ROPE Approves Democrat Disapproval

Wednesday morning, May 2, at 9:00am, Representative Mike Shelton will be presenting a "Motion of Disapproval" to the Administrative Rules and Government Oversight Committee against the grading system proffered by Dr. Janet Barresi and the State Department of Education in order to get the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver (approved by the Department of Education in February of this year and put into law through HB1456 last legislative year). 

According to the report in the Oklahoman, Representative Lee Denney had this to say about her bill (HB1456), 

“This bill will empower them (schools) to either work with the school board and fix the school that their children are in or take their child to a school that will serve their needs.” 

Joel Robison, then head of the Oklahoma Education Association (hired by Dr. Barresi as her Chief of Staff this year) wasn't sure if the grading system was necessary, 

“It makes it easy. A school can get a grade that reflects certain things that is a true grade, but it may not be an accurate representation of everything that's going on at that school.”

Never an NCLB waiver advocate, ROPE now extends our assistance to Representative Shelton and will be at the Wednesday meeting prepared to speak against the grading system.

Should there be accountability in public schools?  Without question.  NO ONE should disagree on that point.  Public schools (including Charter schools) are supported via tax dollars and the people who provide those tax dollars (the public) have a right to know how their money is being spent on the education of future generations.  

We don't even disagree with creating a 'grading system' for schools that is more 'user friendly' than the one in current use.  Don't forget, schools have been continuously graded since President Bush's NCLB went into affect, through something called AYP or Adequate Yearly Progress.  The problems with AYP have been varied and many, however, from parents not understanding what an AYP of 560 means to how the actual AYP for each school is calculated. 

The new A-F grading system was ostensibly created to allow schools to be graded an F rather than a 580, making it easier for parents to understand. 

The new grading system assumes the following model:

A = Reward school

B = ? (We guess the B grade name is a secret)

C = Targeted Intervention

D = Focus School

F = Priority School

HERE'S WHERE WE DISAGREE: (SEA = State Education Authority = State Department of Education.  LEA = Local Education Authority = school and/or district)

According to the Waiver (page 67, 68),

LEAs that are unable to demonstrate capacity and the ability to facilitate improvement will relinquish control of all aspects of a Priority School’s operations that directly or indirectly relate to student achievement to the SEA to be included in a theoretical, geographically-unbound group of schools, known as the C3 Schools (C3S). The State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction will assume control of the operations and management for schools designated as C3S as they directly or indirectly relate to student achievement;

In addition, the State Board of Education may choose to reserve a percentage, not to exceed 20% consistent with the requirements listed below, of the LEA’s Title I, Part A allocation to allow the SEA to begin or continue implementing the Turnaround Principles in C3S Priority Schools in the LEA.

Each LEA with at least one Title I Priority School will be required to set aside a percentage of its Title I, Part A allocation, which is reasonable and  necessary to implement the Turnaround Principles in the Priority Schools and to provide school choice options for parents/guardians of students in the school, in consultation with the SEA. This percentage will be determined on a sliding scale...

As stated above, LEAs with identified Priority Schools will be required to implement the Turnaround Principles defined in this ESEA waiver package. LEAs that are unable to demonstrate capacity to do so will relinquish control of all aspects of a Priority School’s operations that directly or indirectly relate to student achievement to the SEA to be included in the C3S.

 Also according to the Waiver (page 80),

No teacher or administrator in a Focus School will be exempt from participation in required training or professional development, regardless of the time of day, week, or year; however, the SEA will conscientiously protect instructional time for classroom teachers.

Also according to of the Waiver (Page 86-87),

The SEA’s School Support/School Improvement Team and other SEA staff will provide timely and comprehensive monitoring of, and technical assistance for, LEA implementation of interventions in Priority Schools and Focus Schools.

