something other than to another test. Tests only dimly
reflect in their design the results of research on learning, either of
skills, subject matter, or problem solving. These test properties
matter to researchers, but rarely to others. Many professionals, and I
would guess, most of the public, don't make fine distinctions. They see
tests on the same topic as interchangeable, and a high score on any
test as sufficient evidence of learning.
To my mind, the evidential disconnect between test design and
learning research is no small thing. Think about it. It means, at
worst, the tests may not actually be measuring the learning for which
schools are responsible, thus gutting the basic tenet of the
accountability compact. So set aside learning-based design, and ask,
``How well do any of our external tests work?'' The answer is that we
often don't know enough to know. We have little evidence that tests are
in synch with their stated or de facto purposes, or that their results
lead to appropriate decisions. In other words, we act as if tests were
valid, in the face of weak or limited evidence. Notwithstanding, we
make heavy and far-reaching decisions about schools and students, talk
about gaps, and applaud progress. This excitement takes place with only
fragments of evidence called for by the Test Standards of AERA, NCME,
and APA. Educational researchers conduct validity studies, when
possible, and have called for high-quality, evidence-based tests for
years. We know the importance of right inferences by teachers,
administrators, and the government. We should be at least queasy about
the quality of the interpretations, the meaning of gaps and
improvement, and the resultant classifications of schools. Yet, test
validity languishes as a largely unexamined, prior question because of
inexorable schedules and budget constraints. With tests of uncertain
validity, adequate yearly progress (AYP), value-added, or other growth
modeling analyses will have limited meaning in accountability
interpretations.
So how did we get here? The wave of U.S. reform was stimulated, in
part, by lackluster performance on international comparisons more than
two decades ago. Not surprisingly the reform plan was to follow the
international lead and design a quasi-national system of standards and
assessments. Despite awareness of huge differences in context and
traditions (our 50-State autonomy in education, distributed curricula,
independent teacher education institutions, and waning respect for
those working in education), sets of State and Federal legislation
enabled state standards and related tests.
We see once more how tests exert power. Research in both schools
and laboratories shows that testing improves learning of what is
tested, even in the absence of feedback, and that with feedback,
learning improves more. When results are linked to sanctions, teaching
moves to conform to the content boundaries of the tests. Because topics
on tests are represented inequitably, to avoid sanctions it is
efficient to practice TEST-LIKE items. Practice them a lot. Dan Koretz
calls this score inflation. You may call it smart. In either case, it
is likely that test-specific content and formats are learned through
test practice at the expense of the intended content and skill domains
promised by standards. But some learning takes place. Now a new kind of
test anxiety uses up all the instructional oxygen in the classroom.
Coping Strategies and ``Accountabalism''
While accepting the importance of accountability, educators in the
U.S. and internationally have anticipated negative consequences of
hyper test consciousness. David Weinberger, in the Harvard Business
Review, describes a process called ``Accountabalism'' (think of
Hannibal Lector with a checklist). Weinberger illustrates the
consequences of a repair mentality that deals serially with each
successive difficulty in accountability systems as if we could perfect
the system. Although not focused on schools, his analysis of
accountability suggests that a chronological, piecemeal fix does really
not improve systems. Over time, repeated patching and spackling
consumes all remaining flexibility. Sound familiar?
Mitigations
In attempting to head off some of the negative side effects of
accountability while still accepting its value, educators advocate six
tactics. The first tactic is to add more or different measures or
indictors to accountability, in shorthand, to use ``multiple measures''
(although the original intent of the term was to allow students
different ways to show their competence). One approach adds a periodic
test, say, of history, with rotating content to the system, to be
incorporated into the accountability calculation.
A second type calls for measures of opportunity to learn or OTL as
part of accountability models. OTL was early thought of as a check both
on the fair access to test-relevant instruction and as a shield to
protect non-tested content and activities, such as different courses.
Scalable, valid methods for routinely assessing inside-the-classroom
OTL remain an ongoing research quest. When there are efficient,
replicable, and valid procedures for its measurement, the role of OTL
is clear in accountability.
``Having tests worth teaching to,'' despite its grammatical
failure, is the mantra of the third approach, performance assessment.
Change the test and legitimate test preparation. Serve good rather than
evil. Performance assessment calls for multi-stepped activities,
usually imbued with some realism. More significantly, performance
assessment design originally reflected research from teaching, from
cognitive psychology, and from subject matter learning. In its heyday,
models from abroad were emulated, and tasks were sometimes directly
copied. After handsome financial support, popularity waned and only
vestiges of performance assessment, such as written composition, can be
found on mandated tests--and in higher education. Why the demise? The
list includes lack of political acceptance and structural integration,
feasibility, technical quality, struggles in longitudinal use,
credibility (because of overselling), and cost.
These three examples of multiple measures, unless done wisely,
offer schools the scary option of more ways to fail.
A fourth and currently ``hot'' mitigating tactic is formative
assessment. Assessment to support learning has been continuously in
play since writing by Vygotsky, Skinner, and Lindquist, and before.
Black and Wiliam, James, and Heritage, all from abroad, by the way, now
invoke a process where teachers ask penetrating questions, pinpoint
errors, give insightful and timely feedback, and use innovative
teaching to help students. Not surprisingly, has been the entry of
commercially supplied benchmark or interim tests are in use, carrying
the rationale for formative assessment, if not its spirit. For use at
intervals during instruction, interim or benchmark tests give previews
of coming results, based on test segments similar to the main
assessment. The validity of these measures is rarely cited, other than
similar items predict results on similar items. Although, their results
are intended to influence teaching, because of strict instructional
pacing, some teachers have little or no time to use these interim
results and must move on. Even with adequate time, teachers need
expertise in their subject matter understanding of their students, and
fluency in alternate ways of teaching. Teachers with these skills are
in short supply where they are needed most.
A fifth tactic limits the number of standards to be tested by
setting clear priorities. A less-is-more stance. The Commission on
Instructionally-Supportive Testing, prepared a report arguing that
fewer, but more powerful standards will lead to valid measurement, more
coherent teaching, and deeper student learning. Their proposal directly
confronts the political bargains that underlie expansive lists of
standards.
A sixth approach is technology, and it is my favorite. I'm the one,
after all, with a Blackberry and a Treo, waiting anxiously for the
iPhone, to complement my 4 iPods, 5 computers, and the Slingshot TiVo.
Intelligent tutoring systems show us how to link assessment and
learning models. Yet, technology-linked tests have not yet stepped up
to early expectations. In large-scale testing, they serve efficiency
without capitalizing on their potential to leverage higher fidelity
experience (like simulations), or exploit students' ease with
technology.
As a way forward to revitalize performance assessment, technology
offers some hope to find more effective ways to assess validity with
regard to learning, and to reduce the cost of design and use. There is
excellent progress in computer scoring of open-ended written responses;
with optical character reading, students' handwritten work can be
scanned and directly marked by computer. Speech recognition
technologies process oral language, so discourse of learners of all
ages and language backgrounds can be partly analyzed. Expect to see
more computer games and virtual worlds as assessment contexts, as well
as assessment embedded in common devices such as cell phones and game
platforms--first to reduce gaps in computer access, and second to
leverage motivation with fun and the familiar. A second use of common
devices is to permit ``anytime, any where'' or ``just-in-time''
assessment. To speed and improve assessment design, look to computer-
assisted assessment authoring systems that can improve assessment
design with built-in knowledge to assist users to make, mark, and
manage tests.
International Comparisons
If our showing on international comparisons started us down this
path, what do recent international tests tell us? The Organisation for
Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has fielded the Programme
for International Student Assessment (PISA), examinations that include
cross-curricula content and the application of cognitive skills, such
as problem solving. Their results are worth reflection. The vertical
bars show great performance variation between the best and poorest
performing students in most countries on some 21st century skills. This
variation applies almost independently of average score, except for
size and homogeneity of national populations. Why? Are current
curricula not sufficiently attuned to future requirements, are students
not taught to transfer learning, or to apply cognitive skills to new
situations? Don't all students deserve to learn these skills?
CRESST POWERSOURCE--A U.S.-International Collaboration
I will now briefly touch on our own integration of a balanced
formative assessment system, with design based on learning research,
including schema development, explanation, narrative, and transfer.
Based on about 40 earlier studies, POWERSOURCE, funded by our
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Center award, is our major
experimental project in middle-school, pre-algebra, and rests on
multiple interim assessments of problem solving and explanation.
POWERSOURCE development begins with analyzing cognitive demands, then
representing the relationship of these intellectual skills in a content
ontology. The content includes ``big Mathematics ideas,'' the power
principles, which we construe as schema, to be applied flexibly across
topic and problem type. The ontology controls sampling and sequence,
and also serves as a learning performance aid to help teachers and
students map where they are during instruction. Our assessments are
based on research by Sweller, Mayer and their colleagues on schema
acquisition and worked examples, on explanation studies (by Chi and by
our own team), and on transfer research (by Bjork and Holyoak and
others). Assessments are embedded in a kid-friendly narrative theme. We
predict in this 3-year longitudinal study improved teacher content and
pedagogical knowledge. We expect superior student performance on state
assessments, and, because of their schema acquisition, higher
performance on transfer tasks drawn both from the Key Stage 3 maths
tests in England and from the PISA examination. This experiment is
being replicated in Korea at that country's own expense, to generate
comparative information about the use of learning research in designing
assessment. With POWERSOURCE, we illustrate assessment balance with a
method that transfers to different subjects and ages of students.
The International Stage of Examinations
An obvious question given their initial impetus, is how closely do
U.S. tests resemble examinations from abroad, such as those in New
Zealand, or Hong Kong, or Finland? The quick answer is they don't,
despite, in some countries, the use of similar test formats. But
response format aside, most national testing differs substantially from
the U.S. versions. These countries make far greater investment in
integrating curriculum, professional development, and assessment, thus
removing the need for post hoc rationalization of alignment. Extensive
care is given to the content of the test questions, and to model
answers used to guide marking. (Of course, national testing systems are
themselves subject to continuing and sometimes scathing debate.)
Visit Web sites of education departments and ministries around the
world and you will see great variety. Notice the range existing within
many examination systems. Whether workforce or university paths,
secondary school students in other countries have many options. They
select from a wide range of course-based examinations, in some
countries close to 50 choices. Some options look like the familiar
Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses; other
choices encourage high school students to pursue interests unconnected
to traditional university or work requirements, for instance, in the
visual and performing arts or environmental studies.
Before the Future
Before I sketch a way to attain balance for students and schools,
let's return to current accountability practice. First, the tests--I
say let's leave them alone. They are resilient, embedded in our
traditions, and changes to them are always temporary (they snap back
like a rubber band), with at best trivial residue. To attain better
balance, I'd have fewer tests, locating them during skill building in
elementary schools. Even if their numbers were reduced, we still must
demand studies of validity inferences and the tests' multiple purposes.
With current accountability systems, in the U.S., I say fix the
elements of AYP to minimize harm, by considering the raw probabilities
of failure related to numbers of groups by partitioning of tests into
passable components, and by aggregating results in larger units than a
year or two. It is appealing to consider new indicators or multiple
measures to balance testing, but their integration in accountability
numbers must avoid artifacts that put schools inappropriately at risk.
Change
``The scientific revolution that began 300 years ago has
accelerated exponentially. It is moving so fast that the spread of
knowledge defines our times.''
``There will be more change in the next ten years than in the
previous 100 years.''
Fareed Zakaria, 2006, 2007.
``640K ought to be enough for anybody.''
Bill Gates, 1981.
If our accountability system stays locked on producing only common
(and needed) achievement, we will continue to open wider the chasm
between what is sanctioned and what student futures demand. So the
matter of balance returns. Can we have balance and deal with the
students we have now, without wishing they were different? We can't
wait until all high school students have developed proficient language
skills, attended innovative preschools, or learned number facts from
amazing third-grade teachers. So here and now, can we offer students
options better suited to a new and changing work environment, to a life
in a real-time society with amped-up connectivity? And can we teach
them in a way that models flexibility and problem solving? Researchers
Glaser, Simon, O'Neil, and Perez, among others, have listed skill-sets
for a future brimming with choices and expectations:
Adaptive problem-solving abilities;
Capacity to assess and respond to risk;
Managing distraction, and giving mindful, rotating
attention to tasks;
Solitary work, with self management;
Changeable roles in real or virtual teams and groups.
Posit these as a beginning of new 21st century definition of
educational quality. Start in secondary school where we all have
unresolved and growing problems. There we should create rapidly a
system of Qualifications to reflect 21st century needs, to be available
to all students, whatever their status on standards-based tests. My
image of a Qualification is validated accomplishment, obtained inside
or outside of school. A Qualification means just that: at different
levels of challenge, that a student has attained a certified, trusted
accomplishment. Warmed-over performance assessment? I think not. Each
Qualification is not a new test, but an integrated experience with
performance requirements. It might look like a course, or a collection,
or a musical or sports performance. Some Qualifications may demand
shorter, intense involvement like securing a certification in CPR, or
network management. They come aligned, with integrated goals, tasks,
learning experiences, criteria and tests. Merit badge metaphors, like
one proposed many years ago by Al Shanker, may help you get the idea.
It is a truth in advertising approach; instead of a set of ``scores,''
a student possesses demonstrated accomplishments.
Qualifications seem to have many benefits. They give clear venues
for high school students to improve skills, apply and adapt knowledge,
and acquire new learning. They support and credit emerging maturity to
develop desired personal expertise.
To presage construction, an ontology of Qualifications will give
structure to their features. Let me illustrate an ontological dimension
of Qualifications related to learning. For example, as design criteria,
each Qualification could represent:
a. Complex problem solving and reasoning;
b. Flexibility and adaptive performance;
c. Rich knowledge base;
d. Schema or principle learning;
e. Metacognition and self-monitoring;
f. Communication, either explanatory or interactive.
The Qualifications chosen by students should span a range of
personal goals, and with any luck help them to develop a passion in at
least one area.
What could Qualification topics include? Certainly disciplinary
inquiry, exemplified in different ways, perhaps in science fairs,
competitions, or projects; then there are the performing or visual
arts, community service, healthcare, interning in business,
environmental studies, teaching the young, mentoring peers, and helping
the old.
Who will offer these options? Some may be available in high
schools, in afterschool programs, in community colleges, or in
universities. I expect that the Web delivery, with its entrepreneurial
brainpower and finance will be a powerful and welcome source of
creative Qualifications. Public and private spaces, such as museums,
businesses, government, advocacy, private and service organizations,
can help too.
How to begin? Our international colleagues have wonderful
Qualifications that we can adapt. If we want to take this reform path,
it will be a national challenge of commitment. At the very least, the
expectations and rhythms of secondary school will change. Although
Qualifications will need to be understood, energized and partly managed
by teachers, expertise outside of school will matter, too.
Is this rebalancing of secondary school curricula feasible? Yes, if
four benchmarks are met within a reasonable time.
First, the framework(s) for these Qualifications must reside in one
or more politically credible national or State organizations. Achieve,
Inc. has a great start in its American Diploma Project with more than
half of the states participating. Or see the State Department of
Instruction in North Carolina for another example. Benchmark 2 is
quality control. What evidence of quality is needed for a
Qualifications adoption? Forms of evidence could include empirical
comparisons or expert judgment.
Benchmark 3, acceptance by business and universities in their
selection processes, is essential for the Qualifications to matter to
students. Benchmark 4, and of extraordinary importance, is that
Qualifications be made a part of State and Federal accountability
systems and linked to other politically powerful structures. With that
role, we need protections against phony performance, plagiarism, and
overzealous parental help.
How fast? As a lover of 10-year funded research grants, I'm sorry
to say our timelines in this area must be unusually brief. No years of
trials and pilots, but concurrent validity studies. By starting with
examples and data from other countries or adopting existing
Qualifications from our own business and arts sectors, we can have a
pool of 40 Qualifications available by 2008, but only as a start. We
should use systematic R&D models from other national ventures and
invest in parallel development of Qualifications in different areas.
The federal government, along with the private sector, can be a
financial catalyst. A modified NCLB should phase in Qualifications NOW.
Unless we begin right now to fix educational balance, with a strong
focus on secondary schools, we will have stark questions to answer. Who
decided to triage large numbers, and particular groups of secondary
school students? Why don't we care that many will not find a life of
contribution and meaning? A goal of balance in the revitalization of
secondary schooling will develop generations of students to be far
better prepared than we are.
Research Agenda
The research agenda is long, and at this hour our attention is
short (I'll make a complete list in the written version of the paper).
Yet, opportunities traverse theories of learning and validity,
explorations of equity, individual and group differences, definitions
of adaptability, studies of transfer within and across fields,
expertise, narrative, efficacy, self-management, and motivation. For
both students and teachers. We can look at second or third chances,
mobilizing community and business interests, and of course, cost.
So to return to the beginning, can we find ways to get balance into
the schools and promote a different quality of learning--within the
essential framework of accountability? Can we take on the high school
substantively? Let's cross over to a new path, built on previous
research, and reinvest in learning, where accomplishments come with
validity, and the balance is redressed between what we think high
school students need and what they think they need. The paths of
Qualifications shift attention from school work to usable and
compelling skills, from school life to real life. With pride our
students can assemble their unique collection of Qualifications, to
show to their families, adults in university and workforce, and to
themselves. With collaboration of both the international community and
our own communities, we can enable education to prepare our students
far better for the future. As you know, when we are balanced, each of
us is able to move easily in a range of directions. So with balance,
and help from the world community, our students succeed, and fulfill
their not yet imagined dreams.
______
[The prepared statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, submitted
by Mr. Kildee, follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun
Professor, Stanford University School of Education
I thank Chairman Miller and the members of the Committee for the
opportunity to offer testimony on the re-authorization of ESEA, in
particular the ways in which we measure and encourage school progress
and improvement. My perspective on these issues is informed by my
research, my work with states and national organizations on standards
development, and my work with local schools. I have studied the
implementation of No Child Left Behind,\1\ as well as testing and
accountability systems within the United States and abroad.\2\ I have
also served as past Chair of the New York State Council on Curriculum
and Assessment and of the Chief State School Officers' INTASC Standards
Development Committee. I work closely with a number of school districts
and local schools on education improvement efforts, including several
new urban high schools that I have helped to launch. Thus, I have
encountered the issues of school improvement from both a system-wide
and local school vantage point.
I am hopeful that this re-authorization can build on the strengths
and opportunities offered by No Child Left Behind, while addressing
needs that have emerged during the first years of the law's
implementation. Among the strengths of the law is its focus on
improving the academic achievement of all students, which triggers
attention to school performance and to the needs of students who have
been underserved, and its insistence that all students are entitled to
qualified teachers, which has stimulated recruitment efforts in states
where many disadvantaged students previously lacked this key resource
for learning.
The law has succeeded in getting states, districts, and local
schools to pay attention to achievement. The next important step is to
ensure that the range of things schools and states pay attention to
actually helps them improve both the quality of education they offer to
every student and the quality of the overall schooling enterprise. In
order to accomplish this, I would ask you to actively encourage states
to:
Develop accountability systems that use multiple measures
of learning and other important aspects of school performance in
evaluating school progress;
Differentiate school improvement strategies for schools
based on a comprehensive analysis of their instructional quality and
conditions for learning.
Why Use Multiple Measures?
There are at least three reasons to gauge student and school
progress based on multiple measures of learning and school performance:
To direct schools' attention and effort to the range of
measures that are associated with high-quality education and
improvement;
To avoid dysfunctional consequences that can encourage
schools, districts, or states to emphasize one important outcome at the
expense of another; for example, focusing on a narrow set of skills at
the expense of others that are equally critical, or boosting test
scores by excluding students from school; and
To capture an adequate and accurate picture of student
learning and attainment that both measures and promotes the kinds of
outcomes we need from schools.
Directing Attention to Measures Associated with School Quality
One of the central concepts of NCLB's approach is that schools and
systems will organize their efforts around the measures for which they
are held accountable. Because attending to any one measure can be both
partial and problematic, the concept of multiple measures is routinely
used by policymakers to make critical decisions about such matters as
employment and economic forecasting (for example, the Dow Jones Index
or the GNP) and admission to college, where grades, essays, activities,
and accomplishments are considered along with test scores.
Successful businesses use a ``dashboard'' set of indicators to
evaluate their health and progress, aware that no single indicator is
sufficient to understand or guide their operations. This approach is
designed to focus attention on those aspects of the business that
describe elements of the business's current health and future
prospects, and to provide information that employees can act on in
areas that make a difference for improvement. So, for example, a
balanced scorecard is likely to include among its financial indicators
not only a statement of profits, but also cash flow, dividends, costs
and accounts receivable, assets, inventory, and so on. Business leaders
understand that efforts to maximize profits alone could lead to
behaviors that undermine the long-term health of the enterprise.
Similarly, a single measure approach in education creates some
unintended negative consequences and fails to focus schools on doing
those things that can improve their long-term health and the education
of their students. Although No Child Left Behind calls for multiple
measures of student performance, the implementation of the law has not
promoted the use of such measures for evaluating school progress. As I
describe in the next section, the focus on single, often narrow, test
scores in many states has created unintended negative consequences for
the nature of teaching and learning, for access to education for the
most vulnerable students, and for the appropriate identification of
schools that are in need of improvement.
A multiple measures approach that incorporates the right
``dashboard'' of indicators would support a shift toward ``holding
states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that
improve student achievement'' as has been urged by the Forum on
Education and Accountability. This group of 116 education and civil
rights organizations--which include the National Urban League, NAACP,
League of United Latin American Citizens, Aspira, Children's Defense
Fund, National Alliance of Black School Educators, and Council for
Exceptional Children, as well as the National School Boards
Association, National Education Association, and American Association
of School Administrators--has offered a set of proposals for NCLB that
would focus schools, districts, and states on developing better
teaching, a stronger curriculum, and supports for school improvement.
