Its Not Just About the Tests

1
Its Not Just About the Tests
Exploring and Demystifying the Nuances of No
Child Left Behind 2004 Version
2
A Pop Quiz!!!

• Will a middle school teacher fully licensed in PA
  to teach math and science automatically meet the
  NCLB standards of being highly qualified?
• What has been the historic purpose of this piece
  of Federal legislation now known as No Child Left
  Behind?
• Under the PA Plan for NCLB, what number is needed
  to constitute a sub-group for AYP purposes?
• In the process to have all students at grade
  level by 2013-14, when do PAs AYP achievement
  standards next increase?
• How many years of being under Needs Improvement
  can a school exist before the option of
  supplemental services kicks in?

3
A Pop Quiz!!!

• What are the three conditions that must be met to
  acquire safe harbor for any given subgroup in a
  given subject area?
• How much of Title I funds must a district set
  aside to fund transportation costs for the
  Schools of Choice sanction?
• What is a principals responsibility to parents
  if they are being taught by an unqualified
  teacher (e.g., permanent substitute)
• At what point does a parent have the right to
  determine if their childs teacher and/or teacher
  assistant meets the NCLB standards of being
  highly qualified to teach their child?

4
Basic NCLB Components

• Accountability
• Best Practices (SBR)
• Teacher Quality
• Parent Empowerment

5
ACCOUNTABILITY
Annual Report Cards
Student Performance Reports (AYP)
Sanctions
Reading, Math, and Science (07-08) Standards
Mandatory Participation in NAEP in Grades 4 and 8
(Alternate years)
100 Proficiency for all students by 2014
6
The Concept of Targets

• Student achievement aggregated across all
  appropriate grade levels and then disaggregated
  by sub-groups
• Every school, school district and state, for each
  eligible sub-group has 4 targets to meet (1)
  achievement in reading (2) achievement in math
  (3) 95 participation in reading (4) 95
  participation in math All schools, school
  districts, and the state must meet an additional
  target, the other academic indicator
• The other academic indicator for K-8 is most
  frequently attendance while for high schools,
  its graduation rate.
• Both can have thresholds, meaning that anything
  above the threshold is ok otherwise, the
  academic unit must show 1 improvement from the
  previous year.
• If safe harbor is invoked for any group, it must
  meet all 5 targets as a group.
• If any target is not met, its the same as
  missing all targets. NCs plan requires that the
  missed target be in the same academic area for
  two or more consecutive years.
• If a given group fails to meet AYP due to
  participation rate alone, the unit can average
  participation rates over a 3 year period.

7
Sub-Group Subtleties

• In NC, 40 students in ADM constitutes a bona fide
  sub-group. What is it in Pennsylvania?
• A students score will count as many times as
  his/her name appears on a bona fide sub-group
  roster. Even if every part of a particular
  membership doesnt equal 40, the score will count
  somewhere.
• If a students score doesnt count for a
  particular sub-group in a school, that score
  rolls up into the districts AYP profile.
• A student must be in attendance for the states
  minimum number of days to be counted in the AYP
  determination.
• As the number of targets increase, the
  probability for making AYP decreases.
• While there have been some minor adjustments from
  the DOE for LEP and SWD students, there have been
  no adjustments for other sub-groups. Are you
  aware of these adjustments? Are these sub-groups
  represented in your school or school district?

8
Sanctions
Failure in the same content area is a potential
source of mitigation.
9
Teacher Quality

• All teachers, as well as teachers working in
  programs supported by Title 1 funds are to be
  highly qualified by 2005-2006
• Academic degree or coursework equivalent to an
  academic degree, or a graduate degree, or
  advanced certification, or a passing score on a
  state licensure exam, or passing HOUSSE, if an
  experienced teacher teaching in an unlicensed
  area.
• Teachers must meet the standards of high
  qualification for each subject area they teach by
  2007-08 in some rural school districts. New
  teachers in these districts have 3 years to
  become highly qualified if they are not already.
  Do any Pennsylvania district qualify for this
  dispensation?
• Elementary teachers must be licensed AND have
  passed a state approved licensure exam.
• A special education teacher who is the primary
  provider of instruction in a core academic area
  must be highly qualified in each of those areas.
  If a special education teacher is paired with
  another highly qualified teacher of record,
  they need not be highly qualified in those core
  content areas.
• The State must document an annual increase in the
  percentage of highly qualified teachers
• The State must document that minority children
  and poor children are NOT being taught by higher
  percentages of inexperienced, unqualified, or
  out-of-field teachers than other children.

