From NCLB to ESSA

This week, Congress will vote on a bill that reforms the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush. The new law, termed "ESSA" (Every Student Succeeds Act), seeks to remove much of the federal accountability measures instituted under NCLB and reassign that control back to the individual states.

If you are interested in reading the full bill, it can be found here.

If, however, you don't have time to read through the 1067 pages (yes, that's right--one thousand and sixty-seven pages of legal jargon and confusion), here are the key items:

ESSA will:

• Remove the majority of federal accountability measures and re-designate that authority back to the states.

• Allow individual states to create their own formulas to determine "adequate yearly progress" as long as their own systems continue to focus on the bottom 5% of struggling schools.

• Leave spending of federal funding to the discretion of individual states (although the federal government still emphasizes that states direct funding to the lover 5% of schools and towards closing the achievement gap).

For full overview and analysis of the law, check out the following NPR article and recent roundtable discussion on Public Radio International's To the Point radio program.

House Set To Vote On Education Overhaul
Congress Set to Pass Bipartisan Education Reform - To the Point - KCRW

Questions for Consideration and Discussion:

• How will these proposed changes impact the most needy students across the country?

• Are state governments best suited to create accountability goals and measures that promote an end to educational inequity?

• What role (if any) should the federal government play in educational accountability measures.

Twitter for Education

Hello all! As some may know, I am currently completing the process of earning my Clear Credential. Given that finishing this course has consumed much of my time over the past few weeks, I wanted to share a relevant assignment that we just completed. For this assignment, we were instructed to create a presentation that shared a resource with teachers. Given  my already existent interest in Twitter, I decided to focus my presentation on how Twitter can be used by educators to strengthen their practices in the classroom.

Enjoy the brief overview of Twitter!


Note: the list of current EdChats can be found here.

Shared Resource: NewsELA

Although it seemed like a busy week in every other way, it was a "quiet" week in the world of education news, policy, and politics. Admiringly, I was very bogged down with work at school, clear credential coursework, and other precuts that took my attention away from the news.

In debating about what to write for this week's post, I decided to share a resource that I use in the classroom to facilitate student awareness of current events and world news. If you are already not aware of it, the NewsELA website is a great tool to do just that. The NewsELA site is loaded with current events articles from various major news sources including the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, etc., that cover a range of topics. What's great about NewsELA is that the site allows you to customize the Lexile range of the article to math your students' reading levels. Additionally, the site comes with pre-suggested reading comprehension quizzes and various writing prompts aligned to each article. 

Screenshot of NewsELA. Note the Lexile and quiz menu on the right-hand side.

Even better, the site has crated various "text sets" that are aligned to various topics including specific literary novels, historical events, social studies themes, articles in Spanish, specific reading standards (CCSS, of course), and articles specific to individual states. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the site is completely free to use. Teachers can create an account and have students join their classroom--where they can assign different articles for students to read and complete. 

Screenshot of NewsELA. Note the various text sets.

NewsELA is easily a resource that I use on a weekly basis and could not avoid sharing. Definitely check it out!

Newsela | Nonfiction Literacy and Current Events

No Child Tested Too Often

Last week, outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and President Obama announced their desire for states (and the federal government) to re-evaluate the duration and function of standardized testing. Their hope: that a student would spend no more than 2% of their classroom instruction time on testing sessions.

This article by the New York Times provides a great summary of the announcement and the hopes outlined by Congress.

Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools

Reading this article got me thinking about my own conflicts with testing and prompted me to reflect on the following questions:

1. What role should standardized testing take in the educational process?
2. How do these tests impact various student sub-groups differently? (reference my previous post for some additional insight)
3. What role should the federal government play in the testing process? State and local governments?
4. What role do (or should) teachers and educators play in the development of these assessments?
5. What role do (or should) teachers and educators play in the grading and evaluation of these assessments?

I do not claim to know the answers to these questions (or the dilemma of standardized testing) but definitely think they are worth considering when discussing the future of testing in our schools.

Update: 10/27/15:

As if by coincidence, this topic was a focus of last night's PBS Newshour. Watch the interview with outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools Michael Casserly.

"Education" at the 2016 Primary Debates

Tuesday's Democratic Presidential Debate once again had me glued to the television hoping for the candidates to discuss important issues facing education on a national forum (here's a small list to name a few). True, my expectations were minimal after watching the first two Republican debates (a word search of the last GOP debate transcript finds that the word "education" was only mentioned 7 times--all of which focused on their thoughts on the Common Core State Standards).

Fast-forward to last night's opportunity for the Democrats to debate education policy on the main stage of national politics and not much change. A similar word search of a transcript from last night's Democratic debate finds that Democratic Candidates mentioned "education" only 3 more times than their GOP counterparts. To their credit, their discussion focused more on free community college and alleviating students from rising tuition and loan costs--proposals that are, however, already being rigorously fact-checked.

To give you an idea of just how much the issue of education has been neglected on these debate stages, take a look at two Worlde collages created by NBC News that emphasize the words or phrases that have been discussed most in these first few primary debates.

First, from the GOP:

And the Democrats:

Finding discussions of education on the campaign trail should not feel like a Where's Waldo book--especially if you truly believe that providing every American child with a quality education is the first step in solving the other social and economic concerns highlighted in those images.

Doesn't that sound like a message both parties can and should emphasize?

Calfornia Officially Suspends the CAHSEE

This past Wednesday (10/7) Governor Brown signed a bill that suspends the California High School Exit Exam for three years while the state develops a new exit exam linked with Common Core State Standards. More noteworthy, however, is the fact that this legislation also grants High School Diplomas to students who failed any portion of the exam dating back to 2004 (so long as they completed all other graduation requirements).

See the below article from the Los Angeles Times for more information regarding this story.

Gov. Jerry Brown signs measure suspending high school exit exam

Questions to Ponder:

• What direction should California take with regards to exit-exam testing?
• What role will current educators have in the development of a new CCSS exit exam?
• What implications does this suspension have for for state/federal funding and accountability guidelines?

Correlation Between Socio-Economic Status and CCSS Aligned Testing

With the recent release of testing data from last year's full roll-out of Smarter Balanced assessments, many have written about the implications of this data as it relates to student performance--as the bulk of this data showed relatively low scores across the board.

One especially noteworthy connection that many columnists and other education observers are exploring, however, is the potential relationship between economic status and student performance. This position is most poignantly articulated in a recent article published by the Sacramento Bee. While most should not find it surprising that a new test aligned with new and rigorous standards would yield less than desirable results, the correlation between low-income students and below-standard results is striking.

To explore this relationship, explore the following interactive chart also published by the Sacramento Bee. When looking at the data for San Diego, in particular, it is evident that a strong relationship exists between socio-economic status and student performance.

With this information in mind, here are some key questions to consider:

• Are lower-income students at an inherent disadvantage  as opposed to their peers when it comes to Smarter Balanced and Common Core testing? If so, how?

• What can we as educators and leaders do to ensure that these students have the resources and training needed to perform well on these assessments? What can the test creators do (if anything) to also level the playing field?

About

Hey all!

This blog is meant to promote awareness of local and federal issues involving education and education policy for fellow Teach For America Alumni and friends who are passionate about education. One important disclaimer: I am no longer an active member of Teach For America--only an alumni and still active high school teacher who believes that education equity is the answer to many of the struggles our nation currently faces. With that being said, while I always strive to remain unbiased and purely informative, any and every thought and opinion expressed in this blog is my own and should not be taken as a reflection of the views of the national Teach For America organization.

Enjoy reading!