Avoiding Dysfunctional Consequences
Another reason to use a multiple measures approach is to avoid the
negative consequences that occur when one measure is used to drive
organizational behavior.
The current accountability provisions of the Act, which are focused
almost exclusively on school average scores on annual tests, actually
create large incentives for schools to keep students out and to hold
back or push out students who are not doing well. A number of studies
have found that systems that reward or sanction schools based on
average student scores create incentives for pushing low-scorers into
special education so that their scores won't count in school
reports,\3\ retaining students in grade so that their grade-level
scores will look better,\4\ excluding low-scoring students from
admissions,\5\ and encouraging such students to leave schools or drop
out.\6\
Studies in New York,\7\ Texas,\8\ and Massachusetts,\9\ among
others, have showed how schools have raised their test scores while
``losing'' large numbers of low-scoring students. For example, a recent
study in a large Texas city found that student dropouts and push outs
accounted for most of the gains in high school student test scores,
especially for minority students. The introduction of a high-stakes
test linked to school ratings in the 10th grade led to sharp increases
in 9th grade student retention and student dropout and disappearance.
Of the large share of students held back in the 9th grade, most of them
African American and Latino, only 12% ever took the 10th grade test
that drove school rewards. Schools that retained more students at grade
9 and lost more through dropouts and disappearances boosted their
accountability ratings the most. Overall, fewer than half of all
students who started 9th grade graduated within 5 years, even as test
scores soared.\10\
Paradoxically, NCLB's requirement for disaggregating data and
tracking progress for each subgroup of students increases the
incentives for eliminating those at the bottom of each subgroup,
especially where schools have little capacity to improve the quality of
services such students receive. Table 1 shows how this can happen. At
``King Middle School,'' average scores increased from the 70th to the
72nd percentile between the 2002 and 2003 school year, and the
proportion of students in attendance who met the proficiency standard
(a score of 65) increased from 66% to 80%--the kind of performance that
a test-based accountability system would reward. Looking at subgroup
performance, the proportion of Latino students meeting the standard
increased from 33% to 50%, a steep increase.
However, not a single student at King improved his or her score
between 2002 and 2003. In fact, the scores of every single student in
the school went down over the course of the year. How could these steep
improvements in the school's average scores and proficiency rates have
occurred? A close look at Table 1 shows that the major change between
the two years was that the lowest-scoring student, Raul, disappeared.
As has occurred in many states with high stakes-testing programs,
students who do poorly on the tests--special needs students, new
English language learners, those with poor attendance, health, or
family problems--are increasingly likely to be excluded by being
counseled out, transferred, expelled, or by dropping out.
TABLE 1.--KING MIDDLE SCHOOL: REWARDS OR SANCTIONS?
The Relationship between Test Score Trends and Student Populations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2002-03 2003-04
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laura........................................... 100 90
James........................................... 90 80
Felipe.......................................... 80 70
Kisha........................................... 70 65
Jose............................................ 60 55
Raul............................................ 20 ..............................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ave. Score = 70 Ave. Score = 72
% meeting standard = 66% % meeting standard = 80%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This kind of result is not limited to education. When one state
decided to rank cardiac surgeons based on their mortality rates, a
follow up investigation found that surgeons' ratings went up as they
stopped taking on high-risk clients. These patients were referred out
of state if they were wealthy, or were not served, if they were poor.
The three national professional organizations of measurement
experts have called attention to such problems in their joint Standards
for Educational and Psychological Testing, which note that:
Beyond any intended policy goals, it is important to consider
potential unintended effects that may result from large-scale testing
programs. Concerns have been raised, for instance, about narrowing the
curriculum to focus only on the objectives tested, restricting the
range of instructional approaches to correspond to the testing format,
increasing the number of dropouts among students who do not pass the
test, and encouraging other instructional or administrative practices
that may raise test scores without affecting the quality of education.
It is important for those who mandate tests to consider and monitor
their consequences and to identify and minimize the potential of
negative consequences.\11\
Professional testing standards emphasize that no test is
sufficiently reliable and valid to be the sole source of important
decisions about student placements, promotions, or graduation, but that
such decisions should be made on the basis of several different kinds
of evidence about student learning and performance in the classroom.
For example, Standard 13.7 states:
In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will
have major impact on a student should not be made on the basis of a
single test score. Other relevant information should be taken into
account if it will enhance the overall validity of the decision.\12\
The Psychological Standards for Testing describe several kinds of
information that should be considered in making judgments about what a
student knows and can do, including alternative assessments that
provide other information about performance and evidence from samples
of school work and other aspects of the school record, such as grades
and classroom observations. These are particularly important for
students for whom traditional assessments are not generally valid, such
as English language learners and special education students. Similarly,
when evaluating schools, it is important to include measures of student
progress through school, coursework and grades, and graduation, as part
of the record about school accomplishments.
Evaluating Learning Well
Indicators beyond a single test score are important not only for
reasons of validity and fairness in making decisions, but also to
assess important skills that most standardized tests do not measure.
Current accountability reforms are based on the idea that standards can
serve as a catalyst for states to be explicit about learning goals, and
the act of measuring progress toward meeting these standards is an
important force toward developing high levels of achievement for all
students. However, an on-demand test taken in a limited period of time
on a single day cannot measure all that is important for students to
know and be able to do. A credible accountability system must rest on
assessments that are balanced and comprehensive with respect to state
standards. Multiple-choice and short-answer tests that are currently
used to measure standards in many states do not adequately measure the
complex thinking, communication, and problem solving skills that are
represented in national and state content standards.
Research on high-stakes accountability systems shows that, ``what
is tested is what is taught,'' and those standards that are not
represented on the high stakes assessment tend to be given short shrift
in the curriculum.\13\ Students are less likely to engage in extended
research, writing, complex problem-solving, and experimentation when
the accountability system emphasizes short-answer responses to
formulaic problems. These higher order thinking skills are those very
skills that often are cited as essential to maintaining America's
competitive edge and necessary for succeeding on the job, in college,
and in life. As described by Achieve, a national organization of
governors, business leaders, and education leaders, the problem with
measures of traditional on-demand tests is that they cannot measure
many of the skills that matter most for success in the worlds of work
and higher education:
States * * * will need to move beyond large-scale assessments
because, as critical as they are, they cannot measure everything that
matters in a young person's education. The ability to make effective
oral arguments and conduct significant research projects are considered
essential skills by both employers and postsecondary educators, but
these skills are very difficult to assess on a paper-and pencil
test.\14\
One of the reasons that U.S. students fall further and further
behind their international counterparts as they go through school is
because of differences in curriculum and assessment systems.
International studies have found that the U.S. curriculum focuses more
on superficial coverage of too many topics, without the kinds of in-
depth study, research, and writing needed to secure deep understanding.
To focus on understanding, the assessment systems used in most high-
achieving countries around the world emphasize essay questions,
research projects, scientific experiments, oral exhibitions and
performances that encourage students to master complex skills as they
apply them in practice, rather than multiple-choice tests.
As indicators of the growing distance between what our education
system emphasizes and what leading countries are accomplishing
educationally, the U.S. currently ranks 28th of 40 countries in the
world in math achievement--right above Latvia--and 19th of 40 in
reading achievement on the international PISA tests that measure
higher-order thinking skills. And while the top-scoring nations--
including previously low-achievers like Finland and South Korea--now
graduate more than 95% of their students from high school, the U.S. is
graduating about 75%, a figure that has been stagnant for a quarter
century and, according to a recent ETS study, is now declining. The
U.S. has also dropped from 1st in the world in higher education
participation to 13th, as other countries invest more resources in
their children's futures.
Most high-achieving nations' examination systems include multiple
samples of student learning at the local level as well as the state or
national level. Students' scores are a composite of their performance
on examinations they take in different content areas--featuring
primarily open-ended items that require written responses and problem
solutions--plus their work on a set of classroom tasks scored by their
teachers according to a common set of standards. These tasks require
them to conduct apply knowledge to a range of tasks that represent what
they need to be able to do in different fields: find and analyze
information, solve multi-step real-world problems in mathematics,
develop computer models, demonstrate practical applications of science
methods, design and conduct investigations and evaluate their results,
and present and defend their ideas in a variety of ways. Teaching to
these assessments prepares students for the real expectations of
college and of highly skilled work.
These assessments are not used to rank or punish schools, or to
deny promotion or diplomas to students. In fact, several countries have
explicit proscriptions against such practices. They are used to
evaluate curriculum and guide investments in professional learning--in
short, to help schools improve. By asking students to show what they
know through real-world applications of knowledge, these nations'
assessment systems encourage serious intellectual activities on a
regular basis. The systems not only measure important learning, they
help teachers learn how to design curriculum and instruction to
accomplish this learning.
It is worth noting that a number of states in the U.S. have
developed similar systems that combine evidence from state and local
standards-based assessments to ensure that multiple indicators of
learning are used to make decisions about individual students and,
sometimes, schools. These include Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine,
Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont,
and Wyoming, among others. However, many of these elements of state
systems are not currently allowed to be used to gauge school progress
under NCLB.
Encouraging these kinds of practices could help improve learning
and guide schools toward more productive instruction. Studies have
found that performance assessments that are administered and scored
locally help teachers better understand students' strengths, needs, and
approaches to learning, as well as how to meet state standards.\15\
Teachers who have been involved in developing and scoring performance
assessments with other colleagues have reported that the experience was
extremely valuable in informing their practice. They report changes in
both the curriculum and their instruction as a result of thinking
through with colleagues what good student performance looks like and
how to better support student learning on specific kinds of tasks.
These goals are not well served by external testing programs that
send secret, secured tests into the school and whisk them out again for
machine scoring that produces numerical quotients many months later.
Local performance assessments provide teachers with much more useful
classroom information as they engage teachers in evaluating how and
what students know and can do in authentic situations. These kinds of
assessment strategies create the possibility that teachers will not
only teach more challenging performance skills but that they will also
be able to use the resulting information about student learning to
modify their teaching to meet the needs of individual students. Schools
and districts can use these kinds of assessments to develop shared
expectations and create an engine for school improvement around student
work.
Research on the strong gains in achievement shown in Connecticut,
Kentucky, and Vermont in the 1990s attributed these gains in
substantial part to these states' performance-based assessment systems,
which include such local components, and related investments in
teaching quality.\16\ Other studies in states like California, Maine,
Maryland, and Washington,\17\ found that teachers assigned more
ambitious writing and mathematical problem solving, and student
performance improved, when assessments included extended writing and
mathematics portfolios and performance tasks. Encouraging these kinds
of measures of student performance is critical to getting the kind of
learning we need in schools.
Not incidentally, more authentic measures of learning that go
beyond on-demand standardized tests to look directly at performance are
especially needed to gain accurate measures of achievement for English
language learners and special needs students for whom traditional tests
are least likely to provide valid measures of understanding.\18\
What Indicators Might be Used to Gauge School Progress?
A key issue is what measures should be used to determine Adequate
Yearly Progress (AYP) or the alternative tools that are used for
addressing NCLB's primary goals, e.g. assuring high expectations for
all students, and helping schools address the needs of all students.
Current AYP measures are too narrow in several respects: They are based
exclusively on tests which are often not sufficient measures of our
educational goals; they ignore other equally important student
outcomes, including staying in school and engaging in rigorous
coursework; they ignore the growth made by students who are moving
toward but not yet at a proficiency benchmark, as well as the gains
made by students who have already passed the proficiency benchmark; and
they do not provide information or motivation to help schools,
districts, and states improve critical learning conditions.
This analysis suggests that school progress should be evaluated on
multiple measures of student learning--including local and state
performance assessments that provide evidence about what students can
actually do with their knowledge--and on indicators of other student
outcomes, including such factors as student progress and continuation
through school, graduation, and success in rigorous courses. The
importance of these indicators is to encourage schools to keep students
in school and provide them with high-quality learning opportunities--
elements that will improve educational opportunities and attainment,
not just average test scores.
To these two categories of indicators, I would add indicators of
learning conditions that point attention to both learning opportunities
available to students (e.g. rigorous courses, well-qualified teachers)
and to how well the school operates. In the business world, these kinds
of measures are called leading indicators, which represent those things
that employees can control and improve upon. These typically include
evidence of customer satisfaction, such as survey data, complaints and
repeat orders; as well as of employee satisfaction and productivity,
such as employee turnover, project delays, evidence of quality and
efficiency in getting work done; reports of work conditions and
supports, and evidence of product quality.
Educational versions of these kinds of indicators are available in
many state accountability systems. For example, State Superintendent
Peter McWalters noted in his testimony to this committee that Rhode
Island uses several means to measure school learning conditions. Among
them is an annual survey to all students, teachers, and parents that
provides data on ``Learning Support Indicators'' measuring school
climate, instructional practices, and parental involvement. In
addition, Rhode Island, like many other states, conducts visits to
review every school in the state every five years, not unlike the
Inspectorate system that is used in many other countries. These kinds
of reviews can examine teaching practices, the availability and
equitable allocation of school resources, and the quality of the
curriculum, as it is enacted.
Ideally, evaluation of school progress would be based on a
combination of these three kinds of measures and would emphasize gains
and improvement over time, both for the individual students in the
school and for the school as a whole. Along with data about student
characteristics, an indicator system could include:
Measures of student learning: both state tests and local
assessments, including performance measures that assess higher-order
thinking skills and understanding, including student work samples,
projects, exhibitions, or portfolios.
Measures of additional student outcomes: data about
attendance, student grade-to-grade progress (promotion / retention
rates) and continuation through school (ongoing enrollment),
graduation, and course success (e.g. students enrolled in, passing, and
completing rigorous courses of study).
Measures of learning conditions, data about school
capacity, such as teacher and other staff quality, availability of
learning materials, school climate (gauged by students', parents', and
teachers' responses to surveys), instructional practices, teacher
development, and parental engagement.
These elements should be considered in the context of student data,
including information about student mobility, health, and welfare
(poverty, homelessness, foster care, health care), as well as language
background, race / ethnicity, and special learning needs--not a basis
for accepting differential effort or outcomes, but as a basis for
providing information needed to interpret and improve schools'
operations and outcomes.
How Might Indicators be Used to Determine School Progress and
Improvement Strategies?
The rationale for these multiple indicators is to build a more
powerful engine for educational improvement by understanding what is
really going on with students and focusing on the elements of the
system that need to change if learning is to improve. High-performing
systems need a regular flow of useful information to evaluate and
modify what they are doing to produce stronger results. State and local
officials need a range of data to understand what is happening in
schools and what they should do to improve outcomes. Many problems in
local schools are constructed or constrained by district and state
decisions that need to be highlighted along with school-level concerns.
Similarly, at the school level, teachers and leaders need information
about how they are doing and how their students are doing, based in
part on high-quality local assessments that provide rich, timely
insights about student performance.
Some states and districts have successfully put some of these
indicators in place. The federal government could play a leadership
role by not only encouraging multiple measures for assessing school
progress and conditions for learning but by providing supports for
states to build comprehensive databases to track these indicators over
time, and to support valid, comprehensive information systems at all
levels.\19\
If we think comprehensively about the approach to evaluation that
would encourage fundamental improvements in schools, several goals
emerge. First, determinations of school progress should reflect an
analysis of schools' performance and progress along several key
dimensions. Student learning should be evaluated using multiple
measures that provide comprehensive and valid information for all
subpopulations. Targets should be based on sensible goals for student
learning, examining growth from where students start, setting growth
targets in relation to that starting point, and pegging ``proficiency''
at a level that represents a challenging but realistic standard,
perhaps at the median of current state proficiency standards. Targets
should also ensure appropriate assessment for special education
students and English language learners and credit for the gains these
students make over time. And analysis of learning conditions including
the availability of materials, facilities, curriculum opportunities,
teaching, and leadership should accompany assessments of student
learning.
A number of states already have developed comprehensive indicator
systems that can be sources of such data, and the federal government
should encourage states to propose different means for how to aggregate
and combine these data. In addition, many states' existing assessment
systems already provide different ways to score and combine state
reference tests with local testing systems, locally administered
performance tasks (which are often scored using state standards), and
portfolios.\20\
For evaluating annual progress, one likely approach would be to use
an index of indicators, such as California's Academic Performance
Index, which can include a weighted combination of data about state and
local tests and assessments as well as other student outcome indicators
like attendance, graduation, promotion rates, participation and pass
rates or grades for academic courses. Assessment data from multiple
sources and evidence of student progression through / graduation from
school would be required components. Key conditions of learning, such
as teacher qualifications, might also be required. Other specific
indicators might be left to states, along with the decision of how much
weight to give each component, perhaps within certain parameters (for
example, that at least 50 percent of a weighted index would reflect the
results of assessment data).
Within this index, disaggregated data by race/ethnicity and income
could be monitored on the index score, or on components of the overall
index, so that they system pays ongoing attention to progress for
groups of students. Wherever possible these measures should look at
progress of a constant cohort of students from year to year, so that
actual gains are observed, rather than changes in averages due to
changes in the composition of the student population. Furthermore,
gains for English language learners and special education students
should be evaluated on a growth model that ensures appropriate testing
based on professional standards and measures individual student growth
in relation to student starting points.
Non-academic measures such as improved learning climate (as
measured by standard surveys, for example, to allow trend analysis over
time), instructional capacity (indicators regarding the quality of
curriculum, teaching, and leadership), resources, and other
contributors to learning could be included in a separate index on
Learning Conditions, on which progress is also evaluated annually as
part of both school, district, and state assessment.
Once school progress indicators are available, a judgment must be
made about whether a school has made adequate progress on the index or
set of indicators. If the law is to focus on supporting improvement it
will be important to look at continuous progress for all students in a
school rather than the ``status model'' that has been used in the past.
A progress model would recognize the reasonable success of schools that
deserve it. Rather than identifying a school as requiring intervention
when a single target is missed (for example, if 94% of economically
disadvantaged students take the mathematics test one year instead of
95%), a progress model would gauge whether the overall index score
increases, with the proviso that the progress of key subgroups
continues to be examined, with lack of progress a flag for
intervention.
The additional use of the indicators schools and districts have
assembled would be in the determination of what kind of action is
needed if a school does not make sufficient progress in a year. To use
resources wisely, the law should establish a graduated system of
classification for schools and districts based on their rate of
progress, ranging from state review to corrective actions to eventual
reconstitution if such efforts fail over a period of time. States
should identify schools and districts as requiring intervention based
both on information about the overall extent of progress from the prior
year(s) and on information about specific measures in the system of
indicators--for example, how many progress indicators have lagged for
how long. This additional scrutiny would involve a school review by an
expert team--much like the inspectorate systems in other countries--
that conducts an inspection of the school or LEA and analyzes a range
of data, including evidence of individual and collective student growth
or progress on multiple measures; analysis of student needs, mobility,
and population changes; and evaluation of school practices and
conditions. Based on the findings of this review, a determination would
be made about the nature of the problem and the type of school
improvement plan needed. The law should include the explicit
expectation that state and district investments in ensuring adequate
conditions for learning must be part of this plan.
The overarching goal of the ESEA should be to improve the quality
of education students receive, especially those traditionally least
well served by the current system. To accomplish this, the measures
used to gauge school progress must motivate continuous improvement and
attend to the range of school outcomes and conditions that are needed
to ensure that all students are educated to higher levels.
ENDNOTES
\1\ See, e.g. L. Darling-Hammond, No Child Left Behind and High
School Reform, Harvard Education Review, 76, 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 642-
667. http://www.edreview.org/harvard06/2006/wi06/w06darli.htm
L. Darling-Hammond, From 'Separate but Equal' to 'No Child Left
Behind': The Collision of New Standards and Old Inequalities. In
Deborah Meier and George Wood (eds.), Many Children Left Behind, pp. 3-
32. NY: Beacon Press, 2004.
\2\ Linda Darling-Hammond, Elle Rustique-Forrester, & Raymond
Pecheone (2005). Multiple measures approaches to high school
graduation: A review of state student assessment policies. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University, School Redesign Network.
\3\ Allington, R. L. & McGill-Franzen, A. (1992). Unintended
effects of educational reform in New York, Educational Policy, 6 (4):
397-414; Figlio, D.N. & Getzler, L.S. (2002, April). Accountability,
ability, and disability: Gaming the system? National Bureau of Economic
Research.
\4\ W. Haney (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle in education.
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8 (41): Retrieved Jan. 24, 08 from:
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n41/
\5\ Smith, F., et al. (1986). High school admission and the
improvement of schooling. NY: New York City Board of Education;
Darling-Hammond, L. (1991). The Implications of Testing Policy for
Quality and Equality, Phi Delta Kappan, November 1991: 220-225; Heilig,
J. V. (2005), An analysis of accountability system outcomes. Stanford
University.
\6\ For recent studies examining the increases in dropout rates
associated with high-stakes testing systems, see Advocates for Children
(2002). Pushing out at-risk students: An analysis of high school
discharge figures--a joint report by AFC and the Public Advocate.
http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/pubs/pushout-11-20-02.html; W.
Haney (2002). Lake Wobegone guaranteed: Misuse of test scores in
Massachusetts, Part 1. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(24).
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n24/; J. Heubert & R. Hauser (eds.) (1999).
