NREAC Meeting 6/19

Attendees: Jules Weber, Scott Turney, Steve Breckton, Don Rogers, Phil Gerik, Gerald Thorne, Joe Bard, Jerry White, Don Rogers

Key Dates: Next call is July 25th at 2 pm ET : DC Meeting Scheduled for January 20, 2014 to January 22, 2014.

This month’s update is rather long, in large part given that both the House and Senate committees marked up. There are interesting items throughout this write up, so at least skim all the bolded headlines.

ESEA: In the last month, both the House and Senate passed their ESEA proposals out of their respective committees, along straight party lines. The House bill is expected to go for a full floor vote in the middle of July. There is not yet a timeline for a Senate vote.

For an elevator speech: AASA endorses the House bill, opposes the Senate Harkin bill and thinks it needs to be amended to reflect the priorities of the Republican alternative. Regardless of which chamber you are advocating in, or what side of the aisle, the most important message for Congress to hear is that they MUST conclude ESEA reauthorization this year.

For top-line differences: Both bills are an improvement over current law, but have drastically different philosophical approaches to the role of federal government in education. The House bill is a significant improvement. The Senate bill is much less of an improvement; to the extent that AASA opposes the Senate Harkin bill. The House bill operates under the assumption that state and local education agencies are best positioned to make policy decisions for schools, and as such returns virtually all control of standards, assessment and accountability to the state and local level. The Senate bill, on the other hand, retains a pretty far-reaching role for the federal government in education policy: they prescribe higher standards and define the accountability matrix (including prescriptive turn around models).

Moving forward, it is a big lift to complete reauthorization this year. Apart from the partisan politics in each chamber (meaning Rs and Ds have to come together to pass a bill out of the House or Senate), there are also significant differences between the House and Senate bills that would have to be reconciled in congress.)

New America Foundation put together a great side-by-side comparison of the bills.

House ESEA: AASA supports the Student Success Act because it represents a common-sense approach to federal policy, in large part because it balances the proper role of the federal government in education. SSA makes significant improvements in the federal role in accountability, standards and assessments that AASA supports. These improvements include:

 Maintaining student disaggregation by subgroup  Eliminating the utopian 100 percent proficiency  Eliminating SES/Choice  Returning ownership of the accountability system to the state/local level  Maintaining school improvement for low performing schools, under state direction  Maintaining the requirement for annual assessment under state direction  Requiring that assessments measure proficiency and growth models  Removing caps on alternate assessments, allowing the IEP team to ensure that children are assessed in a meaningful, fair and accurate manner  Maintaining current law related to comparability calculations  Maintaining supplement/supplant language  Reducing federal overreach into school improvement/turnaround strategies  Put states in charge of designing a teacher evaluation system  Including student performance in teacher evaluation  Requiring multiple measures for teacher evaluation  Providing for funding flexibility between certain programs within Title I  Eliminating requirements related to Highly Qualified Teacher provisions  Providing that 21st Century funds to school districts to be used for expanded learning time.  Providing options for 5-, 6-, and 7-year graduation rates.

For all that SSA gets ‘right’, there are elements of the bill that give AASA pause. Those areas are summarized for your reference (and conversations with your Representatives) in the ‘What Can I Do’ section, below.

Moving Forward on the House Bill:

 Urge your Representative to support an open process for full debate on the House floor, including amendments and a final vote. Caution: AASA absolutely opposes any voucher-related amendment, to the extent that adoption of a voucher amendment would negate our support for the overall bill.  Draw from your own experiences to reiterate the importance of state and local leadership as it relates to standards, accountability and assessment.  Use the following talking points to talk about specific provisions that need to be addressed: o All Children Are Equal (ACE) Act: AASA supports the ACE Act, which aims to address inequities within the Title I formula that result in larger, less poor districts receiving high per-pupil Title I awards. . The weighting mechanisms within two of the Title I formulas are skewed in a way that disproportionately drives dollars away from small rural (and small urban) districts who often have a larger concentration of poverty. The ACE act would correct this formula snafu to ensure that all Title I dollars are targeted to concentrations of poverty. . If you would like the data illustrating what this would mean for your school and congressional district, email Noelle ([email protected]). o Vouchers: AASA opposes any amendment that would direct public dollars away from public schools. . AASA opposes vouchers. Public dollars should stay in public schools. . AASA opposes any proposal to provide portability for Title I dollars, whether limited to public school or allowing private schools. Title I dollars were designed to combat concentrations of poverty; the very act of diluting the dollars to the individual student level is in direct conflict with that intent. o Maintenance of Effort: Eliminate the proposed change to maintenance of effort (MoE). AASA supports current law. . Poorer districts receive a larger share of their operating budget from state revenues, and absent MoE requirements, states would be free to significantly reduce their expenditure beyond the current 10%. Local school districts would be left on the hook to cover the state reductions. . MoE should not force local school districts, particularly low-wealth districts, to compensate for reductions in state effort. o Funding Caps: AASA opposes the funding caps established in HR 5. These authorization levels ties the hands of Congress as it relates to their ability to freely and adequately invest in education. . AASA supports current law, which authorizes the programs at ‘such sums’, giving Congress the flexibility they need to fund education. o Charter Schools: All public schools should have the same reporting, accountability, and compliance requirements. AASA is concerned that HR 5, as written, provides charter schools preferential status. . AASA believes charter and traditional public schools should face the same environmental, labor, due process and fiscal laws, which is neither clear nor directed in the current ESEA proposal. . Urge your Representative to support changes that ensure flexibilities afforded to charter schools are made available to all public schools. o Education Technology: HR 5, as written, includes no program to support education technology in schools, whether to build out infrastructure or to provide professional development. Urge your Representative to work with members of Congress to insert a dedicated education technology program. . As written, the bill highlights a recent disconnect, where federal policy focuses on requiring schools to prepare students to be college- and career-ready in the 21st century but fails to recognize the importance of continued support for education technology and the related professional development.

