The selection of Johnny Collett, confirmed in December to oversee special education for the U.S. Department of Education, was a rare point of agreement between the Trump administration and the disability-advocacy community.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was tripped up on disability-policy questions during her confirmation hearing last year, and her staunch support of school choice options has left some advocates worried that parents may not understand that choosing private schools means losing the rights guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
But Collett’s special education bona fides were not in question: A former special education teacher, he has served as a special education director for Kentucky and was the director of special education outcomes for the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Four months into his tenure, Collett, the assistant secretary for the office of special education and rehabilitative sevices, is trying to position the department as a supportive partner to states.
In an interview with Education Week, Collett discussed a wide range of issues involving special education responsibilities, including the Education Department’s oversight of the Every Student Succeeds Act; discipline and discrimination; school choice and students with disabilities; and the department’s leadership role.
He talked about the complex interplay special educators face between complying with federal law, supporting high expectations for all children, and recognizing each student’s individual educational needs.
Collett’s comments have been edited for space and clarity…
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Public schools in the nation’s capital recently reported that the graduation rate for 2017 was the highest in the school system’s history.
According to school officials, about 73 percent of Washington public schools’ students graduated on time, another record high for a school system that had struggled years ago to graduate even half of its students. The graduation rate marked a four-point rise from the previous year and a 20-point gain from 2011, when just over half of D.C. Public School students graduated within four years.
In response, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser proudly described the school system as the “fastest improving urban school district in the country.
“These graduation rates are a reminder that when we have high expectations for our young people and we back up those expectations with robust programs and resources, our students can and will achieve at high levels,” Bowser said in a statement.
But it was all false. A report by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education shows more than one of every three diplomas awarded to students were not earned. The report found that 937 out of 2,758 graduates of D.C. public schools did not meet the minimum attendance requirements needed for graduation. Teachers even admit to falsely marking students present.
Washington is the latest of a series of public school systems found guilty of widespread cheating. Similar cheating was found in public schools in Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles, Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta.
The perpetrators in these scandals weren’t the students but the administrators and teachers. Both have admitted to falsifying records on standardized tests, graduation requirements and student grades.
In response, some teachers have been fired and stripped of their licenses to teach again. In other places like Atlanta, teachers and administrators have gone to jail. In Washington, D.C., Antwan Wilson, District of Columbia schools chancellor, resigned Feb. 20 after it was revealed he used his position to get his daughter into a preferred school.
The real culprit in these cheating scandals, according to education experts and teachers, is the increased — and some say unfair — pressure on education officials from the government to meet a certain level of student performance. If they don’t meet the mandated standards, school systems could lose funding, and with less money to pay for staff and supplies some people could lose their jobs.
President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 and former President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top created an “accountability system,” education experts said, linking student performance to Title I funding, which are federal grants given to schools with a high percentage of low-income students.
No Child Left Behindwas the first law requiring federally-mandated tests to measure student performance. Prior to the law, states and cities used achievement tests to measure what students were learning to decide how effective their instruction was and what changes they might make.
Harvard professor Dan Koretz, author of the book The Teaching Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better, said cheating by teachers — in many cases sanctioned or encouraged by administrators — is fueled by the misuse of standardized tests to measure school performance which has pressured teachers to raise scores beyond what is reasonable.
“Some cheat and, ironically, all of these shortcuts undermine the usefulness of tests for their intended purpose—monitoring what kids know,” Koretz said.
Koretz and other education experts believe standardized tests can be a useful measure of students’ knowledge, when used correctly.
A survey by the Washington Teacher’s Union and EmpowerED echoes Koretz’s assertion that teachers feel pressure to cheat. The survey found that almost 60 percent of teachers said that they’ve felt pressure or coercion from superiors to pass undeserving students.
“There has been strenuous pressure to hit specific targets regardless of student performance or attendance,” an anonymous D.C. public school teacher said on the survey.
Another teacher said, “Administrators, parents, and teachers just want good grades so the school system and the student look accomplished on paper.”
A study conducted by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization, showed that over 45 percent of Black students nationwide attend these low-income or high poverty public schools. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of White students attend these same schools.
Education expert Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, said the result is that cheating is found primarily among majority-Black schools, which lack the educational tools and support they need in order to adequately serve their students.
“There are teachers who’ve felt pressure because they don’t feel that they have the capacity or support to achieve expectations through realistic measures,” Polikoff said.
Koretz said the cheating underscores the fallacy of rewarding and punishing schools based on standardized tests.
The answer “is to reduce the pressure to meet arbitrary targets,” he said. “Another is to routinely monitor how schools are reaching their targets. Yet another is to broaden the focus of accountability in schools to create a more reasonable mix of incentives.”
With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. But in some ways, the federal government’s work on ESSA is just beginning.
