Arne Duncan

The NEA Post-Mortem

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, NEA, Obama, teachers

Now that the the National Education Association has wrapped up its 90th Representative Assembly, there are some interesting head scratchers that come out of the NEA Convention.  In a meeting that is part union hall, part political convention, and part educator rally, the NEA moved forward a few ideas and notions that better help us see why it can be so difficult to figure out where public education is and should be headed in this country:

* NEA moved to condemn, but not call for the ouster of, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (most notably for his support of teacher firings in Rhode Island and presumably for his defense of the tying student performance data to teachers in Los Angeles), yet then turned around and endorsed President Barack Obama for 2012.  If there was ever a cabinet secretary in tune with his president, it is Duncan.  So are we truly upset with Duncan or truly content with Obama’s leadership?  And if it is the latter, are we endorsing his work in issues like the economy and healthcare, and setting aside concerns with his Administration’s education policies?  And was endorsing Obama in 2011 an apology for waiting so long to endorse him in 2008?
* NEA officially placed Teach for America on its public enemies list.  For years, union leaders have tried to discount the role that TFA does or should play in public education.  In recent years, union cities like Boston have complained about TFA teachers taking away previously union jobs.  So now the NEA has a policy stance that matches its rhetoric regarding the TFA movement.  But what about those TFA teachers who are members of their local unions?  How do they show up at the next union ice cream social?
* NEA approved the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, with one important caveat.  Yes, the NEA said, student test scores should be one of the elements used to determine the effectiveness of a teacher.  The catch?  NEA says that there are no current student tests that meet the standard for the tests allowed under the new NEA policy.  Essentially, we will gladly be measured by student test scores assuming the test meets our criteria.  But since no current tests do (and we assume the new ones being developed through RttT Assessment grants won’t either), I guess you just can’t use test scores to evaluate teachers.  Take that LA and NYC!
* Interestingly, President Obama did not attend.  Instead, NEA had Vice President Joe Biden.  Always a good draw for a union event, Biden seemed to deliver as folks expected him to, positioning education as political issue (Democrats get it right, and Republicans get it wrong), throwing some red meat (GOP healthcare vouchers are no different than school vouchers),  Even more curious, Biden said that the education debate was one about “economic opportunity and concentration of wealth.”  Silly me, here I thought it was about providing all children, regardless of race, socioeconomic status or geography, with a top-notch public education.
Special thanks to Stephen Sawchuk for providing the play-by-play on the NEA for Education Week.  Sawchuk’s coverage over at Teacher Beat provided terrific insight into what was happening in Chicago.  It was almost as if I could hear the “Brother” this and “Sister” that right on the Assembly floor.  I can’t wait for AFT!

Waivering on NCLB

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, ESEA, NCLB

How do you solve a problem like ESEA?  Last week, Eduflack opined on how ESEA reauthorization didn’t seem to be moving as scheduled, and how EdSec Arne Duncan and company could make due with NCLB with a few changes.  Based on Duncan’s remarks over the weekend, reported superbly (as always) by the Associated Press’ Dorie Turner, it looks like Eduflack was doing a little more than just whistlin’ in the wind.   