High stakes: Testing for tracking, promotion, and graduation. A report
of the National Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press; B.A. Jacob (2001). Getting tough? The impact of high school
graduation exams. Education and Evaluation and Policy Analysis 23 (2):
99-122; D. Lilliard, & P. DeCicca (2001). Higher standards, more
dropouts? Evidence within and across time. Economics of Education
Review, 20(5): 459-73;G. Orfield, D. Losen, J. Wald, & C.B. Swanson
(2004). Losing our future: How minority youth are being left behind by
the graduation rate crisis. Retrieved January 24, 2008 from: http://
www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410936; M. Roderick, A.S. Bryk, B.A. Jacob,
J.Q. Easton, & E. Allensworth (1999). Ending social promotion: Results
from the first two years. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School
Research; R. Rumberger & K. Larson (1998). Student mobility and the
increased risk of high school dropout. American Journal of Education,
107: 1-35; E. Rustique-Forrester (in press). Accountability and the
pressures to exclude: A cautionary tale from England. Education Policy
Analysis Archives; A. Wheelock (2003). School awards programs and
accountability in Massachusetts.
\7\ Advocates for Children (2002), Pushing out at-risk students;
Heilig (2005), An analysis of accountability system outcomes; Wheelock
(2003), School awards programs and accountability.
\8\ Heilig, 2005.
\9\ Wheelock, 2003
\10\ Heilig, 2005.
\11\ American Educational Research Association, American
Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in
Education, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing,
Washington DC: American Educational Research Association, 1999, p.142.
\12\ AERA, APA, NCME, Standards for Educational and Psychological
Testing., p.146.
\13\ See for example, Haney (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle;
J.L. Herman & S. Golan (1993). Effects of standardized testing on
teaching and schools. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice,
12(4): 20-25, 41-42; B.D. Jones & R. J. Egley (2004). Voices from the
frontlines: Teachers' perceptions of high-stakes testing. Education
Policy Analysis Archives, 12 (39). Retrieved August 10, 2004 from
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n39/; M.G. Jones, B.D. Jones, B. Hardin, L.
Chapman, & T. Yarbrough (1999). The impact of high-stakes testing on
teachers and students in North Carolina. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(3): 199-
203; Klein, S.P., Hamilton, L.S., McCaffrey, D.F., & Stetcher, B.M.
(2000). What do test scores in Texas tell us? Santa Monica: The RAND
Corporation; D. Koretz & S. I. Barron (1998). The validity of gains on
the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS). Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, MR-1014-EDU; D. Koretz, R.L. Linn, S.B. Dunbar, &
L.A. Shepard (1991, April). The effects of high-stakes testing:
Preliminary evidence about generalization across tests, in R. L. Linn
(chair), The Effects of high stakes testing. Symposium presented at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and the
National Council on Measurement in Education, Chicago; R.L. Linn
(2000). Assessments and accountability. Educational Researcher, 29 (2),
4-16; R.L. Linn, M.E. Graue, & N.M. Sanders (1990). Comparing state and
district test results to national norms: The validity of claims that
``everyone is above average.'' Educational Measurement: Issues and
Practice, 9, 5-14; W. J. Popham (1999). Why Standardized Test Scores
Don't Measure Educational Quality. Educational Leadership, 56(6): 8-15;
M.L. Smith (2001). Put to the test: The effects of external testing on
teachers. Educational Researcher, 20(5): 8-11.
\14\ Achieve, Do graduation tests measure up? A closer look at
state high school exit exams. Executive summary. Washington, DC:
Achieve, Inc.
\15\ L. Darling-Hammond & J. Ancess (1994). Authentic assessment
and school development. NY: National Center for Restructuring
Education, Schools, and Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia
University; B. Falk & S. Ort (1998, September). Sitting down to score:
Teacher learning through assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(1): 59-64.
G.L. Goldberg & B.S. Rosewell (2000). From perception to practice: The
impact of teachers' scoring experience on the performance based
instruction and classroom practice. Educational Assessment, 6: 257-290;
R. Murnane & F. Levy (1996). Teaching the new basic skills. NY: The
Free Press.
\16\ J.B. Baron (1999). Exploring high and improving reading
achievement in Connecticut. Washington: National Educational Goals
Panel. Murnane & Levy (1996); B.M. Stecher, S. Barron, T. Kaganoff, &
J. Goodwin (1998). The effects of standards-based assessment on
classroom practices: Results of the 1996-97 RAND survey of Kentucky
teachers of mathematics and writing. CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles:
UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student
Testing; S. Wilson, L. Darling-Hammond, & B. Berry (2001). A case of
successful teaching policy: Connecticut's long-term efforts to improve
teaching and learning. Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and
Policy, University of Washington.
\17\ C. Chapman (1991, June). What have we learned from writing
assessment that can be applied to performance assessment?. Presentation
at ECS/CDE Alternative Assessment Conference, Breckenbridge, CO;
J.L.Herman, D.C. Klein, T.M. Heath, S.T. Wakai (1995). A first look:
Are claims for alternative assessment holding up? CSE Technical Report.
Los Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing; D. Koretz, K., J. Mitchell, S.I.
Barron, & S. Keith (1996). Final Report: Perceived effects of the
Maryland school performance assessment program CSE Technical Report.
Los Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing; W.A. Firestone, D. Mayrowetz, & J.
Fairman (1998, Summer). Performance-based assessment and instructional
change: The effects of testing in Maine and Maryland. Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20: 95-113; S. Lane, C.A. Stone, C.S.
Parke, M.A. Hansen, & T.L. Cerrillo (2000, April). Consequential
evidence for MSPAP from the teacher, principal and student perspective.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Council on
Measurement in Education, New Orleans, LA; B. Stecher, S. Baron, T.
Chun, T., & K. Ross (2000) The effects of the Washington state
education reform on schools and classroom. CSE Technical Report. Los
Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards,
and Student Testing.
\18\ Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, and Pecheone, Multiple
Measures.
\19\ M. Smith paper (2007). Standards-based education reform: What
we've learned, where we need to go. Consortium for Policy Research in
Education.
\20\ At least 27 states consider student academic records,
coursework, portfolios of student work, and performance assessments,
like research papers, scientific experiments, essays, and senior
projects in making the graduation decision. Darling-Hammond, Rustique-
Forrester, and Pecheone, Multiple Measures.
______
[The prepared statement of the Coalition Promoting School
Success for All Children, submitted by Mr. Hare, follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Coalition Promoting
School Success for All Children
Schools today are facing two significant challenges: to improve
academic achievement, including meeting the requirements of the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and to foster a school climate that
promotes learning and that will reduce discipline problems. These
issues are linked. Research shows that academic, social and behavioral
problems are so connected that interventions targeting one often affect
the others. Consequently, effective schools support and foster both
high academic and high behavioral standards.
Integrated efforts to address academic and non-academic barriers to
learning are more likely to help schools meet academic requirements
than efforts that focus on academics alone. Amendments to the No Child
Left Behind Act that encourage schools to improve the climate for
learning, such as by adopting school-wide positive behavior supports
(PBS) will help schools to address both students' social and emotional
needs and lead to improvements in academic outcomes.
Both educators and the general public cite disciplinary issues
(including a perceived increase in drugs, violence, gangs and weapons)
as the number one problem in schools, and teachers say they feel
unprepared to manage problem behaviors. In efforts to improve school
safety, many school officials react by taking a tough approach using
suspension or expulsion extensively or trying to remove persistent
troublemakers from school. But research shows that rigid and inflexible
approaches to discipline do not work and, further, that they
disproportionately harm students of color and students with
disabilities. In contrast, positive and relational approaches can
improve the school environment without resorting to exclusionary
practices.
To address discipline problems, help children learn and meet
today's demands for high academic standards, schools should improve the
learning environment for all students and provide the supports needed
by those with more significant problems. One effective approach now
being adopted by education systems around the country is school-wide
PBS. PBS improves student behavior by reinforcing desired behavior and
eliminating inadvertent reinforcements for problem behavior. This
requires understanding the reason for the behavior and addressing the
underlying cause.
Schools implementing school-wide PBS programs can experience
anywhere from a 20-60 percent reduction in disciplinary problems, as
well as improved social climate and academic performance. Research
shows increases in both reading comprehension and math test scores on
standardized tests in schools implementing PBS well. In addition to
improved academic outcomes, school-wide PBS improves other variables
related to student success, including increased student attendance,
fewer expulsions and suspensions, increased classroom instructional
time and academic engagement. There is more time for student
instruction and a reduction in hours spent by teachers and
administrators addressing problem behavior. With effective academics
and behavior intertwined, school-wide PBS is instrumental in changing
school climate and allowing for more effective instruction.
School-wide PBS is not a program, but a system, based on decades of
behavioral and biomedical research. Using an approach adapted from the
public health field, PBS uses a three-tiered system of prevention and
support that addresses the spectrum of behavioral needs and serves all
children--from those with behavior issues that are typical of their
developmental stage, as well as those at risk for or already exhibiting
challenging behaviors. For the general student body--roughly 80 percent
of students--universal implementation of PBS in the school (known as
Tier One) may be sufficient. Tier One focuses on changing environmental
stimuli that contribute to disruptive behavior and on changing adult
behavior in school so that all staff are supportive and consistently
teach, reinforce, and model expected behaviors.
Five to 15 percent of students who do not respond to universal
methods do respond to more specialized attention, an example being a
group intervention. These children fall into PBS Tier Two. An
intervention in Tier Two might involve group sessions where students
problem-solve and come up with strategies to prevent the problem
behavior.
Finally, some children with the most challenging behavior need
individualized services (Tier Three). Often these are children with
serious emotional disorders and extreme functional impairment. They
represent three to seven percent of all school-age children. These
students should be involved in a comprehensive home, school and
community plan using individualized services and techniques coordinated
across agencies.
Training is an integral part of a PBS initiative and must be
continual as new staff are hired or as additional schools in the
district adopt PBS. PBS uses in-school coaches to help translate
training into practice and to support staff who are implementing
school-wide PBS. These in-school coaches are often school
psychologists, social workers or counselors who must themselves be
trained in school-wide PBS. In addition, external coaches are employed,
who typically work with a number of schools, collaborating with the in-
school coach and providing feedback to the state and region/district,
as well as providing guidance to individual schools.
It is important for best practices, including particularly family
involvement and social-emotional learning, must be followed. School-
wide PBS provides a strong platform for related programming, such as
specific social-emotional learning programs and other youth-development
practices. It also requires family buy-in, participation and support.
Families play a crucial role in implementation of school-wide PBS.
Two examples of statewide PBS initiatives are Illinois and
Colorado. These initiatives are well-established and continue to grow
and reach more schools throughout each state.
The state of Illinois is a pioneer in creating a statewide
comprehensive PBS initiative. In eight years, Illinois has built and
sustained the Illinois PBIS Network, providing assistance in
implementation of PBS to 600 schools, or around 14 percent of all
public schools in the state. Research in Illinois shows that
implementation of school-wide PBS is linked to improved perception of
school safety, as well as an improved proportion of third graders
meeting state reading standards.
The Colorado School-Wide PBS Initiative is a joint venture
between the Prevention Initiatives and Exceptional Student Services
Unit in the Colorado Department of Education. The initiative began
providing support and assistance to schools implementing PBS in the
2002/2003 school year. They are now in 405 schools in the state,
operating in eight regions and 48 school districts. They continue to
work toward their goal of establishing and maintaining effective school
environments maximizing academic achievement and behavioral competence
for all learners in Colorado.
Although many of the early school-wide PBS initiatives were
initiated under the special education umbrella, the approach is more
effective when implemented in a systematic, school-wide effort. PBS is
not just helpful for students in special education or those with
disabilities. Instead, it is a means for all students to increase
academic achievement, improve social behavior and learn self-
management.
School-wide PBS complements the academic standards articulated in
NCLB. The following amendments to the NCLB Act would create avenues for
schools to more easily implement school-wide PBS.
Encourage states to use Title I funds to support school-
wide PBS
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) promotes
Early Intervening Services by allowing local education agencies (LEAs)
to use up to 15 percent of IDEA Part B funds to implement services for
students not identified as needing special education, but who do need
additional academic and behavioral support to succeed in the general
education environment. Such funds have been used by a number of
districts to support school-wide PBS. These IDEA funds may be used in
coordination with funds from ESEA to carry out these activities and
services.
However, there is no comparable language in the ESEA to allow Title
I funds to be used for Early Intervening Services. Authorization to use
ESEA funds for Early Intervening Services, including specifically
school-wide PBS, would facilitate expansion of these extremely
promising approaches. Since this is not a mandate, LEAs would have
flexibility as to whether or not to use the funds for these purposes.
Section 1003 of NCLB authorizes states to reserve up to two to four
percent of Title I funds for school improvement to meet state
responsibilities under Section 1116 and 1117. Amending Sections 1003,
1116 and 1117 to include implementation of school-wide PBS will permit
states to use their Title I state reserve funds to promote and support
such initiatives.
Encourage LEAs to address school climate issues
Schools must promote an environment that is safe and conducive to
learning, providing the foundation on which other programming and
support can be built. School-wide PBS contributes to attitudinal
change, creating a culture where there is a shared sense of
responsibility. The positive school climate that comes from a school
implementing school-wide PBS promotes learning by reducing discipline
problems and addressing the social and emotional development of
students.
Section 1114 authorizes LEAs to use funds for school-wide programs.
Adding school-wide PBS to this section increases the likelihood that
Title I funds will be used for this purpose.
Establish an Office of Specialized Instructional Support Personnel
To raise the visibility of critical issues and to coordinate across
the various departmental agencies, an Office of Specialized
Instructional Support Personnel should be established in the Office of
the Deputy Secretary in the Department of Education. The purpose of the
Office should be to administer, coordinate and carry out programs and
activities concerned with providing specialized instructional support
services in schools, delivered by trained, qualified specialized
instructional support personnel.
Activities governed by such an office would include:
Improving academic achievement and educational results for
students through improved instructional support services in schools,
including provision of early intervening services to general education
students and of the related services required under IDEA;
Administering, coordinating and carrying out programs and
activities concerned with providing specialized instructional support
services in schools;
Promoting a trained, qualified specialized instructional
support workforce in schools; and
Providing technical assistance to local and state
education agencies in provision of effective, scientifically-based
specialized instructional support services.
Amend the Safe & Drug Free Schools and Communities Program
The Safe & Drug Free Schools and Communities Program should be
amended to incorporate the concept of creating a safe and effective
school climate that is conducive to learning. Specifically, this
program should be amended by:
Changing the title to expand the purpose of the program to
address school climate in general. The amended title would read:
Creating a Safe and Effective School Climate Conducive for Learning.
The short title would read: The Safe and Effective Schools Act.
Clarifying that the purpose of Part A is to address whole
school climate and to prevent violence and illegal use of alcohol,
tobacco and drugs.
Adding to paragraph (1), the list of purposes for which
states may use funds under this part, grants to states or LEAs and
consortia of such agencies for the establishment, operation and
improvement of local programs relating to improving the school-wide
climate (including the implementation of school-wide PBS and other
programs).
The Coalition Promoting School Success for All Children commend you
for your ongoing leadership and commitment to education and ensuring no
children are left behind, including those with mental health needs. We
look forward to working with you to strengthen and protect the
provisions in No Child Left Behind by including school-wide positive
behavior supports that will be beneficial to all students.
The Coalition Promoting School Success for All Children includes
the following organizations:
Advocacy Institute
American Counseling Association
American School Counselor Association
American Occupational Therapy Association
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Children & Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders
Council for Exceptional Children
Easter Seals
Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health
Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Mental Health America
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Association of School Psychologists
National Association of State Directors of Special Education
National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
National Down Syndrome Congress
School Social Work Association of America
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law chairs the Coalition.
Please contact Laurel Stine for any additional information.
______
Chairman Kildee. I would now like to introduce the very
distinguished panel of witnesses here with us this afternoon.
John ``Jack'' Jennings is President of the Center on Education
Policy in Washington, D.C., the center promotes school
improvement through various publications, by assisting States
and school districts, and by arranging national meetings and
conferences. From 1967 through 1994, as a staff member and
Chief Counsel of this committee, Mr. Jennings was deeply
involved in virtually every major national education debate. I
learned the word ``disaggregated data'' from Mr. Jennings at
that time.
Mr. Rick Melmer is South Dakota Secretary of Education and
President-Elect of the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Previously he served as school superintendent in Watertown,
South Dakota and Sioux City, Iowa. Dr. Melmer has said that his
role as Secretary is to shine a spotlight on the future of
education in South Dakota.
And the Honorable Kathleen Straus, who I have known
forever, is President of the Michigan State Board of Education.
She has dedicated her career to improving public education and
community services in Michigan. Prior to serving on the State
board, Ms. Straus was President of the Center for Creative
Studies, a nationally recognized arts education institution in
Detroit. She also has worked for the Michigan Association of
School Boards and the Michigan Senate Education Committee.
Dr. Carol Johnson has been Superintendent of the Memphis,
Tennessee City Schools since 2003 and is a member of the
Executive Committee of the Council of the Great City Schools.
In 2006, for the first time since No Child Left Behind was
passed, the Memphis schools were declared to be in good
standing by the State. The Memphis City Schools also have been
recognized as a model for middle school student engagement and
is one of the top districts for music education.
And Dr. Chester Finn, whom I have known for a long, long
time, and good to see you again, is President of the Thomas B.
Fordham Foundation, which supports education reform research
and projects. Dr. Finn also is Chairman of the Hoover
Institution's Task Force on K-12 Education. Among his other
positions he served as Assistant Secretary of Education for
Research and Improvement under President Reagan and as a
Professor of Education and Public Policy at Vanderbilt
University.
And welcome to all our witnesses. For those of you who have
not testified before this subcommittee I will explain to you
our lighting system and the 5-minute rule. Everyone, including
members on the dais up here, is limited to 5 minutes of
presentation or questioning. The green light will be
illuminated when you begin to speak. When you see the yellow
light, it means that you have one minute remaining. When you
see the red light it means your time has expired and you need
to conclude your testimony. But there is no ejection seat
there, so I will allow you to finish your thought anyway.
Please be certain as you testify to turn on and speak into the
microphone in front of you and turn it off when you are
finished. We will now hear from our first witness, Mr.
Jennings.
STATEMENT OF JACK JENNINGS, PRESIDENT, CENTER ON EDUCATION
POLICY; ACCOMPANIED BY DIANE STARK RENTNER, DIRECTOR OF
NATIONAL PROGRAMS AT CEP; NANCY KOBER, CEP'S PRINCIPAL
CONSULTANT; AND SUNNY BECKER, PRINCIPAL STAFF SCIENTIST OF THE
HUMAN RESOURCES RESEARCH ORGANIZATION
Mr. Jennings. Thank you, Chairman Kildee and Congressman
Castle and other members of the committee. I spent nearly half
my life in this room or around this room or with the committee,
and so I feel like I am coming home. They say you can never
come home, but at least for this afternoon I will be home, and
I think I will be home once I hear the questions coming from
all different directions. Then I will know.
I am accompanied by Diane Stark Rentner, who is sitting
behind me. She is the Deputy at the Center on Education Policy,
and she worked for the committee for 6 years. And then behind
me on the other side is Nancy Kober, who worked for the
committee for 12 years. And she is the principal consultant for
us. And in the middle is Sunny Becker, who is with the Human
Resources Company Corporation, HumRRO, that was our contractor
on this project. I know you have strict time restraints, so let
me just shortly summarize our report.
First of all, the Center on Education Policy is an
independent body. We get all our money from charitable
foundations. We have no connection with the government, no
connection with any other organization, any teachers group, any
business group, any other organization. We are totally
independent. And we have been reviewing No Child Left Behind
since 2002.
But 2 years ago we decided that the key questions involved
with No Child Left Behind were two. One was has student
achievement in reading and math increased since No Child Left
Behind was enacted? And secondly, have achievement gaps between
different subgroups of students narrowed since No Child Left
Behind was enacted? Those are the key questions.
And sometimes too often we spend time on a mechanism such
as how many children are getting tutoring, how many children
are getting school choice without looking at the fundamental
purposes. So we decided to design a study that would answer
these questions. And we have five unique features in our study.
First of all, we asked all States to participate. And every
State participated and every State verified their data so we
know this is correct data.
Secondly, we only use comparable test results from year to
year. If a State changed its test we would not use the test
results. These have to be comparable results.
Thirdly, we use pre and post-NCLB test scores so that we
could go as far back as we could to see the effects of the
legislation.
Fourthly, we use two different types of statistical
analysis. One is looking at proficiency scores, the other is
looking at net effects scores. And one analysis makes up for
the deficiencies of the others so that you get a more complete
picture.
And lastly, we use consistent rules in looking at the data
across all States. Another unique feature was that we ensured
that we had a group of experts that was balanced. So we have
five experts, several of them have written articles and books
against No Child Left Behind, several of them have supported No
Child Left Behind. In fact, one of them heads up one of the
administration's committees dealing with No Child Left Behind.
This group is not only varied in its point of view, but it also
has great expertise in terms of assessment, research and
policy, and they were of great assistance to us.
The five major conclusions we reached are these. First, in
most States with 3 or more years of comparable test data
student achievement in reading and math has gone up since 2002.
Secondly, there is more evidence of achievement gaps
between groups of students narrowing since 2002 than of gaps
widening. Still the magnitude of the gaps is very substantial.
It is common to have gaps of 25, 30 percent between different
groups of students.
Thirdly, we can only get comparable data from 13 States
going back to 1999, but nine of those States showed that they
had greater increases in test scores after 2002 rather than
before 2002.
