[Senate Hearing 114-512]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-512
FIXING NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:
TESTING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, FOCUSING ON TESTING
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
__________
JANUARY 21, 2015
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee, Chairman
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming PATTY MURRAY, Washington
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont
RAND PAUL, Kentucky ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
MARK KIRK, Illinois SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
Evan Schatz, Minority Staff Director
John Righter, Minority Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
CONTENTS
----------
STATEMENTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015
Page
Committee Members
Alexander, Hon. Lamar, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions, opening statement......................... 1
Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington,
opening statement.............................................. 5
Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Colorado....................................................... 8
Collins, Hon. Susan, a U.S. Senator from the State of Maine...... 55
Warren, Hon. Elizabeth, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 58
Roberts, Hon. Pat, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas....... 60
Burr, Hon. Richard, a U.S. Senator from the State of North
Carolina....................................................... 64
Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota..... 66
Isakson, Hon. Johnny, a U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia... 68
Baldwin, Hon. Tammy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin.. 70
Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 72
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode
Island......................................................... 74
Murphy, Hon. Christopher S., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Connecticut.................................................... 75
Witnesses
West, Martin R., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, Harvard
Graduate School of Education; Deputy Director, Program on
Education Policy and Governance, Harvard Kennedy School; and
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Cambridge,
MA............................................................. 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Leather, Paul, Deputy Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of
Education, Concord, NH......................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 19
Boasberg, Tom, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools, Denver, CO. 23
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Henderson, Wade J., President and CEO, Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education
Fund, Washington, DC........................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Lee, Jia, Fourth and Fifth Grade Special Education Teacher, Earth
School, New York, NY........................................... 40
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Lazar, Stephen, Eleventh Grade U.S. History and English Teacher,
Harvest Collegiate High School, New York, NY................... 44
Prepared statement........................................... 45
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Response by Martin R. West, Ph.D. to questioms of:
Senator Murkowski........................................ 79
(iii)
Senator Bennet........................................... 80
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 81
Response by Paul Leather to questioms of:
Senator Murkowski........................................ 82
Senator Baldwin.......................................... 83
Senator Bennet........................................... 83
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 87
Response by Wade J. Henderson to questioms of:
Senator Bennet........................................... 91
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 93
Response by Jia Lee to questioms of Senator Baldwin 94
Response by Stephen Lazar to questioms of:
Senator Baldwin.......................................... 95
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 96
FIXING NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:
TESTING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
----------
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in
room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lamar
Alexander, chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Alexander, Murray, Burr, Isakson,
Collins, Murkowski, Scott, Roberts, Cassidy, Casey, Franken,
Bennet, Whitehouse, Baldwin, Murphy, and Warren.
Opening Statement of Senator Alexander
The Chairman. I'm the chairman, and Patty reminded me she's
the teacher, so we're going to start on time. Welcome.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions will please come to order. This morning we'll have a
hearing on Fixing No Child Left Behind: Testing and
Accountability. There's a lot of interest in this hearing.
We've heard from people around the country ever since last week
when we put a draft working paper up on the website, and we
have a lot of people in the hall.
I would say to those in the hall who are not able to get in
the room that we have an overflow room, which is Room 538, and
you'll be able to listen to all of the proceedings. If someone
would let those outside know that, then they'll have a chance
to hear the witness testimony and the questions. We welcome
them and we welcome everyone who is here.
Ranking Member Murray and I will each have an opening
statement. Then we'll introduce our panel of witnesses. Then
we'll have a round of questions. We'll ask our witnesses to
summarize their testimony, please, in 5 minutes each, because
the Senators will have lots of questions. I'll call on the
Senators in order of seniority who were here at the time the
gavel went down, and then after that, they'll go on the order
of first come, first serve. We will conclude the hearing at
noon or before if we get through earlier.
My opening remarks are going to take a little longer than
normal since this is the first meeting of the committee in this
Congress. I'll promise my colleagues I won't make a habit of
that, and I'll keep my questions to the same 5 minutes that
everyone else has.
First, some preliminary remarks about the committee itself.
This committee touches almost every American. No committee is
more ideologically diverse and none is more productive than
this committee. In the last Congress, 25 bills that came
through this committee were signed by the president and became
law--some very important. That's because Chairman Harkin and I
worked to find areas of agreement.
I look forward to working in the same way with Senator
Murray. She is direct. She is very well respected by her
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. She cares about people.
She's a member of the Democratic leadership, and she is result
oriented. I look forward to that working relationship.
We're going to have an open process, which means, for me,
every Senator, regardless of their party affiliation, will have
a chance to participate, a full opportunity for discussion and
amendment, not just in committee but on the floor. Our bills in
the last Congresses never got brought up on the floor.
But this year, we want a result, and that means go to the
floor, and that means further amendments, further discussion.
That means 60 votes to get off the floor, so it will be a
bipartisan bill. If it goes to conference, we know the
President will be involved. We want his signature on our bills.
All the way through, we're going to do our best to have input
from everyone so we can get a result.
Now, the schedule. The schedule of the committee generally
will start with unfinished business--first, fixing No Child
Left Behind. This is way overdue. It expired more than 7 years
ago. We posted a working draft last week on the website. We're
getting a lot of feedback. Staffs are meeting, exchanging
ideas. We'll have more weeks of hearings and meetings.
But we've been working on this 6 years. We've had 24
hearings over the last three Congresses on K through 12 or
fixing No Child Left Behind. Almost all of the members of the
committee this year were members last year. We hope to finish
our work by the end of February and have it on the floor.
I would say to my colleagues it's important to do that so
we can get floor time. It'll take a couple of weeks. No Child
Left Behind took 6 or 7 weeks when it was passed in 2001, and
we would like to have a full opportunity for debate and
amendment.
Second is reauthorizing higher education. We've already
done a lot of work on that in the last Congress. This is, for
me, about deregulating higher education, making rules simpler
and more effective, for example, the student aid loan form, so
more students can go to college. We can finish the work that we
started in 2013 on student loans. We can look at accreditation,
and we can look at deregulation. The task force that Senators
Mikulski, Burr, Bennet, and I formed on deregulation will be
the subject of our hearing on February 24th.
As rapidly and responsibly as we can, we want to repair the
damage of Obamacare and provide more Americans with health
insurance that fits their budgets. Now, on this issue, we don't
agree on party lines. Our first hearing is on a bipartisan bill
on the 30 to 40 hour work week. Senators Collins, Murkowski,
Manchin, and Donnelly have offered that. We will have a hearing
tomorrow on that and will report our opinions to the Finance
Committee.
Then some new business. Let's call it 21st Century Cures.
That's what the House calls it, as it finishes its work this
spring on that issue. The president talked about it last night.
He's also interested. I've talked to him about it.
In fact, he's interested in all three of these subjects
that we talked about--fixing No Child Left Behind, finishing
our work on higher education, and 21st Century Cures. I like
that, because I like to find those areas of agreement, and we
hope we can have a legislative proposal that he will be glad to
sign. What we're talking about here is getting more medicines,
devices, and treatments through the Food and Drug
Administration more rapidly to help millions of Americans.
There will be more on labor, pensions, education, and
health. These are major priorities, and that's how we will
start.
The President has made major proposals on community
colleges and on early childhood education. These are certainly
related to elementary and secondary education, but we've always
handled them separately. We can deal with the community college
proposal as we deal with higher education. We'll have to talk
about how we deal with early childhood education, because to do
that in any kind of comprehensive way involves getting into
Head Start and into the Child Care Development Block Grant that
we dealt with in the last Congress.
As more of my colleagues are here today, I said I would not
be as long in my opening statement in future meetings, but this
is the first one.
Last week, Secretary Duncan called for the law to be
fixed--No Child Left Behind. Almost everyone now seems to agree
with him. It's more than 7 years overdue. We've been working on
it for more than 6 years. When we started working on it--and we
did this--Republicans and Democrats, Secretary Duncan--6 years
ago, former Representative George Miller said, ``Let's identify
the problems. Let's pass a lean bill and fix No Child Left
Behind.''
Since then, we've had 24 hearings on K through 12 or fixing
No Child Left Behind. In each of the last two Congresses, we've
reported bills out of committee. I would say to my colleagues
that Congress before last, it was mainly what one might call a
Democratic bill, but I, Senator Enzi, and Senator Kirk all
voted for it so we could get it to the floor and continue to
amend it.
Twenty of the twenty-two of us on this committee were
members in the last Congress when we reported a bill. Sixteen
of the 22 of us who are members of this committee were in the
previous Congress when we reported a bill, so we ought to know
the issues pretty well.
One reason No Child Left Behind needs to be fixed is that
it has become unworkable. Under its original provisions, almost
all of America's 100,000 public schools would be labeled a
failing school. To avoid this unintended result, the U.S.
Education Secretary has granted waivers from the law's
provisions to 43 States, including Washington, which has since
had its waiver revoked, as well as the District of Columbia and
Puerto Rico.
This has created a second unintended result, at least
unintended by Congress, which had stated in law that no Federal
official should, quote, ``exercise any direction, supervision,
or control over curriculum, program or instruction or
administration of any educational program.'' That's the law
today.
Nevertheless, in exchange for the waivers, the Secretary
has told States what their academic standards should be, how
States should measure the progress of students toward those
standards, what constitutes failure for schools and what the
consequences of failure are, how to fix low performing schools,
and how to evaluate teachers. The Department has, in effect,
become a national school board. Or, as one teacher told me, it
has become a national Human Resources Department for 100,000
public schools.
At the center of the debate about how to fix No Child Left
Behind is what to do about the Federal requirement that states,
each year, administer 17 standardized tests with high stakes
consequences. Educators call this an accountability system.
Are there too many tests? Are they the right tests? Are the
stakes for failing them too high? What should Washington, DC,
have to do with all this? Many States and school districts
require schools to administer additional tests. Now, this is
called a hearing for a reason. I have come to listen.
Our working draft includes two options on testing. Option 1
gives flexibility to States to decide what to do about testing.
Option 2 maintains current law regarding testing. Both options
would continue to require annual reporting of student
achievement, disaggregated by subgroups of children.
Washington sometimes forgets--but Governors never do--that
the Federal Government has limited involvement in elementary
and secondary education, contributing only 10 percent of the
bill. For 30 years, the real action has been in the States. I
have seen this first hand.
If you'll forgive me for pointing it out, I was Governor in
1983 when President Reagan's Education Secretary issued ``A
Nation at Risk,'' saying, ``If an unfriendly foreign power had
attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational
performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as
an act of war.'' Then the next year, Tennessee, after a long
battle with the National Education Association, became the
first State to pay teachers more for teaching well.
Then the next 2 years, 1985 and 1986, every Governor spent
the entire year focusing on education--first time that ever
happened in the National Governors Association. I was chairman
of it then. Bill Clinton was the vice chairman. In 1989, the
first President Bush convened a meeting of Governors in
Charlottesville and established voluntary national education
goals.
Then in 1991 and 1992, President Bush announced America
2000 to move the Nation voluntarily toward those goals, State
by State, community by community. I was the Education Secretary
then. Since then, States have worked together voluntarily to
develop academic standards, develop tests, to create their own
accountability systems, find fair ways to evaluate teacher
performance, and have then adopted those that fit their States.
I know members of this committee must be tired of me
talking until I am blue in the face about a national school
board. I know that it is tempting to try to fix classrooms from
Washington. I also hear from Governors and school
superintendents who say this:
``If Washington doesn't make us do it, the teachers
union and opponents from the right will make it
impossible for us to have higher standards and better
teachers.''
I understand that there can be short-term gains from
Washington's orders, but my experience is that long-term
success can't come that way. In fact, Washington's involvement,
in effect, mandating Common Core and certain types of teacher
evaluation, is creating a backlash, making it harder for States
to set higher standards and evaluate teaching. As one former
Democratic Governor told me recently, ``We were doing pretty
well until Washington got involved, and if they'll get out of
the way, we'll get back on track.''
So rather than turn blue in the face one more time in front
of my colleagues, let me conclude with the remarks of Carol
Burris, New York's High School Principal of the Year. She
responded last week to our committee draft in the following
way:
``I ask that your committee remember that the
American public school system was built on the belief
that local communities cherish their children and have
the right and responsibility within sensible limits to
determine how they are schooled.
``While the Federal Government has a very special
role in ensuring that our students do not experience
discrimination based on who they are or what their
disability might be, Congress is not a national school
board. Although our locally elected school boards may
not be perfect, they represent one of the purest forms
of democracy that we have.
``Bad ideas in the small do damage in the small and
are easily corrected. Bad ideas at the Federal level
result in massive failure and are harder to fix.''
This is Carol Burris, New York's High School Principal of the
Year.
She concludes with this:
``Please understand that I do not dismiss the need to
hold schools accountable. The use and disaggregation of
data has been an important tool that I use regularly as
a principal to improve my own school. However, the
unintended, negative consequences that have arisen from
mandated, annual testing and its high stakes uses have
proven testing not only to be an ineffective tool, but
a destructive one as well.''
Senator Murray.
Opening Statement of Senator Murray
Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Chairman Alexander,
for holding this hearing today. I especially want to thank all
of our witnesses who are here with us.
This is my first committee meeting as Ranking Member of the
HELP Committee, so I want to start just by acknowledging our
former chair, Senator Tom Harkin, and commend his many years of
service on this committee that really is a committee that
touches every American life. He was a tireless advocate for
those without a voice, and he is going to be missed, as we all
know.
I also want to acknowledge and congratulate our new
chairman, Senator Alexander. I look forward to working with you
as well. We've had a number of conversations, and as we both
adjust to our new roles, I think we do have one belief that we
mention every time we talk, and that is we think working
together, this committee can really get some exciting work done
in the coming 2 years. Talking to our colleagues on this dais,
I'm very excited about what we can all do together in the
coming weeks and months.
I am ready to get to work, especially on an issue as
important as the topic of this committee hearing: education. In
fact, this is the issue that got me into politics in the very
first place. Throughout my career, first as a preschool
teacher, and then on a school board, in my own State senate in
Washington, and here in the U.S. Senate, I have been committed
to making sure that every child, every child, has someone
fighting for them and their future.
Serving on this committee, I am looking forward to making
college more affordable and reducing the overwhelming burden of
student loans, expanding access to early learning, and making
sure the voices of students and parents are heard in the
policymaking process. Of course, in the coming weeks and
months, I will be especially focused on working to fix the
broken No Child Left Behind law, and that, of course, is what
we're talking about today.
Nearly everyone agrees that we need to fix No Child Left
Behind. The law set unrealistic goals for schools across the
country and then failed to give them the resources they needed
to succeed. We can't turn our back in the process on measuring
students' progress or simply let schools and States off the
hook for failing to provide a quality education to all of their
students, especially because we have seen some successes since
2001 when Congress enacted No Child Left Behind.
Our graduation rate has increased by 10 points. Among
students with disabilities, regular diploma graduation rates
have increased by more than 12 percent, and dropout rates have
decreased by more than 17 percent. Achievement gaps have
declined among African-American and Latino students. The
Federal Government does have an important role and a productive
role to play in making sure that assessments and accountability
work for our kids.
Assessments also help parents and communities hold their
schools accountable. If a school is failing students year after
year, parents and communities deserve to have that information
and be assured that the school will get the resources it needs
to improve. I know there are a number of parents here in this
audience today and out in the hall who would agree with that.
When it comes to our Nation's largest Federal investment in
K through 12 education, it would be irresponsible to spend
billions in Federal taxpayer dollars without knowing if the law
is making a difference in student lives. Many of my colleagues
demand evidence and accountability in other Federal programs
and I hope they agree that we need it with education as well.
For those reasons, I would be very concerned about any
attempt to eliminate annual statewide assessments, just as I
would be very concerned about any attempt to roll back
accountability to make sure we're delivering on our promise of
a quality education for all.
Now, 13 years after Congress passed this law, we should use
the research and the best practices and the lessons we've
learned to fix No Child Left Behind. I've heard from so many
parents and teachers, as well as community members, in my home
State of Washington about the ways the current system doesn't
work when it comes to testing. We can and should encourage
States and districts to reduce redundant and low quality tests.
Because we have a national interest in making sure all
students get an excellent education, we do need Federal
oversight to make sure our system is working for every child.
That means offering the resources for improving professional
development and for expanding access to high-quality learning
opportunities to help our struggling schools so we don't
consign some kids to subpar education. While we carefully
consider changes to assessments and accountability to give
States and districts the flexibility they do need, we can't
forget our obligations to the kids who too often fall through
the cracks.