Senate ESEA: As a point of reference, AASA does not support the current bill. We support reauthorization moving forward and welcome the opportunity to work with the full Senate to amend the committee-passed bill through further amendment. AASA sent letters of response to both the Democrat and Republican proposal. AASA stopped short of endorsing either bill, and weighed in heavily that even though the bills, as introduced, were not something to be endorsed, they were both place markers and that it is imperative for Senate Democrats and Republicans to come together: the absolute priority must remain on the final goal of complete reauthorization. Both sides must recognize that the bills have more in common than not, and that, in the spirit of compromise, both sides will need to give a little in order to reach the final goal.

Title I: Testing, Standards and Accountability  Maintains testing requirements in math and ELA, and extends to include science testing requirements  Establishes requirements for standards and guidelines for early learning and early grades  Instead of measuring toward a standard of proficiency, students will be measured toward a standard of college/career readiness  Assessments must indicate both if the student is performing at grade level and the grade level at which the student is performing (This is an interesting proposal in that it moves toward adaptive assessment, but stops short of the true implementation of adaptive assessment.)  Calls for multiple measures and growth models. (Current law includes multiple measures language, though, and that has been interpreted/implemented as multiple summative assessments, rather than the more diverse approach of using formative and summative assessments, including observations and portfolio assessments. AASA is cautious about ensuring that the phrase ‘multiple measures’ actually means multiple measures.)  Continues data disaggregation by the current subgroups: gender, race, English Language Learner status, migrant status, students with disabilities and students in poverty.  Differentiates between districts and students and expects continuous improvement (toward the standard of college/career readiness). Differentiates all LEAs and all schools on the basis of academic achievement, student academic growth, ELL proficiency, growth for ELL students and graduation rates.  The bill “does away” with AYP, AMO, supplemental education services and the related 20% set aside, and 100% proficiency but: o In their place, the bill proposes a standard of sufficient academic growth, defined as a rate of growth based student score, such that the student is: meeting grade level within three years, meeting grade level by the end of the grade span, or another aggressive growth model approved by the secretary. o Bill proposes three levels of student achievement (reporting the # and % of students): meeting/exceeding achievement standards; below grade level in a subject but meeting/exceeding sufficient academic growth; or below grade level in a subject and not meeting sufficient academic growth o Bill proposes performance targets, subject to secretary approval: continuation of waiver (pending approval) or: all LEAs will meet the achievement level of the top 10% of schools in the state; requires annual progress toward that goal for all students within a specified time period; and ensures accelerated progress for students that start at the lowest levels of achievement. The baseline will be the 2014-15 school year. In an interesting clarification, the section listing additional areas for performance targets, the GED credential is explicitly forbidden. o The bill requires intervention in the bottom 5% of schools, and provides six school improvement models for those schools to choose from. The lowest performing schools also have to provide public school choice.

Title II  States and districts have to implement teacher evaluations based in past on student outcomes in order to access Title II dollars. The evaluation plan must include student outcomes (Achievement and growth).  The tone of Title II is much more flexible and supportive than that of Title I, where the tone remained prescriptive.  This Title II proposal calls for 20% to be available for the lowest-performing schools.

