Sweeping Changes in NCLB and DoE

Apparently, there are some major announcements coming out of the Department of Education this week. According to a friend of mine at the DoE, "Queen of All Testing" Margaret Spellings is on her way out to be replaced by Doug Christensen, State Education Commissioner of Nebraska. Christensen is best known for creating the STARS (School-Based Teacher-Lead Assessment Reporting System) program, a portfolio-driven system for meeting NCLB requirements.

Politically, this can only be interpreted as a major shift in priorities for DoE. The rumors are swirling that Bush doesn't think NCLB will pass reauthorization, what with the increasing GOP opposition to the bill. Bush has long put NCLB out there as one of the major pieces of his domestic agenda, and despite opposition from teachers unions, parent groups and others, he and Sec't Spelling have long championed NCLB as both "good policy and good politics."

Realistically, Bush must know that this has long been an unfunded mandate built on educational platitudes, backed up by unsound educational ideas wrapped up in a pretty title that few politicians have been willing to criticize. My opposition to NCLB is long-standing, but even I have to admit that with someone like Dr. Christensen at the DoE helm, I have a much stronger belief that a federal commitment to public education is a possibility.

I probably shouldn't do this, but my friend at DoE did forward me a copy of the embargoed press release / remarks for tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll catch hell, but it's too exciting to see some of the priorities expressed by Dr. Christensen. First, I think we will now see a federal government much more willing to have states seek alternative methods of making AYP. At one point, Dr. Christensen will talk about what STARS has done for Nebraska:

I have found that in schools where classroom-based assessment is led by teachers in collaboration with their administrators, that cultures develop where personal and professional renewal lives and thrives. I have found in schools with classroom-based assessment to be places where passion is back and it is welcomed. I have found that classroom-based assessment creates places where the passion is back and in these schools it is okay to be passionate about our work; our profession, our kids--all of our kids. And, I have found classroom-based assessment to create places where the professional spirits of educators can thrive and places where their hearts embrace each child and every child. Aren’t these the kinds of places where all of us would like to live and do our work?

Linking this kind of thinking to a full-funding of NCLB also seems to be a priority. Two weeks ago, Tom Harkin of Iowa spoke out on how this bill has been almost criminally underfunded. He was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor as saying:

"Year after year, the president sends us a budget that comes nowhere close to funding No Child Left Behind at an adequate level," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa, who chairs the education subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, at a hearing on NCLB funding last week. The president's budget for fiscal year '08 underfunds the law by $14.8 billion, he adds. "The numbers have gotten almost laughable."

For Bush, it seems as if he does believe that the only way to preserve NCLB is to moderate its reliance on high-stakes tests while also taking advantage of the bi-partisan support for funding public education. Even his allies on NCLB reauthorization know that the program must be fully funded. In a very controversial editorial this week in the Washington Post, Ted Kennedy called for the reauthorization of the bill, but he also conceded that:

The law promised increased funding levels over the life of its provisions, in step with the increase in targets for student performance. Yet year after year, the federal government has failed to provide the resources that states and school districts need to improve struggling schools. Assessment and accountability without the funding needed to implement change is a recipe for failure.

One can only presume that some of that extra funding will go to states willing to proceed with alternative assessment programs like the STARS program in Nebraska. I wonder, with Dr. Christensen at the helm of DoE, what other changes in the law will be called for.

Originally, as we all know, NCLB called for 100% of students reaching levels of proficient or advanced on state-mandated tests by 2010. There has been incredible pressure on the federal government to revamp those goals, especially as it applies to English Language Learners. Even in New York state, a state that has had high-stakes graduation requirement tests long before NCLB, a recent memo from State Education Commissioner Richard Mills to administrators across the state is highly critical of the ELL policy, as Mills writes, "We believe many ELL students need at least three years to learn sufficient English to take the ELA test, and we remain concerned about the effect the federal decision will have on the schools, teachers, and most of all the children." And this is from a commissioner who has been very much opposed to any sort of alternative to his own testing system. One wonders what changes Dr. Christensen will call for in NCLB mandates for schools to acheive Adequate Yearly Progress.

Lastly, it just excites me to no end to think that we now will have someone at DoE who speaks to the ideas of creating 21st Century schools. Dr. Christensen has written powerfully on the need for modernizing our schools for several years now, and tomorrow's remarks lay out a powerful framework for his vision:

What does it mean to be educated? is the key question. What does it mean to have learned? What does it mean to know mathematics, to be able to read and write effectively, to know science, history, geography and economics? What does it mean to be fit and well? What does it mean to appreciate the arts? What does it mean to be "prepared" to continue learning, "prepared" to enter the world of work, and "prepared" to be a participant in our democratic society?

In creating this clear and compelling vision, we are describing what is to happen to the student and what the student is to know and be able to do as a result of having participated in the educational process. The vision is one of an "education" and/or an "educated person." It differs significantly from most of our current visions, because they are often visions of schooling and what school is to look like, usually expressed in terms of such things as graduation requirements, credits, or diplomas, all of which are based on time and not on results or outcomes.

Once we have developed a clear vision, it will be compelling because it will describe the students we want to see coming out of our schools by describing what they know and can do -- their levels of competence in terms of knowledge, skills, and application. It will describe how well they are prepared to take the steps all students must take upon leaving the K-12 system -- steps into the roles of learner, worker, and citizen.

Suddenly, after years of thinking that we really were in a dark time for the democratic experiment that is public education in this country, I have hope. We have a visionary at the DoE who we can hope will be a true reformer in the democratic sense of the world. We can -- and we must -- expect compromises, but tomorrow will be a better day for our schools than today. And although I probably shouldn't do this, I can't resist... I've posted the embargoed copy of Dr. Christensen's speech up on my web site. Go read all of it. It's really worth the read.

-- Chris Lehmann

Comments

[Glenn E. Malone]

This is great news!...on another note Google had a huge announcement today as well.
http://www.google.com/tisp/

[Rick]

Many conservatives I know don't trust the model of the schools assessing their own. Hopefully, though, they will be in the minority. This is interesting news, and I will be following it and following up with a post on my own blog. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Steve Poling]

HA! That is very funny! Good job, Chris:)

[Joe Poletti]

I have read the embargoed copy...and am shaking my head in absolute wonder.

I do believe changes are ahead for NCLB, but not on this the first day of April.

Look for much better NCLB news in about 2 years.

[Rick]

Ha ha...good thing I didn't post this one yet.

[Tim Lauer]

Well, it's evening on the west coast, and I have to say this is the best one I've seen today... I'll email it to myself and print it with Google Paper...

[Brad Davis]

Great POAX -
What really hits home, for me, is the importance of teaching website validation skills to our kids. I think a great lesson would be to come up with stories like this one and have the kids decide which one is valid. If it's hard for us to spot fraud immediately, it is really hard for our kids who have grown up trusting the web without question.

Brad

[Peter Rock]

I heard there was a prize for spotting the "hidden message" in this post. Check out the first letter of each paragraph.

What's my prize? :)

[Scott McLeod]

Okay, Peter, you're the winner. Nice work! Send me an e-mail (mcleod@umn.edu) and we'll start talking about what a good prize for you might be!

[Chris Lehmann]

I'm just glad I spelled it correctly.

[mel]

How are we as parents supposed to trust the educational system? When teachers are fixing tests to make their students pass exams due to the “No Child Left Behind” mandate. This is ridiculous. Maybe they should reevaluate NCLB?? Check out dailycents.com at
http://blogs.dailycents.com/?p=819