On the pages of Politico yesterday, Duncan made one final attempt to jumpstart ESEA reauthorization.  Otherwise, he may be forced to resort to “Plan B,” using his waiver powers to provide school districts and states some relief from those NCLB mandates that many want to see reversed, such as the accountability provisions.
Now folks have been talking about NCLB waivers and executive powers for years now.  Former EdSec Margaret Spellings made some adjustments to the law in 2008 through the powers invested in her, including adopting a common graduation rate formula.  And many have been waiting for Duncan to take similar action, expecting changes and adjustments since his confirmation in early 2009.
Of course, Duncan initiated talk of Plan B without going into specifics on what would be waived and what would be reconsidered.  And why should he?  The EdSec (and the President, for what it’s worth) has made clear he both wanted and needed a reauthorized ESEA by the start of the 2011-12 school year.  Just as he wanted a revised ESEA in 2009.  Just as he needed it in 2010.  And just as he wanted it earlier this year.  
And Duncan has made clear what he wants. More discretionary funding for programs like Race to the Top and i3.  Codifying RttT priorities such as educator quality and school turnaround.  A revised outlook on accountability, with an emphasis on college and career readiness (and those lovely common core standards).  Some flexibility for rural schools.  And a little more this, and a little more that.
He’s offered, time and again, to play Let’s Make a Deal with Congress.  Three years running, he’s had his people ready to work with congressional leaders on a new ESEA.  More than a year ago, he issued his ESEA Blueprint to provide Congress a map to get to the shared destination.  Yet here we are, more than four years after ESEA was supposed to be reauthorized, with the same NCLB and no new whole cloth legislation to consider in its stead.
So why not threaten to take your ball and go home?  At this stage of the game, why not offer Plan B, with details to come at a later date?  
Almost reminds me of the climax of Major League, when Pedro Cerrano is desperate for the game-winning home run, talking to his “spiritual guide, Jobu.  “Look, I go to you.  I stick up for you.  You don’t help me now.  I say *@&#*$ you, Jobu.  I do it myself.”
Duncan and his team have gone to Congress.  They’ve stuck up for Congress and many of the leadership’s priorities.  If Congress isn’t going to help them now, Duncan can just do it himself.
The remaining question now is whether Congress intends to step to the pitcher’s rubber on this one, or just let Duncan hit it off the tee.

Whither ESEA Reauth?

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, ESEA, NCLB, RTT

Earlier this year, President Obama and EdSec Arne Duncan made it perfectly clear.  We absolutely, positively needed ESEA reauthorization before the start of the 2011-2012 school year.  As we are now less than three months from that benchmark, how close are we?

Similarly, we heard promises from some in the U.S. Senate that a new ESEA bill would be offered to those on the senior circuit by Easter 2011.  The ears have been eaten off of virtually all the chocolate bunnies, and there is nary a stale jelly bean left.  But still no ESEA.
Unfortunately, it looks like we are no closer to reauthorization than we we last year, or in 2009, or even in 2007 (when it was originally due).  In fact, we may be further away than it seems.  Eduflack has said it before, and he’ll say it again.  In all likelihood, ESEA will be reauthorized in the first half of 2013.  (Yes, that isn’t a typo.  2013.)
Why?  Let’s take a look at things.  Round 3 Race to the Top and Round 2 Investing in innovation details went over like a lead balloon last week.  About a billion dollars in new spending for states and districts was discussed, yet few paid it much attention.  And those that did seemed to criticize it.  Too much money for early childhood education.  Too little money for Round 2 RttT finalists.  Yet another round of proposals, applications, and reviews for those seeking i3.  The ed reform merry-go-round continues, with heavy rhetoric but light financial incentive, at least by most perspectives.
Other than a Labor Day wish, we’ve seen little from the U.S. Department on Education regarding reauthorization.  No updated blueprint.  No new recommendations.  Just proposed program cuts and consolidations in the President’s budget, and the promise of more competitive grantmaking and investments in innovative ideas.  And some are already chattering that the folks on Maryland Avenue are going into “hunkering down” mode, just hoping to make it through the elections a mere 17 months away.
So let’s move to Capitol Hill.  On the House side, we have an Education Committee Chairman following Ohio State’s old “three yards and a cloud of dust” philosophy.  The House is moving incrementally, moving individual bills on individual issues to “fix” or “improve” NCLB.  Chairman John Kline (MN) has made his agenda clear, and the Committee will take things piece by piece.  Assuming the Senate acts on the House bills, we could have a nice little ESEA patchwork quilt by 2013, anchored by the original NCLB and enhanced by the patches and flourishes developed by the House committee.
And on the Senate side?  Chairman Tom Harkin (IA) has been resolute in his intention to bring ESEA reauthorization forward.  But in the absence of a final, complete piece of legislation, gossip has filled the void.  Is there a full piece of ESEA reauth, based on the components that have been floating around for months?  Will the chairman bypass the usual process for moving legislation forward, and instead just move to a multi-day, full committee markup of the NCLB law?  Or will the Senate follow the Kline model and start picking off important issues like special education, ECE, rural ed, and accountability?  
Only time will tell which path we actually head down.  But it begs one important question.  Do we really need ESEA reauthorization right now?  Short of the EdSec acting to address the AYP pitfalls coming in 2014, are there other necessary changes to enact in ESEA?  RttT and i3 can continue without being codified in ESEA.  Tweaks to teacher quality can proceed, as can much of the turnaround efforts.  And we can continue to focus on data systems and assessment models and even common core without making changes to ye olde ESEA.
Assuming Duncan and company can secure the dollars for their agenda in the upcoming budget, 2013 doesn’t seem so bad after all.  Sure, you don’t get the bounce in your step from passing “landmark legislation,” but you have little preventing you from enacting your plans and policies.
 

