In 2011, Arizona became the first state to adopt the most flexible school reform yet, an education savings account (ESA) plan. It provides parents who believe their child is poorly served in the local public school with an annual budget they can spend on a wide variety of accredited alternatives—not just private or parochial schools, but tutoring, online academies, special-needs services, and even computer equipment for home schooling.
More recently, five other states have followed Arizona’s lead: Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and just this year North Carolina. Initially these programs were designed to better serve learning-disabled children, but with the realization that most of its students could be educated independently for a fraction of public-school per pupil spending, Nevada authorized a plan open to any of that state’s children in 2015.
To date, Democrats in the Nevada legislature have held up funding for about 10,000 applicants, but nearly all of Arizona’s K-12 children are now eligible for an ESA worth 90 percent of their district’s per pupil spending.
With this history in mind, Marty Lueken, director of fiscal policy and analysis at the EdChoice Foundation, and I decided to calculate how much ESAs could help a financially troubled blue state, where the longstanding alliance of teacher unions and liberal politicians has created per pupil costs that are three, four, and even five times what is needed to independently educate. Our goal was to see how much the taxpayers of Illinois, New Jersey, Kentucky, California, or Connecticut might benefit if just a small percentage of public school families were funded to take charge of their own children’s schooling…
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
On November 4, 1952, Dr. Helen Kenyon addressed the Women’s Society of Riverside Church in New York City and opined that, “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often paraphrased the quote.
Today, sadly, our public schools best reflect Dr. Kenyon’s and Dr. King’s sentiment as the most segregated place in America.
The rampant re-segregation of American public schools poses a greater threat to the trajectory of America’s progress than terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and Russian meddling in our elections. Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) reported that from the years 2000-2014, both the percentage of K-12 public schools in high-poverty and the percentage of African American and Hispanic students enrolled in public schools more than doubled, and the percentage of all schools with so-called racial or socioeconomic isolation grew from 9 percent to 16 percent.
Research shows that racial and socioeconomic diversity in our classrooms leads to higher than average test scores, greater college enrollment rates, and the narrowing of achievement gaps. These gains don’t just apply to poor and minority children either—every student benefits from learning and engaging with peers from different backgrounds. Despite the evidence, today our public schools are more segregated than they were 40 years ago.
As an advocate for children and families, and as a public servant, who has fought for more resources for students, I believe we must act boldly to save free, high-quality public education for all.
Some of the very leaders tasked with solving the negative effects from school re-segregation offer shortsighted policies that exacerbate racial and economic divisions. The ripple-effect, consequences of their misguided thinking remains the greatest policy foible of the modern era. Lazy logic behind bad policy feeds a perception that that the achievement gap exists simply, because poor and minority students learn differently than their wealthier, White peers. Rather, it is directly tied to declining enrollment, lower property values, and the dwindling resources available to tackle mounting challenges in the communities that surround underperforming public schools.
The greatest irony remains that those promoting harmful education policies use the same language of “giving every child a chance at a high-quality education” to pitch their tax-dollar-poaching and resource-pilfering experiments to desperate parents.
Rather than making public education a number one priority, a Hunger-Games-like competition for vouchers and charter schools leaves parents and students fending for themselves. The families that lose the education lottery end up at schools with increased needs and declining resources. In Maryland, our Governor’s BOOST voucher program set aside $5 million dollars of public money to help 2,400 families pay for their child’s education. Yet, 80 percent of the families receiving these grants had children who were already enrolled in private schools.
Vouchers, whose American roots can be traced back to some Southern states’ attempts to avoid integration, perpetuate segregated education and are nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to cut off funds to public schools. It gets even worse. Some communities have simply seceded from the larger school district, as we’ve seen in Alabama and Tennessee, to keep from integrating their schools. Since 2000, the U.S. Justice Department has released 250 communities from their desegregation orders and consequently facilitated their financial and administrative secession from their school districts.
After all those factors lead to a dip in school performance, students and their communities are stigmatized as “failing.” Schools close. Quality of life drops; economic prospects dwindle; public safety decreases; and the cycle repeats, so that higher needs populations receive even fewer resources.
I know. I’ve lived through it. It’s time to back up the big talk of “opportunity for all” with policies that don’t ask parents to compete for a few spots, but instead, make public dollars work for every child.
We’ve embraced this mission in my home of Prince George’s County, Maryland where I serve as County Executive. Though we know our best days are to come, we’ve seen incredible progress: increased enrollment; higher graduation rates; an increase in innovative academic programs; and more students receiving college scholarships.
The debate over how we improve public education can’t begin with state-funded segregation, which harms communities and students, especially our most vulnerable. Let’s secure our children’s futures and the future of America by making a meaningful investment in quality public schools for all.