Other Areas  Charter schools, while viewed as public schools in this proposal, seem to be awarded a certain level of flexibility above/beyond that afforded to traditional public schools. Charter school accountability will be overseen in accordance with state charter school law.  Early education is integrated throughout the bill, though the proposal falls short of the President’s Preschool for All plan. States must establish standards and guidelines for early learning and early grades. There are requirements for expanding access to kindergarten within the Title I state plan.  Comparability: Proposal changes calculation to include school personnel salaries.  Foster Children: Districts must immediately enroll foster care children even if they lack all required documentation; sending districts must send over all records immediately. The SEA and State Office handling child welfare must adopt a plan to ensure students in foster care and leaving foster care receive any necessary transportation to remain in the school of origin if it is in their best interest. Each district must have a point of contact to oversee implementation of foster care provisions in bill.  English Language Learner: All states must adopt English language proficiency standards that are aligned with state are aligned with the State’s academic content standards in reading or language arts and addresses different proficiency levels by creating at least four separate categories of proficiency measured by a student’s proficiency to read, write, listen and speak English. Would eliminate the current system of AMAOs and address accountability for all English Learner (EL) students in the state’s Title I accountability system through measures of EL students’ attainment of, and progress toward, higher levels of English language proficiency and disaggregation of other measures for the EL subgroup.  Student Non-Discrimination Act: SNDA would prohibit discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in public elementary and secondary schools, as well as discrimination based on the sexual orientation or gender identity of a person with whom a student associates. SNDA’s prohibition against sex discrimination would extend to all education “programs or activities” operated by recipients of federal funds. Districts that fail to stop discrimination and harassment for students covered under SNDA would be at risk of losing federal funding. SNDA would provide a private right of action allowing individuals to sue in federal court for violations of the act. Individuals would not be required to exhaust administrative remedies before suing, and they would be entitled to appropriate relief, including, but not limited to compensatory damages, cost of the action, and remedial action, as well as attorney’s fees.  School Climate Grant Program: Replaces Safe and Drug Free Schools Program with the Successful, Safe and Healthy Schools Act, a competitive grant program (with a formula trigger if the appropriation reaches above $500 million) to states to create a reporting and information system that measures conditions of learning and provide TA to districts to improve school climate and student health and safety. Districts within states that receive grants must create annual surveys of students and staff that measure a host of conditions of learning, report physical education indicators, student disciplinary data, access to counselors/psychologists and many more data points. This data must all be disaggregated by subgroup and cross-tabulated by gender/disability. In order to be eligible for grants, LEAs must collect and report this data, as well as have prescriptive bullying policies based around a common definition of bullying.  Education Technology: Includes an education technology proposal that would allow schools to use authorized funds to build out infrastructure and support professional development as it relates to integrating education technology into teaching and learning.  Teachers: The state plans include a requirement for equitable distribution of teachers so that low-income/minority students aren’t taught at higher rates by teachers with the lowest rating. The state plan also requires reporting related to the distribution and percentage of teachers by school poverty level and minority enrollment. The state plans would describe distribution among 5 categories of teachers: Not classified as highly qualified; new; not completed a teacher prep program; teaching in subject/field for which they don’t have certification; teachers with lowest or highest ratings in teacher evaluation (Starting 2015-16)  Graduation Rates: Continues 4-year adjusted cohort calculation, excludes GED, and does not provide opportunity to apply for 5 and 6-year graduation rate calculation.  Parent Engagement: Doubles the set-aside from 1% to 2%.  Race to the Top and i3: Codifies RttT and i3.  Rural Education Achievement Program: Updates locale codes, adjusts sliding scale and allows schools eligible for both programs to choose which program they receive funding through. Concerned by new addition related to consortia of schools that can apply.  Timelines and Transitions: The statute provides for a two year transition between current law and the new law. One question remains: as schools and states switch to the online assessments, the proposed law provides for using the most recent 3-year trend in student achievement data; this creates a scenario where students are tested with one test and schools are evaluated on another.  Other Timelines: o 12/31/14: Implement College and Career Ready content standard in Math/ELA/science o Start of 2015-16 school year: Higher achievement standards o Start of 2015-16 school year: Adopt/implement statewide assessments in math/ELA o Start of 2015-16 school year: Provide for annual assessment of English proficiency for all ELL students o 12/31/15: Implement English Language proficiency standards o 12/31/15: Implement early learning guidelines and early grade standards

REAP: Last week, Senator Collins re-introduced our REAP bill. Both NREA and NREAC endorsed the legislation. The bill # is S.1222 It is unlikely we are going to get the same level of co-sponsors are we normally do as the bill is different than what passed out of the Senate. Here’s a breakdown of what changes we were able to get in the House and Senate bills with regards to REAP.

HOUSE SENATE

Switching to FRLP would mean a significant expansion in the number of districts eligible for the RE AP program, and because we can’t guarantee new money for the program in this fiscal environment, we were not able to convince members of Congress in either chamber to pursue this option. The House was concerned that by adjusting the sliding scale, the current REAP allocation would be diminished as a result of the expansion of the program to more districts. We are looking into this assertion in more detail.