Racin’ on Preschool Legs

Eduflack Arne Duncan, early childhood education, RTT

In an announcement far less anticipated than previous rounds, EdSec Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education today announced the parameters for Round Three of Race to the Top.  After Congress agreed to throw another $700 million in the RttT kitty as part of the FY2011 CR budget deal, most expected they knew how the current round would be distributed.

Original word around town was that ED would simply move down the list of Round Two finalists, making dreams come true.  So New Jersey, which finished less than three points (on a 500-point scale) behind the final Round Two winner, Ohio, was seen as a shoo-in (and a potential recipient of hundreds of millions of federal dollars).  Then came Arizona, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Illinois.  Presumably, the $700 million wouldn’t even last long enough for Illinois to line up for its check, leaving the full boat to be distributed among four states (and four states run by Republican governors, coincidentally).
But a funny thing happened on the way to today’s announcement.  Instead of funding, or nearly funding, the remaining plans that scored the highest, ED determined it best to share the wealth across all of the Phase Two finalist states.  So now we can add California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky to the list.  Nine states sharing RttT dollars, with all likely getting just a fraction of their ask, yet all of the red tape, bureaucracy, and expectation to go with it.
Why?  Because Duncan threw the education community a curve ball.  Of the $700 million going to RttT Round Three, only $200 million of it will go to these nine states.  The remainder, a whopping $500 million, will now go to fund a new Race competition for early childhood education.
If you’ll recall, last month Eduflack wrote about a key change to the RttT law — the addition of early childhood education as a new priority to Race.  At the time, I wondered whether this was finally a real commitment on behalf of the Administration to invest in ECE, or whether this was more rhetoric, without the teeth of real dollars to back it up.
That question was answered loudly and clearly today by Duncan.  Five hundred million dollars to go to a competitive grant program to fund the improvement of early childhood care and education, and it will now carry the Early Learning Challenge moniker.  Half a billion dollars to support preK programs.  Some of the specs released today include:
* State-based award focused on comprehensive plans for early learning
* Emphasis on coordination (presumably with K-12), clearer learning standards, and “meaningful workforce development”
The statement from ED is unclear on some of the larger issues, though.  It notes that just 40 percent of four-year-olds are in preK.  So is the intent to improve preK programs or boost enrollment in existing programs?  At a time when states are reducing their own investments in preK (just look at the Pew numbers), is $500 million spread across the nation enough to jumpstart a universal preK movement?  And when we again challenge the innovation community, this time to get involved in ECE, what role do we see for the private sector and the edu-prenuers to be playing in early childhood education?
On the K-12 side, we see a few other issues.  So now those nine RttT finalist states can recompete for $10-$50 million grants, needing to develop new applications (with ED’s help, of course).  One only needs to do the math, though, to realize we are looking a lot more like a number of $10 million grants than a handful of $50 million ones.  Is $50 million even enough to enact real improvement in a state like California, Illinois, or Pennsylvania?
Most importantly, though, is this an indication that we’ve already given up on RttT?  When it was originally announced, we heard all about how it was most effective when a few states were given big dollars to enact real changes (Former Duncan advisor Mike Smith originally hypothesized there should only be two or three total RttT winners for the original $4 billion prize).  Now that we move to Round Three, we are shifting to small checks for a large number of states, now for targeted activities.  When Delaware and Tennessee received more that they were originally slated to gain in Round One, do we really expect the nine expected to benefit here to be able to do real work and enact real improvements with a fraction of what they asked for (and presumably need)?  Time will tell …
UPDATE: Make that eight.  South Carolina has already pulled out of the RttT3 competition, according to Education Week’s Politics K-12 blog, with its State Superintendent, Mick Zais stating RttT is “offering pieces of silver in exchange for strings attached to Washington.”
 