I've laid out my priorities for fixing this broken law, and
I know Chairman Alexander has put his priorities out in the
discussion draft. I hope we can now begin conversations about a
truly bipartisan approach in the HELP Committee to fix this
broken law. I know the members on my side are very anxious to
begin work and continue the long tradition of this committee in
tackling tough problems in a bipartisan fashion.
Fixing No Child Left Behind should not be a partisan issue.
It should be one that we work on hand-in-hand, not as Democrats
and Republicans, but as Americans. This is an issue that is not
about politics. It's about what is best for our kids. In our
country, we do believe that every student should have access to
a quality public education regardless of where they live or how
they learn or how much money their parents make. That vision is
a big part of what we mean when we talk about America, what
makes our country great.
Other countries in the world are investing in education.
They are working every day to get it right for their students.
China, India, and others--they think they can beat us in the
classroom. We know better. We know we can win this, and we know
that we have to for students back in my home State of
Washington, for our economic future, and for our shared vision
of an American dream.
We can't afford to turn back the clock on the promise of
quality education for all. We cannot be the generation that
drops the ball on that noble goal, and I will continue to fight
to bring quality education to all of our students.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to the panel
discussion.
The Chairman. Thanks, Senator Murray. As we will always try
to do, we'll try to have a bipartisan agreement on witnesses.
We were able to do that today, and we'll ask Senator Warren and
Senator Bennet to introduce two of the witnesses, and I'll
introduce the other four.
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to
introduce Dr. Marty West, an Associate Professor of Education
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Deputy Director
of the Harvard Kennedy School's Program on Education Policy and
Governance. Dr. West studies education policy and reform and
its impact on student learning and development. He has authored
many articles on the subject, including many pieces on No Child
Left Behind.
Last year, Dr. West worked for this committee as Senior
Education Policy Advisor to Chairman Alexander. I know there
are areas where we agree and areas where we disagree, but I'm
always very happy to welcome witnesses from Massachusetts to
testify before this committee.
Thank you, Dr. West, for being here today.
The Chairman. Senator Bennet.
Statement of Senator Bennet
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing. I've often
said that if we had a rally to keep No Child Left Behind the
same on the Capitol steps, there's not a single person in the
country that would come to that. We are 8 years overdue. We are
long overdue.
I'm honored this morning to introduce my friend, Tom
Boasberg, the Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. Tom
joined DPS as the Chief Operations Officer in 2007 while I was
superintendent, and then was unanimously appointed
superintendent in 2009 by a grateful school board who no longer
had to deal with me. Before joining DPS, Tom served as group
vice president of Level 3 Communications, where he was
responsible for the company's mergers and acquisitions and
strategic partnerships.
Prior to Level 3, he was a legal advisor to Reed Hundt,
Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC,
he helped establish the E-Rate program. Tom began his career as
a junior high school English teacher in Hong Kong's public
schools. He claims to speak fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, and
since I can't speak either, I have no idea whether that's
actually true or not.
[Laughter.]
Today, Tom oversees the largest school district in Colorado
with 185 schools with an enrollment of more than 90,000
students and 13,000 employees. When I left Denver Public
Schools to come to the Senate in 2009, I said that if I've done
a decent job, Tom will do an even better job, and there's no
doubt that has been the case.
Under Tom, Denver Public Schools has ranked at the top of
the State's largest districts in student growth for 3
consecutive years. In 2005, Denver was dead last.
Just last year, Denver Public School students eligible for
free and reduced lunch had stronger academic growth than non-
free and reduced lunch students statewide in math and writing.
DPS's non-free and reduced lunch students showed more growth
than their State counterparts in math by eight points. On top
of that, Denver's English language learners have outperformed
the States. Tom also happens to be responsible for educating my
three daughters.
As we begin to talk about reauthorizing ESEA, we need to
hear the voices of those who are fighting every day to improve
our kids' education. Tom Boasberg, in my view, is at the top of
that list.
Tom, thank you for being here today, and we're all looking
forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for including me in this.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Bennet. I think that boils
down to he cleaned up after you left. Is that how that----
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet. You can't even know half of the truth.
The Chairman. We're delighted to have you.
Now, let me just mention the other witnesses, and then
we'll turn to them. Mr. Paul Leather is here. He is deputy
commissioner of education in New Hampshire. Mr. Wade Henderson
is here, who has testified before this committee before. He is
chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil
and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund.
Ms. Jia Lee, fourth and fifth grade special education
teacher of the Earth School, New York City. Mr. Stephen Lazar,
social studies and English teacher, Harvest Collegiate High
School in New York City.
We have your testimony, and we've read them. At least, I
have. We ask you to summarize your testimony in 5 minutes,
because we have a lot of interested Senators who would like to
ask you questions. If you don't mind, there's a clock that will
show you when 5 minutes is up, and I'll use the gavel.
Why don't we start with you, Dr. West, and go right down
the line? Then we'll go to questions from the Senators.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN R. WEST, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
EDUCATION, HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION; DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ON EDUCATION POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, HARVARD
KENNEDY SCHOOL; AND NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION, CAMBRIDGE, MA
Mr. West. Thank you. Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray,
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today. I'd like to begin by congratulating
the committee on putting the reauthorization of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act at the very top of its legislative
agenda for the 114th Congress.
Nothing is more important to our Nation's future than
ensuring that we provide all children with the opportunity to
reach their full academic potential. Congress can't do that on
its own, but it can help by addressing the very real
shortcomings of the most recent reauthorization, No Child Left
Behind, and restoring the predictability with respect to
Federal education policy that State and local officials need to
carry out their work.
As you move forward with this important work, however, I
would urge you not to lose sight of the positive aspects of No
Child Left Behind. Above all, the law's requirement that
students be tested annually in reading and math in grades three
through eight and once in high school has provided parents,
teachers, and other citizens with detailed information about
students' performance in these foundational subjects and,
therefore, the extent to which they have mastered skills that
are prerequisites for other educational goals.
This information has called attention to achievement gaps
along lines of race, ethnicity, and class across entire States
and within specific schools. It has ushered in a new era in
education research, and it has made it possible to develop new
indicators of schools' performance based on their contribution
to student learning.
Research confirms that by requiring States that had
previously not implemented school accountability systems to do
so, No Child Left Behind worked to generate modest improvements
in student learning, concentrated in math and among the lowest
performing students, precisely those on whom the law was
focused. I say worked in the past tense, however, as the days
when No Child Left Behind worked are behind us.
As the law's 2014 deadline for all students to be
performing at grade level approached, its accountability system
became unworkable. Far too many schools were identified as
underperforming and the system lost its most critical asset,
its credibility.
Recent concerns have also been raised about the amount of
time students now spend taking standardized tests. We lack
systematic data on the amount of time students nationwide spend
taking those tests, nor do we know how much would be optimal. A
handful of recent State and district level audits suggest that
students spend about 1 percent to 3 percent of the year taking
standardized tests, a figure that sounds appropriate given the
value of the information they provide.
But we also know that some schools test far more than this
and that too many schools devote excessive time to narrow test
preparation activities in an attempt to avoid federally
mandated sanctions. The concerns voiced by parents and
educators in these schools are legitimate.
But eliminating annual testing requirements is not
necessary to address these concerns. Indeed, it would only make
them harder to do so. It is not necessary because federally
mandated annual State tests generally account for less than
half of test-taking time, just 32 percent in a recent Ohio
study. The rest of test-taking time in Ohio is devoted to State
and district mandated tests and to new tests developed to
implement the teacher evaluation system the State was forced to
adopt under the Obama administration's ESEA waiver program.
It would make matters more difficult because the most
important flaw of the No Child Left Behind accountability
system is its reliance on the level at which students are
performing at a single point in time as a measure of school
performance. Achievement levels are a poor indicator of school
quality as they are heavily influenced by factors outside of a
school's control.
This approach, which is all that is possible under a grade
span testing regime, judges schools based on the students they
serve, not on how well they serve them. Performance measures
based on growth and student achievement over time, which are
only possible with annual testing, provide a fair, more
accurate picture of schools' contribution to student learning.
Why did Congress design such a system back in 2002? One key
reason was that many States did not test students annually, and
those that did were often unable to track the performance of
individual students over time. That situation has now changed,
thanks to No Child Left Behind and related Federal investments
in State data systems. It would be ironic and, in my view,
unfortunate if in seeking to fix No Child Left Behind Congress
were to recreate the conditions that led to the adoption of an
ill-designed accountability system in the first place.
Eliminating annual testing would have other negative
consequences. It would all but eliminate school level
information about the learning of student subgroups. It would
sharply limit the information available to parents making
choices about the school their child attends, whether through
open enrollment or charter school programs. Third, it would
prevent policymakers and researchers from evaluating the
effectiveness of new education programs when, as is typically
the case, the appropriate research design depends on knowledge
of students' recent achievement.
My main recommendation, therefore, is to maintain the law's
current annual testing requirements while restoring to States
virtually all decisions about the design of their
accountability systems, including how schools and teachers are
identified as underperforming and what should be done to
improve their performance. The Federal Government has a
critical role to play in ensuring that parents and citizens
have good information about their schools' performance.
At the same time, the Federal Government lacks the capacity
to design an accountability system that is appropriate to the
needs of each State and has a poor record of attempting to
dictate the required elements of efforts to improve
underperforming schools. By focusing on improving the
transparency of information about school performance and
resources, Congress can build on the successes of No Child Left
Behind while learning from its failures.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. West follows:]
prepared statement of martin r. west, ph.d.
Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, members of the committee, thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Martin
West. I am an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution. Over the past 15 years, I have conducted my own research
on test-based accountability systems, reviewed the research of others
working in this area, and consulted with State and Federal policymakers
on the design of accountability policies.
I would like to begin by congratulating the committee on its
decision to put the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act at the top of its legislative agenda for the 114th
Congress. Nothing is more important to our Nation's future than
ensuring that all American children have the opportunity to reach their
full academic potential. Congress cannot do that on its own, but it can
help by addressing the very real shortcomings of the most recent
reauthorization, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and restoring the
predictability with respect to Federal policy that State and local
officials need to carry out their work.
My testimony aims to inform this effort by providing information
on:
1. The validity of test scores as measures of student learning;
2. The effects of NCLB's testing and accountability requirements,
both overall and in schools identified as in need of improvement; and
3. The implications of eliminating the law's annual testing
requirements.
I conclude with recommendations on how to address NCLB's most
serious flaws while building on its most important contribution: the
provision of far greater transparency about the academic achievement of
American students. The law's requirement that students be tested
annually in math and reading in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and
that the results be reported by school and disaggregated by student
subgroup, has provided parents, teachers, and other citizens with
essential information about students' performance in these foundational
subjects--and therefore the extent to which they have mastered skills
that are prerequisites for other educational goals. This information
has called attention to gaps in achievement along lines of race,
ethnicity, and class across entire States and within specific schools;
it has ushered in a new era in education research; and it has made it
possible to develop new indicators of schools' performance based on
their contribution to student learning.
My principal recommendation is therefore to maintain the law's
current requirement that States test students annually in math and
reading in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school, while restoring
to States virtually all decisions about the design of their
accountability systems, including how schools and teachers are
identified as under-performing and what should be done to improve their
performance.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ My testimony draws in part on research conducted jointly with
Matthew Chingos, Mark Dynarski, and Russ Whitehurst of the Brookings
Institution and published in Chingos and West (2015) and Whitehurst, et
al. (2015).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the validity of test scores as measures of student learning
Test-based accountability is premised on the notion that student
test scores in core academic subjects are valid indicators of student
learning that matters for valued long-term outcomes. That is,
policymakers are generally not interested in boosting math and reading
test scores per se, but only insofar as those test scores predict
outcomes such as post-secondary success and adult earnings. It has long
been known that student performance on low-stakes tests are strong
predictors of individual labor-market success and, in the aggregate, of
national economic growth rates (see, e.g. Johnson and Neal 1996;
Hanushek and Woessmann 2008). Only recently, however, have researchers
been able to examine the predictive power of the kinds of tests
administered by States and school districts in low-and high-stakes
settings. Two new studies in this area are particularly instructive.
Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff (2014) link math and reading test
scores from New York City students in grades 3-8 to Internal Revenue
Service records for the same students as they became adults. The tests
were administered on an annual basis to all New York City students but
were not at the time used to hold teachers or schools accountable for
their performance. The study shows that being assigned to a more
effective teacher, as defined by her past impact on other students'
test scores, has a positive impact on the likelihood that students will
attend college and on their earnings at age 28, as well as on other
variables such as the likelihood of avoiding teenage pregnancy (for
girls) and whether the student is saving for retirement. The magnitude
of these relationships is impressive. For example, being assigned to a
teacher in the top-5 percent in terms of her success in raising student
test scores, as opposed to an average teacher, increases a child's
lifetime income by roughly $80,000. These results clearly highlight the
importance of teacher effectiveness in shaping student outcomes. As
important, they confirm that a teacher's impact on test scores
accurately predicts her impact on more distant outcomes, at least when
those tests are low-stakes.
Deming, et al. (2014), in turn, use data from Texas to examine the
predictive validity of gains in test scores induced by the State's
high-stakes school accountability system. They find that high schools
responded to the threat of being assigned a very low rating by
increasing their students' achievement on high-stakes tests. At age 25,
these same students were more likely to have completed a 4-year degree
and have higher earnings. Deming, et al. also find that schools
pressured to earn a higher rating responded not by improving
achievement, but by classifying more low-scoring students as students
with disabilities in order to exempt them from the accountability
system; these same students suffered large declines in their post-
secondary attainment and earnings. Overall, their results therefore
illustrate not only the predictive validity of accountability-induced
gains in student test scores, but also the critical importance of
designing accountability systems carefully in order to avoid unintended
consequences.
In sum, evidence confirms that the scores that students receive on
standardized tests administered in schools are strongly predictive of
later life outcomes that are of great value to those students and the
Nation. Moreover, gains in test scores that result from interventions
such as being assigned to a particularly effective teacher or attending
a school facing accountability pressure also predict improvements in
adult outcomes. Of course, teachers and schools also contribute to
student outcomes in ways that are not captured by test scores and
therefore harder to measure (see, e.g. Jackson 2012). However,
information on school performance that does not include data on student
learning as measured by tests that are comparable statewide would be
badly compromised.
the effects of no child left behind's testing and accountability
requirements
With the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), Congress for the
first time required States accepting Federal funds through title I to
put into place consequential test-based accountability systems. In
particular, States were required to adopt challenging content standards
in math, reading, and science; test students annually in math and
reading in grades 3-8 and once in high school; report the share of
students performing at proficient levels in each subject (disaggregated
by student subgroup); and intervene in schools where students overall
or within a specific subgroup failed to exceed statewide performance
targets. States had to raise these targets over time in line with the
goal of having all students achieving at proficient levels in core
academic subjects by 2014.
Evaluating the impact of NCLB's testing and accountability
requirements is difficult, as the law required all States to implement
the same basic policies. Although student achievement in grades 4 and 8
as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
has risen since the law's enactment, this trend could be driven by
other factors. NCLB did not come from nowhere, however: Roughly half of
States had established consequential test-based accountability systems
in the 1990's, and many NCLB requirements were based on elements of
those systems. Insight into the law's effects can therefore be gleaned
by comparing the States required by NCLB to implement test-based
accountability systems for the first time to those that already had
such systems in place and were thus less affected by the law's
requirements.
Taking this approach, two independent teams of scholars (Dee and
Jacob 2010; Wong, Cook, and Steiner 2011) find that NCLB's testing and
accountability provisions have generated modest improvements in student
achievement as measured by the NAEP in States required to implement
test-based accountability systems for the first time. The gains in
achievement have been concentrated in mathematics, as opposed to
reading, and among the low-performing students that were most directly
affected by the law's accountability system. These findings are
consistent with earlier research indicating that States adopting
consequential test-based accountability systems in the 1990's improved
more on the NAEP than did other States (Carnoy and Loeb 2002; Hanushek
and Raymond 2005). Both sets of studies are noteworthy in that they
document gains on the low-stakes NAEP and therefore should not be
influenced by schools facing pressure to improve students' performance
on a specific test.
