School Improvement

Texas has joined Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and 46 other states (including Washington, D.C.) in seeking waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). With Nebraska and Montana sitting out, Vermont and North Dakota withdrawing, and California flat-out rejected, the pool of non-waiver states continues to shrink. But despite jumping on the waiver bandwagon, Texas breaks the mold in many respects.

Although the Lone Star State’s refusal to adopt the Common Core is one important distinction from other waiver winners, this wasn’t the detail I was most keen to uncover in their formal request. Texas’ plan to implement their own college- and career-ready standards and assessments actually stood out as one of the stronger points of their waiver, and other non-Common Core states, like Virginia and Minnesota, have successfully applied. Rather, Texas had originally considered asking the Department of Education for leeway to redesign the federal Title I funding formula – a provision that would have gone well beyond the flexibility granted to other states and a demand that would have undoubtedly made Texas’ waiver dead on arrival. To their credit, Texas officials removed this request, bringing their final proposal much closer to what the Department is offering.

But does this mean Texas’ waiver will be a hit with the U.S. Department of Education? Not so fast. While the proposal has strong points – like working with higher education to gain buy-in for college- and career-ready standards and articulating a plan to pilot teacher evaluations and scale them statewide – Texas’ proposed system of school accountability and improvement is not among them. In fact, Texas’ waiver could significantly undermine efforts to hold schools accountable for the performance of individual student subgroups.

Texas’ request is complicated by the fact that its state accountability system, which has operated in parallel to NCLB, is undergoing a significant overhaul, with many provisions yet to be finalized. Because Texas would like to fit its existing system into the waiver requirements, the state simply excluded these half-baked provisions from its request. Therefore, Texas’ waiver omits critical details, including how student progress will be measured, what annual performance targets will be, how each component within accountability will be weighted, and how focus and priority schools will be selected. Further, the application doesn’t even include Texas’ proposed framework, burying the information in attachments and hyperlinks.

For those that do seek out the information, Texas’ new performance index leaves a lot to be desired. Similar to other states, Texas plans to use a combination of four indices for accountability: student achievement, student progress, achievement gap closure, and postsecondary readiness. But the state does not specify how the index would translate into specific interventions, i.e. focus and priority schools.

Even more worrisome is how student subgroups and academic subjects will be treated across the four indices. While some states created “super-subgroups,” Texas took a different approach: ignore subgroups altogether.  Within the student achievement index, only the all students group is considered, with proficiency rates combined further across all subject areas. Yet for measuring student progress, subjects are considered separately and all traditional subgroups count– with the exception of low-income students, who are only considered within the performance gap closure index. But the gap closure measures do not consider English Language Learners or special education students. Finally, within the postsecondary readiness index, only racial subgroups are considered on one measure (advanced proficiency rates), while all subgroups (except low-income students) are considered for graduation rates. Texas does not provide a rationale for picking and choosing which indices apply to which subgroups.

Texas could also be plagued by an issue that cropped up in other waivers: annual performance targets. Texas’ targets would be based on the goal of cracking the top ten states nationally on college and career readiness by 2020 – a novel approach worth considering. But it’s unclear how the state could judge itself against others to define the annual targets. Texas is not a Common Core state, and existing national measures, like the SAT or ACT, would only apply to high schools. If the proposed readiness index were used instead, the ranking would be based on Texas assessments, students graduating with advanced Texas diplomas, and graduation rates. Using these measures, Texas would be number one by default – no other state has similar data.

Given these issues, I am doubtful that the Department could approve Texas’ request in its current form. There are simply too many unanswered questions and missing details. That said, Texas’ request is strong enough in other areas to allow for productive negotiations with the Department. With additional assurances and information from the Lone Star State, along with some give and take, NCLB flexibility could reach deep in the heart of Texas by the 2013-2014 school year.

In January, we held an event called Turnaround 2.0 to draw attention to the challenge of turning around elementary schools without improving the early years – including the early grades of elementary school – when children are building their foundational skills for academic success. Now that we have seen the outlines of President Obama's preschool proposal, these questions are hotter than ever. Depending on how and if Obama's plan moves forward, improvements to elementary schools may come more easily (though, no doubt, much work would still be required to improve instruction across the PreK-3rd grades.)