     

Pencils, Bubble Sheets, and Erasures

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, Arne Duncan, assessment, DCPS, Online Education

After yet another investigation into alleged cheating on DC Public Schools’ student achievement tests, DCPS officials yesterday announced that they were tossing out the standardized test scores for three classrooms.  If one reads between the lines, it appears that the current action was based on allegations that someone altered the beloved bubble tests after the students took the exam.

This follows on the heels of similar allegations in Atlanta last year, which forced the resignation of long-time Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall.  And, of course, this isn’t the first time that DCPS has investigated alleged altering of the bubble sheets on its exams.  The same charges were levied just a few years ago.
For the past few years, we have heard EdSec Arne Duncan rail against the dreaded “bubble test.”  And while the good EdSec may be taking issue with such exams for a very different reason, he is correct.  The days of No.2 pencils and scanned bubble sheets should be over. 
With a growing chorus of opposition to bubble tests, with allegations of cheating on said tests on the rise, and with those pencil-and-scan sheet exams viewed as a general enemy to the educational process, it begs some essential questions.  Why aren’t we testing through other means?  In our 21st century learning environment, why do we still use 19th century testing approaches?  Can we build a better testing mousetrap?
Those first two questions are typically answered with the usual responses.  Change is more difficult than the status quo.  We fear the new.  If it isn’t truly broken, why try to fix it?  It costs too much, either in dollars or in stakeholder chits.  We don’t know enough yet (maybe we can form a committee to explore).  It just isn’t a high enough priority.
As for the last question, though, we have already built a better mousetrap.  A few states have begun using online adaptive testing, demonstrating promising practice (on its way to best practice).  The gold standard, at this point, is Oregon’s OAKS Online, or the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.  Following on its heels are similar online adaptive assessment systems in Hawaii and Delaware.  And with a $176 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (led by the State of Washington) is looking to develop a similar assessment framework to measure the K-12 Common Core State Standards.
Why these new systems?  To the point, they seem to assess student achievement and learning faster and better than ye olde bubble sheets, at a lower cost to the states.  From a practical point of view, they hopefully bring testing up to speed with instruction and learning.  If we are serious about a 21st century education for all, it only makes sense that we would couple that with 21st century assessment.  And that just isn’t done with a stick of wood and some graphite.
So in looking at alleged issues in DC, Atlanta, and elsewhere, the last questions we should be asking is how to avoid erasures on tests or the best way to detect systematic changes on bubble sheets.  Instead, we should be asking why we aren’t using a more effective testing system in the first place, a system that better aligns with both where we are headed on instruction and how today’s — and tomorrow’s — students actually learn?
* Full disclosure — Eduflack does work related to the assessment efforts in Oregon, Hawaii, and Delaware.         

$4B vs. $4B

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, RTT

It appears that not all pots of $4 billion are created equal, at least not according to EdSec Arne Duncan.  Out at the Education Writers Association conference last week, Duncan was scratching his head regarding an interesting paradox.  We talk, ad nauseam, about the $4 billion the federal government has committed to the 12 states that won Race to the Top (RttT).  But why do we say virtually nothing about the $4 billion available through the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program that is serving the lowest 5 percent of all schools in the county?