Rushern Baker, a graduate of Howard University, is the county executive in Prince George’s County, Maryland. You can follow him on Twitter at @CountyExecBaker.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have now submitted their plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act, and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team are ready to examine the dozens of plans submitted by the second deadline last month.
Thirty-four states and Puerto Rico turned in their ESSA plans in September and October. (The official deadline for submitting plans was September 18, but hurricane-ravaged Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas got extensions). And all of those plans have now been deemed “complete” by the feds. That means the plans aren’t missing key details, at least according to the department’s initial review…
Education Evolving
Originally Published, January 4, 2017
For the past five months, we have followed the development of Minnesota’s state accountability plan as mandated by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). While the US Department of Education (USDE) has defined what must be included in four of the plans’ required indicators, states have the freedom to choose which measures they will include in their fifth indicator, of school quality/student success (SQ/SS).
As we’ve previously written, because of the lack of available data, chronic absenteeism was identified by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) as the only SQ/SS measure that’s currently feasible for Minnesota. However, on November 29th, USDE extended ESSA implementation by one year, giving MDE’s Advisory Committee additional time to create a well-rounded SQ/SS indicator that would, ideally, include more than chronic absenteeism.
While most states have not released their ESSA draft plans, thirteen have—Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and North Carolina, however, do not define what possible SQ/SS measures their state will use.
All of the other states, except South Carolina, indicated that they intend to use chronic absenteeism as one of their SQ/SS measures; with Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington using it only for elementary and middle schools.
Two SQ/SS measures were prominent throughout the state’s draft plans—Career and College Readiness and 9th Grade On-Track. Below are descriptions of the measures.
College and Career Readiness Measure
Seven states—Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington—have some form of a College and Career Readiness measure that calculates a school’s performance on or access to Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), SAT, ACT, Career and Technical Education (CTE), and Dual Enrollment.
South Carolina’s measure is more complex, with high schools earning points based on the percentage of students who meet the College Ready/Career Ready benchmark, which is comprised of several different metrics, such as earning a 3 or higher on an AP exam or meeting ACT benchmarks in mathematics (22) and English (18).
Similarly, Tennessee’s measure, Ready Graduate, is calculated by multiplying the graduation rate and the highest percentage of students who do one of the following:
Score a 21+ on the ACT OR
Complete 4 Early Postsecondary Opportunities (EPSOs) OR
Complete 2 EPSOs and earn an industry certification
Washington’s measure is more prescriptive. It only has a metric for dual credit participation, which is measured by the percent of students who participate in a dual credit educational program.
Delaware is the only state whose measure includes a metric for elementary and middle schools. Specifically, Delaware uses a “growth to proficiency” metric, which measures the percentage of students on track to be at grade level in a given content area within three years.
Minnesota initially considered including a College and Career Readiness measure, but due to insufficient and misaligned data systems, the Technical Committee decided at the October 25th meeting to delay its inclusion.
9th Grade On-Track Measure
Three states—Illinois, Oregon, and Washington—indicated in their draft plans that they intended to use 9th-grade on track as a measure, which is the percent of first-time 9th grade students in a high school who do not fail a course.
Other SQ/SS Measures
Illinois: Early childhood education, which would be measured by kindergarten transition, pre-literacy activities, and academic gains. Unfortunately, the draft plan did not flesh out what “kindergarten transition” would measure, but it did indicate that it might not be ready for the 2017-18 academic year.
Illinois’ plan indicated that they may also use a school climate survey. Currently, Illinois uses the 5Essentials survey, which was developed at the University of Chicago and measures a school’s effectiveness in the following five areas:
Effective Leaders
Collaborative Teachers
Involved Families
Supportive Environments
Ambitious Instruction
Louisiana: Their ESSA Framework included a comprehensive list of SQ/SS measures that were divided into four categories:
Mastery of Fundamental Skills
Serving Historically Disadvantaged Students
Fair and Equitable Access to Enriching Experiences
Celebrating and Strengthening the Teaching Profession
Louisiana’s entire list of SQ/SS measures can be found here.
South Carolina: An “Effective Learning Environment Student Survey”, which would be administered every January to students in grades 4-12 and would include 29 items that measure topics on equitable learning, high expectations, supportive learning, active learning, progress monitoring and feedback, digital learning, and well-managed learning.
We will continue to report on ESSA updates in Minnesota and the country. MDE’s next ESSA Accountability meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 5th from 5:30-8:00 PM. For more information about MDE’s ESSA implementation plan, visit their website.