[Monitoring Structure:] Priority schools will be required to implement one of four United States Department of Education’s SIG models, or implement an intervention that satisfies the Turnaround Principles. Monitoring of Priority and Focus schools will be conducted by the SEA’s School Support/School Improvement Team in collaboration with the Office of Federal Programs, the Office of Student Support, the Office of Instruction, the Office of Special Education, and the Office of Accountability and Assessment.

 And finally (well not really, the waiver is 107 pages) there's page 88:

The SEA has chosen to participate in multi-state consortia and collaborative associations in order to develop its own capacity to serve LEAs and schools. The SEA will continue to participate in these multistate organizations and to seek out additional support from other states implementing similar reform strategies. 

So, let's get this straight:

• The State Department of Education will grade schools based on a formula based on something the federal government likes out of a federal education reform package and
• if they don't like the school's grade, will come in and take it over, using people from a number of different offices and organizations that may or may not even work within the borders of the state
• take up to (and/or over) 20% of the school's designated Title I federal funds to pay for that takeover and then
• implement yet ANOTHER federal program - Turnaround (from the Race To The Top incentive packages funded with ARRA funds - which hasn't even worked in Arne Duncan's OWN Chicago school district, let alone others!) along with the federally funded, Common Core State Standards and the untested, unproven, unseen, PARCC tests
• and force teachers into professional development models (though we keep overlooking the real issue as to why schools don't perform - no more "kill and drill" to learn basic math facts and English parts of speech and too little time to teach mastery of skills when the teacher needs to teach 500 things to get kids to pass the tests and she doesn't get fired).

How do any of these plans (edicts) allow schools to "work with the school board"?  This sounds more like the State Department of Education will come into "Focus" and "Priority" schools, insert their own staff under the guise of "monitoring", take up to 20% of their Title I funds to do it and implement even more unproven education reform nonsense before the ink on the takeover is even dry.

Nearly 6 million dollars in School Improvement Grants (SIG) have been given Oklahoma. Are you going to tell me this whole NCLB Waiver thing is about the kids?

In addition, the SEA has a plan for continuing the model - whether it works or not.  

Check out Page 85 of the Waiver:

Innovating beyond the ESEA Flexibility requirements, Oklahoma will require interventions of all schools that are in the bottom 25% of the State in student achievement that have not been previously identified as Priority schools or Focus Schools.

How is any of this local?  How is any of this endless bureaucracy going to help schools or students?  It isn't and if you ask Chris Brewster, Superintendent of Santa Fe South, Joel Robison is a prophet.  Because of all the red tape and endless hoops to jump through, his waiver paperwork wasn't done appropriately, putting his school on the list of C3 schools when many others didn't believe it should have been.  His isn't the only school this has happened to.  In fact, it isn't the first time, nor will it be the last, if this program is allowed to continue.  

Layered bureaucracy will NEVER solve problems in education (or anywhere) like locality.  Government closest to the people is always best because it is closest to the needs of the people being served.  Education can only be run by the district for the district of the district...let's hope Oklahoma finds that out before we program ourselves into the 15th century!

Curricula VS Expensive Teacher Effectiveness/Professional Development Programming

Though we do NOT agree with the recommendations following this study (outside of the first) because of privatization and government overreach issues, we do agree with the thesis of this study.  As a former teacher, I know that, while the way in which the teacher delivers material to a class is important, the teacher is really only as good as the materials he or she uses to teach the subject.  No singularly effective teacher can use to his or her (or the student's) advantage, a chronically confusing math curricula, for example.

This is why ROPE objects so strenuously to the current teacher preparation models that penalize teachers based upon test scores.  Some school districts in Oklahoma use Everyday Math - a program that has been termed actually "harmful" to the process of learning math.  Students can not possibly score well on a state test after being taught mathematical computations that make no sense or are too detailed to absorb.