Between the lines of his question, Duncan seemed to be saying that SIG, at its heart, could ultimately have more of an impact on student achievement across the nation than our deal ol’ RttT.  After all, every state can get a piece of SIG.  SIG is targeted specifically at boosting student achievement (as opposed to Race’s multiple goals and objectives).  And ED even has specific expectations and measures to determine SIG effectiveness out of the gate.
So why is SIG not getting the love from the media or from school improvement folks that RttT is?  First and foremost, Race is sexy.  Huge dollars for a small group of states to think big thoughts and do interesting things.  A competitive process that made all states equals, where a state like Delaware can best a state like California.  The political intrigue of what states won, what states lost, and why.  A public scoring process similar to the Miss America pageant.  And repeated mentions of the promise of RttT in presidential speeches, State of the Unions, and now multiple budgets.  Obama loves Race, but seems ambivalent about SIG.
Despite all of its upside and potential as a real change agent, SIG remains a bastard stepchild in the process.  We want to talk about those states that are “winning,” not those schools that are our lowest performing.  We want to focus on best of class.  And those individual SIG grants ultimately pale in comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars one particular state won in RttT competition.
It really is a shame, though.  Duncan is right; $4 billion isn’t necessarily created equal.  While Race may be a nice showhorse in the great education reform parade, SIG has is the real workhorse.  When we look at the numbers and see the challenges before our schools — particularly those serving historically disadvantaged populations — it is SIG that is going to make the real difference. 
At a time when we are lamenting education programs that have had their $20 or $25 million appropriation eliminated by the President or Congress (depending on your perspective), don’t we need a little more attention on the $4 billion that is being committed to help our truly struggling schools?  Talking about the fun a dozen states may have spending their RttT largesse is fun, but the truly interesting stories are likely what those SIG schools are actually doing to change the fates and futures of the kids who walk through their doors.
  

The Perfect and the Good

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, ESEA, NCLB, RTT, SBRR, Spellings, teachers

For much of the last week, Eduflack has been down in New Orleans, living the edu-life.  First stop was the Education Writers Association (EWA), followed by a multi-day play at the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

(As an aside, EWA has to be my favorite conference of the year.  I have to attend A LOT of education events each year, and I thoroughly enjoy EWA.  It is a fantastic opportunity for me to get to know a lot of the reporters and bloggers I know virtually, and I always get a kick when some of the associates consider me a “journalist” because of this little blog.)
At any rate, there was clearly a catch phrase at EWA this year from the policymakers and talking heads trying to influence reporter-think.  “Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”  While I would argue that none of us in attendance are exactly a 21st century Voltaire, it was an interesting observation heard over multiple days.
EdSec Arne Duncan used it in reference to ESEA reauthorization.  Again stating his belief that we will have reauth done before the start of the school year (and more importantly, noting that we NEED to have it done be by the end of the summer), Duncan made clear that ESEA won’t be perfect (he didn’t quite make Margaret Spellings’ 99.94% pure remarks).  But real improvements must be made to the current law.  We know what those improvements are.  We have some agreement on those improvements.  So let’s move forward now down the good path, knowing ESEA will never be perfect for all comers.
The battle between the perfect and the good was also made with regard to teachers and value-added evaluation.  In discussing the great siege on Los Angeles teachers in 2010 (the LA Times is releasing version two of its teacher database in the next week or two) and similar pending efforts in NYC, the general sense was that revealing such data is a “good thing,” albeit an imperfect thing. 
And similar remarks made testing and assessment blush, particularly on issues like common standards and adequately and fairly measuring student achievement across the nation and around the world.
It is all a subtle shift in rhetoric, but an important one for the school improvement debate.  For about a decade now, we were certain in what we needed to do.  NCLB was perfect (or 99.94% so).  RF was perfect.  SBR was perfect.  AYP was perfect.  And even now, CCSSI is perfect.  But with all of this perfection, we’ve seen little growth in student achievement and little agreement on the paths we should head, the speed we should take, and the ultimate destination we should seek.
So now we are focusing on common sense progress.  What incremental steps can we take?  What promising practices can we follow?  What gets us half of the way forward?  Instead of throwing that Hail Mary we’ve all sought in education for decades, we have made the decided shift to a “three yards and a cloud of dust” approach lately.  (Sorry, Mr. Duncan, they can’t all be basketball metaphors.)
Such a rhetorical adjustment has both its pluses and its negatives.  It is harder for the opposition to remain strong when they aren’t fighting an “all or nothing” approach.  It is more difficult to stand against forward progress, even if it is slow.  But it is also more difficult rally strong support.  For supporters, who wants to go slow or compromise or wait patiently?
Will the education community’s embrace of Voltaire win the day?  The challenge EdSec Duncan and his supporters in the ed space have is a matter of priority.  Championing the good is a fine strategy if we can identity primary and secondary needs at this point.  But with ESEA, a range of funding issues from RttT to SIG, common core standards, revisions to AYP, teacher performance and incentive issues, and a host of other topics, something has to give.  In the pursuit of the good, we have to recognize that even good can be subjective.  We’ll never be perfect, but we still need to determine those one or two issues on which we can be really good this year.
  