The federal K-12 law’s hallmark may be state and local control, yet the Education Department still has the responsibility to oversee the more than $21 billion in federal funding pumped out to states and districts under ESSA. That will often take the form of monitoring—in which federal officials take a deep look at state and local implementation of the law.
And the department has other oversight powers, including issuing guidance on the law’s implementation, writing reports on ESSA, and deciding when and how states can revise their plans.
Even though ESSA includes a host of prohibitions on the education secretary’s role, DeVos and her team have broad leeway to decide what those processes should look like, said Reg Leichty, a co-founder of Foresight Law + Policy, a law firm in Washington.
Given the Trump team’s emphasis on local control, “I think they’ll try for a lighter touch” than past administrations, Leichty said. But there are still requirements in the law the department must fill, he added.
“States and districts shouldn’t expect the system to be fundamentally different [from under previous versions of the law.] They are still going to have to file a lot of data,” Leitchy said.
But advocates for traditionally overlooked groups of students aren’t holding their breath for a robust monitoring process, in part because they think the department has already approved state plans that skirt ESSA’s requirements…
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The Revised ESSA Consolidated Plan is now available! There are four main ways to get involved.
Read the Revised ESSA Consolidated Plan
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on December 10, 2015. It is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESSA will be fully operational in school year 2017-18.
Take a minute to let us know what you think of the plan! You can provide feedback through September 5, and your feedback will be considered as OSPI completes the plan for submission to the U.S. Department of Education.
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Anchorage, AK – The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development has submitted their final draft of the state plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act.
ESSA is meant to replace the No Child Left Behind Act. Key differences between the two include allowing the states to set their own long-term goals and success rates, versus the previous expected 100 percent graduation and proficiency rate.
The draft has been submitted to the Governor’s office for a 30 day review period, prior to the September 18th federal deadline. Public comment will be accepted until September 15th.
By Dr. Elizabeth Primas (Program Manager, NNPA/ESSA Public Awareness Campaign)
Standards have always been a part of society. From standards of measurement and time to driver’s licenses, food preparation in restaurants and language, standards keep us healthy and safe and help us communicate with each other.
In the 1980s, the United States began to expand and formalize public education standards. This process was the driving force behind the education reform movement. Standards in education were supposed to set clear guidelines for what all students were expected to learn and be able to do. The curriculum and assessments were supposed to be aligned with established standards.
In 2001, with the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) by President W. Bush, a significant emphasis on standards took on a life of its own. Under NCLB, all states were required to develop standards and assessments to measure student achievement. Problems occurred when states developed individual standards that measured knowledge and skill levels. There was no way to determine if a student passing one state’s standards was equivalent to a student’s level of accomplishment in another state. Test that were national, like the PSAT, SAT, ACT, and the National Educational Assessment of Progress (NAEP), all indicated that students with passing grades in high school, that met state standards, were not necessarily prepared to be successful in college and career.
In 2009, there was a state-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards (CCSS); the effort was launched by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia; CCSS was supposed to remedy the differentiation in state standards under NCLB. The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) worked with educational agencies to create one set of standards that would be uniform for the country. That same year, the Obama Administration developed the Race to the Top Fund, a $4.35 billion dollar competitive grant program designed to ensure that all students graduated high school prepared for college, career, and life. Race to the Top used financial incentives to encourage states to adopt CCSS.
Along with common standards, came high-stakes testing. Most states adopted one of two assessments: the Smarter Balance Assessment or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Many stakeholders saw high-stakes assessments as unrealistic, because all children were required to perform at world-class levels, merely by raising expectations and imposing punishments and sanctions on schools and children who fell short of the standards. The standard implementation did not consider students with persistent challenges that could have impeded them from reaching high-levels of achievement. There was no flexibility in meeting these standards, regardless of socioeconomic status, age, race, gender, cultural or ethnic background, disabilities or family circumstances.
The discussions around the implementation of standards did acknowledge that student learning abilities were not homogeneous. Yet, schools seldom provided the range of training, personnel, and strategy needed to meet all students. Subsequently, when students didn’t meet the goals, they were retained and schools faced sanctions.
Research has indicated that minority students, including English Language Learners (ELL), students living in poverty, and students with disabilities are disproportionately represented in the group of students that do not make sufficient and significant growth to meet the standards and objectives promoted.
Under the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA), states have been given the leeway to: continue using the Common Core State Standards and/or create and adopt their own rigorous standards. Along with the freedom to select standards best suited for specific state demographics, states can also select what assessments they administer. As states submit their ESSA plans, many states have steered away from the CCSS. Several states have indicated that they will not continue using Smarter Balance or PARCC to measure standard mastery.
The only way to be sure what standards your child must meet is for you, the parent, to get involved, and stay engaged at every level. Your child is our future, and we ask all parents to remain focused in the pursuit of their education.