A second approach to examining NCLB's effects has been to study the
law's effects on schools at risk of being identified by States as in
need of improvement and on schools so identified and subjected to
various interventions. In the only nationally representative study of
this kind, Reback, Rockoff, and Schwartz (2014) find that attending a
school at risk of being identified as in need of improvement had
positive or neutral effects on students' achievement on low-stakes
reading tests, no clear effects on their achievement on low-stakes math
and science tests, and positive effects on their enjoyment of learning
in those subjects. Several studies conducted in specific States or
school districts have also found that students enrolled in schools not
making Adequate Yearly Progress (and therefore placed at risk of
sanction) made greater than expected gains on their State test (see,
e.g., Springer 2008; Krieg 2008; Ladd and Lauen 2010; Neal and
Schanzenbach 2010; Hemelt 2011). Neal and Schanzenbach (2010) and Krieg
(2008) find that these improvements were concentrated among students on
the margin of proficiency--so called ``bubble kids'' (Booher-Jennings
2005)--suggesting that schools may have shifted their instructional
energies away from students performing at much higher or lower levels.
Studies of the effects of actual sanctions for under-performing schools
required under NCLB provide a more mixed picture. Anh and Vigdor
(2014), however, find positive effects on student achievement in
schools forced into restructuring with leadership or management
changes.
In sum, the best available evidence indicates that NCLB has
generated improvements in student learning, concentrated in math, among
the Nation's lowest-performing students--precisely those on whom the
law was focused. These gains have been relatively modest in size,
however, far short of the rate of improvement required to bring all
students to a reasonable definition of proficiency by 2014.
As the law's deadline for universal proficiency approached, the
NCLB accountability system therefore became unworkable, with a majority
of schools in some States identified as under-performing. In response,
the Obama administration, through its ESEA Flexibility Program, offered
States limited flexibility with respect to the design of their
accountability system in exchange for complying with new requirements
in areas such as teacher evaluation and school turnaround models. While
the appropriateness and aspects of the design of this State waiver
program are hotly debated, the acute need to address the shortcomings
of NCLB's accountability model is not in dispute.
It is also important to acknowledge evidence of the unintended
consequences of the NCLB accountability system. For example, research
has clearly shown that test-based accountability can result in a
narrowing of the curriculum to focus on tested subjects at the expense
of those for which schools are not held accountable. Consistent with
this, the initial implementation of NCLB was associated with large
increases in the amount of instructional time elementary school
teachers reported spending on reading and declines in the coverage of
history and science (West 2007). Harder to track systematically is the
law's effects on other aspects of classroom practice. Yet some evidence
suggests that heavy handed test-based accountability policies can
promote rote, teacher-directed instruction and encourage schools to
focus narrowly on test-preparation skills rather than ensuring that
students are exposed to a curriculum rich in academic content.
These tendencies may be strongest in schools with high minority and
low-income populations, which typically face the strongest pressure to
improve (Diamond and Spillane 2005).
Important concerns have also been raised about the amount of time
students now spend taking standardized tests. Unfortunately we lack
systematic data on the amount of time students nationwide spend taking
standardized tests and how this changed with the implementation of NCLB
and related Federal policies. Nor do we know the amount of test-taking
time that would be optimal. A handful of recent district- and state-
level analyses suggest that students are scheduled to spend 1-3 percent
of the school year taking standardized tests, depending on the grade
level, a figure that sounds appropriate given the value of the
information they provide and evidence that taking tests can support
learning (Lazarin 2014; Teoh et. al. 2014; Nelson 2013; Ohio Department
of Education 2015). That said, we also know that these official figures
likely understate the true amount of instructional time teachers lose
as a result of testing, that schools in some districts test much more
than these averages, and that far too many schools devote excessive
time to narrow test-preparation activities in an attempt to avoid
federally mandated sanctions. The concerns now being voiced by parents
and educators in these situations are legitimate.
implications of eliminating annual testing requirements
Eliminating annual testing requirements is not necessary to reduce
over-testing where it exists, however. Indeed, doing so would only make
it harder for States to address the flaws of the NCLB accountability
system and develop new ones that provide good information on schools'
contribution to student learning and set realistic targets for
improvement. It would also have other important negative consequences.
Eliminating annual testing is unnecessary because the annual tests
in math and reading (and grade-span testing in science) currently
required under NCLB typically account for less than half of the total
amount of time students spend taking standardized tests. For example, a
recent testing audit conducted by the Ohio Department of Education
(2015) found that NCLB-mandated tests are responsible for 32 percent of
testing time in that State. Another 26 percent of testing time is
devoted to new assessments developed to implement a teacher evaluation
system the State adopted as a condition of receiving a waiver through
the Obama administration's ESEA Flexibility Program. The remaining 42
percent of testing time is devoted to tests required not by the Federal
Government, but by the State or local school districts.
The most important flaw of the accountability system States are
required to use under No Child Left Behind is its exclusive reliance on
student performance levels as a measure of school performance. Under
that system, whether a school makes Adequate Yearly Progress is
determined primarily based on the share of students who are proficient
in math and reading in a given year--a level-based measure of student
achievement. Yet the level at which students perform at a given point
of time is a poor indicator of school quality, as student achievement
is heavily influenced by factors outside of a school's control.
Measures based on the amount students learn from 1 year to the next can
provide a more accurate gauge of schools' contribution to student
learning (Deming 2014). These kinds of measures are only possible,
however, when students are tested in adjacent grades.
In a recent analysis (Chingos and West 2015), Matthew Chingos of
the Brookings Institution and I used roughly a decade of student test
scores from all public elementary schools in North Carolina and Florida
to compare how schools would look if they were judged based only on
their average test scores in a single grade--as might be the case under
a grade-span testing regime--to how they can be judged using measures
based on year-to-year growth in student test scores. The analysis
yielded two important conclusions.
First, growth measures do a far better job of identifying the
schools that contribute the least to student learning. For example,
North Carolina students in the bottom-15 percent of schools in terms of
average scores learn only about a third of a year less in math than the
statewide average, whereas the difference for students in the bottom-15
percent of schools in terms of growth is more than half a year of
learning.
Second, judging schools based on test score levels has a punishing
effect on schools serving disadvantaged students, which are often
identified as underperforming even when their students are learning
more than students elsewhere. For example, 56 percent of North Carolina
schools serving predominantly low-income students would be classified
as bottom-15 percent based on their average scores, whereas only 16
percent would be labeled as such based on their growth. Accountability
based on grade-span testing judges schools based on the students they
serve, not how well they serve them.
Using average test scores from a single year to judge school
quality is therefore unacceptable from a fairness and equity
perspective. One possible alternative to growth-based measures is to
use a single year of test data, such as would be available under a
grade-span testing regime, but adjust it based on student demographics.
In other words, schools serving students who tend to score lower, such
as low-income and minority students, would be compared to schools
serving similar student bodies rather than all schools in the State.
Using demographic adjustments is an unsatisfying alternative for at
least two reasons, however. First, it provides less accurate
information about schools' contribution to student learning. Second,
making demographic adjustments implicitly sets lower expectations for
some groups of students than for others.
In addition to preventing the development of better and fairer
measures of school performance, eliminating annual testing would have
other negative consequences.
First, it would all but eliminate school-level information about
the learning of student subgroups, as testing only a single grade
within each school often results in sample sizes for groups such as
English learners or blacks that are too small to generate reliable
information for the school as a whole (Whitehurst and Lindquist 2012).
Second, it would sharply limit the information available to parents
making choices about the school their child attends, whether through
open-enrollment programs in traditional public schools or under charter
school programs. School choice is empty without valid information on
school performance, and how much schools contribute to student learning
is the most important information parents need to know.
Third, it would prevent policymakers and researchers from
evaluating the effectiveness of new education programs when, as is
typically the case, the appropriate research design depends on
knowledge of students' recent achievement. By hampering our ability to
learn about what's working, jettisoning annual testing could slow the
overall rate of improvement in student achievement over time.
A key reason Congress in 2002 required that States use a school
accountability system based on student achievement levels was that many
States were not yet testing students annually and those that did often
lacked the capacity to track the performance of individual students
over time. That situation has now changed, thanks to No Child Left
Behind and related Federal investments in State data systems. It would
be ironic and, in my view, unfortunate if, in seeking to fix No Child
Left Behind, Congress were to recreate the conditions that led to the
adoption of an ill-designed accountability system in the first place.
recommendations
1. Maintain the law's requirement that States test all students
annually in math and reading in grades 3-8 and at least once in high
school using tests that are comparable statewide.
The Federal Government has a critical role to play in ensuring that
parents and citizens in States accepting Federal funds have good
information about their local schools' performance, and good
information requires the data that come from annual testing using
assessments that are comparable statewide. States should continue to be
required to gather this information and to report on it disaggregated
by student subgroup as a condition of receiving title I funds.
To ensure that this requirement does not interfere with the ability
of States to develop new forms of assessment, including competency-
based assessments that are not tied to a specific grade level and are
administered at varying times during the school year, Congress may wish
to consider developing a pilot program for a small number of States
doing innovative work in this area. However, such a pilot should be
designed so as to provide rigorous evidence as to how the information
it generates compares to that generated under an annual testing regime.
2. Return to States virtually all decisions about the design of
their accountability systems, including how schools and teachers are
identified as under-performing and what should be done to improve their
performance.
The Federal Government lacks the capacity to design a single
accountability system that is appropriate to the needs of each State,
and has a poor track record when attempting to dictate the required
elements of efforts to improve under-performing schools. States should
be required to develop their own systems of school accountability and
improvement, provided only that those systems are based in part on
student achievement data from tests that are comparable statewide and,
in the case of high schools, 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rates.
Federal accountability requirements, if included, should be limited to
schools that fail at basic functions, i.e., elementary and middle
schools in which a significant percentage of students do not acquire
even basic competencies in reading and math, or high schools where a
significant percentage of students do not graduate.
3. Require the publication of timely, accurate school-level
spending data.
Consistent with the Federal role in increasing transparency about
educational performance, Congress should condition the receipt of title
I funds by schools and districts on the timely disclosure of comparable
measures of per-pupil spending at the level of the State, district, and
school. This recommendation, which is included in the current
discussion draft, would build on the school-level expenditure reporting
mandated as a one-time requirement under the American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act of 2009 and would improve the accuracy and facilitate the
broader dissemination of that information. By requiring that school
spending reports reflect actual teacher salaries rather than district-
wide salary averages (the common practice in district financial
reporting), it could serve to highlight within-district disparities in
spending and create pressure on school districts to address them. It
would also permit the generation of performance measures that provide
information on the relative return-on-investment for educational
spending across districts and schools.
4. Continue to require that States participate in the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams administered bi-
annually.
With States continuing to select their own academic standards and
tests and provided with new flexibility with respect to the design of
their accountability systems, the NAEP will continue to serve as an
essential audit of the performance of State educational systems,
enabling advocacy organizations and ordinary citizens to push for
improvement. A ``Secretary's Report Card'' to Congress and the public
on the educational performance of the Nation and each State, as
proposed in the current discussion draft, is an attractive new
mechanism for heightening competition among States to lift all students
to high levels of achievement.
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The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. West, for excellent testimony
and for coming very close to 5 minutes.
Mr. Leather.
STATEMENT OF PAUL LEATHER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, CONCORD, NH
Mr. Leather. Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, and
members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify
about testing and accountability in the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act. I'm Paul Leather, Deputy Commissioner
of Education of the New Hampshire Department of Education.
In New Hampshire, we are working to explore what the next
generation of assessments might look like beyond an end-of-the-
year test. We have coordinated with the Council of Chief State
School Officers on its priorities for reauthorization. These
priorities contain three important ingredients that are in line
with the work we are doing.
First, it would continue to support annual assessments of
student performance to ensure every parent receives the
information they need on how their child is performing, at
least once a year. Second, it would allow States to base
students' annual determinations on a single standardized test
or the combined results from a coherent system of assessments.
Third, it gives States the space to continue to innovate on
assessment and accountability systems through a locally
designed assessment system, so important when the periods of
authorization can last 10 years or longer.
We are working in collaboration with four New Hampshire
school districts to pilot competency-based assessment systems,
Sanborn Regional, Epping, Rochester, and Souhegan High School.
We are intent on broadening expectations from the simple
recitation of knowledge and facts to also applying knowledge
and skills in authentic settings while fostering work study
practices such as persistence and creativity. That is why we
have emphasized Performance Assessments for Competency
Education, or PACE, which is what we call our pilot project.
There are several key components in our pilot: the
development of statewide model competencies that describe the
knowledge and skills that all students are expected to master;
use of a personalized competency-based approach to instruction,
learning, assessment, and awarding credit; and the use of
common and local performance-based assessments of competencies
throughout each school year, in tandem with grade span, Smarter
Balanced assessments of State standards in math and English
language arts.
I am submitting for the record a detailed summary of all
the steps we are taking to ensure comparability, reliability,
and validity of these assessments as well as a brief
description of the demographics of the participating districts.
[The information referred to was not available during time
of press].
Second, we support annual determinations based on a
coherent system of State and local multiple assessments. Rather
than relying on just one State summative assessment to make
this determination, we combined a series of assessment results
throughout the year to make that annual determination.
Over the last year, there has been a crescendo of voices
across the country raising the concern of over-testing. We
believe that the over-testing issue has arisen because there
has been a disconnect between local and State assessments. I
have sat through many local school board meetings where the
superintendent explains to the board the State test results and
their meaning and then separately describes their local
assessments, which they see as more directly tied to
instructional improvement.
These two sets of assessments and two accountability
systems overlap and in some cases are redundant. Our PACE pilot
braids these two systems together. The result is less
assessment overall with a more coherent system that still
provides benchmark information the State and districts need
without sacrificing much deeper, more actionable information at
the classroom level.
Third, because of our work advancing a competency.based
learning model, we understand the importance of creating
freedom to innovate. We have been working on this system for 3
solid years, starting with intensive professional development
to raise the assessment literacy of our teachers. We are not
ready to take it statewide, but we hope to in the future.
In New Hampshire, the live-free-or-die State, we believe
that it is essential that local educational leaders help build
the new system through their innovative efforts. It is the
combination of State and local creative collaboration that has
helped us build a new, stronger, more effective assessment and
accountability system.
We applaud the draft version's section K that allows for a
locally designed assessment system in Option 2. However, we
also believe that Congress should establish parameters in the
reauthorization to ensure that innovative, locally designed
systems do not result in a step backward for students.
Federally, we would expect that assurances of technical quality
and breadth and depth of assessments necessary be put in place.
Within a State, local districts wishing to innovate should
be able to demonstrate that they will continue to focus on
college or career outcomes and are committed to improving the
achievement of educationally disadvantaged students. They
should maintain a clearly described internal accountability
process and have the leadership necessary to effect a
substantive change process.
With these parameters in place, we believe that educational
improvements and innovative designs will flourish throughout
the life of the coming reauthorization. We in New Hampshire
greatly appreciate the opportunity to have our innovative
educational practices considered by the committee. We look
forward to the future with a speedy reauthorization of a much-
improved Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Leather follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul Leather
summary
Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, and members of the committee,
thank you for inviting me to testify about testing and accountability
in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
I am Paul Leather, Deputy Commissioner of Education of the NH
Department of Education.
In NH, we are working to explore what the next generation of
assessments might look like, beyond an end-of-the-year test.
We have coordinated with the Council of Chief State School Officers
on its Priorities for ESEA Reauthorization. These Priorities contain
three important ingredients that are in line with the work we are
doing:
First, it would continue to support annual assessments of
student performance to ensure every parent receives the information
they need on how their child is performing, at least once a year.
Second, it would allow States to base students' annual
determinations on a single standardized test, or the combined results
from a coherent system of assessments.
Third, it gives States the space to continue to innovate
on assessment and accountability systems, so important when the periods
of authorization can last 10 years or longer.
We are working in collaboration with four NH school districts to
pilot competency-based assessment systems, Sanborn Regional in
Kingston, Epping, Rochester, and Souhegan High School. We are intent on
broadening expectations from the simple recitation of knowledge and
facts, to also applying knowledge and skills in authentic settings,
while fostering work study practices, such as persistence and
creativity. That is why we have emphasized Performance Assessments for
Competency Education, or ``PACE,'' which is what we call our pilot
project.
There are several key components in our Pilot:
The development of statewide model competencies that
describe the knowledge and skills that all students are expected to
master.
Use of a personalized, competency-based approach to
instruction, learning, assessment, and awarding credit, and the
Use of common and local performance-based assessments of
competencies throughout each school year, in tandem with grade span
Smarter Balanced assessments of State standards in math and English
Language Arts.