Fourthly, and this is a very important point, it is very
difficult, if not impossible, to determine to the extent to
which these trends in test results have occurred because of No
Child Left Behind. Since 2002 States, school districts and
schools have simultaneously implemented many different, but
interconnected policies to raise achievement. In other words,
we cannot show direct causality between increased test scores
and No Child Left Behind because all the other things have been
going on at the same time.
Fifthly, although NCLB is premised on the idea that there
should be public information and there should be test score
data available to policy makers, the press and the public so
they will understand the effectiveness of education, we found
gaps and holes in terms of the information that was available.
And it took us a considerable effort in order to obtain this
information.
As cooperative as the States were, they are very
overburdened, they are very pressed for personnel and time, and
it is difficult for them to keep up.
Now, let me mention what we think the possible explanations
are for these increased test trends, and these are four
possible reasons. And we cannot attribute direct causality in
whatever proportion to any of these reasons but these are the
logical reasons.
One, in fact students have increased learning. That sounds
so obvious but in today's cynical environment you have to say
well, students may know more. And that is probably a major
factor.
Secondly, there is teaching to the test. Especially in the
poorest school districts, the schools with largest percentages
of children of color there is teaching to the test.
Thirdly, there are subtle changes made in tests that make
it easier to have gains. And lastly there is changes in
populations tested.
I will finish by just asking that you consider the data
that is required from the States for No Child Left Behind. And
we have a recommendation on page 81 of the report. I hope you
rip that page out and put it into the law. The public deserves
to know test data, they deserve to know as much information as
they can about the schools, and you can help to ensure that by
enacting those provisions.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Jennings follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jack Jennings, President,
Center on Education Policy
Chairman Kildee and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today on trends in student achievement
and the No Child Left Behind Act. I am accompanied by Diane Stark
Rentner, director of national programs at the Center, Nancy Kober,
CEP's principal consultant, and Sunny Becker, principal staff scientist
of the Human Resources Research Organization, CEP's contractor for this
project.
The Center on Education Policy, a private non-profit organization,
is an independent national advocate for effective public schools. We
principally accomplish our mission by analyzing policies to determine
whether they are in fact helping public schools to become better. A
principal focus of our work for the last five years has been the No
Child Left Behind Act, since that policy is so significant for public
education. Since NCLB was enacted, we have monitored its effects and
issued both comprehensive and special reports. Today, I will discuss
our latest report which we released this Tuesday at the National Press
Club.
Since 2002, NCLB has spurred far-reaching changes in elementary and
secondary education, all aimed at accomplishing the same fundamental
goal--to improve students' academic achievement. As the Congress
prepares to reauthorize the Act, two related questions matter most:
1. Has student achievement in reading and math increased since NCLB
was enacted?
2. Have achievement gaps between different subgroups of students
narrowed since NCLB was enacted?
To answer these questions, the Center on Education Policy conducted
the most comprehensive study of trends in state test scores since NCLB
took effect. We carried out this study with advice from a panel of five
nationally known experts in educational testing or policy research, and
with extensive technical support from HumRRO. Although we collected
data from all 50 states, not every state had enough consistent data to
do a complete analysis of test score trends in reading and math before
and after 2002. Based on the data that states did provide, we reached
five main conclusions.
Main Conclusions
1. In most states with three or more years of comparable test data,
student achievement in reading and math has gone up since 2002, the
year NCLB was enacted.
2. There is more evidence of achievement gaps between groups of
students narrowing since 2002 than of gaps widening. Still, the
magnitude of the gaps is often substantial.
3. In 9 of the 13 states with sufficient data to determine pre-and
post-NCLB trends, average yearly gains in test scores were greater
after NCLB took effect than before.
4. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to determine the extent
to which these trends in test results have occurred because of NCLB.
Since 2002, states, school districts, and schools have simultaneously
implemented many different but interconnected policies to raise
achievement.
5. Although NCLB emphasizes public reporting of state test data,
the data necessary to reach definitive conclusions about achievement
were sometimes hard to find or unavailable, or had holes or
discrepancies. More attention should be given to issues of the quality
and transparency of state test data.
The study that produced these conclusions had several unique
features, designed to address the limitations of past research on
achievement since 2002. We went to great lengths to gather the most
current results on state reading and mathematics tests from all 50
states and to have all states verify the accuracy of their data. Within
each state, we limited our analyses to test results that were truly
comparable from year to year--in other words, that had not been
affected by such factors as the adoption of new tests or changes in the
test score students must reach to be considered proficient. We also
compared trends before and after 2002 to see whether the pace of
improvement has sped up or slowed down since NCLB took effect. We
supplemented our analyses of the percentage of students scoring at or
above the proficient level--the ``magic number'' for NCLB
accountability--with analyses of effect size, a statistical tool based
on average (mean) test scores that addresses some of the problems with
the percentage proficient measure. And we analyzed all of the data--
which in a typical state included as many as 16,000 individual
numbers--as objectively as possible, using a consistent set of rules
that were developed without regard to whether they would lead to
positive or negative findings.
The rest of this testimony summarizes the findings that led us to
the five main conclusions. Further detail can be found in our full
report which appears on our Web site, CEP-DC.org.
Gains in Reading and Math Since 2002
To reach national conclusions about reading and math achievement,
we first determined the test score trends in each state, looking at
both the percentages of students scoring proficient and effect sizes
where available. The state trends were then aggregated into a national
picture of achievement that included these and other findings:
The number of states showing gains in test scores since
2002 is far greater than the number showing declines. For example, of
the 24 states with percentage proficient and effect size data for
middle school reading, 11 demonstrated moderate-to-large gains (average
gains of at least 1 percentage point per year) in middle school
reading, and only one showed a moderate or larger decline. Five of the
22 states with both percentage proficient and effect size data at the
elementary, middle, and high school levels made moderate-to-large gains
in reading and math on both measures across all three grade spans. In
other words, these five states showed gains according to all of the
indicators collected for this study. In reading alone, seven states
showed moderate-to-large increases across all three grade spans on both
measures. In math alone, nine states showed similar gains across all
three grade spans on both measures. The rest of the states had
different trends at different grade spans.
Elementary school math is the area in which the most
states showed improvements. Of the 25 states with sufficient data, 22
demonstrated moderateto-large math gains at the elementary level on
both the percentage proficient and effect size measures, while none
showed moderate or larger declines. Based on percentages proficient
alone, 37 of the 41 states with trend data in elementary math
demonstrated moderate-to-large gains, while none showed moderate or
larger declines.
More states showed declines in reading and math
achievement at the high school level than at the elementary or middle
school levels. Still, the number of states with test score gains in
high school exceeded the number with declines.
Analyses of changes in achievement using effect sizes
generally produced the same findings as analyses using percentages
proficient. But in some cases, the effect size analysis showed a
different trend. In Nevada, for instance, the percentage proficient in
high school math decreased, while the average test score increased. In
New Jersey the percentage proficient in middle school reading rose
slightly, while the average test score dropped.
When the percentage of students scoring at the proficient
level on state tests is compared with the percentage scoring at the
basic level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
states show more positive results on their own tests than on NAEP.
Moreover, the states with the greatest gains on their own tests were
usually not the same states that had the greatest gains on NAEP. The
NAEP tests, however, are not aligned with a state's curriculum as state
tests are, so NAEP should not be treated as a ``gold standard'' to
invalidate state test results but as an additional source of
information about achievement.
Narrowing Achievement Gaps
We analyzed trends in test score gaps for major racial-ethnic
subgroups of students, low-income students, students with disabilities,
and limited-English-proficient (LEP) students.
We looked at both percentages proficient and effect size data where
available; effect size data were harder to come by for subgroups than
for students overall. We considered a narrowing or widening of the
achievement gap to be a trend for a specific subgroup if it occurred in
the same subject (reading or math) across all three grade spans
(elementary, middle, and high school). We compiled trends from the 50
states to arrive at these and other national findings:
Among the states with sufficient data to discern trends by
subgroup, the number of states in which gaps in percentages proficient
have narrowed since 2002 far exceeds the number of states in which gaps
widened.
For the African-American subgroup, 14 of the 38 states
with the necessary data showed evidence that gaps have narrowed in
reading across all three grade spans analyzed, while no state had
evidence that gaps have widened. In mathematics, 12 states showed these
gaps narrowing, while only one state showed the gaps widening. Results
were similar for the Hispanic and low-income subgroups.
As with the percentage proficient, the states in which
effect size gaps have narrowed outnumbered the states in which effect
size gaps have widened. However, for states with both types of data,
there were a number of instances where gap closings in terms of
percentages proficient were not confirmed by effect size. Effect sizes
seem to give a less rosy picture of achievement gap trends.
Even for subgroups that showed evidence of gaps narrowing,
the gaps in percentages proficient often amounted to 20 percentage
points or more, suggesting that it will take a concerted, long-term
effort to close them.
Gains Before and After NCLB
Many states had reforms well underway before NCLB, so it is useful
to know whether the pace of improvement has picked up since NCLB took
effect. Only 13 states supplied enough years of data to make this
determination--too few to know whether the findings for this sample
represent a true national trend. In nine of these states, test results
improved at a greater average yearly rate after 2002 than before. In
the other four states, the pre-NCLB rate of gain outstripped the post-
NCLB rate.
Difficulty of Attributing Causes for Gains
This report focuses on whether test scores have gone up since the
enactment of NCLB. We cannot say to what extent test scores have gone
up because of NCLB. It is always difficult to tease out a cause-and-
effect relationship between test score trends and any specific
education policy or program. With all of the federal, state, and local
reforms that have been implemented simultaneously since 2002, it
becomes nearly impossible to sort out which policy or combination of
policies is responsible for test score gains, and to what degree. In a
similar vein, this report does not take a position on how well specific
components of NCLB are working or whether the requirements in the
current law are the most effective means to raise achievement and close
test score gaps.
One more caveat should be emphasized: test scores are not the same
thing as achievement. Although tests are often viewed as precise and
objective, they are imperfect and incomplete measures of how much
students have learned. Still, state tests are the primary measure of
achievement used in NCLB and are the best available standardized
measures of the curriculum taught in classrooms.
Need for More Transparency in Test Data
The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to report a massive
amount of test data and attaches serious consequences to these data for
districts, schools, and educators. But the data on which so much rests
are not easy to access in some states and are sometimes inconsistent,
outdated, or incomplete. Moreover, the data needed to calculate effect
sizes or determine which subgroups were small or rapidly changing were
unavailable in some states, even though these data are integral to all
testing systems. Reasons for these shortcomings include overburdened
state departments of education, ongoing corrections in test data, and
technical or contractual issues with test contractors. These
shortcomings are not necessarily the fault of state officials--who were
generally cooperative in providing or verifying data when asked--but
these problems complicated our efforts to reach definitive conclusions
about student achievement.
It took many months of effort to gather all the data needed for
this study and have state officials verify their accuracy. Our
experience suggests how difficult it would be for the average citizen
to get information about test score trends in some states, and points
to the need for greater transparency in state test data. States could
improve transparency by taking the following steps:
Posting test data in an easy-to-find place on state Web
sites
Providing clear information and cautions about breaks in
the comparability of test data caused by new tests or changes in
testing systems
Reporting standard deviations, mean scale scores, numbers
of test-takers, and other important information listed in chapter 7 of
our report.
State-By-State Achievement Trends on the Web
The trends highlighted in this testimony and in our report have
been drawn from an extensive set of data on each state. Complete
profiles of test results and other information for individual states
can be accessed on the CEP Web site at www.cepdc.org/pubs/
stateassessment. We encourage anyone who is interested in trends for a
specific state to visit the Web site and find that state's profile.
Future Phases of This Study
This report describes the findings from phase I of what will be a
three-phase study of student achievement. Phase II, which will be
completed this summer, involves on-site interviews with state officials
in 22 states. Phase II investigates in more detail the trends uncovered
during phase I of the study and the factors that affect comparability
or availability of test data; it also reports information from state
officials about how well specific requirements of NCLB are working and
how the law could be improved. Phase III, which will be carried out in
the fall and winter of 2006-08, examines student achievement at the
school district level in three states.
Thank you, Chairman Kildee, and we are available to answer any
questions.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF RICK MELMER, SECRETARY, SOUTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION
Mr. Melmer. Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member Castle and
members of the subcommittee, my name is Rick Melmer from the
State of South Dakota. I have been serving as the chief school
officer in South Dakota for 4 years. I am grateful for the
opportunity to come and talk to you about a topic that I know
you care deeply about and we certainly do in the State of South
Dakota. I also represent the Council of Chief State School
Officers and this topic has been high on our agenda, as you can
imagine, over the past year and a half.
Since 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act has challenged
schools, districts and States across this country to ensure the
best education possible for students. Since that time I think
you can all agree that States, schools and districts have made
significant progress, both in implementing policies and, as Mr.
Jennings' report suggests, improving achievement scores and
closing achievement gaps. We are grateful for that news. We are
excited to hear about it. And it is really proof that the
foundation has been laid with the No Child Left Behind Act of
2002 for some good things in the future. Our hope is that we
can take advantage of this opportunity now to reauthorize this
act and make it even better as we look ahead 5 to 7 years down
the road.
The Council of Chief State School Officers has worked for
the past 3 months in three primary areas: One, the development
of a policy statement; two, eight specific recommendations in
how the law can be improved; and, finally, specific legislative
language that can be used when you are considering
reauthorization. The purpose of my remarks today though is
going to be focusing on three primary areas where flexibility
could benefit States across this country.
The first area is the promotion of innovative models in
reinventing the peer review process. We have all heard about
growth models. In fact, there are seven States today that have
been approved by the Department to implement growth models.
There are many more States out there like South Dakota that
would like to be one of those States. At times we are
challenged, especially in rural States, to have the expertise
we need to build the capacity to create growth models. It would
be my hope that as we look ahead to the future that the NCLB
reauthorization would include the ability to help States, all
States if they want to reach a goal of growth models or other
innovative testing systems that could benefit students in their
State.
We spend a lot of time talking about growth models, but I
hope we don't forget that there could be other ways to assess
kids, especially when you are looking at 21st century skills,
ways like portfolios, project-based learning and possibly even
computer simulations that would test whether the young people
of today have the skills they need to be successful.
The second part of my comment is reinventing the peer
review process. Currently the peer review process is based
almost exclusively on compliance. And frankly when the law was
instituted in 2002 that was probably the right model to
implement because the U.S. Department of Education had an
obligation to ensure that every State complied and set the
right foundation. The good news is almost every State in the
country has been approved under the Standards and Assessment
Program. So the need for the compliance peer review is less
today than it was in 2002. So we are suggesting a peer review
process that is a lot more transparent and a lot more
collaborative in its efforts in working with the States.
You may know this, but we have no opportunity to even talk
to our peer review members when they are reviewing our State's
Standards and Assessment Program. The best peer review process
is an interactive process where you can sit at the table and
have dialogue about your concerns and issues and the peer
review members can get a better feeling from a State as to what
the issues really are.
The second area I wanted to emphasize is differentiated
consequences. In South Dakota we have 700-plus schools in about
168 school districts. As you can imagine, some of our schools
in our State do very well. We also have some that hit--for
example, in our largest district of Sioux Falls, there are
three schools in Sioux Falls that hit 17 of 18 of their
academic targets under No Child Left Behind. And yet those
schools are treated the same as a school that hits 0 of 18
academic targets. We lack the ability at the State level of
treating individual schools differently based on their academic
performance. If you hit 18 of 18 you are treated the same as
someone that hits 0 of 18. Differentiated consequences have to
be a part of reauthorization as we move into the future.
And finally, teacher quality. We would all agree on the
need for teacher quality and the importance of it. But in rural
States like South Dakota where you have 45 districts with less
than 200 kids high school teachers oftentimes teach many
different disciplines and oftentimes five, six and even seven
preps in a day. It is difficult to recruit high school teachers
in our State when we are expecting them to take tests in three
different content areas in five or six specific course content
areas. So the Highly Qualified Teacher Act, even though I know
its intentions are honorable and important, makes it
increasingly difficult for us to recruit high school teachers
and make sure that they are highly qualified in all other
content areas.
I am grateful for the opportunity to testify today and look
forward to the question and answer period that will follow.
[The statement of Mr. Melmer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Rick Melmer,
South Dakota Secretary of Education
Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member Castle, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on
providing appropriate flexibility in the reauthorized Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA). My name is Rick Melmer, and I am the
Secretary of Education in South Dakota, a position I have held since
2003. I am also the president-elect of the Council of Chief State
School Officers (CCSSO) and have previously been a local superintendent
in Watertown, South Dakota and in Sioux City, Iowa.
Passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) appropriately
challenged states and school districts to redouble their efforts to
ensure the success of all students. During the last 5 years, states
have made tremendous strides in implementing the policies and programs
needed to improve student achievement and close achievement gaps. In
fact, every state has implemented state standards, state assessments,
state accountability plans, and state teacher quality plans. Now the
question is how do we use the opportunity presented by reauthorization
to form a new state-federal partnership designed to build-on, and
effectively use, the strong foundation laid by states and districts
during the last few years. Working together I believe we can make a
difference for each and every child in this country.
CCSSO and its members worked for nearly a year and a half in
preparation for reauthorization by developing a policy statement, eight
specific recommendations, and then legislative language that codified
the eight recommendations into current statute. We also partnered with
the National Governors Association and the National Association of
State Boards of Education to deliver a separate, joint reauthorization
statement to Congress.
CCSSO's membership believes that reauthorization should emphasize
three principles (1) innovation, (2) capacity building; and (3)
research and dissemination of best practices. These principles, and our
specific recommendation for achieving them, have been delivered to the
Committee through the testimony of nearly a half-dozen of my state
colleagues who participated in recent hearings on adequate yearly
progress, growth models, students with disabilities, and supplemental
education services. I am here today to reinforce our recommendations
and to talk about their specific importance in the rural context. I ask
that you keep these concepts at the forefront of your internal
discussions as you begin to craft the changes to the ESEA that will
guide the education reform process for the next five years.
This hearing focuses appropriately on examining the proper level of
state and local flexibility needed to ensure that the reauthorized ESEA
helps, not hinders, the education reform process during the coming
years. Congress must continue to hold states accountable for improving
student achievement and closing achievement gap, while also providing
them with the flexibility needed to implement innovative models for
accomplishing these vital national goals. States are chomping on the
bit to move forward with creative, innovative solutions to many
challenging problems, but the current framework is inhibitive and too
rigid to recognize unique state and local challenges and opportunities,
particularly in rural areas.
Given the pace of change and the dramatic improvements we need in
student achievement to make every child a graduate ready for college,
work, and citizenship, the question is: How do we build a federal law
that promotes state action and innovation, with continuous improvement
over time? Flexibility and support are core strategies to achieving
this goal. But what we need is a culture shift in federal law.
Flexibility should not be understood as bending the rules, but should
rather be available whenever it makes the best educational sense for
students. Innovation should be the hallmark of federal law, in which
states are encouraged to build better education systems that improve
student achievement in their particular state contexts and may provide
promising models for other states. This approach is particularly
important in small and rural states like South Dakota, but also to my
state colleagues who are moving towards innovations such as the use of
formative and web-based, embedded assessments.
How can federal law codify such innovation without undercutting
core principles? We have several concrete recommendations that build on
NCLB.
I. Promote Innovative Models and Reinvent Peer Review
States should be encouraged to implement innovative education
reform models, so long as they can demonstrate, through a revised peer
review process, that their approach is educationally sound and is
designed to raise, not lower, the achievement bar. The new system must
also better recognize when schools and districts are making real
progress. Rural states like South Dakota know what needs to be done to
move forward, and could benefit significantly by having greater
flexibility to address the unique problems they face.
NCLB properly focused the nation's attention on improving basic
skills for all students. Now the new law should take the next step
forward by fostering a ``culture of innovation.'' Implementing this new
approach will require incentives for encouraging innovation and a
transformed peer review process. The current peer review process is a
challenge not only for states, but also the U.S. Department of
Education. South Dakota is now in the middle of its standards and
assessment peer review and is currently labeled as ``approval
pending.'' We admittedly have work to do to make our system better, but
the current peer review framework does not always facilitate
improvement. For example, a revamped peer review system supported by
greater resources would enable the Department to provide more timely
communication to us and to other states. The current process would also
be more effective if it included a strong technical assistance
component that informed our work. Rigid penalties are also a problem.
For example, even though all interested parties acknowledge that we
have made significant progress over the past year in improving the
state's assessment system, 25% of our Title I administrative funds may
be withheld. Such withholding will make it even more difficult for us
to accomplish our objectives. I believe the new law should reward or
acknowledge improvement, and avoid rigid penalties for states, like
mine, that are making good faith efforts to improve.
In sum, we believe a revised peer review process should grant
states a role in the selection of qualified peers, focus on technical
assistance, full transparency, real communication and dialogue with
states, consistency in peer review standards and outcomes across
states, timeliness of feedback and results, dissemination of best
practices, and more.
II. Improve Accountability Determinations
States should be able to use a variety of accountability models,
including growth models and compensatory data that build on AYP, to
promote more valid, reliable, educationally meaningful accountability
determinations.
South Dakota applied to be a growth model pilot state for the
testing year 2006. Unfortunately, the Department denied our application
and many other states' applications. More states might have been able
to take advantage of this important flexibility if the law placed a
greater emphasis on fostering innovation and provided increased
resources and strong technical support. For example, many rural states
do not have the ``in-house'' expertise (i.e., psychometricians) to
develop and evaluate their own assessment systems. In this instance, an
enhanced peer review process that includes technical assistance and
provides incentives for innovation could have had powerful results.