State education chiefs at a Senate hearing Tuesday outlined how they are using the Every Student Succeeds Act to initiate and expand on efforts to improve college- and career-readiness and help low-performing schools. Senators, meanwhile, expressed concerns along partisan lines about the proper balance of power between Washington and the states.
Congress has been mostly silent this year on public school policy in terms of hearings and other events. But Tuesday’s hearing at the Senate education committee allowed for Candice McQueen of Tennessee, Christopher Ruszkowski of New Mexico, and John White of Louisiana to share their approaches to ESSA and how it was affecting their approach to public school more broadly.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee chairman, specifically praised the states represented by the chiefs testifying at the hearing. For example, he highlighted his home state of Tennessee’s work under ESSA to determine whether students are ready for the military or the workforce after high school, not just college. He also gave a thumbs-up to New Mexico for increasing access to services ranging from extra math help to early education through its ESSA plan…
Thomas B. Fordham Institute
1016 16th St. NW
7th Floor
Washington>, DC 20036
United States
Now that states have submitted their ESSA plans and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos begins to issue her stamp of approval, what happens next? It’s time to put these plans into action; which states are most likely to see significant achievement gains in the coming years? Who has the ambition, coherence, and strategy to drive their systems toward meaningful improvements?
Join us on October 3rd, as we identify states with strong plans and distinct approaches and hear state superintendents and education advocates make the case that their work will lead to greater student success. At the close of the event, audience members will vote on who they think will show the most achievement gains in coming years. We’ll be back four years from now to see if they were right.
Moderator:
Michael J. Petrilli
President
Thomas B. Fordham Institute @MichaelPetrilli
Participants:
Matthew Ladner
Senior Research Fellow (Representing Arizona)
Charles Koch Institute @MatthewLadner
Candice McQueen
Commissioner
Tennessee Department of Education @McQueenCandice
Glen Price
Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction
California Department of Education @glenprice
John White
State Superintendent
Louisiana Department of Education @LouisianaSupe
Register here for the event, and follow the discussion on Twitter with @educationgadfly and #ESSAChallenge. Please visit this page at 3:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 3rd, to watch the proceedings live.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team have been approving state plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act at a fast and furious pace: They’ve announced approvals for 13 states and the District of Columbia over the past few weeks.
For those keeping score: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont have gotten the green light so far. Massachusetts is still waiting on its approval. Colorado got feedback from the Education Department, and then asked for more time to get its revised plan in.
The big ESSA onslaught is yet to come. Thirty-three states are scheduled to turn in their plans on Sept. 18, less than a week from now. (Hurricane-ravaged Texas gets extra time.)
So what did we learn from the first round of ESSA approvals? Here are some big takeaways.
1) The department’s feedback on plans may not be as influential as you’d expect.
The feds flagged certain issues with state plans. But by and large, states didn’t make big revisions in those areas—and got approved any way.
For instance, Connecticut and Vermont got their way on measuring student achievement. Both states will be able to use so-called “scale scores.” Those help capture student progress as opposed to straight up proficiency rates, which is what many people— including, at least initally, the department—said ESSA requires. Connecticut in particular did not stand down on this issue, telling the department that, “Webster’s dictionary defines proficiency not only as a state of being proficient, but also as an advancement in knowledge or skill.”
Tennessee will still get to use so-called “supersubgroups,” which combine different historically overlooked groups of students, such as minorities, English-language learners, and students in special education, for accountability purposes. That’s despite the fact that the department said this was a no-no in its initial feedback to the state.
In its revised plan, Tennessee promised to use both combined and broken-out subgroups in identifying schools for “targeted improvement” under the law. And the state provided some data to explain its reasoning behind having a combined black, Hispanic, and Native American subgroup. Tennesee argued that more schools would actually be identified as needing help using the supersubgroup approach than would be otherwise. That appeared to convince DeVos and her team, which gave Tennessee’s plan the thumbs-up in late August.
ESSA for the first time calls for states to factor into their accountability systems whether English-language learners are making progress in mastering the language. It’s supposed to be a separate component in the accountability system. But Connecticut incorporates English-language proficiency into the academic growth component of its plan. The department told the Nutmeg State to change that. Connecticut instead provided some more information to explain its thinking, and that seemed to work for the feds.
2) States worked the hardest to fix their plans in the areas where the department pushed the most.
3) Some state plans may not be as ambitious as some of ESSA’s architects hoped.
Arizona got approved to give much lower weight to the reading and math scores of students who have only been at a particular school for a short amount of time. Experts worry that it will diminish the importance of kids from transient populations—including poor and minority students.