This point is also made in another recent article entitled, "Does the Common Core Matter?", in which the writer states,

"Advocates place great faith that the common core will spawn new and better curricula. Such faith is misplaced. Kathleen Porter-Magee notes that the Brown Center study ignored a very important evaluation of elementary math curricula. Actually, that evaluation, conducted by Mathematica, should give common-core advocates pause. Four programs were randomly assigned to schools with large disadvantaged populations. Two programs emerged as significantly more effective than the other two. But today if you visit the four programs' websites, all of them declare that their texts—after some tweaking perhaps—are in alignment with the common core. My hunch is that every new curriculum developed in the next few years, whether effective or not, will make the same claim."

Possibly the ONLY efforts on which the Oklahoma State Department of Education should embark would be to outline and collect data on the curricula currently being used for READING and MATH (at least!) in each district.  At the same time a survey of the educational literature should be accomplished to determine the most successful curricula on the market for purchase - again, especially in the subjects of Math and Reading.

All the mandated meddling into 'effectiveness' models (and their associated political wrangling and expense) for teachers could be easily nixed, once this particular study was concluded.  If the district is using the curricula shown to be currently most effective, those teachers whose classes are CONSISTENTLY bottom of the barrel performers should be placed on Plans of Improvement and addressed from there.

Though simple, however, this attempt would most probably be met with an outpouring of hate mail from various vendors of 'new education reform' curricula (such as Pearson).  Instead of being able to use kickbacks for poorly performing tests or untried materials, or the "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" business model of comping ancillaries or curricula for other subjects to cajole Districts and the State into buying their materials, vendors would finally have to sink or swim in the FREE MARKET pool! 

Just think, this one simple tactic could conclude our season of being "lost" in the maze of new era education 'reform' and rescue us from the inescapable island of never-tested-or-tried-but-bought-anyway-and-foisted-on-teachers-while-kids-still-do-poorly.

Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Common Core

Education, K-12 Education

Matthew M. Chingos, Fellow, Governance Studies, Brown Center on Education Policy
Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Director, Brown Center on Education Policy

The Brookings Institution

• Download the Report (PDF)

April 10, 2012 —

Evidence shows that instructional materials have large effects on student learning. However, little research exists on the effectiveness of most instructional materials, and very little systematic information has been collected on which materials are being used in which schools.

In this new report, Russ Whitehurst and Fellow Matthew Chingos argue that this problem can be efficiently and easily fixed by states, with support from the federal government, non-profit organizations, and private philanthropy. Here are highlights from their recommendations:

• State education agencies should collect data from districts on the instructional materials in use in their schools.  The collection of comprehensive and accurate data will require states to survey districts, and in some cases districts may need to survey their schools.  In the near term, many states can quickly glean useful information by requesting purchasing reports from their districts’ finance offices.  Building on these initial efforts, states should look to initiate future efforts to survey teachers, albeit on a more limited basis.
   
• The federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics should aid states in this effort by developing data collection templates for them to use through its Common Education Data Standards (CEDS), and providing guidance on how states can use and share data on instructional materials.
   
• Organizations with an interest in education reform should support this effort.  For example, the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) have put their reputations on the line by sponsoring the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  Research based on current and past state standards indicates that this initiative is unlikely to have much of an effect on student achievement in and of itself.
   
• The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) should use its influence in this area to encourage states to collect information on the use of instructional materials and support them in their efforts to gather these data. The DQC should also help states use the data once they have been collected.
   
• Philanthropic organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education could have a major impact by providing the start-up funding needed to collect data on instructional materials and support the research that would put those data to use.

Them AGAINST Us; More NCLB nonsense in the Oklahoma legislature

In the last several months, I’ve written about our attempts to stop two bills: SB1797 by Clark Jolley and HB2524 by Lee Denney, that we believe have been written to forward the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Waiver that Governor Fallin and Superintendent Barresi wrote applied to receive from our federal government. I’ve written about our concerns, I’ve written about the Legislative Shenanigans that have surrounded the bills.

Finally, I wrote to ask everyone who believes in our cause to call (some legislators aren’t even reading their email because their in-boxes are full to overflowing) and ask committee members to vote no on SB1797 in the Appropriations and Budget Education Subcommittee Monday, April 2.