Conveyin’ the Message in the Big Easy

Eduflack Arne Duncan, Media, Social media

Eduflack hits the road again this week, destination New Orleans.  The Education Writers Association will be meeting down in the Big Easy this Thursday through Friday, celebrating its 64th Annual Seminar.  This year’s theme?  Recovery and Reform: Aiming for Excellence in Uncertain Times.

The agenda includes a relative who’s who in education.  EdSec Arne Duncan will be there.  So will AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel.  EdTrust’s Kati Haycock, New Orleans’ Schools Paul Vallas, and Alliance for Excellent Education’s Bob Wise are also in the house.  But the spotlight will really be on the reporters in attendance and on the program.  Banchero, Toppo, Jaschik, Willen, Turner, Alpert, Otterman, and all the other names we read.  We even have those pesky bloggers like Hess and Russo.
Amid all those moves, shakers, and bylines we hunger to see at such conferences, dear ol’ Eduflack is also on the program.  This Thursday (1;15 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. local time), I’ll be part of a panel discussing, “Using Social Media to Convey Your Message.”  I’ll be joining the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Peter Panepento and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, former EdWeek shining star and currently with the Hatcher Group, to talk about the Tweets, blogs, FB fans, dailies, and everything else in the SM universe.  
So if you’re in NoLa (and if you’re at EWA) be sure to stop by the session.  And if you aren’t in the neighborhood, be sure to check out all the action on Twitter.  Just look for the #ewa2011 hashtag.

Presidential Education Budget Redux

Eduflack Arne Duncan, early childhood education, i3, NCLB, RTT, teachers

Yesterday, President Obama released his FY2012 Budget.  And it was hardly a “the new phone books are here” sort of moment.  In an era of supposed budgetary belt-tightening, we all knew that the U.S. Department of Education was facing a budget increase.  The major question was how much of that increase would go to Pell and how much to P-12.

So when the details of the budget were revealed, Eduflack’s primary response was, “didn’t we just have this discussion last year?”  New rounds of Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation.  A handful of programs eliminated.  A good number of programs “consolidated” into a series of competitive buckets.  So while some of the specific dollars may be a little different (more for RttT this year than last, less for i3), Eduflack comments on the FY2011 budget seem to be fairly evergreen, all things considered. 
Of course, there are a few things that make this year a little different:
* Political realities — For those eagerly waiting to cash checks based on FY2012 presidential projections, please remember we still haven’t passed the FY2011 budget yet.  FY2012 is largely a do-over because FY2011 never became law.  The Administration is to be commended for sticking to its guns and staying with the same policy priorities.  But we can’t forget these priorities couldn’t get passed in a Democratic Congress in 2010.  If the current fight over the FY2011 continuing resolution is any indication, Congress (particularly House Republicans) have a VERY different view of where our education budget should head.  So let’s realize that the President has essentially put forward a “ceiling” for education spending.  The House will drive it down some, and both the House and Senate will swap out some of the president’s programs for their own favorite funding recipients.
* Reauthorization — Much of the “big thinking” in this year’s presidential budget is based on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  Based on yesterday’s ED presentation, all those interesting new programs and the continuation of RttT and i3 are all linked to successful ESEA reauth.  What happens, then, if reauth rolls out at House Education Committee John Kline (MN) wants — incrementally?  Or what happens if Dems in the Senate can’t agree on a strategy?  Another year of ED CRs means none of these big ideas are funded.
* Early childhood education — Kudos to the Administration for the creation of the Early Learning Challenge Fund.  The President is now addressing his 2008 campaign pledges about the importance of ECE.  Even more important, he is placing the responsibility for 21st century early learning with the U.S. Department of Education (instead of over in HHS with the Head Start office).  Could it be we may actually see a P-20 education continuum run through Maryland Avenue?  One can only hope.
* Title I Rewards — Perhaps the most intriguing new idea is that of a Title I Rewards program.  And it is interesting because of what we know, and what we still don’t.  Based on yesterday, it seems that ED will provide $300 million in new Title I dollars directly to the states, based on current Title I formulas.  It will then be up to the states to divide that money up among those Title I districts who are demonstrating the most progress in student achievement improvement.  So will dollars go to a select few districts or most?  Are rewards simply the thanks of a grateful nation, or are they to be designated for specific interventions or to scale particular improvements?  Lots of questions, with lots of opportunities.
* Teacher training — Last year, the Administration took a beating for the perception that it was scrapping its commitment to preservice education for teachers, instead handing the keys over to alt cert providers and programs like Teach for America.  This year, the President is offering up $975 million for the recruitment, reward, and retention of new teachers.  We’re looking at recruitment programs, scholarship efforts (particularly those targeting minorities), and an emphasis on science and math teachers.  This seems like an awful lot of real capital to begin supporting the Teach.gov initiative.
And who is getting condolence cards today?  Those 13 programs slated for elimination (including the Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners, which is experiencing another year of life and another $8.8 million under the CR).  The 38 programs targeted for consolidation, while a few are destined for greatness in the competitive grant process (I’m looking at you, TFA), most may go the way of those Whaling Partners.  Career and Technical Education, which seemed to be the big loser, as some well-meaning program had to sacrifice to make this year’s number, and CTE seems to be the recipient of such cuts.  And I’d also put ARPA-ED on the list, simply because after all of the build up it received in the week leading into the budget, the total dollar figure allotted to our very own DARPA seems small by comparison.
Now the fun begins.  Anyone willing to bet more than half the new funding makes it through the House of Representatives this fall?
 