I am submitting for the record a detailed summary of all the steps
we are taking to ensure comparability, reliability and validity of
these assessments, as well as a brief description of the demographics
of the participating districts.
[The information referred to was not available at press time.]
Second, we support annual determinations based on a coherent system
of State and local multiple assessments. Rather than relying on just
one State summative assessment to make this determination, we combine a
series of assessment results throughout the year to make the annual
determination.
Over the last year, there has been a crescendo of voices across the
country raising the concern of over-testing. We believe that the over-
testing issue has arisen because there is a disconnect between local
and State assessments. I have sat through many local school board
meetings where the Superintendent explains to their Board the State
test results, and then separately describes their local assessments,
which they see as more directly tied to instructional improvement.
These two sets of assessments and two accountability systems
overlap and in some cases are redundant. Our PACE Pilot braids these
two systems together. The result is less assessment overall with a more
coherent system that still provides benchmark information the State and
districts need without sacrificing much deeper, more actionable
information at the classroom level.
Third, because of our work advancing a competency-based learning
model, we understand the importance of creating freedom to innovate. We
have been working on this system for 3 solid years, starting with
intensive professional development to raise the assessment literacy of
our teachers. We are not ready to take it statewide, but we hope to in
the future.
In NH, the ``Live Free or Die'' State, we believe that it is
essential that local educational leaders help build the new system
through their innovative efforts. It is the combination of State and
local creative collaboration that has helped us build a new, stronger,
more effective assessment and accountability system.
We also believe that Congress should establish parameters in the
reauthorization to ensure that innovative pilots do not result in a
step backward for students. Federally, we would expect that assurances
of technical quality, and breadth and depth of assessments necessary be
put in place.
Within a State, local districts wishing to innovate should be able
to demonstrate that they will continue to focus on college and/or
career outcomes, and are committed to improving the achievement of
educationally disadvantaged students. They should maintain a clearly
described internal accountability process and have the leadership
necessary to affect a substantive change process. With these parameters
in place, we believe that educational improvements and innovative
design will flourish throughout the life of the coming reauthorization
of ESEA.
We in NH greatly appreciate the opportunity to have our innovative
educational practices considered by the committee. We look forward to
the future with a speedy reauthorization of a much improved Elementary
and Secondary Education Act.
______
Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, and members of the committee,
thank you for inviting me to testify about testing and accountability
in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
I am Paul Leather, Deputy Commissioner of Education in the New
Hampshire Department of Education.
First, let me commend the committee for moving forward quickly on
reauthorization. Thirteen years after it was signed into law, No Child
Left Behind is well overdue for renewal and has not kept up with major
changes in States and school districts. I applaud you for your quick
action. It will help States and schools immensely.
New Hampshire is a leading State in our thinking about the future
of student assessment systems and accountability. We are a small State,
but sometimes that is where the most innovation happens. I am excited
about the work we have done and continue to do on behalf of our
students.
We are working with several school districts to explore what the
next generation of assessments might look like, beyond an end-of-the-
year test. We are being methodical and careful as we roll this out in
four pilot districts because we want to ensure that our assessment and
accountability systems still gives accurate information to teachers,
parents and students.
Based on the work we have done in our State and what we have seen
happening in States across the country, we were pleased to coordinate
with the Council of Chief State School Officers on its Priorities for
ESEA Reauthorization. These Priorities contained three important
ingredients for a stable, Federal law going forward that is in line
with the work we are doing in New Hampshire:
First, it would continue to support annual assessments of
student performance to ensure every parent receives the information
they need on how their child is performing, at least once a year.
Second, it would allow States to base students' annual
determinations on a single standardized test, or the combined results
from a coherent system of assessments throughout the year.
Third, it gives States the space to continue to innovate
on assessment and accountability systems, so important in a rapidly
developing time in educational history, when the periods of
authorization can last 10 years or longer.
I want to give a bit more detail on each of these aspects of the
Priorities and how they align with our work in New Hampshire. Before I
do that, I want to take a moment to thank the Chairman for including
States' perspectives in the draft discussion bill. I believe that the
draft is a good starting point for reauthorization.
We, as State leaders in education, support annual assessments of
students. We in New Hampshire support having an annual assessment
requirement. Through a system with annual assessments, we promote
equity, transparency, accountability, and high expectations for all
students.
In New Hampshire, we are working in collaboration with four school
districts to pilot competency-based assessment systems, Sanborn
Regional in Kingston, NH, Epping, Rochester, and Souhegan High School
in Amherst, NH. In Competency Education, we are intent on broadening
the expectations of learning from the simple recitation of knowledge
and facts, to also apply knowledge and skills in authentic settings,
while fostering work study practices, such as persistence and
creativity, as a part of this work. That is why we have emphasized
complex Performance Assessments for Competency Education, or ``PACE,''
which is what we call our pilot project. Through a multi-year quality
review process and continued technical support from the State and its
partners, these pilot districts will help refine this innovative model.
In addition, through existing professional development opportunities
and networked cohorts of additional districts such as our Quality
Performance Assessment cohorts, the State will support a pipeline to
help all districts build capacity to lead this transformation
statewide.
There are several key components in our Pilot model that we believe
will achieve better results for all students:
Development of statewide model competencies that describe
the knowledge and skills that all students are expected to master
before they exit the K-12 system.
Use of a personalized, competency-based approach to
instruction, learning, assessment, and awarding credit. In 2005, we
eliminated the Carnegie Unit as the basis for awarding credit toward a
diploma.
An intense focus on ensuring that each student has
meaningful and multiple opportunities to demonstrate competency that
promotes equity for all student groups and every student.
Use of performance-based assessments of competencies, in
tandem with Smarter Balanced assessments of State standards in math and
ELA. This way we can ensure students are gaining the same knowledge and
skills across districts. This would also allow us to track and report
the progress of students, schools, districts, and educators.
State sponsored scoring calibration and large scale
moderation professional development and monitoring, including expert
and peer review and back-reading of assessment tasks.
Explicit involvement of local educators and community
members and other experts in designing, implementing, and scoring the
new assessment and accountability system.
Strong commitment both at the local and State level for
technical quality, policy and practical guidance, and professional
development.
This is a different way of doing things, and presents many
challenges and opportunities. In fact, it is hard work. It is not an
effort that should be taken lightly. We in New Hampshire have put in
the years of effort and design work necessary to develop the system and
believe it is a strong path forward for many of our students, teachers
and school districts. I am submitting for the record a detailed summary
of all the steps taken and the work we will do to ensure comparability,
reliability and validity of these assessments, as well as a brief
description of the demographics of the participating districts.
However, just because we are piloting this system in several
districts does not mean we as a State want to move away from our
current annual tests. We believe it is critical to measure students at
least once a year on their academic performance. In fact, through the
competency-based system, we measure students more frequently throughout
the year--in ways that are much more embedded in classroom work. Over
the last year, there has been a crescendo of voices across the country
raising the concern of over-testing. Let's be clear, 90 percent or more
of the ``testing'' that occurs in schools is under the control of the
teacher and the school district. Weekly quizzes, unit assessments, mid-
terms, final exams, lab reports, etc. are all ``tests'' used by
teachers to inform parents, grade student work, and most importantly,
when done right, used to improve instruction and learning for students.
We believe that the over-testing issue has arisen because there has
been a disconnect between these local assessments used to improve
learning and State and district ``external'' tests used for monitoring
and accountability. I have sat through many local school board meetings
where the Superintendent explains to their Board the meaning of the
State test results, and then separately describes their own local
assessments, more directly tied to curricular and instructional
improvement. There are two sets of assessments and two accountability
systems going on that overlap and in some cases are redundant. Our PACE
Pilot has been designed to braid these two assessment and
accountability systems together. The result is less assessment overall
as redundancies between local and State assessments are eliminated.
However, in this more coherent system we still provide benchmark
information the State and districts need without sacrificing much
deeper, more actionable information at the classroom level.
Second, we would like to see a statement in the law that supports
annual determinations based on a coherent system of State and local
multiple assessments. At the end of every year, we need to communicate
with parents and students about how students and schools are performing
in a clear, transparent way. Our PACE model does that. Rather than
relying on just one summative assessment to make this determination, we
combine a series of assessment results throughout the year to make that
annual determination. This is flexibility States have not had before.
We would welcome this flexibility, which would create opportunities for
other States in the future.
Third, because of our work advancing a competency-based learning
model that is more personalized and student-centered, we understand the
importance of creating freedom to innovate, where some districts and
schools who have demonstrated their prior work and readiness are given
the opportunity to help all of us advance the overall system. In No
Child Left Behind there is a provision for a ``local assessment
option'' that allows States to offer a local assessment system in
select school districts in place of the State assessment system.
However, a close reading of the Standard and Assessments Regulations
and the Department's Peer Review Guidance makes clear that what should
have been simply parameters turned into ``road blocks.'' The current
local assessment option requirements are as or more onerous than the
requirements for a statewide assessment. In the 13 years since the law
has been enacted, we can count on one hand with fingers left over the
number of States that have successfully taken advantage of this
``option.'' My point here is that moving forward we should be clear
about the differences between parameters and road blocks. We were
highly encouraged to see pilot programs outlined in CCSSO's Priorities
and in the Chairman's draft discussion bill. We welcome this
flexibility to have pilots actually addressed in the law to clarify
that innovation and research in improved models is a necessary part of
our system.
The reason New Hampshire has become a leader in innovative
assessment and accountability models today is because we have been
working to bring this idea to fruition for 3 solid years, starting with
intensive professional development to raise the assessment literacy of
our teachers. We are not ready to take it statewide yet, but we hope to
in the future, if it demonstrates improved performance over the next
couple years. I will say that any model--in order to truly be
successful--must be led by and supported by the State. However, in New
Hampshire, the ``Live Free or Die'' State, we also believe that it is
essential that local educational leaders help build the new system
through their innovative efforts. It is this combination of State and
local creative collaboration that has helped us build a new, stronger,
more effective assessment and accountability system.
For these reasons, we believe that Congress should establish
parameters in the reauthorization to ensure that innovative pilots do
not result in a step backward for students. First, at the Federal
level, we would expect that assurances of technical quality, and
breadth and depth of assessments necessary to adequately assure that
the requirements of a fully realized State system will be put in place.
These systems should promote equity, transparency, disaggregation, and
comparability for the purposes of making annual determinations at the
school level. There should also be an expectation of readiness to
implement a plan at the State level that ensures innovation with
fidelity with the necessary supports for local districts and schools
and an evaluation of lessons learned. These parameters are necessary to
protect the Federal interest in effective uses of limited Federal
funds.
Second, local districts wishing to pursue innovative assessment
systems should be able to demonstrate to States that they will continue
to focus on college and/or career outcomes, and are committed to
improving the achievement of educationally disadvantaged students. They
should maintain a clearly described internal accountability process
supported by the local board of education, the commitment of resources
to ensure the plan's success, and the district and school leadership
necessary to lead a substantive change process. They should demonstrate
evidence of readiness to innovate, and the educational capacity to
design, implement, support, and sustain the new system, if proven
successful in advancing learning for students. With these parameters in
place, we believe that educational improvements and innovative design
will flourish throughout the life of the coming reauthorization of
ESEA.
We in New Hampshire greatly appreciate the opportunity to have our
views, and our innovative educational practices, considered by the
committee in the ESEA reauthorization process. We look forward to the
future with a speedy reauthorization of a much improved Elementary and
Secondary Education Act.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Leather.
Mr. Boasberg, welcome.
STATEMENT OF TOM BOASBERG, SUPERINTENDENT,
DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS, DENVER, CO
Mr. Boasberg. Thank you very much for this opportunity to
be with you here this morning. My name is Tom Boasberg. I'm
superintendent of the fastest growing school district of any
city in this country, the wonderfully diverse Denver Public
Schools.
We have seen remarkable progress in the last decade under
reforms started by my predecessor, Senator Bennet, at a time
when he had a job with truly complex and challenging public
policy issues to grapple with. In that time, we have increased
our number of graduates by over 1,000 students a year. We've
increased our on-time graduation rate for our African-American
and Latino students by over 60 percent.
We've decreased our dropout rates by over 60 percent, and
we've grown from a school district with our students having the
lowest rate of year-on-year of student progress of any major
district in the State to being now the district for 3 years in
a row where our students on a student-by-student basis are
demonstrating the highest rate of yearly academic progress.
As a result, our enrollment is booming as our families come
back to and stay in our schools. In the last 7 years alone, our
enrollment has increased by a remarkable 25 percent.
Nevertheless, we continue to have significant achievement gaps
between our students based on income and race and ethnicity,
and we are determined to eliminate those achievement gaps.
One key to our progress is our refusal to be imprisoned by
the ideologically polarizing debates and false conflicts that
we often see around us. We need to focus on what works for our
kids. We can't be stuck in an either-or world. The needs of our
kids, over 70 percent of whom qualify for free and reduced
lunch, are simply too great.
What does that world look like? It's a world where we can
dramatically improve our district-run schools, unleash the
creative energy of our teachers to open innovative new schools,
and at the same time welcome high performing charter schools.
It's a world where both district-run and charter schools work
together as public schools to drive greater equity in our
community.
It's a world where we do measure the progress of our kids
in literacy and math every year to see whether they are on
track in these key areas to graduate from high school prepared
for college and career. It's also a world where we care deeply
about nurturing and developing the whole child, expanding
opportunities for arts and music, deepening interest in history
and science, and nurturing our kids' physical, social, and
emotional growth.
There does not need to be a conflict here. In fact, to the
contrary, our experience has shown us that schools that most
emphasize a broad curriculum and promote creativity and
critical thinking are the ones that actually do best in helping
develop their students' literacy and numeracy abilities.
For example, when we went to Denver voters 2 years ago for
a tax increase, the first thing we asked for was funding to
increase arts, music, and sports. As a parent of three kids,
Noah, Ella, and Calvin, and as superintendent for 90,000, do I
care about seeing the progress my kids make every year in
literacy and math? Yes, of course, I do. Of course, at the same
time, I care deeply about their opportunities in creative arts,
in social sciences, in sports, and their personal growth as
members of our community.
I do believe that annual measures of progress for our kids
in literacy and math are vital. At the same time, as I have
advocated in our State, we need fewer and shorter tests. For
example, I do not see why we cannot have good measures of
student progress that are limited to no more than 3 or 4 hours
combined time for literacy and math per year or less than one-
half of 1 percent of students' total annual classroom time. We
as a State need to eliminate the other State tests that have
been added in recent years that are unrelated to the law before
this committee today.
The new generation of assessments do a good job at helping
us understand how our children are progressing in literacy and
math. This transparency of how kids are doing is vital, vital
for students, for parents, and for teachers. Likewise, having
annual data about students' growth is vital to see what is
working best in our schools.
Transparency and the holding of clear high standards are
important for all kids, but they are particularly important for
our kids in poverty and our kids of color. Historically, too
many of our most vulnerable students have not been held to the
high standards that will enable them to compete for and succeed
in college and the knowledge-intensive careers in today's
economy, and it is absolutely essential that we do so.
That is why accountability is also vital here, not
accountability in a blaming or punishment sense, but
accountability to recognize and see what is not working, and
then to make the necessary changes in the extraordinarily high
stakes work we are all committed to, to help our children and
families break out of poverty, to help all kids realize the
potential they are born with.
As we celebrate this week the birthday of Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr., I hope that we can help all of our kids live
in the ``both-and'' world that they deserve.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boasberg follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tom Boasberg
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, members of the committee
thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Tom Boasberg,
and I am superintendent of the fastest growing school district in any
city in the country, the wonderfully diverse Denver Public Schools
(DPS).
Let me tell you a little about my district. Today, we have a little
over 90,000 students, with over 70 percent qualifying for free or
reduced price lunch. Two fifths of our students are English language
learners, and over three quarters are students of color. Our children
come from a diverse set of circumstances, but they all have one thing
in common: they want a great education and the chance it will give them
to succeed in life.
In DPS, we have seen a remarkable progress in the last decade under
the reforms and improvement efforts begun by my predecessor, Michael
Bennet. In that time, we have increased our number of high school
graduates by a thousand, increased the on-time graduation rate for
African-American and Latino students by 60 percent, decreased our
dropout rate by over 60 percent, and have gone from the district with
the lowest rate of year-on-year academic growth among major districts
in the State to, for the last 3 years, the highest. The gaps between
our middle class students and students in poverty and between our white
students and students of color, however, have moved very little, and we
are acutely aware of how much more progress we need to make for our
kids.