Therefore, while we strongly urge you to encourage growth models as
part of ESEA reauthorization, we also ask that you ensure the new law
encourages states to pursue such innovations and provides proper
financial and technical supports needed to help them succeed.
III. Differentiated Consequences
The reauthorized ESEA should encourage a full range of rewards and
consequences for districts and schools that differ appropriately in
nature and degree. Based, for example, on whether schools miss AYP by a
little versus a lot. In that context, the new law should permit states
to exercise appropriate judgment and differentiate both accountability
determinations and consequences based on sound evidence.
This is particularly important in rural areas where the rigid
consequences of NCLB often do not fit the needs of the school or
district struggling to make improvements. For example, the Sioux Falls
School District in South Dakota is our largest district. The Sioux
Falls district is currently on Level 2 of District Improvement even
though the district has reached over 80% of the academic targets (180
of 224). Furthermore, there are three schools in Sioux Falls that
reached 17 of 18 academic targets and yet remain ``in improvement.''
This designation is the same as a school that reaches 0 of 18 would
receive. The ``all or none'' approach to school and district
improvement must change to reflect an accurate assessment of
educational progress or lack thereof. Unless a school in improvement
reaches a perfect score two years in a row, the school remains ``in
improvement.''
IV. Enhance Teacher Quality
Incentives should be put in place for states to create the best
teaching force by continuously improving teacher quality, by supporting
best-in-class professional development, and by using multiple
individual pathways to pedagogical and subject matter expertise.
South Dakota has 45 school districts with less than 200 students in
the K--12 districts. High school teachers are expected to teach in
multiple disciplines in order for the small high schools to meet the
state's graduation requirements. As a result, the highly qualified
teacher guidelines, which tend to favor large districts with
specialized teachers, can hamper a rural district's ability to meet the
intent of the law.
The highly qualified expectations for high school special education
teachers have made a challenging circumstance even more difficult.
South Dakota currently has a shortage of special education teachers,
especially at the high school level. The current law that requires a
special education teacher to be highly qualified in all content areas
is unrealistic and problematic in rural states.
I mentioned only a few of the areas where rural states like South
Dakota have felt most challenged by the rigidity of the current
framework. We have learned a lot in just the past few years about what
is working in our schools and what is not. It's fair to say that the
federal government, nor states, nor districts, nor schools have all the
answers, so the law must provide room for continuous improvement and
states and districts should be able to use their judgment about how to
accomplish NCLB's core objectives.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and I look
forward to answering any questions you may have.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN STRAUS, PRESIDENT,
MICHIGAN STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ms. Straus. Thank you, Chairman Kildee, Congressman Castle
and members of the subcommittee. I am delighted to be here and
greatly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and
discuss flexibility in the most recent version of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or the No Child Left
Behind Act. I am particularly pleased and honored to be here
with Chairman Kildee in the position he is in because, as he
said, we go back a long way to when he was in the State Senate
in Michigan and I was a Staff Director for the Senate Education
Committee at that time. So we are very proud to have you in
your position and very proud of you.
And I am privileged to be here today to represent not only
the State of Michigan as President of the State Board, which in
Michigan is an elected statewide body, bipartisan, but I am
also speaking on behalf of the National Association of State
Boards of Education and my colleagues who serve on State boards
throughout the country.
I want to make it clear that Michigan State Board of
Education and indeed all the State boards across the country
embrace the philosophy and the goals of the No Child Left
Behind Act. It is our belief that the fundamental aspects of
the law are positive and well-intentioned.
As State education leaders we have championed the theory
for many years that all children can learn. But it is also our
belief of State boards generally, and in particular the entire
State Board of Michigan, all eight members, Republicans and
Democrats alike, that modifications to NCLB are necessary to
reach these goals.
In the initial phases of implementation there was no aspect
of the law that was more welcome than flexibility, nor more
touted I might add. We were soon to learn, however, that the
flexibility existed more in theory than in application. What we
inherently knew as State board members at the State level and
throughout the country was that we have 50 separate distinct
State education systems. A one-size-fits-all approach is
difficult if not impossible to apply throughout the country.
Speaking from personal experience, this became painfully
clear as we in Michigan parsed through the law page by page all
those many, many pages and provisions and tried to make it fit
into the academic frameworks, assessment schedule and the
accountability system that we had previously and so
successfully established in Michigan. We came to the conclusion
that while we are meeting the spirit of the law we clearly
needed more flexibility to help our good faith efforts in
meeting the letter of the law.
As a result, I am here today to reaffirm the NASBE
recommendation, the National Association of State Boards of
Education recommendation, that we need to move from a law of
absolutes to one that incorporates the following principles:
One, provide adaptation in State assessment requirements,
particularly for testing of special needs students, such as
students with disabilities and limited English proficient
students.
Two, to permit the use of growth model measures in all
States.
Three, to provide accommodations in teacher qualifications,
deferring to well-established State licensure procedures,
recognizing in particular the challenges of staffing in rural
areas and high needs subjects.
Fourth, to recognize the enhanced role of States in
education leadership, technical assistance and school
improvement with a solid, consistent Federal investment for
State capacity that reflects the State-Federal partnership in
improving low performing schools. All the States are providing
a great deal of technical assistance but need the capacity to
do so.
And fifth, promote fair, consistent and equal treatment in
all dealings, negotiations and approvals between State and
Federal officials supplemented by peer review, as Rick just
said, consisting of accomplished, credentialed, well-trained
professionals knowledgeable in State and Federal education
policy and law.
As you know, these issues surrounding ESEA reauthorization
are of such concern to State educational leaders that NASBE,
the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief
State School Officers included these things, among others, in a
recently proposed set of joint reauthorization recommendations
that were submitted to Congress. Perhaps the most important
suggestion I could make today on behalf of State policy makers
is to give States that have served as the laboratories of
innovation and reform the latitude to address their unique
circumstances. States should be extended the freedom to
development and implement policies that meet their specific
needs while remaining within the spirit and letter of the law.
Admittedly, some areas have been addressed but clearly many
more aspects need attention and collaboratively developed
resolutions. In Michigan's accountability workbook submissions,
for example, to the Department of Education that serve as our
current day annual plans we have asked for such latitude. But I
regret to say that a fair amount of what we have thoughtfully
compiled and presented has been rejected, often after months of
delay and sometimes having been accompanied in the first and
subsequent instances by what we thought were encouraging
commentaries of acceptance.
Unfortunately, our experience in Michigan has not been
unique. As a State that is generally recognized as a national
leader in education and as one of some 18 States that have
received full approval for our assessment system, what would we
specifically request.
You have our whole statement, but I will be glad to answer
any questions you have. So thank you very much for this
opportunity.
[The statement of Ms. Straus follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Kathleen N. Straus, President,
Michigan State Board of Education
Chairman Kildee, Congressman Castle and Members of the
Subcommittee, please accept my sincere appreciation for the opportunity
to testify today on flexibility in the most recent version of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind Act. I am
privileged to appear before you today, representing not only the State
of Michigan as President of the statewide, elected, bipartisan State
Board of Education, but also speaking on behalf of the National
Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) and my colleagues who
serve on state boards of education throughout the United States.
Initially I want to make it abundantly clear that the Michigan
State Board of Education and, indeed, all state boards of education
embrace the philosophy and goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. It is
our belief that the fundamental aspects of the law are positive and for
the most part well intentioned. As state education leaders, we have
championed the theory for many years that all children can learn. But
it is also our belief--of state boards generally and the entire
Michigan State Board of Education, all eight members, Republicans and
Democrats alike in particular--that modifications are necessary to the
amendments made in the 2001 reauthorization.
In the initial phases of implementation of the No Child Left Behind
Act, there was no aspect of the new law more welcome than flexibility,
nor more touted, I might add. We were soon to learn, however, that the
flexibility existed more in theory than in application. What we
inherently knew as state board members at the state level and
throughout the country, was that we essentially have 50 separate,
distinct state education systems. A one-size-fits-all approach is
difficult if not impossible to universally apply throughout the
country. Speaking from personal experience, this became painfully clear
as we parsed through the law page by page and provision by provision,
and tried to make it fit into the academic frameworks, assessment
schedule, and accountability system we had previously and so
successfully established in Michigan. We came to the conclusion that
while we are meeting the spirit of the law we clearly needed more
flexibility to help our good faith efforts in meeting the letter of the
law. As a result, I am here today to reaffirm the NASBE recommendation
that we need to move from a law of absolutes to one that incorporates
the following principles:
Provide adaptation in state assessment requirements, particularly
for testing of special needs students such as students with
disabilities and Limited English Proficient (LEP) students;
Permit the use of growth model measures in all states;
Provide accommodations in teacher qualifications, deferring to
well-established state licensure procedures, recognizing in particular
the challenges of staffing in rural areas and high-need subjects;
Recognize the enhanced role of states in education leadership,
technical assistance, and school improvement with a solid, consistent
federal investment for state capacity that reflects the new state-
federal partnership in improving low-performing schools;
Promote fair, consistent and equal treatment in all dealings,
negotiations, and approvals between state and federal officials,
supplemented by peer review teams consisting of accomplished,
credentialed, well-trained professionals, knowledgeable in state and
federal education policy and law.
As you know, these issues surrounding ESEA reauthorization are of
such concern to state educational leaders that NASBE, the National
Governors' Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers
included these themes among others in a recently-proposed set of joint
reauthorization recommendations submitted to the Congress.
Perhaps the most important suggestion I could make today on behalf
of state policymakers is to give states that have served as the
laboratories of innovation and reform the latitude to address their
unique circumstances. States should be extended the freedom to develop
and implement policies that meet their specific needs, while remaining
within the spirit and letter of the law. Admittedly some areas have
been addressed, but clearly many more aspects need attention and
collaboratively-developed resolutions.
In Michigan's accountability workbook submissions to the U.S.
Department of Education (USED) that serve as current day annual plans
we have asked for such latitude. Some of what we have sought has been
accepted. But I regret to say that a fair amount of what we have
thoughtfully compiled and presented has been rejected, often however
after months of delay, and sometimes having been accompanied in the
first and subsequent instances by encouraging commentaries of
acceptance. Unfortunately, our experience in Michigan has not been
unique.
As a state that is generally recognized as a national leader in
education, and as one of some 18 states that have received full
approval for our assessment system, what would we specifically request?
Let me briefly provide you with our priorities:
Graduation Cohorts of More Than Four Years Recognizing that time is
the variable for some students to achieve the more rigorous graduation
requirements recently adopted in Michigan and across the nation, we
must have the flexibility to use graduation cohorts of more than four
years under some circumstances. This is especially necessary for
alternative education programs that accept and embrace students who are
far behind grade level and are punished by the current system when they
are unable to graduate the individual students with a four-year cohort.
Use of Best Score Through Grade 12 in Adequate Yearly Progress
Calculations (AYP) Michigan would like to incorporate the student's
best score, including senior retests, in AYP determinations. The best
score for students in calculating high school AYP would be used through
Grade 12. We recommend the use of alternate assessments measured
against alternate/modified achievement standards based on
individualized growth expectations across grade levels, as needed for
some students.
Identification of School or School District for Improvement It
would be preferable to identify a school or school district for
improvement only if the school or school district does not make AYP for
the same content area in the same subgroup for two consecutive years.
Proxy Calculation for Students with Mild to Moderate Cognitive
Impairment Allow the ``standard number of years'' for graduation to be
more than four under special circumstances.
Permit the Development of Appropriate Assessments for Students with
Disabilities An assessment between the current ``1 percent assessment''
and the newly-permitted ``2 percent assessment'' would help states
assure that all students with disabilities are assessed appropriately.
Limited English Proficient Students and AYP Allow schools and
school districts to expand flexibility for English Language Learners
(ELLs) in their first year of school in the United States to their
first two years of school in the U.S. Allow ELL students to reach
proficiency in English before testing in English; allow standard number
of years for graduation to be more than four. Permit states to properly
include new immigrant ELL students in school accountability, based on
multiple measures for several years (no fewer than three), where
educationally appropriate. Allow a full range of alternative
assessments, and a system that values individualized growth. Recognize
the positive performance of students who have recently transitioned out
of the ELL student subgroup accountability determinations for an
appropriate period.
Consistency with Approvals of Exceptions Among States In
Washington, the current terminology is transparency. In Michigan we
would refer to it as equity, fairness, and respect. In the creation of
state plans and the approval of accountability workbook modifications,
USED should maintain a policy of consistency. Uniformly sharing
information about approvals openly among states would foster great
mutual respect and trust, and at the same time assist states in
resolving similar difficulties. Some examples of inconsistency have
been approval of various N sizes, confidence intervals, and assessment
of ELL students.
Thank you again for the opportunity to offer Michigan's State Board
of Education perspective and that of our national association. I would
be pleased to answer any questions you may have, or provide background
information to support the issues I have raised today.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much and your entire
statement will be included in the record.
Miss Johnson.
STATEMENT OF CAROL JOHNSON, SUPERINTENDENT, MEMPHIS CITY
SCHOOLS
Ms. Johnson. Good afternoon, Chairman Kildee, Congressman
Castle, and members of the subcommittee. I am Carol Johnson,
Superintendent of the Memphis City Schools. I have been in
Memphis for 4 years and 6-1/2 years in Minneapolis, Minnesota
before that as Superintendent. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify on flexibility issues and on No Child Left Behind.
This school year I am really proud to say that the State of
Tennessee declared Memphis City Schools to be in good standing
under No Child Left Behind. It was the first time since No
Child Left Behind has been put in place. In 2004, we had about
62 schools that were deemed a high priority by the State. And
indeed we have a lot more work to do, but today we have about
half that number, about 36 schools.
The Council of the Great City Schools in their Beating the
Odds report reported that our school district was making faster
progress than the State. And we believe that flexibility means
different things to different people. And so my comments today
will really focus a great deal on where we think the
flexibility should occur.
But before I begin let me just say that I think that No
Child Left Behind is at a critical juncture where failure to
address concerns about the implementation threatens to
undermine its original and noble purpose of creating academic
success for all students. So I hope today, and as you review
the bill, that you will certainly look at ways to enhance the
flexibility that I think is desperately needed.
Today I would like to briefly summarize five key points:
School intervention and improvement framework, a little bit
about the growth model and data systems, transferability and
staffing high priority schools.
We believe, and if you look on page 7 of my remarks you
will see that the Council has outlined a modification of the
school intervention and improvement framework. The chart
attached to my testimony on page 7 illustrates our proposal and
how it compares with the current law. This revision will allow
the accountability timeline for schools to begin immediately.
It focuses on improvement and acknowledges a sustained change
happens over a multi-year period, not one year at a time, and
shifts the sanctions from cascading and changing every year to
helping schools to stay focused on the improvement strategy
long enough to see real results. And further in the red boxes,
it separates, and I think this is consistent with Secretary
Melmer's comments, it separates those schools that are
pervasive and persistent failures to those schools that have
maybe one subgroup having difficulty. It does retain the
parental choice that will remain and it moots the effects of
receiving late test data from the State and gives schools
additional flexibility in the use of funds.
The Council's emphasis on good and best teaching strategies
during this initial intervention period I believe is consistent
with what we are seeing in Memphis that really works. The focus
on restructuring strategies is something I am familiar with in
my experience both in Minneapolis and in Memphis. Over the past
three years we have restructured, or fresh started as we call
it, eight schools in Memphis and we begin restructuring for
additional schools this fall. Of the eight schools that have
been restructured six now have made adequate yearly progress
after failing to make AYP for 6 consecutive years.
The Memphis City Schools restructuring model is known as
Fresh Start and before we decide to restructure a school we
don't just rely on the test score data; we have a team of
external examiners come in and work with us to look at all
aspects of the data, including survey data and other things
about the school climate. Our restructuring program begins
first by replacing the principal and then we have flexibility
in our collective bargaining agreement to hire teachers out of
seniority order and as well to alter the compensation structure
so that they can get rewarded for actual results.
The growth model, and of course Tennessee is one of those
States that has had extensive experiences with the growth
model, and we agree with most educators that a growth model
should be incorporated into the accountability system. I
believe that what teachers want is teachers want to get credit
for showing progress with students who may come not being
English speakers, but who teachers teach to read, write and
think in English. That progress, though it may be significant,
sometimes it is not enough for them to make the adequate yearly
progress that is needed.
All of us are working to improve our tracking system so
that we know what works and we know who is achieving. In
Memphis we have a formative assessment system to monitor
student progress and we use that every 6 weeks.
Transferability, we believe that we need greater
flexibility, keeping Title I and Title III separate, since they
are very student focused, but in the other categories asking
for greater flexibility.
And then just finally we believe that it is really
important that we are able to use a range of tools to incent
and support putting and keeping the best teachers with our most
vulnerable students. We are using Teach for America induction
and mentoring programs, a teacher incentive grant to reward
performance and connect good teaching practices with reward
systems.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Carol Johnson,
Superintendent of the Memphis City Schools
Good morning Chairman Kildee, Congressman Castle, and members of
the Subcommittee. I am Carol Johnson, Superintendent of the Memphis
City Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on flexibility
issues under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), legislation that we
have worked hard to implement.
The Memphis City Schools (MCS) is a large urban school district
comprised of 191 schools and 118,000 students. Approximately 77 percent
of our students receive a free or reduced-price lunch. We serve a
predominantly African-American student population, but have a growing
enrollment of English language learners who now number over 4,800
students from a variety of countries. Some 14.4 percent of our students
are enrolled in special education programs, of which about 12 percent
are gifted. We are very proud to serve this diverse group of young
people.
We are also proud of the work of our administrators, teachers, and
community leaders. They are striving every day to improve the academic
achievement of our students. This school year, the State of Tennessee
declared our district to be in ``Good Standing'' under No Child Left
Behind for the first time. In 2004, we had 62 schools that were deemed
``High Priority'' by the state, i.e., in need of improvement. Today, we
have about half that number--36.
Our academic gains, in fact, were highlighted recently in the
Council of the Great City Schools' latest Beating the Odds report. The
report not only recognized our progress but also pointed out that we
are improving at a rate that far out paces statewide improvements.
Nevertheless, we know that we still have considerable work to do.
I am pleased to be testifying today on the issue of flexibility
under NCLB. Flexibility, of course, means different things to different
people. To a school superintendent, flexibility can mean the ability to
move human and financial resources around to meet specified needs. But
it can also mean the freedom to give the wrong contract to an
unqualified group. To a principal, flexibility can mean the ability to
hire the team he or she wants in order to meet AYP targets. It can also
mean the latitude to hire a workshop speaker he or she heard at a
recent convention. To a teacher, flexibility can mean trying a new
pedagogical technique. It can also mean closing the classroom door and
doing whatever he or she feels like that day. To a state, flexibility
can mean experimenting with alternative assessments for English
language learners. It can also mean excluding those students by setting
high N sizes. Or it can mean defining one's own definition of academic
proficiency.
What gives flexibility its meaning and power is accountability, and
the ability to hold people responsible for attaining expected goals--
often in exchange for that latitude.
I am a strong believer in flexibility and the accountability that
should accompany it. The Council of the Great City Schools on whose
Executive Committee I sit also believes in this general principle. As a
group, we continue to support NCLB and have developed a series of
recommendations for its reauthorization that expands maximum
flexibility while retaining strong accountability. We have also
proposed ways to fix the law's operational problems, and shift funds
into activities with greater promise for raising student achievement
and narrowing achievement gaps. We have retained the overall framework
of the Act, but have suggested modifying its internal operating gears
so that its initial promise is better realized.
1. Proposed Intervention and Improvement Framework
I would like to take a few minutes to describe how the nation's
urban schools would modify the ``school intervention and improvement''
provisions of the law. The chart attached to my testimony illustrates
our proposal and how it compares with current law.
We propose that a school not making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
would begin school improvement planning immediately, rather than
waiting another year. The school plan would have to focus on low-
performing students, particularly those in low-performing subgroups. A
school with large numbers of students who were not proficient would
have a more extensive plan than a school with a lesser numbers or
percentages of low-performing students. During this one-year planning
phase, schools would have the flexibility to begin staff development
immediately and the latitude of using Title I funds to acquire
necessary instructional materials or technical assistance.
We would then consolidate the current School Improvement I, School
Improvement 2, and Corrective Action phases of the current law into a
single, three-year school intervention and improvement period. This
three-year period would allow a school to use its funds for well-
researched instructional strategies that have been shown to raise
student achievement--such as differentiated instruction, coaching,
research-based reading programs, tiered interventions, benchmark
testing, professional development, and the like. The school would be
required to use up to 30 percent of its Title I funding for
professional development, choice, and supplemental educational
services, but would have the flexibility to fund these activities at a
variety of levels as long as parents retain the option of transferring
to another school or pick an external, private SES provider. We would
follow this initial improvement period with serious but more
differentiated consequences than the law currently provides.
This overall approach would have a number of advantages over
current law. First, it would allow schools the time to pursue promising
instructional programming under the direction of the school districts
without changing activities each year in pursuit of the cascading
sanctions the law now requires. Second, it would allow enough time for
the instructional strategies to work before sanctions were levied.
Third, it would give schools additional flexibility in the use of
funds. Fourth, it would mute the effects of late test data from the
states because the school's status would be determined for a multi-year
period. Fifth, it would retain parental choice. Finally, it would keep
the most serious sanctions but place them at the end of a process that
was devoted to raising achievement and narrowing gaps.