Should Kids Compete for a Good Education?

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, i3, RTT

“Why should children compete for their education?”  That is one of the questions that EdWeek’s Michele McNeil reports came out of yesterday’s face off between EdSec Arne Duncan and local school board members from across the nation who came to Washington as part of the National School Boards Association federal conference.

It is an interesting question, posed among many of similarly interesting points and concerns raised by local school boards across the country.  McNeil also highlights board members’ concerns of issues such as teacher incentives, ELLs and testing, and even ESEA itself.
(Full disclosure, Eduflack is an NSBA member, a delegate to the Virginia School Boards Association, and the Vice Chairman of the Falls Church City (VA) School Board.)
The notion of children competing is tied to the Obama Administration’s efforts to move almost all of our nation’s discretionary education spending into a competitive grant process.  By doing away with many of the federally funded programs local schools have long counted on and using U.S. Department of Education dollars to fund an instructional version of American Idol, the story goes, we are jeopardizing our classrooms and learning processes.  
Forget that federal education spending represents less than 10 cents of every dollar spent on K-12 education.  Forget that most of that federal education money is committed through formula spending programs like Title I.  Forget that too many kids, despite high per-pupil expenditures, are still getting a lousy education.  The real problem right now is that a small portion of federal education money is being given to those who can demonstrate a real plan and who are committed to showing efficacy and impact?
Our communities should be competing for their educations.  If Congress and ED and the state legislatures are effective stewards of taxpayer dollars, they should want to see ROI for their spending and know the money is producing results.  With so much of the federal commitment to K-12 going to formula spending, what is wrong with wanting to see that results and evaluation, along with need, factor into who gets what?
At the end of the day, competitive programs such as those envisioned by ED are intended to serve as test cases for school improvement.  We sprinkle some seed money in a particular district or state, measure the outcomes, and see if such an investment is warranted at a larger scale.  Such an approach — of early adopters, if you will — works in other industries.  What is so wrong by trying new approaches, gathering the data, and they saying if it can work in Indiana (or Massachusetts or South Carolina or Nevada) or it can work in Dallas (or Atlanta or name your urban district) then it can work in a state, a district, or a school like mine?
A little competition is a good thing.  Meaningful competition, where school communities (SEA or LEA) change their behaviors and approaches to trigger changes in the outcomes (student achievement) is an even better thing.  
Our schools already compete for Title I funding.   Districts and states compete with each other on everything from teacher pay to student achievement.  Kids are already competing for a good education.  We should be focusing on turning more kids into winners in the competition, rather than looking to hand out a slew of participant trophies.