As a result of the improvements in our schools, our enrollment is
booming as families come back to and stay in our schools. In the last 7
years alone, our enrollment has grown by a remarkable 25 percent, far
higher than the growth in school-age population in the city.
-
One key to our progress is our refusal to be imprisoned by the
ideologically polarizing debates and false conflicts that we often see
around us. We focus on what works for kids.
We cannot be stuck in an either/or world. The needs of the children
we serve are too great and the stakes for their success too high.
What does that world look like? It's a world where we can
dramatically improve our district-run schools, unleash the creative
energies of our teachers to open innovative new schools, and at the
same time welcome high-performing charters. It's a world where both
district-run and charter schools work together to drive greater equity
in our community.
It's a world where we do measure the progress of our kids in
literacy and math to see whether they are on track in these key areas
to graduate from high school prepared for college and career.It's a
world where we care deeply about nurturing and developing the whole
child--expanding opportunities for arts and music, deepening interest
in history and science, and nurturing our kids' physical, social, and
emotional growth.
For example, 2 years ago, when we went to Denver voters for a local
tax increase, the first thing we asked for was funding dedicated to
expanding arts, music and sports in our schools. We are very proud that
Denver has the largest parent-teacher home-visit program in the country
to strengthen vital ties between home and school.
There does not need to be a conflict here. In fact, to the
contrary, our experience has shown us the schools that most emphasize a
broad curriculum and promote creativity are the ones that actually do
best in helping develop and grow their students' literacy and numeracy
abilities.
As both a parent of three kids and superintendent for 90,000, do I
care about seeing the progress my kids make every year in literacy and
math? Yes, of course, I do. I care that their progress is measured
against a meaningful benchmark aligned to where they need to be to be
on track for success in college and career. This ensures that they and
all children in our State are held to the same high standards. Our
future economy and civic leadership in Colorado depend on our
graduating students who are ready to work in our knowledge-based
economy and lead our community. This makes having high expectations for
their achievement and measuring their progress toward that achievement
all the more important.
At the same time, both with my own three kids and all kids in DPS,
I care deeply about how they do in the classroom on the projects and
work assigned by their teachers. I care deeply as well about their
opportunities in the creative arts, in social sciences, in sports, and
their personal growth as members of our community. It does not have to
be either/or.
While I do I believe that annual measures of progress for our kids
in literacy and math are important, I have also advocated in our State
that we need fewer and shorter tests. For example, I do not see why we
cannot have good measures of student progress that are limited to no
more than three to 4 hours combined time for literacy and math per
year--or less than one-half of 1 percent of students' total annual
classroom time. We as a State also need to eliminate the other State
tests that have been added in recent years that are unrelated to the
law before this committee today.
The new generation of assessments does a good job at helping us
understand how our children are progressing in literacy and math. They
measure high-order thinking skills, and ask students to solve complex
problems and demonstrate the knowledge and skills they will need for
college and careers.
It is important that kids and their parents know how they are doing
in mastering these critical skills--just as teachers need the
information to tailor and individualize their instruction for their
students. This transparency, in short is vital, and it is vital that
all involved get this information at least annually.
Without annual data, we cannot effectively measure the growth, the
progress our kids are making. Seeing how much kids are growing is
equally important for the high-achieving student who wants to keep
moving forward as it is for the low achieving student who needs to see
the progress he or she is making to catch up.
Likewise, having annual data about students' growth is necessary to
see what is working best in our schools--to understand the
effectiveness of academic initiatives and to share the best practices
we are seeing in our classrooms and schools where kids are making the
most progress.
Transparency and the sharing of best practices are important for
all kids, but they are particularly important for our kids in poverty
and kids of color. Historically, too many of our most vulnerable
students have not been held to the high standards that will enable them
to compete for, and succeed in, college and the knowledge-intensive
careers in today's economy.
That is why accountability is also vital here. Not accountability
in a blaming or punishment sense but accountability to see what is not
working for kids and to make the necessary changes in the
extraordinarily high-stakes work we are all committed to--to help
children and families break out of poverty, to help all kids realize
the potential they are born with.
As we celebrate this week the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr., I hope that we can help all our kids live in the ``both-and''
world they deserve.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to answering your
questions.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Henderson.
STATEMENT OF WADE J. HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, LEADERSHIP
CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LEADERSHIP
CONFERENCE EDUCATION FUND, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Henderson. Good morning, Chairman Alexander, Senator
Murray, and members of the committee. As you've noted, I'm Wade
Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights, the Nation's leading civil and human
rights coalition with over 200 national organizations working
to build an America as good as its ideals.
I'm also the Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Professor of Public
Interest Law at the David A. Clarke School of Law, University
of the District of Columbia. In addition, I serve as the vice
chair of the board of trustees of the Educational Testing
Service, the Nation's premier testing assessment nonprofit
corporation.
Thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The civil and human rights community has long seen education
and voter participation as the twin pillars of our democracy.
Together they help to make the promise of quality and
opportunity for all a reality in American life.
We welcome the opportunity that this important and timely
hearing provides to look at ways that we can improve ESEA and
ensure that each and every child, regardless of race, national
origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or zip code,
receives the best education that this great nation can provide.
Senator Murray, thank you for acknowledging the parents who
have come in from around the country--States like Washington,
Colorado, Tennessee, Minnesota, Delaware--to have their voices
amplify the concerns that we reflect in our testimony today.
Now, significantly, this year, we mark the 50th anniversary
of ESEA, which was a pillar of President Lyndon Johnson's war
on poverty. Congress recognized then and has for the past five
decades that children living and going to school in poverty,
and especially those living in concentrated poverty, need more,
not fewer resources than their more advantaged peers.
Today, we speak with one voice on behalf of all of our
children, girls and boys, students of color, students not yet
proficient in English, those who have disabilities or are
homeless or migrant, those in the criminal juvenile justice
system, and those living in foster care, living on the streets,
or living in the shadows. We speak with deep concern and
growing alarm about increasing child poverty, the persistent
low achievement of students with disabilities, and the growing
income inequality in our Nation, particularly as they are
reflected and reinforced by grotesque disparities in resources
available to high and low poverty schools.
Education is even more important today than ever before. A
high school diploma is not just enough to access the jobs of
today and tomorrow. Students now need postsecondary education
or further training after high school. We cannot ignore the
fact that State and local school financing systems have been
unfair and inadequate.
We know that money spent wisely can and will make an
enormous difference in the ability of high poverty schools to
prepare our students for college and career. We also know that
money spent on high-quality preschool is one of the best
investments we can make. That's why a group of more than 20
national organizations created a set of principles which call
on Congress to maintain and improve strong accountability
requirements of ESEA.
Our approach to accountability is straightforward and
sensible. First, ESEA must continue to require high-quality
annual statewide assessments for all students in grades three
through eight and at least once in high school that are aligned
with and measure each student's progress toward meeting the
State's college- and career-ready standards.
Next, statewide accountability systems must expect and
support all students to make enough progress every year so that
they are on track to graduate from high school, ready for
college and career. States must set annual district and school
targets for grade level achievements, high school graduation,
and closing achievement gaps for all students, including
accelerated progress for each major racial and ethnic group,
students with disabilities, English language learners, and
students from low-income families, and evaluate schools and
districts on how well they meet these targets.
Third, States and school districts need to improve data
collection and reporting to the public on student achievement
and gap closing, course completion, graduation rates, per pupil
expenditures, opportunity measures like pre-K and technology,
and school climate indicators including decreases in the use of
exclusionary discipline practices, use of police in schools,
and student referrals to law enforcement. This data must be
tabulated by all of the categories I've listed previously, but
notably disability, gender, race, and national origin.
I want to conclude by expressing very serious concerns, Mr.
Chairman, with your proposal as it is currently written. We
have great respect for you. The proposal, as we understand it
today, is detailed in our written testimony, and it needs to
be, we hope, addressed.
Now, the bill as a general matter bends over backward to
accommodate the interests of State and local government
entities that have both failed our children and avoided any
real accountability for their failures. The Federal Government
must continue to hold States and school districts accountable
for the degree to which they are improving education for all
students, especially students who have been underserved by the
system for far too long.
Congress must not pass an ESEA----
The Chairman. Mr. Henderson, you're well over your time.
Mr. Henderson. I'm over, sir. I will bring it to a
conclusion. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Henderson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Wade J. Henderson
summary
This year we mark the 50th anniversary of ESEA, which was a pillar
of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Congress recognized
then--and has for the past five decades--that children living and going
to school in poverty, and especially those living in concentrated
poverty need more, not fewer, resources than their more advantaged
peers.
Today, we speak with one voice on behalf of all our children.
Education is even more important today than ever before. A high
school diploma is just not enough to access the jobs of today and
tomorrow. Students now need postsecondary education or further training
after high school.
We cannot ignore the fact that State and local school financing
systems have been unfair and inadequate. We know that money spent
wisely can and will make an enormous difference in the ability of high-
poverty schools to prepare our students for college and career. We also
know that money spent on high-quality preschool is one of the best
investments we can make.
Outline of the civil rights principles:
High-quality annual, statewide assessments;
Statewide accountability systems; and
Improved data collection and reporting, disaggregated.
Expressing serious concerns with the Chairman's ESEA bill as it is
currently written.
There is room for improvement in the law, but our moral imperative
and global responsibility is to provide the best possible education
that we can for each and every child.
______
Good morning, Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray and members of the
committee, I am Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200
national organizations charged with the promotion and protection of the
rights of all persons in the United States. I am also the Joseph L.
Rauh, Jr. Professor of Public Interest Law at the David A. Clarke
School of Law, University of the District of Columbia. In addition, I
am a member of the board of the Educational Testing Service and
currently serve as vice chair.
Thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
We truly hope that the final update of ESEA is a bipartisan bill. The
leadership of this committee has tremendous professional experience as
educators and education leaders. We look forward to working with you
and your staffs as this process moves forward.
The civil and human rights community has always seen education and
voter participation as the twin pillars of our democracy. Together,
they help to make the promise of equality and opportunity for all a
reality in American life. We welcome the opportunity that this
important and timely hearing provides to look at the ways that we can
improve ESEA and ensure that each and every child, regardless of race,
national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability or ZIP code,
receives the best education that this great Nation can provide.
Sixty-one years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, a unanimous
Supreme Court underscored the importance at that time of equal
educational opportunity:
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of
State and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws
and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our
recognition of the importance of education to our democratic
society. It is required in the performance of our most basic
public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It
is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a
principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values,
in preparing him for later professional training, and in
helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these
days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected
to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the State has undertaken
to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all
on equal terms.\1\
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\1\ Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Since Brown, all three branches of our national government have
acted affirmatively to promote equal educational opportunity and to
eradicate racial and other forms of discrimination in schools.\2\
Significantly, the ESEA was enacted 50 years ago in 1965 and was a
pillar of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Congress
recognized then--and has for the past five decades--that children
living and going to school in poverty, and especially those living in
concentrated poverty need more, not fewer, resources than their more
advantaged peers.
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\2\ See, e.g., Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574
(1983) (``Over the past quarter of a century, every pronouncement of
this Court and myriad Acts of Congress and Executive Orders attest a
firm national policy to prohibit racial segregation and discrimination
in public education.'')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education is even more important today, and our children need more
of it to succeed in life. As President Obama, Secretary Duncan and most
of us recognize, a high school diploma is just not enough to access the
jobs of today and tomorrow. Students now need postsecondary education
or further training after high school. A reauthorized ESEA must be
based on a set of core principles for high standards, equal learning
opportunities, honest measurement and effective accountability. These
principles are summarized in the attached statement from more than 20
national organizations speaking for millions of children and parents/
guardians across the country who want nothing but a fair chance to
achieve the American dream. Today, we speak with one voice on behalf of
all our children--girls and boys, students of color, students not yet
proficient in English, those who have disabilities or are homeless or
migrant, those in the criminal or juvenile justice systems, and those
living in foster care, living on the streets, or living in the shadows.
We speak with deep concern about the growing income inequality in
our Nation, particularly as it is reflected and reinforced by grotesque
disparities in resources available to high- and low-poverty schools. We
cannot ignore the fact that State and local school financing systems
have been unfair and inadequate. As the Equity and Excellence
Commission Report to the Secretary of Education described, gaps in
opportunities and outcomes start long before children enter the
schoolhouse door, ``But instead of getting deadly serious about
remedying that fact--by making sure such students are in high-quality
early childhood and pre-K programs, attend schools staffed with
teachers and leaders who have the skills and knowledge to help each
student reach high standards, get after-school counseling or tutorial
assistance or the eyeglasses they need to see the smart board--the
current American system exacerbates the problem by giving these
children less of everything that makes a difference in education.'' \3\
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\3\ Commission on Equity and Excellence, U.S. Department of
Education, For Each and Every Child--A Strategy for Education Equity
and Excellence, Washington, DC, 2013, available at http://www2.ed.gov/
about/bdscomm/list/eec/equity-excellence-commission-report.pdf.
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We speak with growing alarm about the persistent low achievement of
students with disabilities--across all student subgroups and
demographic categories--who will face alarming rates of poverty,
unemployment, underemployment, incarceration, and institutionalization
if we do not honor our commitments under the IDEA, the ADA, Section
504, and ESEA to provide educational opportunities and services that
allow them to reach their full potential.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we must speak truth to the fact that even as
the Nation continues to recover from the recession, child poverty has
persisted and is actually increasing. As the Southern Education
Foundation recently reported, for the first time, the majority of
students in the Nation's public schools are growing up in low-income
families.\4\ More of our students are students of color, more of them
are just beginning to learn English, and many enter school with a
significant word deficit.
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\4\ http://www.southerneducation.org/Our-Strategies/Research-and-
Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-New-
Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now.
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These demographic realities have vast implications for this
committee's challenge to rewrite ESEA. Title I used to be seen as a way
to add time and services for a minority of students, those from poor
families needing remedial help with basic skills. With the exception of
dead-end, low-paying jobs, our modern labor market is increasingly
inhospitable to those who come with only basic literacy and math
skills. Today's good jobs demand levels of hard and soft skills,
knowledge, as well as formal education and training that go far beyond
a standard high school diploma. Increasingly, they require competence
in the STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and
mathematics--subjects that are not even taught in many schools, and are
in woefully short supply in schools with higher concentrations of
poverty.
These new data paint a stark portrait of the ``new normal'' in
public schools, on which we base our principles and recommendations. As
Steve Suitts, an author of the Southern Education Foundation's student
population studies wrote:
No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low
income students simply a matter of fairness . . . Their success
or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body
of human capital and educational potential that the Nation will
possess in the future. Without improving the educational
support that the Nation provides its low income students--
students with the largest needs and usually with the least
support--the trends of the last decade will be prologue for a
nation not at risk, but a nation in decline . . .
college and career ready standards
What is needed at the national level, first and foremost, is a
relentless focus on preparing all students for college and career. This
means requiring States participating in title I to set and maintain
academic standards for all students that are aligned with what they
will need to succeed in postsecondary education and careers that will
pay a family supporting wage.
The standards, whether the Common Core or other comparable
standards, must be implemented as well and as successfully in both
high-poverty and lower-poverty schools. It is no longer sustainable for
our Nation, or any State, to maintain dual systems of public schools--
one for the privileged and another, vastly inferior, for communities of
color and the poor. States--which under our Federal system have primary
responsibility under their own constitutions for educating their
children--must be required to meet these obligations by ensuring that
all students, regardless of ZIP code, English proficiency levels, race,
gender or disability, have an equal opportunity to meet the standards.
This must include providing early childhood education, particularly for
low-income children and those with disabilities. States must also
provide updated technology, effective and qualified teachers,
curriculum aligned with the standards, and supports and services needed
by English learners, pregnant and parenting students, and students with
disabilities. Finally, States should ensure that all schools maintain a
safe and healthy school climate with inclusionary discipline best
practices.