The Council's emphasis on good instructional strategies during this
initial intervention and improvement period is consistent with what we
are doing in Memphis to raise student achievement, and what the
organization has learned from its highly successful Strategic Support
Teams. In Memphis, we use a series of strategies to assist and support
our ``High Priority'' schools, including----
Districtwide Strategies for All Grade Levels
Administrative leadership training
School monitoring and ``walkthroughs''
Cross-functional instructional teams
DATA (Directing Achievement through Accountability)
Formative assessments
Professional learning communities to sustain improvement
and change
Behavioral supports (Blue Ribbon Initiative)
Elementary School Strategies
Literacy academy at selected schools
Voyager interventions--Grades 2-5 districtwide
Middle School Strategies
Read 180
Striving Readers (eight schools)
Increased honors--level courses
Making Middle Grades Work (district implementation)
High Schools
High Schools That Work
Small Learning Communities (9th grade academies)
I also have made a number of organizational changes to increase
support for students, teachers, and schools by establishing an Office
of Academic Affairs, an Office of Student Engagement, an Office of
Research, Evaluation and Assessment, and establishing a new associate
superintendent's position to lead professional development.
2. Differentiated Consequences and Restructuring
The Council's proposals follow this initial period of intervention
and improvement with a series of differentiated consequences, a concept
that has received much attention as of late. We would distinguish
between two types of schools: schools that persistently and pervasively
fail to make progress with a majority of its students, and schools that
fail to make progress with students who comprise fewer than half their
students. Schools in the first category would be required, after a
planning year, to comprehensively restructure or close. Schools in the
second category would be required, after a planning year, to pursue a
restructuring strategy that was more explicitly focused on the students
or subgroups that were not making progress and staff members delivering
services to them.
The first category of schools under our plan would warrant
comprehensive restructuring or closure if they could not make any
academic progress. The second category of schools would not necessarily
warrant closure if the majority of its students or subgroups were
making AYP targets or showing progress. These schools, instead, would
have to focus their efforts and strategies--under the supervision of
the district--on the students not making headway. We would cap the
number of these schools in either category at a manageable 10 percent
of all schools in a large district.
In the past three years, I have restructured eight schools in
Memphis, and will begin restructuring four additional schools in 2007-
2008. Of the eight schools that have been restructured, six have now
made Adequate Yearly Progress after having failed to make AYP for six
consecutive years.
Before deciding to restructure a school, our Memphis staff have to
document the specific intervention and support strategies that have
been implemented. If these measures prove unsuccessful, the district
then contracts with an external group to conduct a management and
instructional review of the school. The results of this review are used
to determine whether restructuring is in the best interest of students.
If restructuring is called for, then wed engage school staff, parents,
and the school community to support the restructuring and reform
efforts.
The Memphis City Schools restructuring model is known as ``Fresh
Start.'' Our program begins by replacing the principal of the
identified school. The new principal is then given the authority to
appoint a new administrative support team that will work together to
interview and hire an entirely new faculty and school support staff.
Teachers in ``Fresh Start'' schools are paid for two additional weeks
of professional development--one before the school year starts and one
later. Teachers in ``Fresh Start'' schools are eligible for financial
bonuses based on the school's progress toward student achievement
goals.
This overall restructuring approach is not easy or free of
controversy, but it can be more effective. The Council's proposal also
makes sense because it matches the sanction more closely to the
severity of the problem without letting schools with small numbers of
subgroups off the hook. Finally, this proposed approach more fairly
balances an emphasis on instructional improvement and budgetary and
programmatic flexibility with the need for strong accountability at the
end of the day. That balance is out of kilter under current law because
of its overemphasis on punishment and under-emphasis on what it takes
to meet the Act's goals--good instruction.
3. Other Areas of Flexibility, Authority, and Reduced Restrictions
a) Growth Models. Virtually every commentator on NCLB suggests that
the law include a growth model that would consider academic progress as
part of the Act's accountability system. We agree with adding this
feature to the law. Because not every state will want to use this
flexibility, however, the Council recommends that school districts with
the data capability be allowed to use an approved growth model from
another state as part of that district's accountability system under
NCLB. For example, Denver or Omaha could adopt the Tennessee or North
Carolina model to assess progress and determine AYP.
We in Memphis have benefited from participation in the Tennessee
Growth Model Pilot Program. It has given us a more accurate picture of
the impact of the school's educational program on individual student
academic growth. And it has given us better data to inform instruction.
Still, Congress should know that growth models are not the panacea for
long lists of ``failing'' schools if the models are based on a
``universal proficiency trajectory'' tagged to 2013-14. Less than a
dozen schools made AYP using the Tennessee Growth Model. Even fewer did
using the North Carolina Growth Model because both models are simply
variations on the current status model and do not provide much credit
for actual growth across the range of student achievement. The Council
has made a number of recommendations for the ``safe harbor'' provisions
that would give more credit for growth even if the school and students
remained below the target proficiency levels. We think this would help
improve flexibility.
b) Improved Data Systems. An essential component of any growth
model is the state and local data system necessary to implement and
support it. The Council suggests that local school districts have the
flexibility to use up to 1 percent of their federal education funds for
improving local data systems.
c) District Provision of SES or Extended Learning Programs. The
Council has recommended retaining NCLB's SES program but proposes
making it part of the schools' intervention and improvement program.
With that change would come the flexibility to use dollars on efforts
that are more likely to boost the overall academic performance of
children. Data collected by the Council also indicate that the numbers
of participating students increase when the school district itself is a
provider. The Council is urging that school districts be allowed
explicitly the flexibility to provide those services.
d) Recruitment, Support, and Deployment of Staff in High Poverty
Schools. The Council acknowledges that there is a serious national
problem with the disproportionate placement of inexperienced teachers
in high poverty schools. We would urge that school districts have the
flexibility to use their ESEA funds for teacher recruitment, induction,
mentoring, and other strategies to recruit, deploy, and support
experienced and effective teachers in high poverty schools rather than
mandating more requirements that schools cannot comply with.
e) Restrictions on ESEA Transferability. The Council proposed the
transferability of ESEA funds in 2001 as part of the original NCLB
authorization. We made this recommendation to allow school districts
the flexibility to concentrate funding on a particular problem area
while protecting the funding for the child-centered programs under
Title I and Title III. Congress reduced this flexibility, however, when
it limited the percentage of funds that could be transferred and
further limited the flexibility for districts in improvement status
under section 1116. Some school districts previously using funds for
school improvement activities are currently being prohibited from
continuing these initiatives. Moreover, regulatory restrictions from
the Department of Education have discouraged districts from
transferring funds into Title I. The reauthorization should remove the
percentage restrictions and regulatory constraints and encourage the
use of the transferability provisions for school improvement purposes.
I--like most of my urban colleagues--have supported No Child Left
Behind from the outset, although I see all the same problems with the
law that its detractors see. NCLB's focus on disadvantaged and minority
student achievement is precisely the role that the federal government
envisioned when it passed the original Elementary and Secondary
Education Act in 1965. Unfortunately, it has taken until the beginning
of the 21st century and the passage of NCLB for federal policy to get
serious about the unconscionable achievement gaps that persist in our
country. I hope that my comments today and the pragmatic
recommendations from the Council of the Great City Schools will assist
the Committee in revising the law in a way that will recapture the
nationwide, bipartisan support that NCLB enjoyed at its enactment.
Thank you.
______
Chairman Kildee. Very good. We have votes on the floor of
the House, but if you take 5 minutes we can make it over there
and come right back, but we will hear from you first.
STATEMENT OF CHESTER E. FINN, JR., PRESIDENT,
THOMAS B. FORDHAM FOUNDATION
Mr. Finn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Castle, members of
the committee. It is nice to be invited. I feel as if I should
be dragging a large national membership organization with me
today to keep up with my colleagues, but in fact I am here on
behalf of myself and my colleagues at the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, three of whom came along today, including Mike
Petrilli, who runs our national programs, recently spent 4
years at the Department trying to implement NCLB and currently
is the Chief Editor of The Education Gadfly.
We believe that flexibility isn't a program or an
amendment, it is actually a core principle, and it is a
principle at the heart of the most important question that
Congress needs to answer with respect to the next go-around on
NCLB. Namely, in K-12 education what should the Federal
Government be tight about and what should it be loose about,
when should Uncle Sam be proscriptive and when should he be
flexible. I tend to view NCLB as a good first draft. And now
you have a chance to edit it, revise it, hand it back to its
students and make them improve what they were doing under the
first draft.
How to fix it? Under the heading of the principle of
flexibility these debates quickly become ideological.
Conservatives tend to argue that States are in charge and the
Federal Government should leave them alone. Liberals are apt to
argue that States can't be trusted and that only strong Federal
enforcement of specific actions will cause good things to
happen. Neither of these views is right. Each leads to a bad
outcome. The challenge is to strike an intelligent balance
here.
I want to suggest that there are three guidelines worth
following. First, whenever possible the Federal Government
should be tight with respect to results and loose with respect
to process and procedure.
Second, the Federal Government should figure out what it is
actually good at and where it is apt to be most effective and
only do those things, not try to do things it is not good at
doing.
And thirdly, Washington should encourage States, districts
and schools to earn more autonomy on the basis of strong
performance and successful results.
My written statement elaborates on all three of those
guidelines and offers a number of suggestions for specific
measures that might be taken under each of them. If you all
don't have to run, I will go over a few. If you want to run, I
am happy to wait for questions.
Chairman Kildee. You can finish up.
Mr. Finn. What does it mean to be tight as to results and
loose as to process? This is of course Management 101. Any
large, complex organization sets expectations for its units and
then gives them freedom as to how to attain those expectations
and what results to produce. And yet Federal policy has so
often gotten it backwards, obsessing about process and actually
paying minimal attention to results.
I think NCLB's architects in 2001 believed they had gotten
this straightened out and that NCLB really was about results.
But in fact it turned out to be backwards. NCLB turned out to
be proscriptive with respect to a number of procedures and
inputs in schools and actually surprisingly laid back about
results leaving it to each State to decide what results it
wanted and how to measure them. And we have seen a whole number
of reports and studies, including JACS, but also NCES. And we
see that State standards are incredibly variable, literally all
over the place with respect to what States are expecting of
young Americans. This is not good and it has led Washington
instead to try to control interventions, teacher
qualifications, a whole bunch of inputs and procedures. And
that part is not going very well. What would work far better is
for you all to be quite proscriptive with respect to standards
and tests and use that as an opportunity then to rein in the
regulatory and supervisory impulses of the Federal Government
with respect to how schools ought be run and staffed and
intervened in and operated.
I think, for example, spending restrictions should be
lifted in return for results. I think that Mr. McKeon's thought
on this point is spot on. I think staffing restriction should
be lifted with respect to highly qualified teachers. It is far
better to focus on student achievement than to focus on teacher
credentials.
And third, the NCLB is very proscriptive in terms of the
interventions that districts are supposed to make in schools
year by year by year. It would be far better to let those who
actually have to engage in the interventions figure out what
sequence and what timetable is likely to work best as long as
they are all being held to account for performance against a
common timetable and results which in turn are illuminated by
an enormous amount of sunlight, comparable sunlight, that
everybody's results with respect to each other can be seen and
observed.
I have got a number of examples under my second maxim,
figure out what the government is good at and only do those
things. And I have got a bunch more examples under the third
maxim that you should encourage States, districts and schools
to earn greater autonomy on the basis of their performance.
This might be the most novel point we are making here
today. A number of cities have figured out that successful
schools ought to actually have greater freedom to continue to
succeed. This is a principle that could be applied to States
and districts as well. The better they do, the more freedom
they get to innovate and do things their own way and the less
they have to conform to process and input requirements or
regulations.
I could, as you know, go on but in deference to your clock
as well as your vote, I would be happy to answer questions.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Finn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chester E. Finn, Jr., President, Thomas B.
Fordham Institute and Chairman, Koret Task Force on K-12 Education,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Chairman Kildee, Congressman Castle, members of the subcommittee:
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am heartened to see
you take up the issue of ``Current and Prospective Flexibility Under No
Child Left Behind,'' though I am also aware that this is one of the
last hearings currently scheduled before you start work on legislation.
I hope it's a case of saving the best for last, not some sort of
afterthought.
That's because ``flexibility,'' properly conceived, shouldn't be
considered an ``add-on,'' a separate program, or a sideshow. Rather, it
is at the heart of the most important question the Congress must answer
with respect to the next iteration of NCLB and ESEA. Namely: in
elementary-secondary education, what should the federal government be
``tight'' about, and what should it be ``loose'' about. When should
Uncle Sam be prescriptive, and when should he be flexible?
A few weeks ago, at a National Press Club panel, Hartford
Superintendent Steve Adamowski commented that ``high-achieving
organizations eventually, in some way, get this right: what do you hold
tight, what do you hold loose.'' As a local superintendent, he wrestles
with this question all the time. What should be done uniformly, with
strong central office control? And what should be delegated to
principals? Too much flexibility and schools can founder. Too much
prescription and innovation is sunk.
In Washington, these debates about prescription versus flexibility
and the proper federal role quickly become ideological. Conservatives
tend to argue that states have constitutional authority for schooling
and the federal government should simply leave them alone. (Never mind
that plenty of states have an abysmal record of providing a decent
education, especially for poor and minority kids.) Liberals are apt to
insist that states can't be trusted and that only strong federal
enforcement of specific measures will lead to a narrowing of the
achievement gap. (Never mind that plenty of states were making decent
strides in raising achievement and narrowing gaps sans federal
prodding.)
Neither view is right. Each leads to a bad outcome: Either ``put
the money on the stump,'' let states and schools do whatever they want,
and hope for the best; or micromanage fifty states, 15,000 districts
and tens of thousands of schools through miles of red tape. Neither
approach works, not, at least, if stronger student achievement is the
metric by which success is judged.
Is there a way to transcend these tired and predictable arguments?
Let me propose three pragmatic rules to determine when Uncle Sam should
be ``tight'' (i.e., prescriptive) and when he should be ``loose''
(i.e., flexible):
1. Whenever possible, the federal government should be tight about
results and loose about process.
2. The federal government should figure out what it's good at,
where it's most apt to be effective, and only do those things.
3. The federal government should encourage states, districts, and
schools to ``earn'' even more autonomy on the basis of strong
performance.
Let's take a closer look and consider what these rules would mean
for a revamped NCLB.
Rule #1: ``Tight'' as to Results, ``Loose'' as to Process
This principle comes straight from Management 101: excellent bosses
give their employees clear direction and specify the results to be
achieved. But then they cut their charges plenty of slack to use their
own creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness to achieve those
results as they see fit. In a corporate setting, CEOs are ``tight''
about the bottom line, but ``loose'' as to how a particular unit
achieves it.
This idea is the driving force behind the past twenty years of
standards-based reform. It's related to former Vice President Gore's
efforts to ``reinvent'' government. It's standard practice in large
organizations around the globe. It's also the essential theory behind
site-managed schools and charter schools.
And yet in federal education policy, we usually get it backwards.
We obsess about process and pay minimal attention to results.
NCLB's architects believed, I think sincerely believed, that they
were straightening this out, that NCLB was, above all, about results,
with plenty of interventions and sanctions for those states, districts,
and schools that didn't produce them. But they didn't get it right. I
would even say they made a fundamental mistake. Rather than setting a
common standard for school performance across the land and then
encouraging states, districts, and schools to meet that standard in the
ways that each judges best, they instructed states to define
``proficiency'' in reading and math as they saw fit--and then got very
prescriptive about timelines, calculations of progress, and year-by-
year interventions.
Instead of regulating ends, in other words, Washington once again
found itself regulating means, prescribing a hundred aspects of what
states and districts should do when, by their own lights, their schools
don't do an adequate job. That means way too much regulation on the one
hand and, on the other, plenty of incentive for states to define
``proficiency'' downward and make Swiss cheese out of NCLB's
accountability provisions. Already many states, in order to explain the
discrepancy between their passing rates on state tests and their
students' performance on NAEP, are claiming that observers should
equate state ``proficiency'' with NAEP's ``basic'' level. In other
words, they are satisfied to get their students to ``basic,''
proficiency be damned. A system that allows such cheese-paring and
redefining puts the entire enterprise of standards-based-reform in
peril.
The surest way to end this such questionable practices--and keep
Washington from playing a cat-and-mouse game with recalcitrant states--
is to move to a system of national standards and tests, while
simultaneously freeing states, districts, and schools to achieve those
standards as they see fit.
To be very clear, federal officials do not themselves need to, and
in my view should not, create such national standards and tests
themselves. But the federal government could require or encourage their
use.
What does this have to do with flexibility? Perhaps counter-
intuitively, I see national standards and tests as an opportunity to
rein in Uncle Sam's more dictatorial and bureaucratic impulses. For
forty years, Washington has sought to improve schools by regulating
what they do. NCLB's mandated cascade of interventions into low-
performing schools, for example--a different one each year for seven
consecutive years--illustrates this pattern of behavaior. (As for the
parallel cascade of state interventions into low-performing districts,
the less said the better. It's a complex mandate that may best be
described today as ``ignored''.) Another example: by requiring testing
in just two subjects and resting its entire intervention-and-
accountability edifice on those results, No Child Left Behind has
exerted definite pressure on schools to restructure their curricula,
emphasizing math and reading skills to the detriment of other subjects.
To date, we can find scant evidence that this strategy works--and some
hints that it's backfiring. Schools are narrowing their curricula,
neglecting already-proficient kids, lowering standards, and finagling
test results. Common standards and tests would allow Uncle Sam to back
away from his top-down, regulatory approach and settle instead for
clarifying the objectives to be achieved, then measuring (and
publicizing) whether states, schools, and students are in fact meeting
them.
If states were in fact willing to sign up for tougher national
standards and tests, what process-type regulations would I be willing
to trade? Here are three categories:I21 Spending restrictions.
School principals rightfully want control over their budgets. Yet
current federal policy sends dollars into a myriad of silos,
categorical programs that may or may not meet the needs of individual
communities. NCLB's ``transferability'' provision began to address this
problem by allowing states or school districts to shift funds from one
silo to another, or into Title I. But it set a cap at 50 percent.
President Bush and Congressman McKeon have it right when they call for
expanding transferability to 100 percent, allowing states or districts
to send all of their dollars into the Title I program and then ignore
all rules and regulations for the other programs. This will cut red
tape while also driving more federal dollars toward the needy students
who need them the most. (I also favor Mr. McKeon's call to expand
eligibility for ``schoolwide'' programs within Title I.)I21
Staffing restrictions. The impulse behind No Child Left Behind's
``highly qualified teachers'' provision is understandable. Teacher
quality matters a lot, and most states have set miserably low standards
for incoming teachers. Still, the mandate has created oodles of
unintended consequences that need addressing. Fundamentally, it's worth
asking whether the federal government should concern itself with
teacher credentials or should stay focused laser-like on student
learning. I prefer the latter. (For a compromise idea, see
below.)I21 The ``School Improvement'' Timeline. Sure, states
should take action when low-performing schools fail to improve year
after year. What's not clear is whether NCLB's rigid sequence of
prescribed annual interventions (including choice and tutoring,
corrective action and restructuring) is any better than those that
states might devise. In my view, such actions are far likelier to
succeed if decided as close as possible to the problem and on
timetables that make sense to those who will be responsible for
implementing them. Moreover, ample sunlight shining down on school/
district/state performance vis-a-vis clearly specified national
standards will give state and local officials (and voters, taxpayers,
parents, etc) good information by which to repair their own schools.
Rule #2: The Federal Government Should Figure Out What It's Good At,
Where It's Most Spt to be Effective, and Only Do Those Things
Another key pragmatic question is whether Washington itself has the
capacity, the infrastructure, and the know-how to implement NCLB's
lofty expectations and detailed plans in an effective manner.
Regrettably, the evidence is overwhelming that it does not. Nor will a
change in Administration make much difference. That's because of a
structural flaw in U.S. education federalism that NCLB inherited from
earlier rounds of ESEA.
Back in 1965, when lawmakers' main goal was to disburse federal
dollars to schools for additional instructional services for poor kids,
it made sense, indeed was practically inevitable, to hand those dollars
down the familiar institutional ladder from Washington to state
education agencies to local education agencies. That was how state and
local monies already flowed and there was no reason to create another
mechanism to move federal funds. While SEAs and LEAs weren't always
diligent in following Uncle Sam's rules, it was in their interest to
comply, if only because they and their schools then got the money,
which came without so many strings as to disrupt what they were already
doing.
Today, however, getting Washington's dollars to the right places is
the lesser mission of ESEA/NCLB. The law now deploys its funds and
their attendant conditions, regulations, state plans, and oversight
mechanisms to transform the system in fundamental ways, above all to
boost student achievement and hold schools (and districts and states)
to account for whether or not they accomplish this.
Thus arises a great paradox: Washington still relies primarily on
SEAs and LEAs to do its bidding, yet now the point of federal programs
is not to ``help'' them do more but to change what they do, often in
ways they don't much want to be changed. In ways they judge contrary to
their own interests. Ways that include admitting failure. And ways they
may not be competent to handle, albeit ways that the public interest
demands.
Why do federal policy makers assume that the very agencies that
caused the system's problems (or, at least, allowed them to fester) now
possess the will and capacity to solve them? The truth is, Congress and
the White House never gave this any thought. At least I don't think you
did. When crafting NCLB, I believe the craftspeople simply clung to the
assumption that has ruled ESEA for four decades: that working down the
familiar food chain is how Washington does business in the K-12 sector.
Thus NCLB proceeds in the accustomed sequence, with Uncle Sam
telling states what to do, states telling districts, and districts
doing most of the work. That hierarchy remains the basic architecture
of federal education policy today as in LBJ's time. But its engineers
never pictured it supporting a results-based accountability system,
making repairs to faltering schools, or functioning in an education
environment peppered with such disruptive, non-hierarchical creations
as charter schooling, home schooling, and distance learning. It's as if
a high-tech firm was officed in an old foundry without anyone bothering
to re-wire, re-plumb, or even fumigate the structure.