Because this program’s funding stream is always in jeopardy as part of the appropriations cycle, it’s important to gain new co-sponsors to the REAP program and to educate members of Congress about the program’s financial importance. If you have a new member representing you in the Senate, urge them to become a co-sponsor and demonstrate their commitment to bettering rural schools.

Appropriations: While the House and Senate are both moving forward with the appropriations process, working under the funding levels established in their respective budget resolutions, the reality is that the differences between the two overall funding levels are too drastic, too significant. We are on course for a continuing resolution. That is, while each chamber will continue to pass standalone appropriations bills, they will not complete and conference all 12 prior to the start of the federal fiscal year (October 1). As such, they will adopt a continuing resolution to keep government running and fund government at FY13 levels. This is outside of any cuts that will be needed as a result of the FY14 sequester cuts.

Sequestration and Flexibility Re: Title I Supplement/Supplant: USED sent a letter to state Title I Directors clarifying that if a district/school were to use local funds to cover the cuts in federal Title I funding dues to sequestration and then replace those local funds with Title I funds in future years, that district/school would not be in violation of the 'supplement, not supplant' requirements.

School Lunch Competitive Food Regs: USDA is released its interim rule on the competitive food regulations, stemming from the Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. AASA has actively commented on the proposed rule. The rule will be in effect starting the 2014-15 school year; had USDA waited one more day, the rule could not be enforced until the 2015-16 school year. This means, however, that schools have the bare minimum in terms of planning time to implement this rule. Our friends at EdWeek put together a really good overview of the rule, for quick reference.

USED Announces Flexibility in Timeline for Educator Evaluation and Double Testing: USED sent a letter to all 50 state chief state school officers. In the letter, Secretary Duncan outlined increased flexibility for states to postpone using student growth on state tests as a factor in staffing decisions. In particular, the waiver would allow states to delay the timeline one year, to the 2016-17 school year. VERY HELPFUL: Flexibility Fact Sheet

AASA applauds USED for this step towards flexibility. We remain optimistic that this round of waiver flexibility will be direct and non-conditional, and that states pursuing the potential flexibility will be granted said flexibility in an equal, timely manner. AASA is opposed to any effort that would tie policy conditions or priorities to states receiving the potential flexibility.

USED also used the letter to offer states flexibility in avoiding 'double testing'. As some states begin trial- runs of the new assessments aligned with the common core, they would be in the position of using both the new test and the state-wide accountability test. Under this waiver, states could choose one or the other (in the 2013-14 school year) and freeze their accountability for 2013-14 at the same level reported in 2012-13. The waiver on teacher evaluation will only apply to states who received their ESEA flexibility prior to 2012. That means that Alaska, Hawaii and West Virginia will not receive the flexibility, but that is largely attributable to the fact that their later approval already includes a later timeline.

How educator evaluation flexibility will work

 The Department is open to requests on a state-by-state basis to postpone making personnel decisions based on student growth data – for up to one year beyond the current plan, until the 2016-17 school year. Since there is no one-size-fits-all plan, a state-by-state approach to flexibility is consistent with Department practice.  States in ESEA Flexibility Windows 1* and 2* are eligible for this new flexibility. (These are states whose ESEA Flexibility applications were approved before summer 2012. Windows 3** and 4** states are already on the later timeline to use teacher and leader evaluation and support systems to inform personal decisions beginning in 2016-17.)  States may request this flexibility at any time through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility amendment process.  Details about the amendment process are available on the ESEA flexibility web page. As each state implements college- and career-ready standards, it must have a robust plan for helping teachers get up to speed with the new standards and assessments. States will need to lay out those plans in detail in the ESEA flexibility renewal process, along with indicators of teacher familiarity and comfort with these new materials.  States have committed to different deadlines to implement teacher and leader evaluation and support systems: some are implementing now; others will begin over the coming years. For a list of where your state is, please see the state-by-state chart below.  There are no incentives or penalties for states that request this flexibility or for those that do not. The decision to request additional time is in the hands of the state making the request, not the Department.

How double-testing flexibility will work

 During the 2013-2014 school year, the Department is also working to help states avoid double- testing students, which often happens during the shift to a new test. The Department is open to requests from any state to allow schools participating in these field tests to administer only one assessment in 2013-2014 to any individual student -- either the current statewide assessment or the field test. For those schools, accountability designations would stay the same for a year and the same targeted interventions would have to continue, with no relaxation of accountability requirements. Any state that will be impacted by double-testing in the 2013-14 school year may request this waiver for their impacted schools.

ESEA Waiver: USED approved New Hampshire’s ESEA waiver application. That brings the count to 39.