It is not an inappropriate intrusion on State sovereignty for
Congress to assert these urgent national interests in equity and
excellence and make these demands on States as a condition for
receiving Federal education dollars.
funding and targeting
The Federal Government must also increase and continue to target
resources to disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, including those
living in concentrated poverty, those learning English, Native
students, homeless students, and those in foster care or the juvenile
or criminal justice systems. The Federal Government should fully fund
both title I and IDEA, and it should also provide incentives for States
to address inequities in their systems of school finance. It should
also retain, improve, and fund School Improvement Grants (SIG). For
example, these grants' allowable uses, where an analysis of school
needs support these uses, should include creating magnet schools,
inter-district transfers, community schools, and expanded learning time
models. We acknowledge the prerogative of local authorities to open and
close facilities and to determine student assignments, provided they do
not run afoul of Federal non-discrimination obligations. School
closings, however, in and of themselves do not improve students'
instruction and learning. As such, they should not be permissible under
SIG, unless in connection with a plan to reassign students to schools
that will provide demonstrably better instruction and learning.
assessments
Federal investments are unlikely to result in meaningful gains
unless they are accompanied by unequivocal demands for higher
achievement, higher graduation rates, and substantial closing of
achievement gaps. Similarly, States must ensure that their school
districts and schools are able to, and in fact are, meeting academic
and high school graduation standards. This is why it is so important
that ESEA continue to include strong requirements for assessments and
accountability. In other words, public agencies, officials and
employees are all accountable for our children's and Nation's future.
Accountability is a core civil rights principle, and it is
indispensable to advancing our collective interest in providing equal
opportunity, reducing poverty, and maintaining our country's
competitiveness and national security.
The Leadership Conference and more than 20 national organizations
have called on Congress to maintain and improve strong accountability
requirements in ESEA. Our approach to accountability is straightforward
and sensible.
First, high-quality, statewide annual assessments are needed. It is
imperative that parents, teachers, school leaders, public officials,
and the public have objective and unbiased information on how their
students are performing. ESEA must continue to require annual,
statewide assessments for all students (in grades 3-8 and at least once
in high school) that are aligned with, and measure each student's
progress toward meeting, the State's college- and career-ready
standards.
Local assessments should only be used to supplement the State
assessments, but not for ESEA accountability purposes. They cannot be a
credible substitute for statewide assessments, because there is no way
to ensure comparability of local assessments across a State. Civil
rights organizations are also concerned about incentives for lowering
standards on local assessments and the added assessment burden on
classroom time.
To ensure fairness, the assessments must meet prevailing, widely
accepted professional psychometric standards and be valid and reliable
measures of student progress. They must meet other requirements now in
title I, including the requirement to disaggregate and report results.
States must continue to provide appropriate accommodations for
English learners, who should be exempt only for their first year
attending school in the United States. ELLs should also be assessed in
the language and form most likely to yield accurate information on
their knowledge and skills.
In addition, States must provide appropriate accommodations for
students with disabilities. States also must limit alternate
assessments based on alternate achievement standards only to students
with the most significant cognitive disabilities, up to 1 percent of
all students; terminate assessments based on modified achievement
standards; and prohibit the use of Individualized Education Programs
(IEPs) to measure academic achievement under ESEA.
We believe that 90 percent of students with disabilities should be
taking the general assessment with or without accommodations as
appropriate. This is supported by state-reported data showing that most
students receiving special education services have reading or math
disorders, speech impairments, physical impairments, attention issues,
or emotional challenges; only a small number have the type of
intellectual disabilities that significantly impact their cognition and
ability to learn at pace with their peers. When students take the
general assessment, are taught to State standards, and provided the
supports and services they are entitled to under the law and need to
graduate with a regular diploma, a world of economic opportunity opens
for them.
You will certainly hear from those who will argue that it is
somehow acceptable to set much lower expectations for students with
disabilities, perhaps in some cases because schools have not been
provided with the staff support necessary to provide the proper
services and accommodations. It is not acceptable. In fact, it is both
unlawful and unconscionable. There is absolutely no reason to allow
schools unchecked discretion to assign students with disabilities to
the alternate assessment on alternate achievement standards because in
most States, this automatically takes students out of the general
curriculum and off track for a regular diploma. There is also evidence
that an alternate assessment may lead to increased segregation for
students with disabilities.
Finally, we all recognize that many high-poverty schools do not
have the technology in place to properly administer computer-based
assessments. We believe that, during a transition period, alternatives
to computer-based assessment should be provided to students in schools
that have not yet provided them with sufficient access to, and
experience with, the required technology.
accountability
Next, effective statewide accountability systems are needed. State
accountability systems must expect and support all students to make
enough progress every year so that they are on track to graduate from
high school ready for college and career. States must set annual
district and school targets for grade-level achievement, high school
graduation, and closing achievement gaps for all students, including
accelerated progress for subgroups (each major racial and ethnic group,
students with disabilities, English language learners, and students
from low-income families), and evaluate schools and districts on how
well they meet the targets.
States and school districts must diagnose the causes of low
achievement or graduation rates and identify barriers to improvement.
They must then employ effective remedies to eliminate these causes and
barriers and improve instruction, learning, and school climate
(including, e.g., decreases in bullying and harassment, use of
exclusionary discipline practices, use of police in schools, and
student referrals to law enforcement). Remedies for students enrolled
should be implemented in any school where the school as a whole, or any
subgroup of students, have not met the annual achievement and
graduation targets or where achievement gaps persist. The remedies must
be effective both in improving subgroup achievement and high school
graduation rates as well as in closing achievement gaps.
Third, States and school districts need to improve data collection
and reporting. Public disclosure, robust data collection and reporting
systems, and transparency are all important civil rights values. States
and LEAs must improve data collection and reporting to parents and the
public on student achievement and gap-closing, course completion,
graduation rates, school climate indicators (including decreases in use
of exclusionary discipline practices, use of police in schools, and
student referrals to law enforcement), opportunity measures (including
pre-K and technology), and per-pupil expenditures. Data must be
disaggregated by categories in Sec. 1111(b)(3)(C)(xiii) of Title I, and
cross-tabulated by gender. Data should also be further disaggregated by
English proficiency levels as well as by Asian national origin
subgroups.
Members of Congress in both houses and both parties are being
bombarded with messages from those who do not share our unwavering
insistence that this body--and every legislature and school board
across the country--do every last thing possible to level the playing
field and provide the opportunities to learn and excel that all
students, all families, and all communities deserve--and that our
Nation cannot thrive without.
You will hear countless naysayers claim that the assessment and
accountability porvisions of ESEA, enacted first in 1994 and later
strengthened with passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, have been
nothing but a failure and a burden on schools. This is simply not true.
Since the imposition of the Federal requirement for annual tests, full
public reporting, and serious accountability for the results of every
group of children, achievement among black, Latino, and low-income
students has improved. On the longest standing national examination--
the NAEP Long Term Trends Exam--these groups have improved faster than
at any time since 1980. Indeed, African-American and Latino 9-year olds
now perform as well in math as their 13-year old counterparts did in
1973.
Taking a closer look at the last 15 years, our most vulnerable
students have shown progress on a range of important measures. For
example:
Between 2000 and 2013, the percentage of the Nation's low-
income fourth graders reaching proficient or advanced levels in math
nearly quadrupled, and the percentage without even basic math skills
fell by more than half.
Gaps in reading achievement separating African-American
eighth graders from their White peers narrowed by nearly a quarter
between 1998 and 2013.
The percentage of students with learning disabilities
graduating with a regular high school diploma grew from 57 percent in
2002 to 68 percent in 2011.
The percentage of Latino students enrolling in college
immediately after high school has increased from 49 percent in 2000 to
69 percent in 2012.
These numbers represent real differences in the life trajectories
of young people. These gains are not good enough. We still have more
work to do to ensure that all young people graduate high school ready
for college and the workplace. We must remain mindful that:
Nearly half of African-American and Latino 4th graders
struggle with basic reading skills.
Just 20 percent of low-income eighth graders score
proficient or above in math.
One in four Latino ninth graders won't graduate 4 years
later. For African-American and Native students, the figure's closer to
one in three.
These priorities related to assessment and accountability are not
the only priorities of The Leadership Conference. You will be hearing
from us in the weeks ahead on other issues that are also critically
important. In the meantime, I want to highlight several urgent needs,
all related to whether efforts to improve student outcomes will succeed
or flounder.
First, no child should be afraid to go to school or be made to feel
ashamed of who he is or what she believes. Every student deserves to
attend school in a safe, inclusive environment free from bullying,
harassment and discrimination, all of which contribute to high rates of
absenteeism, dropout, depression and other adverse health consequences,
and academic underachievement. Current Federal education law lacks an
express focus on issues of bullying and harassment, and the protections
against discrimination are incomplete. We urge the committee to include
these measures in the ESEA bill:
The Safe Schools Improvement Act would require school
districts to adopt codes of conduct specifically prohibiting bullying
and harassment, including on the basis of race, color, national origin,
sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion.\5\
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\5\ http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/safe-schools-improvement-
act.
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The Student Non-Discrimination Act would prohibit public
schools from discriminating against a student on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity, expanding the list of currently
protected classes.
Second, Congress should fully fund title I. Many of the problems
Congress is trying to address--including massive resistance to change--
might have been averted if Congress had actually faithfully implemented
the law that it passed, which was supposed to raise funding title I
from $13.5 billion in 2002 to $25 billion in 2007. While title I was
fully funded in 2001, with appropriations at 100 percent of authorized
levels, by 2007, it was down to 51 percent of authorized levels. The
title I appropriation reached only $14.4 billion in 2015 and the
chairman's proposal would cap it at $14.9 billion through 2021. This
stagnation in title I funding occurred while the percentage of poor
children in public schools skyrocketed (since 2000 from 38 percent to
51 percent, according to the Southern Education Foundation report).
I would like to conclude my testimony by commenting briefly on
Senator Alexander's proposals regarding assessment and accountability
and on Senator Murray's principles for reauthorization.
We are encouraged that several provisions in Senator Alexander's
bill touch on some of the civil rights' groups core principles,
including: a focus on college-readiness, the requirement for States to
set standards, administer annual assessments (in Option 2) and
disaggregate results, and statewide accountability systems based on
State standards. Under the bill, States would be required to identify
and differentiate among schools based on student achievement, subgroup
performance, and achievement gaps. Graduation rates--4-year adjusted
cohort rate and extended-year adjusted rate--would also be included.
States and school districts would be required to assist title I schools
identified as needing academic achievement. The proposal also preserves
the 95 percent assessment participation requirement for all student
subgroups. The report cards would also include actual per pupil
expenditures.
Of course, the devil is in the details, and the bill falls short
with respect to our principles in several ways, including but not
limited to:
First, as a general matter, the bill bends over backward to
accommodate the interests of State and local government entities that
have both failed our children and avoided any real accountability for
their failures. Rather than use the power of the Federal purse and the
Equal Protection Clause to leverage better policies and performance
from the States in educating our most vulnerable children, the bill
would allow States to water down standards; to maintain grossly
inequitable and inadequate school financing schemes; to repurpose title
I dollars to serve otherwise ineligible students; and to settle for a
``nice try'' rather than real results in closing gaps in achievement
and high school graduation rates. Here are just a few examples:
The bill would eliminate the requirement for achievement,
gap-closing and graduation rate targets for subgroups of disadvantaged
students and remedies when the targets are not met.
The bill subverts the purpose of college- and career-ready
standards by, for example:
Using instead the term ``college- or career-ready''
which could easily result in low-income students and students
of color being tracked into less rigorous vocational programs
rather than providing them the skills needed to succeed in a
rigorous career training program.
Requiring that the standards align only with the
entrance requirements of one institution of higher education in
the States, rather than a more meaningful standard set by a
public university system governing board.
The bill would allow States--under political pressure from
special interests--to depart from statewide assessments, or to dilute
the results of those assessments, by using local assessments for State
accountability purposes. The bill even authorizes funds in the Federal
program intended to improve State assessments to be diverted to develop
local assessments.
The bill's options would also allow States--under
political pressure from special interests--to depart from assessing
students annually and to revert to a weaker system of ``grade span''
assessment and accountability.
The bill would codify the current regulatory option for an
alternate assessment for students with the most severe cognitive
disabilities, but fails to limit its use to 1 percent or fewer
students, thereby creating perverse incentives for schools to funnel
more challenging students into low-level academic tracks.
The bill weakens the requirement that school districts
ensure that low-income and minority students are not taught at higher
rates than other students by inexperienced or unqualified teachers, and
it eliminates the parallel requirement at the State level.
The bill would eliminate parents' right to transfer their
children from low-performing schools to successful schools and makes it
a local option.
The bill's authorization levels are completely inadequate.
Title I's authorization would be fixed at $14.9 billion for the life of
the bill--a sum that is $10 billion lower than the $25 billion
authorized for 2007, the most recent year specified in the law.
The bill eliminates ``maintenance of effort.''
The bill's ``portability'' provisions would dilute
targeting of Federal funds to the schools with the highest
concentrations of poor students and thereby compromise the ability of
these schools to improve.
The bill further hampers school improvement efforts by
eliminating rather than improving the School Improvement Grant (SIG)
program, which has directed $500 million per year to the lowest-
performing schools--usually the bottom 5 percent--for comprehensive
whole-school reform, including increased learning time and school
restructuring.
The bill's block-granting of title IV and the elimination
of vital programs--such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers,
Promise Neighborhoods, the AP program, and school counselors--will harm
children. When programs are both consolidated and cut, and they each
have legitimate purposes, the winners and losers will be determined by
who has more political influence, not what programs are best for
underserved children.
Finally, there is no proposal for a dedicated funding
stream for early childhood education programs, which are urgently
needed for young children with disabilities and those living in
poverty.
Second, at a time when we need more leadership than ever from the
national government, and when taxpayers are demanding more transparency
and results from government, the bill would allow Federal dollars to
keep flowing to States with virtually no meaningful accountability for
the spending nor effective oversight from the Secretary of Education.
For example:
The bill sets a far lower standard of review for Federal
approval of State plans than for State approval of school district
plans. Rather than place the burden on States to convincingly explain
how their plans would work, the bill would require the Secretary to
provide ``research'' demonstrating the plan would not work, along with
a hearing, before rejecting the plan.
By requiring approval within 45 days, the bill foolishly
limits the capacity of the Secretary and the Department of Education to
conduct a robust peer review of State plans and to have a process that
ensures that each State's plan meets the statute's requirements.
Scrutiny of assessments, evidence of standards, reporting on
``supplement not supplant'' provisions, etc., are all weakened under
this bill.
With respect to Senator Murray's proposals, we applaud the
commitment to early childhood education, and to making sure that when
States and districts accept Federal money, they use it to produce
academic gains for students.
The Leadership Conference and our member organizations will provide
additional comments and recommendations on the legislative proposals in
the coming weeks. We encourage the leadership and members of the
committee to continue to work across the aisle to improve our public
schools and to reauthorize ESEA. We look forward to further discussion
with you and members of the committee.
Thank you for your consideration.
Attachment
shared civil rights principles for the reauthorization of the
elementary and secondary education act--january 2015
1The United States has played a historic and critical role in
promoting educational opportunity and protecting the rights and
interests of students disadvantaged by discrimination, poverty, and
other conditions that may limit their educational attainment. For more
than five decades, Congress has consistently recognized and acted on
the need to promote fair and equal access to public schools for:
children of color; children living in poverty; children with
disabilities; homeless, foster and migrant children; children in
detention; children still learning English; Native children; and girls
as well as boys. Much progress has been made, but educational
inequality continues to quash dreams, erode our democracy, and hinder
economic growth. This Federal role must be honored and maintained in a
reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which must
ensure the following:
I. Each State adopts college- and career-ready State standards and
provides:
All students a fair and equal opportunity to meet these standards,
including:
Access to early childhood education for economically
disadvantaged children and those with disabilities (ages birth to 5
years).
Equal access to qualified and effective teachers and core
college-prep courses.
Equal access to technology including hardware, software,
and the Internet.
Safe and healthy school climate with inclusionary
discipline best practices.
Supports and services needed by English learners and
students with disabilities.
Protections for the most vulnerable children, e.g., those
in juvenile or criminal justice systems, those in child welfare
systems, pregnant/parenting students, and foster, homeless, and migrant
youth.
Annual, statewide assessments for all students (in grades 3-8 and
at least once in high school) that are aligned with, and measure each
student's progress toward meeting, the State's college- and career-
ready standards, and
Are valid and reliable measures of student progress and
meet other requirements now in Sec. 1111(b)(3) of Title I.\1\
Provide appropriate accommodations for English learners,
who should be exempt only for their first year attending school in the
United States.
Provide appropriate accommodations for students with
disabilities.
Limit alternate assessments based on alternate achievement
standards only to students with the most significant cognitive
disabilities, up to 1 percent of all students; terminate assessments
based on modified achievement standards; and prohibit the use of
Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to measure academic
achievement under ESEA.
Allow, during a transition period, alternatives to
computer-based assessment for students in schools that have not yet
provided them with sufficient access to, and experience with, the
required technology.