This problem begins in Washington. Let's consider what NCLB has
taught us about federal capacity:
1. The federal government is not good at nuance. Consider the law's
complicated accountability and AYP provisions, for instance. The
various design problems are legion, but they exist because of the
principle that states must all be treated the same. Because some states
were considered to be untrustworthy and unwilling to hold their schools
accountable, especially for the performance of poor and minority
students, all states were treated with suspicion. Thus the decision to
mandate required elements of AYP, rather than setting broad parameters,
which has led to constant cries for more flexibility. When laggard
states complain about these prescriptive requirements, it's easy to
label it ``whining.'' But when leading states with well-developed
accountability systems complain too, it's a sign that the federal
hammer might be breaking some things that weren't previously broken.
2. The federal government can force recalcitrant states and
districts to do some things they don't want to do, but it can't force
them to do those things well. Yes, Uncle Sam has had plenty of practice
at the compliance game and, on issues that are black or white (are
states testing all students as required, for example), it can intervene
and even take away dollars from misbehaving jurisdictions. But most of
the important parts of NCLB are gray zones. Take ``highly qualified
teachers'' or ``public school choice'' or ``restructuring.'' In each of
these areas, we've seen states and districts go through the motions
without actually living up to the spirit of the law. Yet Washington is
toothless to do much about it. That's not a legislative failure, it's a
fact of organizational life. The federal government doesn't run the
schools or employ their teachers; it has limited ability to make these
complicated functions go well. But ``going through the motions'' isn't
enough if we actually want to transform schools, and it fosters more
cynicism.
3. States and districts do respond to carrots. What the federal
government is actually good at--beyond distributing money, collecting
statistics, investigating specific wrong-doing, and doing research--is
funding promising reforms via competitive grant programs. Consider the
Teacher Incentive Fund, for example. While controversial in some eyes,
it has spurred several large school districts to experiment with merit
pay for teachers. Something that would not have happened, in all
likelihood, without federal dollars. Or look at the decade-old federal
Charter School Program, whose funds are targeted to states with decent
charter school laws. There's little doubt that federal leadership
(first from President Clinton) played a key role in the charter
movement's development. (That the charter program needs a makeover
doesn't detract from the difference it has already made.)
What lessons should Congress take from NCLB's experience with
federal capacity? First, even if you choose to continue to prescribe
specific policies (such as AYP or Highly Qualified Teachers), aim for
being clear about the ends and loose about the means. Take
accountability, for example. If you don't accept the virtues of
national standards, at least be more flexible about states'
accountability systems. Rather than prescribing the exact nature of
AYP, offer key design principles instead.
Let states prove that their systems measure up. Secretary
Spellings' growth model pilot is a good example here. While she
published a clear set of design principles and made states engage in a
rigorous screening process, she didn't mandate a single uniform
approach to measuring growth. Not doing so makes a lot of sense.
The second big lesson is that, if you want to see movement in a
particular area, consider offering dollars to willing states and
districts rather than mandating a course of action for the entire
country. When it comes to school choice, for example, adopt a version
of President Bush's recommendation for a grant program for cities
interested in expanding choice options, rather than forcing all 16,000
districts to go through the motions of offering choice when it's
perfectly obvious that many of them lack the capacity as well as the
will. Or when it comes to ``Highly Qualified and Effective Teachers,''
look to Education Trust's recommendation to offer willing states extra
cash to experiment with a ``value added'' system for measuring teacher
quality, rather than adopting the No Child Left Behind Commission's
suggestion of a nationwide mandate.
Rule #3: The Federal Government Should Encourage States, Districts, and
Schools to ``Earn'' Even More Autonomy on the Basis of Strong
Performance
``Earned autonomy'' is an idea whose time has come. Increasingly
superintendents (in Chicago, Las Vegas, New York City, etc.) are
allowing schools to apply for greater freedom from central office.
Those with a track record of improving student achievement qualify.
This same idea has made inroads in the charter-school domain. While
charters have always been about ``accountability in return for
autonomy,'' increasingly their sponsors (including my own Fordham
Foundation) understand that autonomy is something to be granted
carefully. Once upon a time, some of us in the charter movement thought
we should plant as many seeds as possible as quickly as possible and
let a thousand flowers bloom; after all, we could always close them
down. It turns out that closing schools is far harder than we thought.
And we've witnessed many charter schools founder (or worse) because
their leaders weren't prepared to work with the autonomy they had been
given. So now conscientious sponsors screen applicants very carefully,
just as venture capital firms screen prospective business start-ups.
And only when a founding team proves that it is worthy of a charter and
the concomitant autonomy is the green light given. We also reward
charter schools for good performance by granting longer charters,
hassling them less, and encouraging their replication. (The leash is
shorter for low-performing schools.)
The appeal of this idea is obvious: It encourages good behavior
(especially improved achievement), it recognizes that some entities are
more capable of handling autonomy better than others, and it minimizes
risk.
How could this principle be imported into federal policy? Here's
what it might look like:I21 Grant greater flexibility to states
that sign up for rigorous national standards and tests, or put their
own rigorous system in place. As explained above, this flexibility
could include expanding the funding ``transferability'' provision,
waiving the school improvement timeline, etc.I21 Allow states
with vigorous interventions greater AYP flexibility. Rather than trying
to prescribe the exact sort of overhaul that states should serve up for
failing schools, reward states that are engaging in effective reforms
by giving them more leeway in defining their accountability metrics as
they see fit. For instance, states that energetically provide school
choice options to kids stuck in failing schools--by creating new
charter schools for them to attend, or mandating inter-district
transfers, or in other ways--might be allowed more discretion to
differentiate sanctions for truly abysmal schools versus merely
mediocre ones.I21 Allow schools that make AYP to ignore HQT.
This is a particularly powerful idea. Improving teacher quality is
necessary condition for boosting student achievement. But even the
supporters of the ``highly qualified teachers'' provision admit that
it's a poor proxy for school quality and classroom effectiveness, and
that it's overly focused on paper credentials. So reward schools for
getting great results by allowing them greater flexibility around
staffing. To continue making AYP, schools will continue to make good
decisions around teachers, but with less red tape from Washington.
(This is especially important for high-performing charter schools,
which are supposed to be freed from regulations in return for results,
but are wrapped in the law's subject matter and certification
requirements just like everyone else.)
Conclusion
You may have entered this hearing room contemplating some kind of
new ``flexibility program'' for NCLB. I'm here to urge you to think
more broadly, to ponder just where the federal government should be
prescriptive and where it should be flexible. I hope you consider some
of my specific proposals. I believe four of these have particular
merit:
1. Encouraging states to adopt rigorous national standards and
tests, and in return granting them greater flexibility around spending
(by expanding ``transferability '') and staffing (by waiving ``highly
qualified teachers '').
2. Moving federal requirements for state accountability plans away
from prescriptive and pre-determined actions to more open-ended design
principles. Be clear about the end-result you want, accountability-
wise, but flexible in terms of the specifics.
3. Reducing the number of mandates on states, districts, and
schools, and instead offering competitive grants to entities willing to
experiment with promising practices. In this category I would even
include the law's ``public school choice'' provisions.
4. Allowing schools that make AYP to ignore HQT. At the end of the
day you care about results, and good schools will ensure high-quality
teachers. This show of goodwill and flexibility might go a long way.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify. I look forward
to your questions.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much. We will be right
back. We have two votes. We will be right back.
[Recess.]
Chairman Kildee. We should have an hour at least now
without interruptions. Thank you, Checker, for finishing your
testimony.
Jack, you discussed the need to improve the quality of data
under NCLB. Can you discuss what data a State would need to
collect, to implement and evaluate a sound growth model?
Mr. Jennings. I have to make a correction in my statement.
It is page 82, not page 81.
Chairman Kildee. That is all right.
Mr. Jennings. Alice Cain, Congressman Miller's staff
person, said what page can we rip out.
Chairman Kildee. That will be on the record now.
Mr. Jennings. We have issued a report several weeks ago
about State departments of education. And we think of State
departments of education as the agencies that carry out Federal
law. But they are primarily State agencies and they have
enormous responsibilities that we don't pay much attention to
from the Federal level. And these State departments of
education are severely restrained in terms of person power, in
terms of funding. They just need much better support if they
are going to help improve education. In fact, we find local
school districts go to State departments of education more than
any other agencies and yet they are handicapped because they
don't have enough personnel. And what is happening is State
departments of education are being converted into assistive
agencies where they are starting to help local school districts
more to bring about improvement and they need help with this
transition. So we recommended in this other report that States
get just an encouragement grant from the Federal Government
because they are State agencies and have State leaders to help
rethink State departments of education because they are finding
all sorts of problems like with data. What is happening is if
they get some good data people the technology companies come in
and hire those people away because they can pay them more
money. And yet from the Federal level and even at the State
level legislatures are telling State departments of education
to have better data systems, collect more data, make more data
available to the public, but they are severely restrained in
trying to do that.
So I would urge the Congress to pay some attention to the
condition of State departments of education as the agencies
that provide all this data and help them get up to the task,
and that includes the growth model. The growth model if it is
enacted, and it sounds like there is considerable support for
it, is going to require the generation and use of a large
amount of data. And if it is going to be used intelligently the
States need help in using that data, but also local school
districts and teachers are going to need help in interpreting
that data to use it to the best effect.
Chairman Kildee. Right now under AYP we test at, say, the
third grade in school A and then the next year we test the
third grade but they are different students because the third
graders are now for the most part fourth graders, and we say
that the third grade has not reached AYP. To take one form of
the growth model you would actually follow the child and see
how much that individual child has grown. Is that feasible or
possible to have a growth model where you actually see how much
each individual has grown to determine whether the school is
making progress?
Mr. Jennings. Yes, that is feasible. However, it costs
money. Because you have to have data systems, computer systems,
and so on, you have to have identifiers for students, you have
to be able to follow the students through their career. But if
we really think education is important we should pay attention
to every individual student and try to help every individual
student. And the best way to do that is to be able to follow
that student as the student goes through his or her own career.
And it is a much fairer way to judge a teacher's performance to
see how they have done with individual students as they go
through school.
Chairman Kildee. Health care seems to be ahead of education
on that, is it not? While not perfect, you can generally follow
the patient and get the records and follow better than what we
do with students?
Mr. Jennings. Well, the trend now in health care is for
doctors to have hand-held computers and bring up the records of
their patients as they are visiting them and be able to go
through all their records as they visit them. Teachers should
be able to do the same thing. They should be able to use hand-
held computers, use other technological advances and help kids
in individualized instruction.
One of the problems with all this accountability is that we
are generalizing everything with accountability tests that we
are not paying attention to the individual children to help
them improve, and we have to rethink that.
Chairman Kildee. How much time do I have? I will ask one
more question here. We have the NAPE test and each State has
their own standards and their own test. And while probably this
Congress would never want to apply the NAPE test across the
board to every State to every student, can we use the NAPE test
to test the State test.
Checker, do you want to tackle that?
Mr. Finn. Yes, sir. The new NCES report out today does a
version of that using NAPE to compare State cut-off scores,
State proficiency levels, in fourth and eighth grade reading
and math. And it gives us a clearer calibration than I have
ever seen before of relative levels of difficulty in State
expectations on their own tests compared to NAPE. I think this
kind of thing should be done all the time. If we are not going
to have a national standard, which I think would be preferable,
then at the very least we ought to have a whole lot of
visibility of just how hard is Ohio's fourth grade standard
versus Indiana's versus NAPE's.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much. Anyone else have any
comment on that? I defer to the gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
Loebsack.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of
questions actually, Mr. Jennings. Not so much a question. I
guess a comment. I appreciate the fact that you said we should
be very careful about some kind of causal relationship. I am a
former college teacher. I used statistics in my dissertation.
That doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I am very
aware of not drawing some kind of causal relationship. Just
because some things are associated or whatever the case may be
and using only 13 States out of 50 States, I am just very
cautious about drawing conclusions. So I appreciate your
caution as well. And that is just a comment more than anything
else, but would you like to elaborate a little bit?
Mr. Jennings. Well, let me point out that we drew
conclusions about pre and post-NCLB results from 13 States
because they were the only ones that had data. However, we had
data on 50 States and we had varying amounts of data on 50
States. On 50 States we had proficiency data. On 41 States we
would have proficiency data and elementary. On 48 States
proficiency data and something else. So we had large amounts of
data on many States. But what we did was very strictly apply
rules so that we had comparable data across years. So we would
eliminate some States if they changed their tests. Thirty-seven
States since 2002 have changed their tests in some way or
another, either adopted a new test, put in a different cut-off
score or whatever. So we are very careful to use comparable
data across States.
Since you have somewhat of a scientific background or a
research background, whatever you do you get criticized.
Mr. Loebsack. Of course.
Mr. Jennings. On this we tried to be purer than pure and
make sure that everything we said was sound, and then we were
criticized because we didn't use data that would have made us
less pure because the data wasn't comparable.
Mr. Loebsack. I think you stepped into a huge minefield
just by trying to determine whether NCLB has had any effect or
not.
Mr. Jennings. One of the reasons we did that is that that
is the important question. And we felt that if we didn't try,
and this was an ideologically mixed expert panel that had
varying points of view, that had deep expertise, we got nearly
$1 million that we used for this, we did it for 18 months, we
got the cooperation of 50 States, we felt if we didn't do this
and try to answer that question then anybody in the world could
stand up and give their opinion without any necessary data and
say whatever they wanted to say.
Mr. Loebsack. And they still will, as you know.
Mr. Jennings. They still will, but I have been around for a
long time and I felt that it was our duty to try to answer the
question in the best way possible and put it out there. I hope
it is not misused. But we tried our darnedest.
Mr. Loebsack. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Secretary Melmer, as was already said, I am from Iowa, not
much bigger than South Dakota, but we only have 3 million
people and my wife was a long-time second grade school teacher.
And the issue of teacher quality obviously came up in our house
quite a bit and with a lot of her friends. And I could hardly
go to a social event without hearing about NCLB and all the
rest. That is why I am on this committee, by the way, in large
part.
But the whole teacher quality issue, can you elaborate on
that, because obviously places like South Dakota, States in
particular that might have smaller populations, a smaller
population base, maybe rural areas, it is very difficult, is it
not, to attract quality teachers? And if that is the case then
how--I mean the challenges it seems to me presented by NCLB are
just that much greater. Is that true?
Mr. Melmer. Yes, it is true. As I mentioned in my
testimony, 45 districts with less than 200 students in the
entire school district, which means that you are talking about
high school teachers that have to teach more than one
discipline, in some cases three disciplines, depending on their
background and preparation, and then you turn that into
probably three to four to five different what we call preps--
your wife would be familiar with that term--and that just makes
it very, very difficult to be highly qualified in all of those
areas.
At the same time we are having a hard time recruiting high
school teachers anyway to come to a rural area to be paid a
salary that sometimes some people would say is substandard, and
then to throw on a bunch of additional requirements is
challenging. At the same time we don't want to run away from
the idea. We want our teachers to be prepared and ready to go.
There just may have to be some consideration given to a waiver
or some sort of a provision for a State that is really
struggling to make all ends meet to allow us to continue to do
the best job we can without necessarily having to follow all
the letters of the law.
And Mr. Finn referenced the idea of if our results are
good, maybe that should be some dispensation to say you don't
have to follow all the guidelines if you are getting all the
results.
Mr. Loebsack. My time has expired, but I just want to make
one last comment. I was happy to see that the Iowa Department
of Education did get its growth model approved by the
Department of Education recently. But thanks to all of you for
being here today. I appreciate it.
Chairman Kildee. The gentlelady from Illinois, Mrs.
Biggert.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Johnson, can you
tell us what the percentage of your administrative paperwork is
attributable to the Federal education requirements and what to
the State and local education requirements? And then what
portion of the Federal paperwork that your staff has completed
is related to student performance? Everybody is always
complaining about all the increased paperwork for No Child Left
Behind.
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, members of the committee, I did
not come prepared to calibrate for you exactly how much
paperwork is involved in both either the Federal or the State.
I will say that we certainly do a great deal of paperwork
associated with submitting reports based on the report we have
to give to the State for No Child Left Behind. And then because
we have schools that have been a high priority we have to
submit plans for each of those schools. Now, of course we would
be doing that kind of accountability reporting about each
school's improvement plan probably with or without No Child
Left Behind. But I think that there are some provisions that we
have to report on, not just for regular ed, but I think
especially special education where our staff would say the
paperwork consumes a great deal of the time.
Mrs. Biggert. Secretary Melmer, could you address that?
Mr. Melmer. In terms of the amount of paperwork, well, I
have been in the State education agency for 4 years, and I am
being told that it is by far more today than it was prior to my
arrival at the department. In terms of the amount of time that
we spend, the volume, I am unsure about that as well. I always
have to be a little cautious about estimating because I am
afraid I would be wrong. But I also understand because we at
the State level do it to our local districts, I would assume if
you had one of the superintendents from South Dakota here he or
she would say the State gives us way too much paperwork and we
don't have time to do all of it.
I understand at the Federal level if you expect results
then you need to expect accountability to go with that. And as
long as the Federal Government is continuing to provide dollars
for State education, agencies are going to expect some
accountability in return. So we try to balance all that out.
But I think it is safe to say that the amount of Federal and
State paperwork has increased over the last 3 or 4 years.
Mrs. Biggert. Dr. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. I want to add one comment because if you
looked on page 7 where we had revamped the school improvement,
one thing that I think is a savings in paperwork, the way it is
done now every year you are doing another school improvement
plan as if you have got to start all over. The 3-year planning
actually assumes that you are working with the same plan trying
to make it better and you are focusing on those goals over
time. So I think that some of the modifications that you can
make even around the school improvement process that we have
outlined would reduce the amount of teachers and principals
having to resubmit a new plan every year. They are working on
that same plan over a 3-year period to improve.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
In Illinois I have been holding some roundtables and
talking to teachers and talking to superintendents and then
actually just the public, and one of the issues that people
seem to really want to know more about or that they would like
to have in their schools is the growth models. Is there
somebody here who already--I know it is only, I think, two
States--is there somebody here that has had to develop the
growth model?
Ms. Straus. In Michigan we have not applied to use it. It
has taken a very long time to develop the data system. As Mr.
Jennings said, it is very complicated. And we have been working
on this for a number of years and we are at the point now where
we would be ready to apply for the growth model, and we would
like to use it because we think it is a much better way of
measuring. But it has taken us a long time. And I think a big
State with so many students, we have 1.7 million students. Each
individual record in that system is much more difficult to
develop than any of us thought would be the case.
Mrs. Biggert. Just one last thing.
The NAPE test. Have your schools been taking that test? I
would just like to know what you think of it. Was it what you
expected with the results versus the AYP?
Mr. Melmer. Yes. The NAPE exam is administered to grades 4
and 8 across the country. It is my understanding that all 50
States do participate in NAPE.
Mrs. Biggert. But it depends on the schools?
Mr. Melmer. Yes. Right. Correct. It is a sprinkling of
students in every State. We certainly value the NAPE results in
South Dakota. We think it gives us a third leg to the three-
legged stool. We have our Dakota Step Test, which is our NCLB
test. We have our ACT. In South Dakota, we give the ACT, which
is sort of that regional postsecondary preparation exam. Then
we look at the NAPE as being sort of that national comparison
so that when we are at times criticized, saying ``Your State
test results look good, but how do you do at the national
level?'' we are prepared to come back and say, ``Well, here at
the NAPE, here are how our fourth and eighth grade students
do.'' it is just that we have to be cautious about the NAPE,
and that it is not designed to match State standards; it is
certainly just a different type of exam, and so we look at it
that way, but it certainly is one more measure that a State can
look at to determine whether, in fact, their students are
getting a good education.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Ms. Johnson. In terms of the value-added model, Dr.
Sanders' model, it is used statewide. In addition to the status
scores that the school districts get, each year we get graded
in the core subject areas of the test based on value added, but
what they do is they take a 3-year average, and so they look at
the scores over a 3-year period, and they give you grades A to
F, and that is reported on the State Web site per school.
The other part of the value added is they track and try to
connect student results with teacher effects, and so each year
the teachers get a teacher effects' score for how well the
students--and again, this is over a 3-year period--have done.
Principals have access to the data. One of the difficulties is
that the teacher effects' score, based on State law, is not
allowed to be used as part of the teacher performance review
process.
We also use--we give or have in the past given the TSAT to
all of our tenth graders, which is a preliminary SAT, and this
year we are changing. We are giving the score tests at eighth
grade, which is a preliminary ACT. We are giving planned tests
at tenth, and then we are trying to get all of our students to
take the ACT so that we have, in addition to the State
assessment tools, some sense of how kids might do on another
test.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you, Mrs. Biggert.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the good hearing.
It is nice to see you, Jack.
Mr. Jennings. How are you?
Ms. Woolsey. Fine, thanks.
Jack--Mr. Jennings--I want you to answer this also and
think about it, but I am going to start with Dr. Johnson.
Because we are hearing how many school districts are
cutting back on history and geography and art and music and PE,
I am really concerned that No Child Left Behind has led us to
ignore the whole child; but it appears that you have been able
to maintain a vibrant music program in Memphis at the same time
as improving your AYP performance scores.
What can you tell us about how you have been able to
sustain, and what can we learn from this important success?
