U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has announced significant new amendments to regulations under the No Child Left Behind/Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the areas of high school graduation rates, supplemental education services providers and school choice, among others.
The proposed regulations are open for public comment through June 23. ACSA will be carefully reviewing the proposed regulations and responding in the 60-day time frame. ACSA’s initial reaction is 100 percent opposition to significant new mandates and major changes through regulations rather then through changes in statute and real reauthorization.
Some believe this is a “shadow” reauthorization that allows the Bush administration to stay in charge, even as they leave office, in order to preserve a legacy. ACSA will be working with its NCLB Task Force in the coming weeks, as well as the California Department of Education and State Board of Education, and will keep members apprised of our response.
Spellings noted that the proposed regulations are based on input gathered from visits to nearly two dozen states, which included meetings with governors, state school chiefs and state legislatures. These conversations centered on how states and districts can improve struggling schools, more accurately measure dropout rates and chart student progress over time.
Several of the proposed regulations seek to clarify elements of the law that demand school systems be accountable for results and transparent in their reporting to parents and the public, including requiring that states publish data from the Nation’s Report Card – or NAEP – alongside data from their own tests for students. Spellings emphasized that measures of student academic achievement may include multiple types of questions and multiple assessments within a subject area. In addition, a state’s accountability system must ensure the inclusion of all sub-groups of students by adopting appropriate minimum subgroup size.
Building on a growth model pilot program, the proposed regulations would outline the criteria that states must meet in order to incorporate individual student progress into the state’s definition of Adequate Yearly Progress.
Spellings is also proposing to strengthen the provisions of the law on school restructuring. Schools in restructuring need the most significant intervention, and a recent study found that 40 percent of schools in restructuring did not implement any of the restructuring options under the law. The proposed regulations will clarify that restructuring interventions must be more rigorous and that interventions must address the reasons for the school being in restructuring.
To continue the dialogue and address some of the more technical needs of the states and their departments of education, Spellings proposed the creation of a National Technical Advisory Council. The council would be made up of experts in the fields of education standards, accountability systems, statistics and psychometrics and be tasked with advising the U.S. DOE on highly complex and technical issues and ensuring state standards and assessments are of the highest technical quality.
Dropout rates
In order to tackle the growing dropout crisis, Spellings announced the U.S. DOE would build on the work of the National Governor’s Association to establish a uniform graduation rate that shows how many incoming freshman in a given high school graduate within four years.
“Over their lifetimes, dropouts from the class of 2007 alone will cost our nation more than $300 billion in lost wages, lost taxes and lost productivity,” Spellings said. “Increasing graduation rates by just 5 percent, for male students alone, would save us nearly $8 billion each year in crime-related costs.”
All states would use the same formula to calculate how many students graduate from high school on time and how many drop out. The data would then be made public so that educators and parents can compare how students of every race, background and income level are performing.
States will be allowed to use an interim calculation on a transitional basis, but every high school in every state will be required to report new graduation rates for accountability purposes no later than 2013. In the meantime, each state will be responsible for setting a graduation rate goal and for disaggregating data by subgroup to report and determine AYP.
Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, in order to make AYP, a school or district would have to meet the graduation goal or demonstrate its continuous and substantial improvement from the prior year.
Additionally, Spellings is proposing rules to ensure parents are notified in a clear and timely way about their public school choice and supplemental education service options. The proposed regulations will ensure that states make more information available to the public about what tutoring providers are available, how these providers are approved and monitored, and most importantly, how effective they are in helping students improve.
“Research has shown that effective tutoring programs can reduce the achievement gap by 10 to 15 percent,” Spellings said. “The problem is, these options will not make a difference if parents don’t know they’re available. I hope these proposed regulations will assist parents in getting the extra help their children may need to succeed.”
To access the proposed regulations, visit www.ed.gov/news/fedregister/proprule/index.html, and visit www.regulations.gov to submit your comments.