10
Parent Empowerment

• Content of Annual Report Cards provides breadth
  and depth of information heretofore not widely
  disseminated, if at all.
• In Title 1 schools, parents must be notified that
  they can request information about their childs
  teacher as to the teachers degree of
  qualification, degree(s) held and in what areas,
  and qualification of paraprofessionals, where
  appropriate. In all other schools, parents are
  entitled to know their childs level of
  achievement on state assessments and to have
  timely notice that their child has been
  assigned to or has been taught for 4 or more
  consecutive weeks by a teacher not highly
  qualified.
• Parental choice in Title 1 schools to transfer
  their child from a Title 1 school in Needs
  Improvement from not meeting AYP to another
  school in the same school district, including
  charter schools. Transportation costs are to be
  paid by district from Title I funds. If a Title 1
  school stays in Needs Improvement for an
  additional year, the parent can request to have
  their child receive supplemental educational
  services at no cost to themselves. Those too can
  be paid from Title 1 funds.

11
What are some of the national issues?

• Not every state is operating under an approved
  plan.
• Only 11 plans have received official approval
• The rest are still in negotiation, two years
  after implementation
• Across the states, there are different
  definitions and different processes for meeting
  those definitions.
• Proficiency means different levels of achievement
  across the states
• Tested grades differ in various states
• Makes state-by-state comparisons invalid, but
  that little fact will not deter some newspaper
  editors or lawmakers
• The funding issue is not just about what the DOE
  provides, but the additional costs for compliance
  than have to be borne by states and local
  authorities
• Administering tests not previously required
• Training costs
• Cost of providing for sanctions

12
What are some other national issues?

• It is seen as even more intrusive as national
  policy than Brown v Topeka Board of Education in
  1954.
• Idaho
• Virginia
• Where states feel they already have rigorous
  accountability standards, they want waivers from
  the accountability provisions of NCLB.
• Connecticut
• Virginia
• NCLB is causing a narrowing of the curriculum,
  drastically cutting instruction in social
  studies, sciences, and the arts.
• The requirement of using scientifically-based
  programs is regarded as too restrictive and
  out-of-sorts with professional judgment in
  schools and classrooms.

13
What are some Pennsylvania Issues?

• Is the state system and the tenets of NCLB
  compatible? Are the two systems measuring the
  same things?
• How many Title I schools are on a watch list
  for falling into needs improvement? How will the
  state provide technical assistance to those
  schools, as required by law?
• If parents do exercise their choice options as
  provided by the law, what will be the effect on
  receiving schools?

14
Asking Questions of Your Data

• What performance patterns do you see (examine
  cohorts across time)?
• Who is teaching whom and what are the
  characteristics of their abilities (Are the
  staffing placements in the best interests of kids
  most in need?)?
• What do you know about the kids persistently
  mired below proficiency (attendance, discipline
  referrals, participation, home life, parental
  support, interests)?
• Are there any possibilities of slippage of kids
  in the lower portions of the Proficient range?
  How do you protect their current standing?
• Are there particular content goals and objectives
  in the Pennsylvania State Curriculum more related
  to Basic and Below Basic Levels than the other
  performance levels (Category results)?
• What else do you need to know to help you and the
  faculty deal with these challenges? How can you
  find out what you need to know?
• Dont kid yourself! This is not a no-brainer.
  Dont try to take this on by yourself. Make it a
  faculty problem to solve.