II. Federal dollars are targeted to historically underserved
students and schools.
Title I is used to provide extra (supplemental) resources
needed by high-poverty schools to close achievement gaps and improve
student outcomes.
States, districts and schools serving the highest-need
student populations receive more funding than others.
Targeted funding is provided to meet the needs of the most
vulnerable children including youth in juvenile and criminal justice
systems; Native American children; English learners; and foster,
homeless, and migrant students.
III. State accountability systems expect and support all students
to make enough progress every year so that they graduate from high
school ready for college and career.
States set annual district and school targets for grade-
level achievement, high school graduation, and closing achievement
gaps, for all students, including accelerated progress for subgroups
(each major racial and ethnic group, students with disabilities,
English language learners, and students from low-income families), and
rate schools and districts on how well they meet the targets.
Effective remedies to improve instruction, learning and
school climate (including, e.g., decreases in bullying and harassment,
use of exclusionary discipline practices, use of police in schools, and
student referrals to law enforcement) for students enrolled are
implemented in any school where the school as a whole, or any subgroup
of students, has not met the annual achievement and graduation targets
or where achievement gaps persist. The remedies must be effective both
in improving subgroup achievement and high school graduation rates and
in closing achievement gaps.
IV. States and districts ensure that all title I schools encourage
and promote meaningful engagement and input of all parents/guardians--
regardless of their participation or influence in school board
elections--including those who are not proficient in English, or who
have disabilities or limited education/literacy--in their children's
education and in school activities and decisionmaking. Schools
communicate and provide information and data in ways that are
accessible to all parents (e.g., written, oral, translated).
V. States and LEAs improve data collection and reporting to parents
and the public on student achievement and gap-closing, course-
completion, graduation rates, school climate indicators (including
decreases in use of exclusionary discipline practices, use of police in
schools, and student referrals to law enforcement), opportunity
measures (including pre-K and technology), and per-pupil expenditures.
Data are disaggregated by categories in Sec. 1111(b)(3)(C)(xiii) of
Title I,\2\ and cross-tabulated by gender.
VI. States implement and enforce the law. The Secretary of
Education approves plans, ensures State implementation through
oversight and enforcement, and takes action when States fail to meet
their obligations to close achievement gaps and provide equal
educational opportunity for all students.
Submitted by:
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee; American Association of University
Women; Association of University Centers on Disabilities; Children's
Defense Fund; Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates; Disability
Rights Education and Defense Fund; Easter Seals; The Education Trust;
Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network; League of United Latin
American Citizens; Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund;
NAACP; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; National Center for
Learning Disabilities; National Council of La Raza; National Disability
Rights Network; National Indian Education Association; National Urban
League; National Women's Law Center; Partners for Each and Every Child;
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center; TASH; United Negro College Fund.
Contact: Nancy Zirkin, executive vice-president, The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights, [email protected], (202)
466-3311.
Endnotes
\1\ This section includes requirements to ensure the quality,
fairness and usefulness of the statewide assessments. For example, they
must assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding; provide for
the inclusion of all students (including students with disabilities and
English language learners); be consistent with professional and
technical standards; objectively measure academic achievement,
knowledge and skills; and provide information to parents, teachers,
principals, and administrators so that they can address the specific
academic needs of students.
\2\ This section requires assessment results
``to be disaggregated within each State, local educational
agency, and school by gender, by each major racial and ethnic
group, by English proficiency status, by migrant status, by
students with disabilities as compared to nondisabled students,
and by economically disadvantaged students as compared to
students who are not economically disadvantaged.''
[Editor's Note: Due to the high cost of printing the attachment
entitled, ``Achievement and Attainment Trends (Education Trust, 2015)''
is maintained in the committee files.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Henderson.
Ms. Lee.
STATEMENT OF JIA LEE, FOURTH AND FIFTH GRADE SPECIAL EDUCATION
TEACHER, EARTH SCHOOL, NEW YORK, NY
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Chairman Alexander and Senator Murray,
for your vision and for this opportunity to offer my remarks
regarding the impact of testing and accountability on our
public school children. I am also a parent of a sixth grader,
an 11-year-old, and so I speak to you both as a public school
parent and as a teacher.
I want to provide some context that I've learned about the
current educational policies, and they are driven by business.
The use of competitive, performance-based practices have long
been assumed to motivate workers. Microsoft, Expedia, and Adobe
Systems are just some of the companies who adopted stack
ranking, the now infamous practice of applying rewards,
consequences, and rankings based on performance.
These same business advisors have informed many of our
Nation's biggest districts, including mine. In the past few
years, these businesses have abandoned this practice, because
they have proven to have disastrous effects on collaboration,
problem solving, and innovation. What was bad for business has
been disastrous for public education, a field already plagued
with recruitment and retention challenges.
I've worked in different schools. Some of them, through no
fault of their own, have become increasingly data-driven as
opposed to student-driven. I am fortunate currently to be
working in a public school that was founded on the principles
of whole child education, where we teachers collaborate to
develop curriculum and create relevant assessments. It is the
antithesis of stack ranking.
This year, our fourth and fifth graders are immersed in a
study we call Rights and Responsibilities. Students develop
questions around the origins of the United States, the
Constitution, and discuss the complex struggles and progresses
we have made as a Nation. These are 8- to 10-year-olds. My
class decided to divide themselves into groups to study three
different perspectives from the colonial era--the Native
peoples, the European colonists, and the African slaves. They
are the researchers.
My integrated co-teaching classroom consists of students
with disabilities, or I should say, all abilities, and they
work in heterogeneous groups to present their understandings
through a variety of mediums. They are learning how to learn,
developing lifelong skills: researching, analyzing information
from multiple sources, collaborating with others and sharing
what they've learned in creative and thought-provoking ways.
They are the stewards of their learning, guided by their
interests and passions.
I share this not as a best practice, but to emphasize the
importance of fostering learning environments that value a
culture of trust, diversity, and autonomy, not a focus on test
preparation. Teachers' working conditions are inextricably tied
to students' learning conditions.
When parents and educators have voiced concerns, they've
been accused of coddling. I want to challenge that assumption.
The great crime is that the focus on testing has taken valuable
resources and time away from programming, social studies, arts
and physical education, special education services, and ELL
programs.
At my school, we no longer have a librarian, and our parent
association works full-time to fund the needed arts and music
programs that are not covered by our budget any longer. We are
one of the lucky schools. What about schools where parents must
work to just survive? There is nothing more painful to watch or
be forced to be complicit with than the minimalizing that is
happening in our schools.
Teachers, students, and parents are finding themselves in a
position of whether or not to push back or leave. Who is left
to receive these tests and accompanying sanctions? Who are the
children receiving scripted curricula while losing recess,
physical education, and other enrichment programs?
Last year, over 50 percent of our parents at our school
refused to allow their children to take the New York State
Common Core assessments, what we now have known nationally as
opting out. We were not alone.
I want to remind folks that the Latin root of assessment
means to sit alongside. Until we have teachers and policymakers
sitting alongside and getting to know our students and our
classrooms in deep and meaningful ways, we cannot fully
understand the State of public education. I sit here as a sole
female, and this is a field dominated by women. No corporate-
made multiple choice test will give you that data.
Last year, I decided that I am obligated and accountable to
my students and their families, and that is why, as a teacher
of conscious, I will refuse to administer tests that reduce my
students to a single metric and will continue to take this
position until the role of standardized assessments are put in
their proper place.
We just celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. In
his letter from a Birmingham Jail, King affirms that ``one has
a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.'' He quotes St.
Augustine who said ``an unjust law is no law at all.'' As long
as education policy continues to be shaped by the interests of
corporate profiteering and not the interests of our public
school children, we will resist these unjust testing laws.
I am hopeful that we can sit alongside each other and do
the hard work of answering the questions most central to our
democracy: What is the purpose of public education in a
democratic society? How can we ensure that all children receive
an enriching and equitable education? How do we support
teachers and schools in carrying out their missions to educate
all?
I want to thank you, and I appreciate all of your coming
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lee follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jia Lee
Thank you Chairman Alexander and Senator Murray for this
opportunity to offer my remarks regarding the impact of No Child Left
Behind's testing and accountability provisions on our public school
children. I thank you for your vision and for this opportunity. I have
an 11-year-old son in sixth grade, so I speak to you as both a public
school parent and a teacher.
Business practices are informing education policy, so I would like
to start there. The use of competitive, performance based practices
have long been assumed to motivate workers. Microsoft, Expedia and
Adobe Systems are just some of the companies who adopted stack ranking,
the now infamous practice of applying rewards, consequences and
rankings based on performance. These same business advisors informed
many of our Nation's biggest school districts, including mine. In the
past few years, businesses have abandoned this practice because they
have proven to have disastrous affects on collaboration, problem
solving, and innovation. The high exodus of workers seen in these
businesses are attributed to stack ranking (Oremus, 2013). Studies,
including those sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank, find that
incentive-based practices only work for the most menial tasks that do
not require critical thinking (Ariely, et al., 2005). What was bad for
business has been disastrous for public education, a field already
plagued with recruitment and retention challenges. Educators with
valuable experience are leaving the profession in droves and enrollment
in teacher preparation programs is abysmal.
Furthermore, multiple choice, high-stakes tests have reliably
padded the profits of education corporations, draining public tax
dollars but have been unreliable in measuring the diversity of
students' capabilities and learning. The use of those same tests in
evaluating teachers is, simply put, statistically invalid. The American
Statistical Association has warned,
``The VAM scores themselves have large standard errors, even
when calculated using several years of data. These large
standard errors make rankings unstable, even under the best
scenarios for modeling.''
In New York State, the tests change every year, and the cut scores
shift. The results are norm-referenced, ensuring a stack ranking of
students with approximately 50 percent below the curve. We are playing
a dangerous game with our children's futures and public education,
cornerstones of our democracy. As a special and general education
teacher, I have seen these tests incite anxiety and can provide
numerous examples of times when students stated that all they
accomplished throughout the year meant nothing.
When parents and educators voice concerns, they have been accused
of coddling. I want to challenge that assumption. The great crime is
that the focus on testing has taken valuable resources and time away
from programming in social studies, the arts and physical education. At
my school, we no longer have a librarian and our parent association
works full time to fund needed arts programs that are not provided for
in our budget. We are one of the lucky schools. What about schools
where parents must work just to survive? I know schools that no longer
have money for basics such as soap for the bathrooms. There is nothing
more painful to watch or forced to be complicit to than the
minimalizing that is happening in our schools. Teachers, students and
parents find themselves in a position of whether or not to push back or
leave. Who is left to receive these tests and accompanying sanctions?
Who are the children receiving scripted curricula while losing recess,
physical education, music and civics lessons? It is our students from
the most marginalized communities. A current study by the Southern
Education Foundation finds that more than 50 percent of our public
school children are living in poverty, an all time high in fifty years
(Layton, 2015). Black and Latino students live disproportionately at or
below the poverty line, and it is no accident that we are faced with
the most segregated school system in history, with a disproportionate
number of school closures happening in the poorest communities--all at
the hands of using invalid metrics. It is what pushes me past my
comfort zone and to speak out.
I have worked in different schools, some of which, through no fault
of their own, have become increasingly data driven as opposed to
student driven. I am fortunate to currently work in a public school
that was founded on the principles of whole child education, where we,
the teachers, collaborate to develop curriculum and create relevant
assessments. It is the antithesis of stack ranking.
This year, our fourth- and fifth-graders are immersed in a study we
call Rights and Responsibilities. Students develop questions around the
origins of the United States, the Constitution, and discuss the complex
struggles and progress we have made as a Nation. My class decided to
divide themselves into groups to study three different perspectives
from the colonial era--the Native people, European colonists and the
African slaves. They are the researchers, using primary and secondary
sources to learn about key events, figures, and cultural and political
ideas. My integrated co-teaching class consists of students with
disabilities, or I should say, all abilities, and they work in
heterogeneous groups to present their understandings through a variety
of mediums: creating art pieces, choreographing original dance pieces,
presenting timelines, developing maps, conducting process dramas, and
giving oral reports. They are learning ``how'' to learn, developing
lifelong skills: researching, analyzing information from multiple
sources, collaborating with others and sharing what they've learned in
creative and thought-provoking ways. They are the stewards of their own
learning, guided by their interests and passions. I share this not as a
best practice but to emphasize the importance of fostering learning
environments that value a culture of trust, diversity, and teacher
autonomy not a focus on test preparation. Teachers' working conditions
are inextricably linked to students' learning conditions.
Last year, over 50 percent of the parents at our school refused to
allow their children to take the NYS Common Core aligned ELA and Math
tests and we were not alone. The Latin root of assessment is to ``sit
alongside.'' Until we have teachers and policymakers ``sitting
alongside'' and getting to know our students and our classrooms in deep
and meaningful ways, we cannot fully understand the State of public
education. No corporate made multiple-choice test will give you that
data. Last year, I decided that I am obligated and accountable to my
students and families, and that is why, as a conscientious objector, I
will not administer tests that reduce my students to a single metric
and will continue to take this position until the role of standardized
assessments are put in their proper place. Along with two other
teachers at my school, we formed Teachers of Conscience, a position
paper and call to action at local levels.
We just celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. In his
Letter From a Birmingham Jail, King affirms that ``one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws.'' He quotes St. Augustine who
said ``an unjust law is no law at all.'' As long as education policy
continues to be shaped by the interests of corporate profiteering and
not the interests of our public school children, we will resist these
unjust testing laws. It is time to abandon faulty business assumptions
in public education. We are experiencing a historic resistance to high
stakes testing. Chicago Public Schools just voted to back away from
PARCC assessments and another State joins the nine who have already
withdrawn from the assessment consortium. Let us abandon stack ranking
of our children and schools. We need future generations to explore
problems that have far more complex solutions than a multiple choice
test. Let us do the work of teaching and help us hold our State
officials accountable for delivering on funding, as promised through
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
I am hopeful that we can sit alongside each other and do the hard
work of answering the questions most central to our democracy: What is
the purpose of public education in a democratic society? How can we
ensure that all children receive an enriching and equitable education?
How do we support teachers and schools in carrying out their missions
to educate all? Thank you.
Endnotes
Ariely, D., Gneezy, G., Lowenstein, G., Mazar, N., (July 23, 2005).
``Large Stakes, Big Mistakes,'' www.bostonfed.org, Boston Federal
Reserve, Research Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision
Making, https://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2005/wp0511.pdf.
Layton, Lyndsey. (January 16, 2015). ``A majority of public school
students are living in poverty.'' Washingtonpost.com. http://
www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-
school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-
526210d665b4_story.html.
Oremus, Will, (August 23, 2013). ``The Poisonous Employee Ranking
System That Helps Explain Microsoft's Decline.'' slate.com. http://
www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/23/
stack_ranking_steve_ballmer_s_employee_
evaluation_system_and_microsoft_s.html?original_referrer=https%253A%
252
F%252Fm.facebook.com.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Lee.
Mr. Lazar.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN LAZAR, ELEVENTH GRADE U.S. HISTORY AND
ENGLISH TEACHER, HARVEST COLLEGIATE HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK, NY
Mr. Lazar. Senator Alexander, Senator Murray, and
distinguished members of this committee, it is an honor to
testify before you all today. I come as a proud National Board
certified public high school teacher. I teach at Harvest
Collegiate High School in New York City. My students, who are
listening to us now--and who I need to remind to study for
their history test tomorrow--represent the full diversity of
our city.
I'm also embarrassed to say I was a teacher who every May
until last would get up to apologize to my students. I would
tell them,
``I have done my best job to be an excellent teacher
for you up until now. For the last month of school, I'm
going to turn into a bad teacher to properly prepare
you for State Regents exams.''
We would then repeatedly write stock, formulaic essays and
practice mindless repetition of facts so that they could be
successful on their State exams. I did this because
standardized tests measure the wrong things. I did this because
the stakes for my students forced me to value 3 hours of
testing over a year of learning. I did this because the
standardized test was the only way for my students to
demonstrate their learning to the government.
Right now, the Federal incentives in education are wrong.
Because of this, too many schools are designed, in large part,
as my May was, to get students to do well on a one-time test,
whereas schools should organize themselves around student
learning.
Making the test the curriculum harms all students, but it
does the most harm to those with the lowest skills. When I
taught seniors in the Bronx, I worked with the highest
performing students to help prepare them for college. We read
philosophical works ranging from Kant to Nozick and wrote and
revised college level essays.
