Vilaseca on ESEA Waiver

[Chris Santee]

Commissioner Vilaseca Opinion Piece on ESEA Waiver (October 25, 2011)

Vermont and the rest of the country have been given a wonderful opportunity to shed the flawed aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and refocus our efforts on true success for all students.

When it was enacted in 2001, NCLB brought sweeping change to the way schools, states and the country measured student progress. One of its strengths was requiring us all to examine how students from low-income households, with disabilities, and other demographic subgroups were doing. No longer could students in those groups disappear in the data. This is a significant accomplishment that is now cemented in our nation’s educational consciousness.

However, the great flaw of NCLB was the punitive Adequate Yearly Progress determinations based on a single assessment, which last year required my department to publicize that 72% of Vermont schools were not making progress, a figure which is only expected to increase here and across the country as the deadline for 100% proficiency by 2014 approaches. This was an unfair expectation since it did not take into account student progress, but rather on each student hitting an arbitrary target based only on the results of one assessment.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently invited all State Education Agencies to request flexibility from NCLB on behalf of themselves, their schools and districts, in order to better focus on improving student learning. This waiver is not a way of lowering expectations for student learning, or for lowering the bar from what we expect of all schools. Rather, it will help us accurately assess how students are doing, and focus state and national supports on the schools of highest need.

Requesting this waiver is truly an opportunity for Vermont to propose our desired system of accountability. We are designing a system that measures student growth towards high standards. We will be looking at their entire educational career to ensure that they are prepared to continue their education after high school in some form. Students who are bright but do not test well will have other measures that can be used to determine their success or challenges. We will be setting up a system that is not guided by seat time or credit attainment, but rather on student demonstration of learning, on national, statewide, grade level and classroom assessments.

In addition, we are designing a system that will create public “report cards” on every school in the state, on a variety of measures. We will recognize schools for doing outstanding work, and will highlight outstanding models so other schools can replicate best practices. We also will target state and national resources on schools that truly need help in ensuring all students reach their full potential.

The deadline for this waiver request is fast approaching. My staff is working with educational leaders from across the state, representing teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members and special educators to develop the best system for Vermont’s students. We will be posting draft versions of the waiver request on our Web site, hosting stakeholder meetings across the state, and otherwise doing what we can to ensure that Vermont parents, students and taxpayers can weigh in on this important request. If granted, this waiver would go into effect immediately. If we do nothing, we will continue to be held to the current requirements of NCLB, which distract our teachers, administrators, and department from the important work of supporting students in reaching their full potential.

Armando Vilaseca is Vermont’s Commissioner of Education.

[Dick Brown]

Chris                Thanks for posting . NCLB , in my opinion , did just that ( left kids behind ) on a national basis and stifled educational growth for many innovative schools who had to " steal " funds & divert attention from successful working programs in order to meet NCLB basic criteria . ( Can we all spell mediocrity ? ) Good for Armando & Vermont to do this ....Florida , by the way , spends lots of time & money meeting the artificial marks of NCLB and still provides a less then excellent education ( in my opinion ) to it's students .   

[Chris Santee]

another view sent to the Fairfax News:

Getting Out from Under NCLB
by John McClaughry     
Early in 2002 a Republican Congress, responding to the urging of their "compassionate conservative" President, adopted what has rightly been described as "the most intrusive Federal education law in American history."

The 1,100 page No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) reflected President Bush's belief that the Federal government could , by offering the states a package of education "reforms" along with substantial Federal funding,  induce the states to improve public education.

Liberal Democrats who had long supported a flood of new federal funding to their state and local public education constituencies readily signed on.. They were confident that any annoying federal mandates imposed on those bureaucracies would be soon weakened, repealed or easily evaded without reducing the flow of federal dollars.

NCLB gave out the money on condition that states require schools to establish standards and annually assess students for "proficiency" in reading, science and math. It required all schools to achieve 100 percent student proficiency by 2014.

The act required "Adequate Yearly Progress" in approaching that astounding goal. If schools fail to make AYP, they must allow pupils to transfer to better public schools within the district (sorry, no transfer to independent schools). Then comes outside tutoring paid for by the district. Then comes big changes in staffing and curriculum. Finally, in the fourth year of AYP failure, the state would take over the school.

What is notable in NCLB, and essential to its passage, is that each state remained free to adopt its own standards and the test for measuring  student "proficiency". Rather than run the political risk of having a low proficiency rate, states naturally contrived standards that a very high percentage of students could meet.

For example, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island went together to adopt standards keyed to a test called NECAP, spending millions of dollars in the process. The test is conspicuously less demanding that the national gold standard, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. (NAEP results are reported by state, not by individual school district, so can't be used for NCLB.)

A comparison of Vermont eighth grader reading performance over the past four years shows NECAP proficiency scores in the 65-70% range.  The Department of Education regularly extols this success.

But over the same four years the Vermont eighth grade students achieving proficiency under the NAEP test range from 40-43%. Faced with this embarrassingly low rate, the Department points out, correctly, that Vermont students are in the top tier of all U.S. students.

Clearly the NECAP test is much less demanding that the NAEP test, and the state Departments of Education set NECAP "cut scores" low to increase the fraction of students who qualify as "proficient."

On September 15 Governor Shumlin and Commissioner Armando Vilaseca joined in a letter to the President, extolling Vermont's educational leadership and successes, and requesting "relief from the one-size-fits-all requirements and sanctions imposed by the sections on Accountability, Assessment, and Improvement" in NCLB.

It is universally conceded that it will be impossible for states to achieve 100% student proficiency on any test, no matter how dumbed down, by 2014. Already 72 of Vermont's 306 schools fail to meet the AYP benchmark, and complying will become ever more difficult.

To spare public school educators disruption and embarrassment all across the country, President Obama last month announced a new policy of  NCLB "flexibility". Since Congress is not of a mind to amend the law to his liking, Obama will essentially rewrite the law himself to let states off the NCLB hook if they comply with a whole new bunch of federal requirements. These new mandates, arguably extralegal, will according to former Rutland Northeast superintendent and longtime NCLB critic Dr. William Mathis, "have massive cost, educational, and ethical implications."

Mathis, incidentally, is the state's most fervent defender of ever increasing public school spending.  He also vigorously opposes parental choice and any form of "high stakes testing".  Gov. Shumlin named Mathis to the State Board of Education earlier this year.

NCLB was a bad idea when President Bush thought it up. Just saying no to it now, and regaining control of our own public education system, would deprive Vermont of $58 million handy federal dollars, almost $5 million of which feed the Commissioner and his Montpelier staff. So that won't happen.

Instead, governor, commissioner, board, and superintendents will keep on seeking a minimally demanding NCLB compliance deal with Washington that protects the public school establishment, avoids any branding of failure, and above all, keeps the money coming.

John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute (www.ethanallen.org).

[Dick Brown]

Chris   Thanks again for posting info on NCLB which was sent to the Fairfax News . My problem with John McClaughry is that his observations are usually stated as facts ( as in this case ) , when in fact , they're his opinion . I appreciate his differing views and enjoy reading them , but have difficulty with his publishing them as certainties when they are really just valid opinions . Certainly fair play on your part to use it in it's original format and I appreciate your providing this material for public reading .