15
Start some productive activity to address the
most potentially pressing problems

• Worried about the teacher quality issues? You
  have 2 years to work on possible solutions, but
  you should have already started.
• Concerned that your EC kids will never meet these
  NCLB standards? Get your most expert EC people to
  start learning so they can teach others how to
  get sufficient achievement gains to reach Safe
  Harbor. Find places where it seems to be working
  and learn from them. You might, coincidentally,
  have some answers they have questions for.
• Is the school choice issue bothering you,
  particularly regarding overcrowding and available
  space? This issue is NOW, but you can still have
  at least another year away from reality, so plan
  for it now.
• Are parents going to be as confused as you are?
  If so, start developing communications strategies
  NOW to address your schools likely performance
  profile. Its better coming from you than from
  the news media.

16
Some Possibilities to Explore Others to Let Go

• Explorations (if not in place already)
• Sanctions can only be based on failing in the
  same content area for two or more consecutive
  years
• Using the concept of confidence intervals can
  help improve achievement profiles
• Let it go (No matter how much sense it makes)
• Is there value in retroactivity? Not likely!
• Hoping for a growth model? Not possible until
  after November 3, if then.
• Science appears in 2008, ready or not. NAEP
  scores are not encouraging.
• The Disappearing HOUSSE in 2006.

17
NCLB Lessons that Principals Need to Address

• NCLB raises the public nature of performance
  accountability to a much higher pitch. The
  sub-group disaggregation puts lower achievers in
  a spotlight. For example, your faculty will need
  to learn and practice how to differentiate
  instruction to meet the learning needs of
  students based on their relative wealth and other
  factors not necessarily related to ethnicity.
• NCLB will affect hiring practices and how the
  principal supports beginning teachers and lateral
  entry teachers. Better retention helps alleviate
  the pressure that recruitment and issues of being
  highly qualified place on hiring practices.

18
NCLB Lessons that Principals Need to Address (2)

• Principals have to sharpen their data analytic
  skills. Right now, most good education reporters
  are more skilled at this than principals are.
• School-based, job-embedded professional
  development will be more critical than ever. It
  is the principals job to make sure the alignment
  between the data, the school improvement plan,
  the schools professional development priorities,
  and the desired results is clear and consistent.
  Boilerplate School Improvement Plans should
  have outlived their usefulness.
• Principals will have to know best practices in
  reading and math instruction in order to lead
  teachers in instructional improvement in those
  areas, and the time to start talking about
  science is NOW!

19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
Answers to the Pop Quiz!!!

• Will a middle school teacher fully licensed in PA
  to teach math and science automatically meet the
  NCLB standards of being highly qualified?
• Not unless they can meet the HQ Standards in
  each subject area they teach. Holding a middle
  school license unaccompanied by specific subject
  area specification will not meet Federal
  standards.
• What has been the historic purpose of this piece
  of Federal legislation now known as No Child Left
  Behind?
• To help poor children level the educational
  playing field with their more advantaged
  counterparts. It was the first of several major
  initiatives in President Lyndon Johnsons War on
  Poverty.
• Under the PA Plan for NCLB, what number is needed
  to constitute a sub-group for AYP purposes?
• Group size is . Minimum days of
  membership is .
• In the process to have all students at grade
  level by 2013-14, when do PAs AYP achievement
  standards next increase?
• In all probability, this coming school year!
• How many years of being under Needs Improvement
  can a school exist before the option of
  supplemental services kicks in?
• Three.

24
Answers to the Pop Quiz!!!

• What are the three conditions that must be met to
  acquire safe harbor for any given subgroup in a
  given subject area?
• Reduce percentage of non-proficient students by
  10 or more Test at least 95 Meet the
  threshold of the other academic indicator
• How much of Title I funds must a district set
  aside to fund transportation costs for the
  Schools of Choice sanction?
• 5
• What is a principals responsibility to parents
  if they are being taught by an unqualified
  teacher (e.g., permanent substitute)
• Timely notification and changing the teacher
  assignment before a month has transpired.
• At what point does a parent have the right to
  determine if their childs teacher and/or teacher
  assistant meets the NCLB standards of being
  highly qualified to teach their child?
• Anytime