Alyson Klein, reporter for Education Week (at right) and the go-to source for K-12 politics, nails the Secretary of Education's appearance yesterday before education committees in both the House and the Senate with a comprehensive, balanced story on the legislators' reactions.
Key Republicans called the plan a good jumping-off point for debate. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.—himself a former federal education secretary—deemed it “an excellent beginning,” particularly its support for rewarding districts that are making strides in raising student achievement.....Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said that, given the still-sluggish economy, districts need to target money to averting layoffs and heading off programmatic cutbacks, and may need all the federal aid possible. While he said he appreciated that the administration’s education redesign goals are furthered through the competitive grants, he worried that it may not be the right time to go forward with that approach.
Of specific interest to low-performing schools in rural districts:
The blueprint seeks to revamp the accountability system at the heart of No Child Left Behind by focusing federal resources and direction on the schools that are struggling the most to improve student achievement. It would give states and districts more flexibility to determine how to intervene in schools that are generally performing well but may have trouble reaching students in a particular subgroup, such as English-language learners.
The broad proposal would place more of an emphasis on students’ academic growth, rather than comparing different cohorts of students with one another. But it would retain NCLB’s testing regime and its requirement that states disaggregate student-achievement data by racial and ethnic group and by other populations such as students in special education.
Sen. [Michael B.,R-Wyoming] Enzi’s main objection appeared to be the perceived lack of a good option for low-performing rural schools among the four “turnaround” models spelled out in both the blueprint and the regulations for $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grants, the bulk of which is being made available under the 2009 federal economic-stimulus law.
Those models, aimed at perennially low-performing schools, include some dramatic interventions, such as closing a school and reopening it as a charter. In nearly all cases, the school’s principal would be removed.
Mr. Duncan told Sen. Enzi that low-performing rural schools could try the so-called “transformation model,” which is widely considered the least drastic of the four options. It requires schools to offer extended learning time, institute alternative pay plans, and try out new instructional programs, among other remedies.
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