While many education advocates prepare for the looming sequester on March 1, the education policy news in D.C. wasn’t all bad this week. The nation is now on track – for the first time– to reach a 90 percent high school graduation rate by 2020, according to the fourth annual Building a Grad Nation report. Released at the Grad Nation Summit, hosted by America’s Promise Alliance, the report analyzes trends in the national graduation rate, which increased from 71.7 percent in 2001 to 78.2 percent in 2010, and celebrates the significant advances states have made.

States’ progress has accelerated since 2006, thanks in part to an outsized 2.7 percentage point increase in the graduation rate between 2009 and 2010. The recent gains are also largely due to improved graduation rates for Hispanic students (10.4 point gain) and for black students (6.9 point gain). Two states – Wisconsin and Vermont – have already hit the 90 percent mark, and eighteen more are on pace to meet it by 2020.

Notably, these gains come at a time when many states also increased high school requirements and when schools faced heightened accountability measures under No Child Left Behind. In 2012, nine states required students to pass end-of-course exams to graduate, compared to only two in 2002. Six more states required students to take end-of-course exams in 2012, but did not require a passing score. States are also continuing to raise the bar with adoption of the Common Core and other college- and career-ready standards.

Further, Grad Nation reports that over a million students are no longer attending dropout factories, compared to 2002, and the overall number of dropout factories fell by nearly 600 schools. Dropout factories are high schools where twelfth grade enrollment is 60 percent or less then ninth grade enrollment three years earlier. Again, the beneficiaries of this trend were mostly minority students: in 2002, almost half of America’s black students attended a dropout factory, but in 2011, only a quarter did so – a fifty percent decline.

While celebrating the achievements of the last decade, the report also cites the challenges that lie between today’s status quo and the 2020 goal. Over twenty states are not on pace to achieve a 90 percent graduation rate. More troubling, persistent achievement gaps remain. In 30 states, at least one-third of students with disabilities fail to graduate. The same is true for English Language Learners in 33 states, black students in 20 states, and Hispanic students in 16 states. In many cases, the proportion of students failing to graduate in these subgroups is much higher.

Another challenge lies within the data. The 78.2 percent mark was determined using the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), rather than the 4-year Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate – the uniform methodology states and the federal government agreed to use in 2008. The Cohort Rate will enable a more consistent measure of graduation rates and allow states to more precisely identify schools and strategies that are preventing dropout. But there are technical questions about how to calculate the new rates. After the switch to the Cohort Rate in 2012, the difference between the old and new calculation methods was over five percentage points in nine states. Without a consistent measure, it is unclear how far and how fast states will need to improve to meet the 2020 goal.

Because of these lingering challenges, it is incredibly important for states and the federal government to remain vigilant in reporting accurate data and holding schools accountable for graduation rates, especially for at-risk students. As Ed Money Watch previously reported, many states have backtracked on commitments to graduation rate accountability in their waivers from No Child Left Behind – giving schools equal credit for students that take longer than four years to graduate, or counting GEDs and other non-diplomas. Further, many states are not holding schools accountable for – or even reporting – other measures that are critical early warning indicators of dropout, like chronic absenteeism.

With increased attention on students’ preparedness for college and careers after graduation, schools cannot forget about supporting students who are struggling just to finish their high school degree. To help, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a new grant competition to place more AmeriCorps volunteers in the nation’s lowest-performing schools. While admirable, this is hardly a comprehensive solution. Federal and state lawmakers must do more and consider both goals – preventing dropout and increasing college and career readiness – equally when creating policies to measure and improve student achievement in our nation’s high schools.

An under-examined aspect of President Obama’s new early childhood education plan is his proposal to encourage states to create more full-day kindergarten seats – though only after states are able to guarantee access to pre-K for all 4-year olds from low and moderate-income families.

Last week, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted a panel of education reform leaders to discuss the role of transformational mindsets and management in celebration of Rick Hess’ new book, Cage-Busting Leadership. Hess argues that most would-be education reform leaders feel hemmed-in by a cage of regulations, policies, and collective bargaining agreements that prevent them from implementing real change. However, most of these perceived roadblocks are the result of group mindsets – “a culture of can’t” – rather than actual restrictions.

“Cage-busting” education leaders, like those featured on the panel, work to find places where they can play through the rules to break organizational habits and achieve true reform. Here are the lessons they’ve learned:

Human Capital is Key (And A Good Lawyer is Essential)

Nearly every leader mentioned a time when they were told they couldn’t implement an initiative because of legal or contract barriers. But in each case, the rule either didn’t exist or was superfluous. Instead, institutional culture had built up to the point where the status quo was perceived as carved in stone.

Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist recalled the power of asking “why?” – pushing others to think beyond “the way it’s always been done.” Michelle Rhee, CEO of StudentsFirst, referenced her experiences in a contentious contract negotiation with the Washington Teacher’s Union (WTU) over a pay-for-performance system. When talks stalled, outside mediator Kurt Schmoke found a “cage-busting” solution by writing a provision that gave DCPS the power to institute a pay system that the WTU would not have to oppose or endorse.

Others cited the importance of bringing on employees who share the same vision. Chris Barbic, of the Tennessee Achievement School District (ASD) and former CEO of charter network YES Prep Public Schools, spoke of “unplugging from the Matrix” those teachers who had spent several years in traditional schools. He estimated that only about half of them were able to shift their mindset and adapt to the charter school culture.

Collaboration Should Be Goal- and Vision-Oriented

To many on the panel, collaboration was another means to get change going. As a school principal, Adrian Manuel wanted to move all of his teachers’ prep time to one day to allow for cross-grade collaboration, site visits to model schools, and more intentional planning. In the process, teachers would need to teach more periods on other days, a move prohibited by the contract. Manuel sent teacher representatives on a weekend retreat with the contract to find a way to implement the idea. The representatives returned with a solution that they presented to the staff, bringing the majority of teachers onboard without making the measure feel like a top-down initiative.

A shared vision is also critical in the central office. When D.C. Public Schools reallocated funds after closing fifteen under-enrolled schools, Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s leadership team initially pushed for more of the same programming they already had. Rather than stick to the status quo, Henderson asked a different question – what would you want to spend money on if your child was in DCPS? This new framework pushed her staff to imagine beyond what they had already done to consider new enrichment programming and technology initiatives.

Flexibility and Vertical Integration of Policy Is Crucial

Education reform doesn’t happen in a vacuum; each of the leaders also cited the importance of flexibility and cohesiveness within federal, state, district, and school policy.

When the Providence Public School District wanted to establish a new labor-management contract as part of their School Improvement Grant (SIG), Gist and her staff were able to work with the U.S. Department of Education to implement the reform under the “Restart” model, which is normally used to transform traditional schools to charters. This flexibility allowed the district to gain ownership and tailor reform to their needs.

Barbic found that implementation and alignment of state policy to the local level was also a challenge – even within the state-led ASD. It took two separate pieces of legislation to get the parameters of the ASD right, and even then, the effects of reform often didn’t trickle down to schools. Tennessee eliminated a last-in, first-out policy for teacher layoffs, but when Barbic visited principals in Chattanooga, they hadn’t even heard of the change.

Questions Remain

It is clear from this panel that flexibility in regulation can be a useful tool for school leaders – an important point given ongoing debates over No Child Left Behind waivers and the implementation of reforms like Race to the Top that allow for state innovation. However, it seems to be equally important to push for a deep bench of future “cage-busting” leaders. Can “cage-busting” be taught, and if so, how should policymakers think about preparing future principals and superintendents? Policy can include all the flexibility in the world, but it won’t matter if schools don’t have leaders with the determination and vision to use it well.

Tuesday was a big night for early education and higher education. But what about all the education that happens in between? Teachers were mentioned once, but in the context of deficit reduction, not education. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and waivers fared even worse, with nary a word. But never fear, waiver watchers got all the coverage they needed last week from the Senate HELP Committee and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). In a hearing and subsequent CCSSO panel, policymakers and experts debated the early lessons from the waivers and implications for a near- or distant-future NCLB reauthorization.

For those following the waivers, however, the hearings were largely a disappointment – offering few specific insights from year one of implementation. District waivers? Still a possibility. Super subgroups are diluting accountability? Old news. If anything, the discussions mirrored  the HELP Committee markup over a year ago in its attempt at ESEA reauthorization. In fact, we learned more about reauthorization’s prospects than we did about the waivers. The hearing may have promised “lessons learned,” but those lessons depended entirely on who you asked:

Secretary Duncan – obviously – is a big cheerleader for the waivers, as opposed to working with Congress on a reauthorization: “My team and I put in hundreds and hundreds of hours in what proved to be a fruitless effort over the past two years. In all candor, I would like to have gone to waivers earlier.” He highlighted how states are focusing on subjects beyond math and reading, how more schools are being held accountable for student subgroup performance, and how states are promoting teacher quality, instead of credentials.