North Dakota was told it needed to make sure that academic factors—things like test scores and graduation rates—carried “much greater weight” than other factors, such as student engagement and college-and-career readiness. So North Dakota upped the percentage from 48 percent for academic factors to 51 percent, according to an analysis by Chad Aldeman, a principal at Bellwether Education Partners, who reviewed select plans. That may not be what Congress had in mind when it used the words “much greater” weight, he said.
The department also asked North Dakota to be more specific about how it would decide which schools fall below the 67 percent graduation rate, triggering whole-school interventions. The state decided to go with schools where the six-year graduation rate falls below that threshold. That wouldn’t have flown under the Obama administration’s regulations for the law, which Congress nixed.
4) Some things in plans are still TBD, even though plans themselves are already approved.
Illinois is planning to use a mix of school quality indicators, including school climate and chronic abseneteeism. But the state is also hoping to add another unspecified measure aimed at elementary and middle schools, and a fine arts measure. The Land of Lincoln still has to figure out the details on those indicators.
And states haven’t yet had to provide lists of which schools will be flagged as needing extra help—or what kinds of strategies they’ll use to fix them. The lists of schools pinpointed for improvement won’t come out until after the 2017-18 school year.
“For the most part, [ESSA] hasn’t been a wild, crazy laboratory of reform, on how to identify and improve schools, that’s all sort of TBD,” Aldeman said.
Contact: (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today announced the approval of the District of Columbia, Illinois, Oregon and Tennessee consolidated state plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
“As more and more state plans come under the Department’s review, I am heartened to see how states have embraced the spirit of flexibility under ESSA to improve education for individual students,” said Secretary DeVos.
Allowing states more flexibility in how they deliver education to students is at the core of ESSA. Each state crafted a plan that it feels will best offer educational opportunities to meet the needs of the state and its students. The following are some of the unique elements from each state’s approved plan as highlighted by each state:
District of Columbia
Creates the School Transparency and Reporting (STAR) framework, a universal framework for every public school in DC that will provide an easy-to-understand annual rating to each school based on 1-5 stars.
Measures the quality of Pre-Kindergarten through use of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which assesses the quality of teacher-child interactions in early childhood classrooms.
“DC’s plan is guided by our commitment to providing equitable access to high quality education for all students and flexibility for our schools to meet the unique needs of all students,” said DC State Superintendent for Education Hanseul Kang. “This plan is the right one for DC, and I am proud that it was informed by rigorous engagement with partners and community members, including the DC State Board of Education, local education agencies, parents, educators, and advocates.”
Illinois
Creates a College/Career Ready Indicator for high schools that measures the readiness of students for college based on several indicators, including GPA, performance on postsecondary readiness exams and attendance, in addition to considering community service hours, summer employment, participation in ROTC, and/or earning industry credentials.
Uses survey responses from students to help assign schools a “school climate” score, giving students a chance to provide meaningful feedback and ensuring the student perspective will be a part of the school’s overall summative rating.
“Illinois is committed to supporting the whole child in transforming learning opportunities for all students in our state,” said Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith, Ph.D. “We want every child to feel well known and well cared for in our schools and to receive the individual support they need for academic excellence and postsecondary success. The Illinois ESSA Plan gives us the opportunity to foster collaboration and partnerships to build educators’ and leaders’ capacity for improved student outcomes. We appreciate the partnership with the U.S. Department of Education throughout the ESSA process, and we look forward to our continued efforts on behalf of each and every child.”
Oregon
Prioritizes four commitments in its plan: advancing equity; creating a well-rounded education; strengthening district systems; and fostering ongoing stakeholder engagement.
Implements a new “Freshmen on track” measure to confirm that students have completed at least 6 credits within the first semester of freshmen year, recognizing the importance of credit attainment in early high school in order to graduate on time.
“Today is a tremendous milestone for Oregon. Oregon’s State Plan is founded on equity and represents the voices and communities we serve,” Oregon Deputy Superintendent Salam Noor said. “We want to put every one of our learners on a path to success from birth through high school, and beyond. And whether our students choose to attend college or go straight into the workforce, it’s critical that their school experience is full of opportunity, and ensures they are college and career ready.”
Tennessee
Supports teacher and principal residencies to create more high-quality pipeline opportunities for prospective candidates to move into those roles; also establishes new grant initiatives that focus on increasing innovation and diversity in the educator workforce.
Focuses on college readiness through the Tennessee Promise initiative.
“Our ESSA plan is built on what we’ve started in Tennessee and centered on the belief that every student should be ready for postsecondary when they graduate high school,” said Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. “Tennessee’s education community helped us to create a strong plan that will help us take our work to the next level, and we look forward to continuing these partnerships now as we move forward.”
The plans detail how states will go about complying with the federal law in the coming years. The law goes into effect this fall.