Ms. Johnson. Well, let me just say quickly that I think
this is an area where President Straus and I do agree very
strongly on the importance of having music and arts programs
for student engagement. Also, if you look at the standards that
have been set by the corporate community, they want people who
are creative, who are innovative, who can think outside the
box, and we believe that the arts and music programs give those
skills preparations that are necessary.
We use best practice, which is common planning time, and
what we do is, in order to give teachers common planning time,
we are employing people like music and art teachers to provide
that release time so that those teachers, as a group of
teachers who are working together with a group of students who
are not doing well, can have the time to plan. And so we have
not eliminated music and arts. In fact, we emphasize it as an
important way to promote student engagement.
Ms. Woolsey. So, President Straus, would you just be
saying, ``Me, too,'' or do you want to add to that?
Ms. Straus. Yes, thank you.
We are very concerned about that. We think that the loss of
creativity is really a great loss. And I was in China last year
with a group of educators, and all they wanted to know is how
do you teach creativity? And the restrictions that we put--and
so much emphasis is put on testing and emphasizing the math and
English, which is important, but it should not be to the
exclusion of everything else, not only music and art and other
arts, but what you raised about history and government and
geography. I am a strong proponent--our whole board is--of
social studies and the importance of civic education, and I
have had the privilege of attending several of the
congressional conferences on civic education, and I commend
Congress for focusing on that because I think that is
absolutely critical. It was one of the foundations of why we
have public education, and I think that we put so much emphasis
on the testing and on those major subjects that we do not have
enough time for the others. But in Michigan, our own State
accreditation system does test and does require social studies,
and we do test in social studies as well. I know that is sort
of contradictory, to test more, but we figure, if we do not
test it, it is not going to get taught under the current
system. So we are very concerned about that.
Ms. Woolsey. So, Mr. Jennings, you have some really
important studies that you have referred to. Would those
studies in any way indicate whether we are losing our whole
child focus?
Mr. Jennings. Yes. In several weeks we are issuing another
study where we ask a national sample of school districts how
many minutes they spend on each curriculum subject and whether
that has changed over the last number of years, and so we also
ask them a number of other questions about instruction and
curriculum, and we will issue that report towards the end of
the month. We wanted to go beyond assertions to get data, and
this is the same type of national sample of school districts.
There are over 400 school districts. It is the same type of
sample the U.S. Department of Education uses and others use,
and we ask them very precise questions at the elementary level,
the middle level, and the high school level, by subject area,
and estimate the number of minutes. So we will have information
in a short while.
Ms. Woolsey. Okay. We need that ASAP. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Kuhl. He passes.
The gentlelady from California, Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all of you for being here as well.
I wanted to go to you, Mr. Jennings, to just quickly talk
about data collection, and I think you mentioned the need to be
doing this. And yet at the same time, school districts and
States are really strapped to do that.
In California we have been pretty slow, actually, in data
collection overall. So I am just wondering, how do we do that?
Is it to require more of States that they need more resources
to do that? What do you think ought to be done?
Mr. Jennings. Well, you know, every time somebody in
elected office says you have to have more accountability, it
transfers into a form that a local official has to fill out,
and so we just have to recognize that. As national leaders and,
I hope, State leaders, if you think of what you want to demand
from people to get accountability, you have to think of the
consequences. So I would hope that--and this is a perennial
problem with government programs, but it is also a problem in
private industry, too. I would hope that you would look at the
law and figure out what you really need and what you do not
need. I think you need test data, and I think you need test
data all the way down the line, but you also need to spend some
money to help school districts collect this data in the correct
way. You need money to help States to make sure that they do it
in the correct way, and you need some money for teachers so
that they can understand the data to bring about improvement.
What is happening now with States is, with all this
accountability, you know, testing in grades 3 through 8 and
once in high school, some States have gone from higher-quality
tests to lesser quality tests because they had to go from a few
tests to a lot of tests, and they did not get the additional
money they needed to have high-quality tests across the board.
So you have to be aware of the fact that every time you ask for
something, you have to think of the repercussions down the
line.
Mrs. Davis of California. Do you think that designating
that money only for tests is a wise----
Mr. Jennings. Congress has made a good start in that it has
designated a pot of money to the States for tests. But what is
happening now is, as a consequence of all this accountability
testing, you are leading to a booming in what is called a
``formative testing'' because teachers cannot use this
accountability testing. The test results do not arrive in time
for them to use it to change education. So what they are doing
is they are putting in more testing during the school year,
which is not for accountability but for diagnostic purposes, so
that they can understand where kids are as they proceed along,
so that by the time they hit the accountability test they will
be ready. Which means they are spending more money for testing,
but this is for testing they think is useful rather than just
for accountability.
So we have to think through the consequences of what we ask
for, and once we ask for them as a Nation, we have to make sure
that States and local school districts have the money to do it
and that they do it in a way where they can use the information
to improve education.
Mrs. Davis of California. Do any of you want to comment on
that?
Ms. Straus. I mean one of the difficulties, too, is that I
think in many cases, students are doing better on State tests
than they are on NAPE, for example, and so there is a concern
that there is a disconnect there.
Mrs. Davis of California. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Melmer. And I would agree that you are probably going
to see students do better on the State tests, oftentimes
because it is matched directly to the State standards, and
teachers know the standards and are teaching to those standards
in the classroom versus the NAPE, which is more of a general
exam and does not match up as well.
We do have a good model in place in our country right now
in terms of addressing some of the things that Mr. Jennings
mentioned. The NAPE program places a NAPE coordinator in every
State, and that coordinator's job is to help facilitate the
administration of that test and also to work with the national
NAPE office on how the test works and all the recruitment and
articulation of that test. We think CCSSO has always had
discussions, and I think the U.S. Department is actually open
to discussions about this topic where a data collection person
could be placed in every State education agency, funded at
least in part by the U.S. Department of Education, so that way,
uniform training could go on; at least a consistency in
language could take place, and we could begin to coordinate
that effort at the national level rather than allowing every
State to kind of have its own set of rules and regulations.
So we do see some potential solutions on the horizon. It is
a matter of investing some dollars in that area. As Mr.
Jennings said, if you expect it, then you have to sort of let
the money follow that expectation.
Mrs. Davis of California. Right. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jennings. Could I comment on the comparison between
State test scores and NAPE?
The reason you have a disparity is for two reasons,
principally. One is any test is a reflection of a curriculum or
of standards. The NAPE test is a reflection of national
standards, which, in a way, is a national curriculum, and State
tests are a reflection of State standards or State curriculum.
The two do not match up.
In Texas, for instance, they do not teach math in the way
that is anticipated in the national math standards that are
embedded in NAPE, and they get different results, therefore,
because they are testing to something different. Texas has
decided they want to test math ``this way,'' but the national
assessment says they are going to measure it ``this way.''
The second reason you have a difference in results is that
no one child takes a full NAPE test. You have NAPE tests taken
by different groups of children. There are no consequences.
Mrs. Davis of California. Do you see us ever aligning that?
Mr. Jennings. Well, there are bills in Congress--Senator
Kennedy has one, Senator Dodd has one--to give funding to
States to encourage them to move in the direction of adopting
national standards as part of this reauthorization. That is a
debate you are going to have, and that is what Mr. Finn was
recommending, some consideration of national standards or an
encouragement towards a national direction. But if you do not
do that, you have to understand you will always have a
discrepancy because of the curriculum matter, but also because
of the motivation.
Kids know State tests count because teachers tell them, and
there is all the pressure that is there to raise the State test
scores. With NAPE, there is not that pressure, so kids do not
put in the effort in NAPE that they put into State tests, and
that is going to have an effect on results also.
Chairman Kildee. Mr. Finn.
Mr. Finn. He left out the other big possible explanation
for this discrepancy, which is that a lot of States have made
it very easy to pass their State tests. And if you are seeing
in a given State that the State says 70 percent of its fourth
graders are proficient and NAPE says 27 percent of its fourth
graders are proficient in that same subject in that same State,
it might be because the States made it really easy to be
defined as ``proficient.''
This is not necessarily a good thing for the people of that
State. It might even be termed ``misleading'' for the people in
that State to be told that their kids are proficient when, by
national or world standards, they actually are not.
Mrs. Davis of California. Go ahead.
Chairman Kildee. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hare.
Mr. Hare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my apologies for not
being here sooner. If these questions have been asked or
discussed, I apologize for reasking, but I am very interested
in this.
One of the things I have heard universally back in my
district from educators and from parents are the problems with
our kids in special ed and the IDEA group. I guess I have a
question for you, President Straus, and maybe also for you, Mr.
Jennings, and maybe for the whole panel. And I think probably
one of the biggest challenges that we have had on this
committee is, you know, figuring out what to do and how we are
going to change this and make it work.
How do we ensure that this group, especially that 2 percent
that has cognitive abilities, is not left behind and held
accountable while appropriately being tested? Is the problem
that we just do not have enough data for the subgroup of
students? So I am just sort of interested in, from your
perspective, if you were advising us--which you are--you know,
what can we do to make this work better for that group of
students and educators?
Ms. Straus. Thank you. We are very concerned about that,
because in Michigan we have special education from birth to age
26, and we want to keep that. But we also have people moving
into our State with special needs children because we have a
good program, so we have a higher percentage than many other
States, and we think that the limit of 1 percent or 2 percent
is not fair. It does not work right, and we would like to see
that change.
That is one of the recommendations that we have, that
students with disabilities should be assessed appropriately. We
do not think they are now. A higher percentage, maybe, than 2
percent should be allowed if you can justify it and if you can
really show that you have that many students. So that is one of
the things that we are concerned about.
Mr. Jennings. If I could comment on that, too.
You have hit upon a very sensitive issue, and this is what
teachers complain about throughout the country, and it is
hurting No Child Left Behind because they are saying that No
Child Left Behind, by holding these two groups of students to
these standards, is making the whole goal not accomplishable.
And so I would spend a considerable amount of time thinking
through what you are going to do with these two groups. With
children who are learning English--but let me start out by
saying, with both groups, No Child Left Behind has led to much
greater attention to their academic performance than ever
before.
Children who are learning English are getting much greater
attention in learning English and with academics than before.
Children with disabilities are getting much greater attention.
So what we have is a situation where there is a good being
achieved--namely, these two groups are getting more attention--
but they are being tested inappropriately, and teachers are
complaining about the inappropriate testing. And so I think you
are going to have to put much more flexibility in both of those
areas.
One possibility with the English-learning students is that
you combine two objectives--one is learning English, and the
other is learning academic content--and you take kids who are
new to the country or who do not know English, and you put most
of the weight on their learning English. And then as they stay
in school, you gradually shift the weight towards the academic
content so you have a combined index. So that by the time you
have gone several years, they have not only been measured on
how they have learned English, but they have also been measured
on the academic content. But you do not measure them on the
academic content when they do not understand English and,
therefore, cannot do well on the test. That is one possibility.
With children with disabilities, we had a meeting of the
major organizations in Washington on the disability issue, and
they told us there is no scientific basis for this 1 percent
rule or this 2 percent rule. These are just numbers that were
chosen. I think in that area, you are going to have to give
more flexibility so that individual children are given
attention, so that there is more attention paid to the
individual abilities of children to do well on tests, whether
they should be held to the same standards or whether they
should be tested the same way, and figure out some way so that
it is more personalized than it is today.
Otherwise, what you are going to have with this 1 percent/2
percent rule are States just putting enough children in to
amount to 1 percent or amount to 2 percent, and they will be
called ``2 percent children'' and ``1 percent children.'' they
are an arbitrary number. You have to pay attention to the
individual needs of these kids much more, I think.
Mr. Hare. Dr. Johnson, I was just wondering if you have any
thoughts beyond any of the other panelists, because I know this
is very important to me.
Ms. Johnson. Well, I do think that, including special needs
and ELL, students have improved significantly the focus--and
that is an important focus--but I will say that in urban
districts in particular, the higher number and higher
percentage of students with special needs usually means that in
the urban areas, we reach the threshold cutoff, and in some
smaller districts they do not reach it.
So it is more likely you will see that urban districts get
identified more quickly in the way it is set up and not making
adequate yearly progress for special needs students.
I know in our county, even though we are not the only
district in our county, as for the students with special needs,
particularly the low-incidence population--if they are blind or
deaf--we serve them all because some of the smaller districts
cannot.
What you do not want as an unintended consequence is, you
do not want districts to refuse or act like they do not want to
serve these kids because they do not want to be on the list
when you can have some efficiency in serving deaf children in a
more concentrated way than if every little district had to do
that that is in close proximity.
So I think it is important for you to be very careful about
the sanctions when these kids deserve a good education, and you
do not want to incent people not to be accepting of the
diversity of students' needs that exist in our community.
Mr. Hare. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let's see. President Straus, many educators have called for
the use of multiple measures to assess school districts and
schools under No Child Left Behind.
Can you discuss additional factors that you believe ought
to be taken into consideration in determining a school's
effectiveness, in addition to the test currently used?
Ms. Straus. Thank you very much for that question. We think
it is not right to measure schools and students based on one
test on a given day, and we think there are other things that
should be taken into account.
In our own accreditation system, we look at what else is
being taught, what is being taught in the school. Are they
providing social studies? Are they providing arts? Are they
looking at other--are they looking at the other subjects that
are being considered? What is the graduation rate? What is the
dropout rate? Is there parental involvement? What is the
relationship with the community?
All of these things go into measuring a school. When you
walk into a school, you do not know whether--you can tell
whether the school is a good school when you walk into it, and
partly it is because of the parental involvement; it is the
quality of the teachers; it is all of these things that should
be taken into account when you are measuring how good a school
is. And it is not just a given test on a given day.
Thank you.
Mr. Payne. Would anyone else like to respond?
I am trying to think back--and maybe you could think back,
too--as to how we were assessed. I mean we had regular tests,
but I do not remember too many of these high-stakes tests in
the fourth grade or in the sixth grade or--you know, maybe out
of elementary school, perhaps, or something like that. And all
of my classmates seemed to have learned--I mean I am excluding
me, perhaps--but they did well without these high-stakes tests.
So I think there needs to be--I mean we are all for
accountability, but it seems that there are other ways to
measure achievement than that.
But I just have another quick question for--Dr. Johnson, is
it? Just rushing through everyone's testimony here quickly, I
did notice that you talked about flexibility and so forth, and
you talked about recruitment support, employment of staff in
high-poverty districts. And this is really something that I
sound like a broken record with, about the opportunity to
learn; that youngsters need the opportunity to learn, and they
are not given the opportunity to learn when they have
inexperienced teachers. And as we know, the system just tends
to put good teachers or better teachers into a situation they
feel is better because that's what, you know, seniority does.
So do you have any thoughts on how we could have
incentives, or, to kind of turn that around so that the schools
in most need do not continually get the least experienced
teachers?
Ms. Johnson. Congressman, what we have done in Memphis--and
I can speak to that--is we have fresh-started, reconstituted,
12 schools. We negotiated a separate agreement with our
collective bargaining group so that we could hire people
totally out of seniority order. We created two incentives, a
front-end incentive and a back-end incentive.
The front-end incentive was to give people 2 more weeks of
pay, but they had to participate in the professional
development that we design to work in that school, and the
principal was able to hire anybody whom he wanted to hire. We
took very careful consideration of who the principal was,
clearly.
Then the back-end incentive was if they made progress, they
could get anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 in additional
compensation. Now, this was very targeted, in a pilot way, at
the schools that were in high priority that we had
reconstituted.
I do think incentives matter. I do not think that teachers
necessarily go into education to necessarily--they have never
thought about these kinds of reward systems. But I think that
it is important for us to rethink the connection between
student performance and giving teachers rewards and
recognition, especially as it relates to making sure that we
have teacher induction and mentoring programs. The kind of
flexibility that I think we are asking for, both in terms of
transferability and in other ways within the No Child Left
Behind, would give us the flexibility to spend dollars in ways
that I think would create incentives and support for teachers
in the profession.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Chairman Kildee. I was talking to Mrs. Biggert here. I will
maybe throw one more question out here, and all of you can
answer it.
I think both Dr. Finn and Jack, you have touched on it and
talked about it, but NAPE and many or most State tests are
testing to different standards or to a different curriculum.
Should we in this reauthorization do some things to encourage
States to bring their tests so they are testing against a more
common curriculum or standard?
We will start with you.
Mr. Finn. ``Yes, sir'' is the answer.
The variability in State standards has not led to good
standards in America. My foundation reviews State academic
standards approximately every 5 years and, to be perfectly
honest, most of them are thoroughly mediocre in terms of what
they actually expect kids to learn. Then you add to that the
problem of variable State expectations on their own tests, and
the result is something akin to chaos that a big, modern,
competitive country should not tolerate. And while I doubt that
you could or should even create a compulsory national standard
or test, I think to have a voluntary version that you
incentivize States to join in with, leaving them the option of
staying out if they would rather, would be a very, very, very
important reform in this next round of NCLB.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
Jack, and then I will let the rest of you give your views.
Mr. Jennings. My view is I do not think we are going to get
a national curriculum in this country, and I do not think the
Congress is going to be able to mandate a national curriculum
or to mandate national standards.
If you want the States to have higher standards, I think
you are going to have to make it attractive to them by giving
them financial incentives or by giving them regulatory relief.
And you, at a minimum, will have to help them pay for
rethinking their standards in order to align them with national
standards, and that is what Senator Kennedy's bill does; that
is what Senator Dodd's bill does.
Chairman Kildee. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Yes.
Every one of our students will take a college entrance
exam, either the ACT or the SAT, and if they go to a community
college, they will take some kind of entrance exam that will
place them either in a remedial or in a regular English course.
So I think that from that perspective--that is the perspective
I come with--not to prepare them to be able to enter college
and be successful and have some notion that their diploma means
something is problematic.
So, while I do not think that I am talking about a national
curriculum, I do think that a lot of the States--for example,
when the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics defined
their standards, a lot of States modified their standards to be
in alignment with them. And so I think we have to look at these
things.
Now, the Council of the Great City Schools has nine
districts that are testing a larger sampling of NAPE so that
there are more kids in those urban districts--New York, Boston.
So I think that supporting some of those pilots where we would
get a greater sampling, we would be able to do some
comparability across State lines. But the kids are still going
to have to get into college or postsecondary education, and
there are not a lot of hoops that are different for them to get
there.
Chairman Kildee. You know, Jack, you were here, I think, in
my first term that I was here. We established----
Mr. Jennings. I welcomed you.
Chairman Kildee [continuing]. The U.S. Department of
Education, and I think we put language in there actually saying
that the Federal Government would not establish a national
curriculum.
Mr. Jennings. That is correct.
Chairman Kildee. That language is still in there.
Mr. Jennings. And it was repeated in the reauthorization
that is the No Child Left Behind Act. Federal officials cannot
dictate curriculum at the local level.
Chairman Kildee. When you set standards, you are kind of
moving towards touching curriculum, though, are you not?
Mr. Jennings. What is happening now is we have an extremely
decentralized system of public education. Almost every other
industrialized country has a national curriculum or national
standards, and they can anchor what they do around what is
being taught. In the absence of a national curriculum or a
national standard here, we have a fad of the day, local school-
based management or something else, and then we twirl around,
and we wonder why we do not have increases in achievement. It
is because we are not paying enough attention to the
curriculum, to what is being taught, to what should be behind
the tests.
If we are not going to have a national curriculum, what is
happening now with the standards-based reform is that the
States are gradually moving toward State curriculums. Some
States are more up front about this than others. In North
Carolina they are up front about this, that they have a State
curriculum. In Maryland they have a voluntary State curriculum.
So States are gradually saying, this is what we expect kids to
know.
You are probably best off encouraging States to move in
that direction because they have enough trouble dealing with
local school districts, even going in that direction, rather
than talking about a national curriculum. But if you want more
uniformity among the States with curriculum, you are going to
have to do it through some incentive basis.
Mr. Kildee, can I answer Mr. Payne? Let me leave one word
or a couple words with you about teachers.
I know everybody is worried about the quality of teachers
in the poorest schools and in the schools with the highest
numbers of children of color. And it is a serious national
problem, but the tendency of the Congress will be to take one
little solution and enact it, like a mentoring program for new
teachers, and think that that is the answer. That is not the
answer.
We convened all of the major education organizations that
deal in this area, and we asked them what should be done with
this problem. The answer--and it was very strongly supported--
was that it has to be a comprehensive approach, and it really
should be done from a State level dealing with local school
districts. And the comprehensive approach should deal with the
pretraining of teachers so that they know what they are going
to face when they meet kids who are culturally different. It
should deal with higher pay for teachers who are going into
schools that are very challenging. It should deal with
mentoring programs that are of high quality. It should deal
with changing the conditions of education for new teachers or
the conditions of teaching so that they have more time to
prepare. It should deal with a variety of different things, but
if you cherry-pick and just do one little program, you are not
going to add to this solution.
It has to be a comprehensive approach, dealing with
everything--conditions of education, pretraining, mentoring,
pay. It has to be a comprehensive approach, and it has to be
approached, I think, from the State level, getting beyond
individual school districts so that they can recruit more
broadly. But I would hope you would pay a lot of attention to
this issue, because the quality of teaching frequently
determines how well kids do in school.
Chairman Kildee. I want to thank all of you.
This has been an excellent hearing, a very good hearing,
and I think we have gotten some solid information, some solid
views that will help us, and this will become part of the body
of knowledge that we will use in reauthorizing this bill. So I
want to thank all of you.
Again, as previously ordered, members will have 7
additional days, and any member who wishes to submit follow-up
questions in writing to the witnesses should coordinate with
the majority staff within the requisite time.
Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]