Guess what? We lost by one vote and the bill will be heard in the A&B Committee in the House and then on to the floor of the House for a vote.   

The vote actually would have been tied, causing the bill to fail, but the Speaker Pro Temp (Representative Jeff Hickman) came down from his office to vote yes. 

Not shockingly, room 432A was filled for the 10:30 meeting. The Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) Chief of Staff Joel Robison was there, Secretary of Education Phyllis Hudeki was there, OSDE Legislative Liaison, Jessica Russell was in attendance, the Governor’s policy analyst, Katie Altschuler,  four ROPE board members (Lynn, Danna, Julia and I) - and our friend Nancy - and of course Representative Hickman, who  can attend and vote in any committee meeting on the House side when a bill the Governor wants to see passed needs a little extra help. 

Goodness, why all the heavy hitters there at this meeting? 

Could it be because ROPE had done our (UNPAID, government BY the people) jobs and alerted committee members to our misgivings and many members saw validity in our concerns? 

Though uncertain exactly why SB1797 was placed in Appropriations and Budget, other than one line in the bill (pg 11 line 7; SECTION 5, section 3-117) that says the merger will create a whopping 15% savings (oh, wait, if a bill is placed on the agenda of a committee where the author is the Chair, it will most certainly get a hearing), the bill was addressed.  Oklahoma Watchdog has a near blow-by-blow report of what happened during the bill’s hearing. 

[I am attaching links to ALL the documents we have sourced for this report at the bottom and I will insert links into the text as they apply, however, in order to keep this piece FAIRLY short, I am not going to report on previously hoed ground.]

In the beginning, ROPE objected strenuously to these bills because they were attempting to put more Common Core language into state law by removing NAEP as the baseline for performance level descriptors for Oklahoma tests and inserting PARCC – the testing arm for the Common Core. 

“The State Board of Education Commission shall establish panels to review and revise the performance level descriptors for each subject and grade level, which shall be set by a method and panel composition similar to that used for the National Assessment of Educational Progress Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers performance setting process.”

This language is in BOTH the HB and SB introduced forms.

Once we made Representatives aware of our concerns regarding this issue and they looked further into HB2762, Representative Denney could not get enough votes to pass the bill and had to lay it over on the House floor March 15^th. 

Since ROPE and members of the legislature have made headway with our talking points (PARCC, Common Core) administration has seen fit to CHANGE THE LANGUAGE in the last remaining bill (SB1797) and REMOVE our talking points altogether - not address our objections mind you - but simply CHANGE THE LANGUAGE. Language now states;

“The Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability shall have the authority to set cut scores using any method which the State Board of Education was authorized to use in setting cut scores prior to July 1, 2013.” (Engrossed version, page 24, line 21 or Section 1210.541. B.)

After receiving the waiver, ROPE knew the 2012 legislative session would most probably produce a bill or bills with language assisting Oklahoma in retaining its waiver. As we have reported extensively, NCLB waivers are the mechanism for the federal government to finally take control of STATE and LOCAL (now there are NCLB waivers for DISTRICTS!) public education. For nearly six months now, we’ve outlined all the relevant research and even informed the Governor and Superintendent of our findings and opinions. We’ve notified all the legislators to whom we’ve spoken about our concerns, but it was not until the Committee Meeting Monday morning we realized we would have to do better.

After he exited the committee room (432a), I approached Representative Hickman about his vote on the bill. As we talked, he made two points that need to be addressed and refuted since these will be the NEW talking points used by the administration to (ONCE AGAIN) reduce and/or refute the basis of our argument:

 

1. “This is not about the NCLB waiver.” (Where have we heard that before? Maybe here and here.) And,  
2. “This bill doesn’t have anything to do with the Common Core. The way I understand it, that train’s already left the station and Dr. Barresi can use PARCC without having that codified in law.”

I have now read EVERY SINGLE piece of information searchable on the web regarding the NCLB waiver to Oklahoma. I can tell you that, according to our research, the assertions above are incorrect and Representatives referring to this bill as not being related to the Common Core or the NCLB waiver have been either extraordinarily misinformed, not read the waiver, or misrepresented the facts. 