DeVos has now approved 10 of the 17 submitted state ESSA plans. All of the states that have turned in plans have received feedback from the department…
Tennessee’s state education leaders have launched a plan that positions the state’s schools for a historic opportunity. The Volunteer State — more than any other state so far — is taking important steps to reframe accountability from a system of sanctions and compliance to one of aligned supports and authentic outcomes. Other states should take note as they devise their own accountability plans.
Tennessee was one of the first states to submit a plan for the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The comprehensive approach prepared by Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen and her team represents a powerful blueprint for updating the state’s instructional programs.
The Tennessee Succeeds plan addresses achievement gaps with strategies informed by leading-edge school practices like personalized learning, which have begun to take root in diverse settings like Knox County Schools and Rocketship charter schools in Nashville. In addition, leaders like those at Tullahoma City Schools have pursued the use of innovative educational technology that incorporates cutting-edge digital tools into everyday learning.
Like every state in the union, Tennessee has large and persistent achievement gaps between poor and non-poor students, as well as between minority and non-minority students. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (also known as “The Nation’s Report Card”), there is a nearly 25-point gap between poor and more-affluent students. A similar gap exists between white and black students in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. While the differences in performance between white and Hispanic students have narrowed since 2011, the white-black achievement gaps have increased.
These gaps are evidence that large numbers of historically underserved students are not able to read at grade level or competently perform in math. Lags in either subject or grade can lead to academic struggles, the potential to drop out, and a lack of college or career readiness. Tennessee states in its ESSA plan that nearly half of all high school graduates do not go on to college and that first-time students in community colleges need at least one remedial course.
ESSA requires states to address achievement gaps, and Tennessee is tackling the challenge head-on. In its plan, the state emphasizes that “All Means All” by providing individualized support and opportunities to all students, particularly those who are behind. In fact, Tennessee states in its plan, “To support the department’s rigorous standards, aligned assessments, and strong accountability model, the department recognized the need for more personalization in the learning experiences for teachers and for students.”
The sad reality is that disproportionate numbers of poor and minority kids wind up in special education due to a lack of educational success. These students often slip through the cracks until their cumulative learning deficits become too large to ignore and their needs are finally addressed through individual attention mandated by federal disability law. Personalized learning holds real potential to turn this all-too-familiar pattern on its head by providing students immediate learning support when it is needed. Instead of waiting for students to fail before they get more time and attention, personalized learning is a just-in-time approach that can help teachers address academic deficiency before it snowballs into failure.
School accountability under the new plan will better support personalizing teaching and learning. In personalized learning models, students can learn at their own rates in different subjects with standards-aligned content. Among a number of changes, the state is proposing to use growth in student achievement over time to measure performance and reward academic growth at all levels of achievement, rather than just grade-level proficiency.
The state also lays out four areas of focus for piloting personalized learning approaches for students and teachers:
Blended learning for Algebra I:Launched last school year, this pilot was the state’s first personalized learning initiative and is set to double in size to 10,000 students for the 2017–18 school year. This effort is guided by evidence that technology can support teachers in delivering personalized instruction by leveraging data and quickly diagnosing student needs.
Predictive analytics:Personalized learning strategies often leverage technology to increase the efficiency of the learning cycle by using data trends to develop insights into learning patterns and streamline data-informed decisions.
Teacher micro-credentialing:Thisapproach to professional development more closely aligns the acquisition of teaching knowledge and specific skills with identified needs, instead of the generic, one-size-fits-all approach. During the 2017–18 school year (the initiative’s second year), the state plans to reach up to 5,000 educators by partnering with districts to use micro-credentials.
Competency-based education:To support personalizing learning, the plan calls for encouraging initiatives that allow students to demonstrate mastery and advance through curricula and grades as mastery is achieved, informed by progress seen by some districts trying this approach and others outside Tennessee.
To take full advantage of the state’s ESSA plan, Tennessee districts will need to take action and put the state’s plans to good use. Tennessee is poised to make an innovation leap, using ESSA to launch efforts to personalize the education experience of every learner, combining effective teaching with adaptive technology to bring individualized instruction to every student.
And nationally, the Volunteer State has drafted a plan that its peers can — and should — seek to emulate within the context of their own unique educational ecosystems. There is no question the nation faces a national imperative to improve educational outcomes for all students, and Tennessee’s comprehensive approach to layering innovation and personalization into its strategic design seems destined to yield results.
Doug Mesecar is an adjunct scholar at the Lexington Institute. He previously served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Education and in Congress.
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
Michael J. Petrilli
Matthew Ladner
Candice McQueen
Glen Price
John White