Although giving states options has benefits, not all states made good choices. As Andy Rotherham asked later, what do waivers look like in the hands of not-so-great state chiefs? Many declined to take advantage of new measures of student growth or postsecondary readiness. Worse, states often backtracked on plans to strengthen graduation rate and subgroup accountability, concerns highlighted by the Alliance for Excellent Education and Education Trust.

Democratic Senators and their allies, including Education Trust’s Kati Haycock, are no fans of NCLB, but have still taken issue with many of the features emerging in states’ waivers: super-subgroups, uneven goals that do not close achievement gaps and are not linked to any consequences, toothless school improvement policies, and more. Unfortunately, these groups are pointing out flaws in states’ waivers, but offering fewer solutions to fix them.

One option is for the Department to require states to amend their waivers if they don’t sufficiently meet the needs of vulnerable students (states can also voluntarily do so, with Department approval). But chiefs, like New Jersey’s Chris Cerf and Kentucky’s Terry Holliday, aren’t keen on the idea of mid-course corrections and more negotiations with ED. Given their reluctance and questions about how to monitor waivers, it seems unlikely that states will make significant changes. This doesn’t mean policymakers won’t learn anything from the waiver experiment, but it may take years for these lessons to be applied.

Another option is to push strongly for reauthorization. But this carries risks for civil rights groups given the preference for local control and even more state flexibility among Republican legislators, state chiefs, and governors. While HELP members like Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) spoke of reauthorization, they appear unable to offer any new solutions that would present a departure from NCLB, recognize the concerns of the civil rights community, and maintain a strong federal role in education.

State schools chiefs, however, are advocating for reauthorization, but for a variety of reasons. First, they point out that many states do not have waivers. To New York Commissioner John King, this means there is no “floor” for state policy to safeguard against poor decisions. Alternatively, Holliday cited the need for long-term stability, because the waivers are subject to the Secretary of Education’s priorities. Regardless, all chiefs would welcome a new NCLB that maintains – or expands – flexibility. And most likely, the level of flexibility in the waivers would be the default starting point for any reauthorization right now. Lawmakers would receive incredible pushback if a new NCLB required states to dramatically alter the plans in which they’ve already invested a great deal of time, energy, and resources.

Republican Senators appear to be aligning most closely with the chiefs on reauthorization – less so in supporting waivers. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) equated the waivers to an inside-the-beltway version of 'Mother May I,’ while Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) lambasted the “regulatory purgatory” the Department created. In particular, Alexander was adamant that the government should not require states to adopt teacher evaluations based on student achievement. In one exchange with King, Alexander pressed: “We only give you 10 percent of your money. Why do I have to come from the mountains of Tennessee to tell New York that’s good for you?” But despite Alexander’s strong opinions, there is no consensus among the minority either – Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) seemed quite pleased with what his state accomplished in their waiver.

In short, reauthorization has not stalled because the waivers are popular. Rather, Republicans cannot make a strong-enough case for the level of local control many in their caucus seek, and Democrats prefer the temporary waiver policy to a decade of local control with little federal oversight. Without a clear alternative to NCLB that also provides a strong, compelling case for federal involvement in education, waivers really are their best choice.

The silver lining, as Bellwether Education Partners' Andy Smarick pointed out, is that with another year, or two, or three of waivers, some actual lessons might emerge that could inform and transform the thinking of those who seek a stronger federal role in K-12 policy – and those that don’t. We’ll be watching for them. Stay tuned.

Last week was National School Choice Week, a celebration that tends to make strange bedfellows of education policy advocates. The broad appeal of the movement – parents should be able to choose a high-quality school for their children – belies the volatile political reality. However, two recent reports add empirical evidence to the frequently emotional and personal discussions surrounding school choice.

The cleverly-titled School Choice Regulations: Red Tape or Red Herring?, from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, examines the assertion that state-imposed regulations and accountability measures discourage private schools from participating in voucher or tax-credit programs. The report surveyed 241 private schools in five voucher-participating cities: Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. 

Surprisingly, the authors found that regulations don’t act as a strong deterrent for participation. Only 3 percent of non-participating schools listed program regulations as the primary reason for not opting in.