Every meeting that involves your child’s education is important. Be there, be vigilante, stay persistent, have your voice heard.
Dr. Elizabeth Primas is an educator, who spent more than 40 years working towards improving education for children of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Dr. Primas is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Dr. Primas on Twitter @elizabethprimas.
Will parents be able to understand their child’s school’s performance under the Every Student Succeeds Act? And will schools with students from difficult socioeconomic backgrounds get a fair shake?
Those are two key questions that folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute set out to find answers for in a new report. In an analysis of the 17 plans turned in so far, Fordham President Michael Petrilli and Editorial Director Brandon Wright based their answers on three main questions:
How clear are school ratings are to parents, educators, and the general public?
Do the plans push schools to focus on all students, not just those furthest behind? and
Are schools are treated fairly, particularly those with a large share of students in poverty, and judged in part by academic growth, not just achievement?
Fordham is often identified with right-leaning education policy positions, such as support for school choice. On ESSA, the think tank has also…
AUSTIN – Commissioner of Education Mike Morath announced today that a public comment period for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) consolidated state plan will begin Monday, July 31. The ESSA consolidated state plan is scheduled to be submitted by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to the U.S. Department of Education later this year.
ESSA became law in December 2015, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act. The new law increases flexibility and decision-making authority afforded states, encourages states and schools to be innovative, and holds states accountable for results. ESSA requires federal review and approval of a state consolidated plan, which provides a comprehensive overview of how each state will use federal funds to advance its own goals and visions of success for students.
“The Every Student Succeeds Act represents the first major overhaul to federal education policy in almost two decades,” said Commissioner Morath. “ESSA provides an opportunity to leverage new flexibilities that bring greater emphasis to our state’s own priorities while working to strengthen public education outcomes for our more than five million schoolchildren.”
Since taking office in January 2016, Commissioner Morath has focused on developing systems within the agency that support ESSA implementation through an established TEA Strategic Plan. All work at the agency is now centered around four strategic priorities. The four strategic priorities include: (1) recruiting, supporting and retaining teachers and principals; (2) building a foundation of reading and math; (3) connecting high school to career and college; and (4) improving low-performing schools.
An overview of TEA’s strategic plan is available on the agency website.
Over the past year and a half, the Commissioner and TEA staff have taken part in more than 200 stakeholder meetings statewide. In addition, TEA has engaged with outreach to a wider range of stakeholders, including meetings with teachers, school board members and parents. These meetings have focused on gathering feedback on the broad aspects of the agency’s overall strategic plan, as well as specific input on the development of key policy decisions related to ESSA implementation.
A draft of Texas’ state consolidated plan will be posted on July 31. The public comment period will formally begin on that date and run through Aug. 29, 2017. TEA will submit the Texas consolidated state plan to the U.S. Department of Education sometime in September.
For more information regarding the state’s efforts on ESSA implementation, please visit the TEA website.
ALBANY – The state Education Department has released a revised schools accountability proposal that’s slated to be considered for adoption in September.
The latest version of the plan, released Monday, includes proposals to use out-of-school suspensions as a measure of school quality and student success beginning in 2018-19; to cut down math and English language arts testing requirements for third through eighth graders from three days to two (something the Board of Regents already has voted on); and to revise benchmarks for schools educating English language learners.
In a noteworthy sign of the political times, the plan was revised to more explicitly highlight concerns about the implementation of a new state law to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18, and its impact on educational services as minors transition out of county jails and take courses in secure and non-secure detention facilities and other voluntary placement agencies. That law, which raises the age from 16 years old, was approved as part of the state budget in April.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act serves as a guiding document for accountability statewide. States were authorized to come up with such accountability systems under eponymous congressional legislation approved last year to replace the No Child Left Behind Act.
The state Education Department produced the initial draft in May. The plan includes proposals to rate schools based on student performance science and social studies in addition to English and math; on five- and six-year graduation rates instead of just on four-year numbers; and on students’ “civic readiness,” in addition to existing college- or career-readiness benchmarks.
The standards would be used to score schools and identify those that require state intervention and improvement plans.
The draft plan now goes to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has 30 days to review it, make suggestions for inclusion in the final plan, and choose to sign or not sign it.
A Cuomo spokesman said the executive will review the draft.
he Board of Regents is set to take action on the plan in September. With that, education officials can send it on to the U.S. Department of Education for final approval, with implementation to follow.
“Through ESSA, New York is poised to take a more holistic approach to accountability that looks at multiple measures of school and student success,” Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said in a statement. “This approach allows us to continually evolve and adapt so we can ensure that our systems are culturally responsive and place an emphasis on educating the whole child.”
The revisions to the plan follow a public comment period that drew more than 800 written comments and 270 verbal responses.
A full breakdown of changes to the plan can be found here. The full plan is here.
With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the 