Secretary Duncan’s letter to Dr. Barresi explains, in part, why the waiver was granted:

“Oklahoma has: (1) demonstrated that it has college- and career-ready expectations for all students; (2) developed, and has a high-quality plan to implement, a system of differentiated recognition, accountability, and support for all Title I districts and schools in the State; (3) committed to developing, adopting, piloting, and implementing teacher and principal evaluation and support systems that support student achievement; and (4) provided an assurance that it will evaluate and, based on that evaluation, revise its administrative requirements to reduce duplication and unnecessary burden on districts and schools.”

Number 1 has been addressed through the states adoption of Common Core State Standards and by becoming a state governing body of PARCC: 

1. Waiver, pg 15-23 explains how PARCC testing will be put in place to test the CCSS 
2. Page 22 specifically discusses how the P20 (the state’s longitudinal database system) will assist in implementing PARCC  
3. SB1797, addressed this issue SPECIFICALLY prior to the language change now seen on page 24, line 21 or Section 1210.541.B., however the allowed change in cut score accountability from NAEP to “whatever” is still present.

Number 2 has been addressed through the A-F grading system passed through state legislature last year (HB1456 from 2011) and adopted by the Board of Education – however:

1. SB1797, “Creating the Commission for Education, Instruction Quality and, Accountability to assume roles of multiple entities.” pulls the Education Oversight Board (currently creates school ‘report cards’) and the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Prep into the Commission under one umbrella – this new commission 
2. SB1797 Page 44, Section 1210.531. A. of the bill states, “Commission for Education, Instruction Quality and Accountability shall establish an Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program.
3. The Oklahoma State Department of Education website under the Office of Testing and Accountability, explains that “After receiving the ESEA Waiver, the state provides School Report Cards based on an A-F system of grading.” It is not a giant leap then, to recognize that this new Commission will be fulfilling that duty once held by the old Education Oversight Board.

Number 3 is addressed throughout the entire document, as much of the document is tied to Teacher Preparation.  Much of the teacher prep is needed for the A-F school grading as the bottom two designations; D = Focus School and F = Priority School – require great deals of teacher professional development.

1. SB1797 Page 21, Section 6-184, F and G outline how the new Commission will deal with “teacher leadership and effectiveness or professional development”
2. Waiver page 71 (Priority Schools), “Prepared Staff” development in both content areas and youth development contribute to staff becoming role models and informal mentors for participating young people.
3. Waiver page 79, (Focus Schools) “Required Resources, Activities, and Interventions”: …and professional development designed to meet the needs of teachers and administrators in Focus Schools.
4. Waiver page 81, (Focus Schools) “The principal of each Focus School, along with a team of teacher leaders, will be required to participate in state-provided training in the Oklahoma Data Review Model.

After reading the NCLB Waiver, ROPE is truly not certain why the new Commission should even exist, as the Oklahoma Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Evaluation System (TLE) is touted highly in the WAIVER (Pgs 98-105) and seems to have been created specifically to fulfill this portion of the NCLB Act.

Number 4:  Requires the review and evaluation of State-level administrative and reporting requirements to reduce duplication and unnecessary burden.

1.  Doesn’t RESTRUCTURING TEACHER PREP and THE EDUCATION OVERSIGHT BOARD into ONE Commission count?

Dates:  SB1797 Sections 18, 19 and 20 have dates changed to either 2013 or 2014.  

Secretary Duncan’s letter to Dr. Barresi states, “To receive approval to use its A-F grading system and to implement ESEA flexibility through the end of the 2013-2014 school year, Oklahoma must submit to the Department for review and approval (1) an amended request that incorporates the final administrative rules for its A-F school grading system or demonstrates that Oklahoma will continue to meet the ESEA flexibility principles in the absence of those administrative rules; and (2) a copy of the final administrative rules, if applicable. If Oklahoma does not receive approval of an amended request, the waivers being granted to Oklahoma through ESEA flexibility will expire at the end of the 2012-2013 school year, and Oklahoma and its districts will be required to immediately resume complying with all ESEA requirements.