A descriptive analysis of 13 voucher programs and tax credit scholarship programs found a similarly mild effect on participation. Moving from the lowest to highest regulation burden represented only a 9 percent decrease in participation from private schools.

Instead of restrictions and accountability measures, the most-cited reason for not participating was the availability of voucher-eligible families. It seems that these schools believe the area they serve wouldn’t provide enough qualified voucher students to make participation worthwhile. In fact, more than a third of non-voucher schools reported that they would be more likely to participate if the program extended eligibility to all families in the form of a universal voucher.

While voucher regulations had a small deterrent effect, it’s interesting to note that Catholic schools – which make up more than a third of private education options – had high participation even in the most heavily regulated environments. The study’s authors believe that combatting declining enrollments, as well as a foundational mission to serve the poor, drives this participation.

School Choice Week also brought a new report from Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) examining changes in charter school achievement levels over time. Weighing in at two volumes and about 200 pages, Charter School Growth and Replication is a detailed study of the impact of network expansion and the range of performance quality within charter schools.

One of its most notable findings is that charter schools with a rocky first year aren’t likely to improve their achievement results over time. A charter school in the lowest quintile of performance its first year has a 66 percent probability of staying in the lowest two quintiles of schools in math and a 70 percent probability of staying in the lowest two quintiles in reading.

The trajectory of the lowest performing schools becomes more entrenched over time – once a school spends two years in the lowest quintile, the probability of staying in the two lowest quintiles ranges from 82 percent to 91 percent in math and 89 percent to 96 percent in reading.

The study further examines the impact of schools that operate as part of a Charter Management Organization (CMO). They find that CMO schools, on average, tend to post the same achievement results as non-CMO schools, but produce better results for disadvantaged subgroups – students of color and those in poverty – than traditional public or non-CMO schools. 

Another striking finding is the broad range of academic quality of CMO networks. In math, 37 percent of networks produce average achievement results stronger than a traditional public school, while 50 percent posted weaker results. In reading, where the spread of effect sizes is even more pronounced, 43 percent of networks fare better than traditional schools and 37 percent fare worse.

While the two reports occupy different spheres of school choice policy – one focused on the provision of education through the private market, the other on the effectiveness of publicly-authorized charter schools – they both convey a similar theme. Regulations imposed on schools matter, but not always in the ways we’d expect.

Fordham’s report delivers a significant blow to the argument that heavy regulations act as a strong deterrent for participation in voucher programs. For private schools considering voucher participation, it seems that the market  of qualified students, as well as internal factors such as admissions criteria and school culture, may play more of a role than previously thought.     

The CREDO study should act as a wake-up call for charter school authorizers. The study suggests that the length of charter authorization periods should be reconsidered: if a school performs poorly in its first few years, it is not likely to improve before its charter is up for renewal.  

Given the noted difficulties in closing poor-performing charter schools, this report may push authorizers to scrutinize new charter school applications even more closely. In a recent op-ed, the New York Times cited the CREDO study as evidence to push for the closing of poor performing schools and limit the authorization of new charters to the “most credible” candidates. Unfortunately, the study shows that credibility is difficult to measure. Operating under the umbrella of a CMO is not necessarily an indicator of quality. Further, the CREDO study finds that characteristics that might seem to indicate success - network maturity, size, and proximity to other network schools – do not provide significant information about future performance.

One bright spot is the Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), a non-profit that invests in charter school operators. CREDO found that students in schools selected by CSGF tend to outpace peers in both traditional public schools and other non-CSGF CMOs. The ability of CSGF to “pick winners” from the charter school pool suggests that a high level of due diligence and oversight from authorizers can have impact on school quality.

As President Obama gave his second inaugural address yesterday, many of us couldn’t help but linger over these words:  “We are true to our creed,” Obama said, “when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.” 

In a post for the Huffington Post's Education blog, I wrote about the Early Education Initiative's event on January 14 that highlighted three promising strategies for turning around low-performing schools: FirstSchool, AppleTree's Every Child Ready and Cincinnati's

Save the date for Turnaround 2.0:  School Improvement Strategies that Tap the Potential of the PreK-3rd Grades, an event on January 14, 9-11 am, at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. We will highlight small and large-scale PreK-3^rd initiatives that are helping to transform elementary schools and to improve learning outcomes for students.

Join us for an engaging discussion on what needs to be in place to scale-up and replicate initiatives that have promising results. More details to come in early January.