In closing, two MAJOR issues: 

1. In order to comply with the waiver application (page 8 of the waiver requires, “A description of how the SEA meaningfully engaged and solicited input on its request from teachers and their representatives.), pages 107 through 365 are documents received by the department in response to Dr. Barresi regarding the issue of the state requesting a waiver. 
• After analysis, it was found that out of 15 responses included, only 5 were FOR the waiver while 10 were AGAINST. 
• In addition, the average length of emails in support of the waiver was 5 sentences. Those opposed to the waiver wrote on average 3 pages of detailed explanation as to their reservations.   
2. Jonathan Small of Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs just released an analysis entitled, “State could save millions by reducing duplicative teacher preparation” in which he states that teacher preparation should be returned to the district level – if at all – saving taxpayers 1.5 million dollars a year.

In conclusion, it appears to ROPE that while there are some simply outstanding Oklahoma legislators, there are also a number of Oklahoma legislators that either, a) have not read the bills they have been asked to carry and are woefully ignorant of what is in them, b) listen only to the person who brings them the bills and then plays follow the leader,  c) want their bills to pass so badly they are willing to misrepresent the nature of the bill to colleagues, or d) think they know much more than us silly little taxpayers who can’t possibly be expected to know enough about an issue to make an informed decisions so they feel obliged (and happy) to do it for us.

In any case, the most frustrating and irritating situation is that the Governor of Oklahoma knows who ROPE is (but she will not meet with us so we can discuss our concerns with her) - the Superintendent of Public Instruction certainly knows who we are (she included our NCLB Waiver response in the waiver - yet she holds open contempt for me personally and the organization) - even the Secretary of Education knows who we are.  As the ONLY taxpayer/parent-run education research watchdog in the entire state, you might think any one of these women in their positions of power in education in Oklahoma would be interested in hearing what we have to say - even ask our opinion possibly.  No, I hold no illusions.  I'm not sitting by the phone with bated breath waiting for that call.  We're not important.  We represent only the serfs.  None of us at ROPE imagine we'll hear from our higher ELECTED officials - at least not until RE-ELECTION TIME!

HELPFUL LINKS:

ESEA Flexibility http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility

ESEA flexibility requests: http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility/requests

Approved Waiver: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/eseaflex/approved-requests/ok.pdf

NCLB waiver executive Summary” http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/ESEA-ExecSummary.pdf

Final NCLB waiver request: http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/FinalRequest.pdf

Duncan’s letter of approval to Dr. Barresi: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/eseaflex/secretary-letters/ok.html

Oklahoma’s Approved ESEA Flexibility Request:  http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/ESEA-FAQ.pdf

Waiver request specifics:  http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/Waivers-AYPRankOrder.pdf

Improvements made by Oklahoma to its NCLB (ESEA) flexibility request: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/eseaflex/improvement-to-state-request/ok.pdf

Power Point on waiver:  http://www.okcps.org/Portals/Okcs/District/docs/Courtney/FINAL%20-%20Waiver%20Capacity%20Board%202-20-12.pdf

State could save millions by reducing duplicative teacher preparation:   http://www.ocpathink.org/articles/1775

Oklahoma educators give new school grading system poor marks at state hearing:

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-educators-give-new-school-grading-system-poor-marks-at-state-hearing/article/3659131#ixzz1qxTEhmiE

Oklahoma board adopts A-F School Grading System:  http://newsok.com/oklahoma-board-adopts-a-f-school-grading-system/article/3661817

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA):  http://ok.gov/sde/elementary-and-secondary-education-act-esea

Education Oversight Board/ Office of Accountability:  http://www.schoolreportcard.org/law.htm

HB2762: http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=hb2762

SB1797:  http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=sb1797