At the same time, I worked with the lowest performing
students who had yet to pass the State tests. With them, we did
mindless test prep. Even though I was really good at it,
getting 100 percent of those students to pass their exams in my
final year of doing it, I was doing the students no favors.
I think to this day about T., a senior who could hardly
write and struggled to read. Sure, she passed the test, but she
was still not ready for the community college work she
encountered that fall. When we focus our efforts only on
helping struggling students jump over the hurdle of mandated
exams, the learning and opportunity gap widens.
My current school, Harvest Collegiate, is a member of the
New York Performance Standards Consortium, a group of 48
schools that offer an alternative model. We use a more rigorous
assessment system than the State exams. Within Consortium
schools, high stakes assessments are not an on-demand test, but
a college level, performance-based assessment. Students
complete real and authentic disciplinary work, giving them a
significant advantage over others once they enter college.
The Consortium is widely successful, with graduation and
college success rates far exceeding the rates for all New York
City public schools. Models like the Consortium need to be able
to exist and expand within any reauthorized ESEA bill.
Now, despite its many well-known flaws, No Child Left
Behind did include some important features that should not be
abandoned. Its desegregation of student achievement data has
put a much needed spotlight on how the education of American
youth is negatively affected by economic and social inequality.
That is why I believe that a stance that is opposed to any ESEA
requirements for student assessment is misguided.
Yes, every student must count, especially our students with
the greatest needs. We can do this without testing every kid
every year. We could use grade span testing for elementary and
middle school, as we already do in high school. We could even
go a step further and use the representational sampling
technique of the NAEP, universally considered to be the gold
standard of educational assessment in the United States.
I support the position of my union, the AFT, that in
reauthorizing the ESEA, Congress should remove the high stakes
from mandated tests, limit the number of tests used for
accountability purposes, and allow schools to use more
sophisticated and useful assessment tools such as performance
assessments. To do this requires a better balance of
government's role in education with that of local
decisionmaking.
Federal and State governments need to recognize that the
best educational decisions for students are made by those who
possess the fullest and deepest understanding of their needs.
Educators' voices need to be the loudest in making the
decisions of what is tested, how students are tested, and when
students are tested.
Senators, my students, my colleagues, and I are all
encouraged and inspired that Congress is putting serious
thought into how to improve the education of all our Nation's
students. It is time to fix our broken system of testing and
accountability.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lazar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stephen Lazar
summary
Right now, the Federal incentives in education are wrong. Too many
schools are designed, in large part, to get students to do well on a
one-time test. We need to reverse that hierarchy so that schools can
organize themselves primarily to help students learn.
Our first problem is the limited tools for assessing what students
know and can do. Most federally mandated tests are one-time tests that
privilege multiple-choice questions over authentic performances of
students' knowledge and skill. Teachers learn little from these exams
that can lead to better instruction and increased learning, especially
when they are given at the end of the year. To assess what students
need to know and be able to do to be successful in college, career and
citizenship, we need more-sophisticated assessments.
But even if we can improve the tools, when the stakes of testing
are high, students do not get what they need. In all too many cases,
the test becomes the curriculum. Making the test the curriculum harms
all students, but it does the most harm to those with the lowest
skills.
Many have voiced concerns that to remove annualized testing of
every student means many students, particularly those who are poor,
black or brown, will fall through the cracks. These concerns must be
addressed. Schools need to know how we're doing, and the parents of our
students and the community at large need to know that we are
successfully educating our students. This can look very different from
current testing regimens.
My school is part of the New York Performance Standards Consortium,
a group of schools that can serve as a model for the rest of the
country and must be protected in a newly authorized ESEA. The
consortium consists of 48 schools that use a more rigorous assessment
system than the New York Regents exams and see results significantly
superior to peer schools.
Despite its many well-known flaws, No Child Left Behind did include
some important features that should not be abandoned. Its
disaggregation of student achievement data has put a much-needed
spotlight on how the education of American students is negatively
affected by economic and social inequality. That is why I believe a
stance that is opposed to any ESEA requirement for student assessment
is misguided.
To do this requires a better balance of the Federal Government's
role in education with that of local decisionmaking. The Federal
Government's role is to ensure that American students receive a high-
quality education that meets their needs. Federal and State governments
need to recognize that the best education decisions for students are
made by those who are closest to them--those who possess the fullest
and deepest understanding of their needs.
We must ensure that every student is counted. We can do this
without testing every kid, every year. Under the current law, we use
grade-span testing for high school. If grade-span testing works for
high school accountability--and I have yet to see a single proposal
that says we need to adopt annualized high-stakes testing in high
school--why isn't it good enough for elementary and middle schools?
We could even go a step further to remove the burdensome time
demands of standardized testing, which takes time away from student
learning. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
universally considered to be the ``gold standard'' of educational
assessment in the United States, does not test every student.
The fundamental purpose of testing and assessment is to inform and
improve teaching and learning, so that every student can be successful
in school. When we use testing as a high-stakes vehicle for sanctions
and punishments, we undermine that purpose and harm American education.
When standardized exams replace a rich curriculum in driving
instruction, the quality of our education suffers. It is time to fix a
broken system of testing and accountability. It is time to do so with
the inclusion of teachers' voices in the process.
______
Senator Lamar Alexander, Senator Patty Murray and distinguished
members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions, it is my honor to testify before you today on the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA),
and to share with you the perspective of a classroom teacher on how the
ESEA should address the issue of testing and assessment.
I am a proud New York City public high school teacher. Currently, I
teach both English and U.S. history to 11th-grade students at Harvest
Collegiate High School in Manhattan, a school I helped found with a
group of teachers 3 years ago. I also serve as our dean of Academic
Progress, overseeing our school's assessment system and supporting
student learning schoolwide. My students, who are listening to us now--
and who I need to remind to study for their test tomorrow--represent
the full diversity of New York City. Over 70 percent receive free or
reduced-price lunch; 75 percent are black and/or Latino; 25 percent
have special education needs; and the overwhelming majority are
immigrants or the children of immigrants.
After receiving my undergraduate degree and teacher certification
at Brown University, I began my career not far from here in Fairfax
County, VA, at Hayfield High School. I moved to New York 10 years ago
at the behest of my then fiancee, where I completed a master's degree
in African-American studies at Columbia University. I then taught for 5
years at the Bronx Lab School and a year at the Academy for Young
Writers in Brooklyn before starting Harvest Collegiate in 2012.
I am a National Board Certified teacher who was twice elected by my
colleagues to serve as their union chapter leader. I have helped lead
the development of local performance assessments in New York City to be
used for teacher evaluation, developed prototype tasks for the Smarter
Balanced Assessment Consortium, and am currently writing model 11-grade
United States history curriculum units for the New York State Social
Studies Toolkit. I speak to you today not only as a teacher who cares
deeply about his students, but as one who is evidence that teachers are
capable of and willing to impact the larger education world beyond our
classrooms.
Most important, however, I am a teacher who got an email from
Brandy in the middle of her freshman African-American Studies seminar
at Lehman College complaining that without me, ``there's no one around
anymore to ask me the all-annoying questions about my beliefs or
passions.'' I'm the teacher to whom Genesis wrote,
``Thank you for an amazing unforgettable 4 years. You were
the first teacher to ever be true with me and point out my
flaws. You made me realize that everything we do, whether it be
academics or decisions in life, has a greater purpose than we
intend them to have.''
To whom Robert wrote,
``I remember one time you told me that I had all the right
tools to become a strong leader. I just want you to know if
that's true, it is because you helped install those tools.''
To whom Rosio wrote,
``Many teachers at this school have cared for me, but Steve
has been the one to take time and to look after me and guide me
in the right direction since day one.''
To whom Tyree, after finally passing a State standardized test on
his fourth try wrote, ``Thank you so much. You pushed me to the top.''
I am now proud to call Tyree, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, a
colleague at Harvest Collegiate.
Despite these accomplishments, I am a teacher who every May, until
last year, would get up and apologize to my students. I would tell
them,
``I have done my best job to be an excellent teacher for you
up till now, but for the last month of school, I am going to
turn into a bad teacher to properly prepare you for State
Regents exams.''
I told my students there would be no more research, no more
discussion, no more dealing with complexity, no more developing as
writers with voice and style. Instead, they would repeatedly write
stock, formulaic essays and practice mindless repetition of facts so
that they could be successful on the State Regents exams in English and
history. Every year, I sacrificed at least a month of my students'
learning, and I'm sad to say, it worked. My students always performed
10-20 percent above city averages on the exams.
I did this because standardized tests measure the wrong things. I
did this because the stakes for my students, and more recently for me,
forced me to value 3 hours of testing over a year of learning and
development. I did this because the standardized test was the only way
for my students to demonstrate their learning to the State and Federal
Governments. My incentives were all wrong.
Ted Sizer, the Brown and Harvard professor whose book Horace's
Compromise made me decide to become a teacher 15 years ago, emphasizes
the need to get the incentives right for schools to work well. Students
need clear and relevant goals. Teachers need autonomy and
accountability for helping students progress toward those goals. Sizer
made clear that when we get the incentives right, schools flourish.
Right now though, the Federal incentives in education are wrong.
Too many schools are designed, in large part, to get students to do
well on a one-time test. We need to reverse that hierarchy so that
schools can organize themselves primarily to help students learn. I
applaud this committee for the work it has done to begin to get the
incentives right. As a teacher, I hope to offer some further insight
into the negative effects of our current system of testing, and offer
some lessons from my school and others like it about what can work
better.
Our first problem is the limited tools for assessing what students
know and can do. Because of the demands of testing every student every
year, and the psychometric demands of high-stakes assessments, most
federally mandated tests are a one-time assessment that privilege
multiple-choice questions over authentic demonstrations of students'
knowledge and skills. Teachers learn little from these exams that can
lead to better instruction and increased learning, especially when they
come at the end of the year. As I would prepare my students for the New
York State Regents exams in both English and history, I learned that a
student's score on the test could shift by 15 points in either
direction, depending on the version of the test I used and how the
student was doing on that day. For an average student, that's a range
that includes both the mastery level and failure. How a student does on
one test only really tells me how the student did on that test on that
day; to know anything of value, with validity and reliability, I need
multiple measures over time which can help me understand what my
students know and can do.
Standardized tests can only measure certain things. They work well
for basic skills, such as reading comprehension and simple
computations. However, to assess what students need to know and be able
to do to be successful in college, career and citizenship, we need
more-sophisticated assessments. Although not perfect, the Common Core,
Next Generation Science standards, and the C3 Social Studies Framework
clearly articulate the skills students need. To cite one example of
many, Common Core Writing Standard 7 demands that students ``conduct
short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question
(including a self-generated question) or solve a problem.''
This standard cannot be assessed through an on-demand test; rather,
students will actually need to perform research over extended lengths
of time and be assessed for their ability to do so.
But even if we can improve the tools, when the stakes of testing
are high, students do not get what they need. In all too many cases,
the test becomes the curriculum. A former colleague of mine who coaches
science teachers for a well-known charter school observed teachers
using the year-end test as the only motivation for students to learn
science. This is science! If the only reason students believe they need
to know science--or any subject, for that matter--is the test, America
is in trouble.
Making the test the curriculum harms all students, but it does the
most harm to those with the lowest skills. When I taught seniors in the
Bronx, I worked with the highest-performing students who had already
passed all their exams to help prepare them for the rigorous reading
and writing they would face in college. We read philosophical and
theoretical works ranging from Kant to Rawls to Nozick, and wrote and
revised college-level argumentative essays. Though the Common Core was
a far-off whisper at that point, my course far exceeded its demands,
even if all my students could not yet meet them.
At the same time, I worked with the lowest-performing students who
had yet to pass the New York State Regents. With them, I focused on
mindless repetition of the facts that make up most of the Regents, and
combined it with writing formulaic, timed essays that bore little
resemblance to any real academic, civic, or career-based writing. I was
really good at it, getting 100 percent to pass their exams in my final
year leading Regents prep.
But I was doing my students no favors. I think to this day about
T., a second-semester senior who could hardly write and struggled to
read. In ``Regents Prep Class'' I worked with her on rote memorization
rather than improving the reading, writing and thinking skills she
would need for the rest of her life. The incentives were all wrong;
sure, she passed the test, but she was still not ready for the
community college work she encountered that fall. When we focus our
efforts only on helping struggling students jump over the hurdle of
mandated exams, the learning and opportunity gap widens.
I also think about how arbitrary it is to get a passing grade on
these exams. J., a student with special needs, didn't graduate on time
because he ran out of time on the test. He was one point short on a
Regents exam, and still had an entire essay to go. Had he had time to
write just one sentence of that essay, he would have passed and
graduated. J. was ready to graduate, but because there was not one more
minute for him in June, he had to wait until August to finally succeed.
Annualized tests taken at the end of the school year do not provide
teachers and schools with the information we need to best serve our
students. We need information about what students can do on real,
authentic tasks. Can they make sense of a newspaper story, use it to
inform their views, and detect the bias within so that they can become
informed voters? Can they write a speech, so that, if 1 day they are
given the chance to testify before a city council or the U.S. Senate
HELP Committee, they are prepared to do so? Can they develop complex
questions about the world and use historical, logical and scientific
modes of analysis and research to answer them? We need actionable
information about what our students know and can do. That information
is useless to me in June: I need it early in the fall, when I am
plotting out the instruction my students will receive over the course
of the school year.
Many have voiced concerns that to remove the annualized testing of
every student means that many students, particularly those who are
poor, black or brown, will fall through the cracks. These concerns must
be addressed. Schools need to know how we're doing, and the parents of
our students and the community at large need to know that we are
successfully educating our students. In my school, we need to
constantly check to make sure all our students are learning. We need to
do this through analysis of individual learners and groups to ensure we
are providing every one of our students with the quality education that
is necessary if they are to escape poverty, establish a productive and
meaningful career, and function as active and informed citizens in our
democracy. To do this well, systems need to be built at the school and
district level.
Educators on the frontlines in America's public schools can't do
this work all on our own. To educate students with the greatest needs
well, we need resources and supports that only government can supply.
Fifty years ago, the Federal Government recognized its responsibility
in this regard and enacted the ESEA into law, providing crucial title I
funds for the education of students living in poverty. As Congress
reauthorizes the ESEA in 2015, I ask you to keep foremost in your mind
the historic equity mission of this legislation, and ensure that our
schools receive the resources and supports we need to educate all of
our students well.
At my current school, Harvest Collegiate, we serve students who are
representative of the New York City public school population. This
means our students are relatively evenly spread from being some of the
best in the country to coming to our high school at second- or third-
grade levels. We not only need to ensure that all students learn, but
also that those students who come to us with lagging skills and
knowledge are accelerated toward our high standards, even when they
begin far from those standards. We do this through quarterly
performance assessments, and we invest heavily in the time necessary to
analyze the data, and for teachers to use it to inform future planning,
intervention and differentiation. This system has helped us ensure
that, on average, students make more than a year of growth in the core
disciplinary skills and habits of mind we assess. It has also kept us
honest as we have real, timely information about which individual
students, and which groups of students, are learning less than those
around them. With this information, we can reprioritize resources,
professional development, and lesson plans to better meet the needs of
all students, particularly those with special education needs. This
system works well because Harvest Collegiate is a collaborative school
with a strong ethos of trust and community, and is part of New York
City's PROSE schools, with freedom from some departmental and
contractual regulations in order to adopt educational innovations.
Our formative assessment system is in large part possible because
of our membership in the New York Performance Standards Consortium, a
group of schools that can serve as a model for the rest of the country
and must be protected in a newly authorized ESEA. The consortium
consists of 48 schools that use a more rigorous assessment system than
the Regents exams. Within the consortium, high-stakes assessments are
not a one-shot, on-demand test, but a graduation-level performance-
based assessment test, or PBAT. To graduate, consortium students
complete PBATs in all four core disciplines, in addition to still
taking the New York State English Regents. This is the work that is
real and authentic to a discipline, and mirrors college work, giving
consortium students a significant advantage over others once they enter
college. Students write an analytical essay on a piece of literature
for English, an argumentative social studies research paper, conduct or
extend a science experiment, and demonstrate problem-solving at higher
levels of mathematics. In all areas, students are also required to
defend their work orally as well as through written products. These
PBATs are evaluated by at least two teachers at the students' school as
well as an outside evaluator to ensure the reliability and validity of
the process.
As opposed to top-down standardized assessments that threaten
teacher morale and professionalism, the consortium uses a bottom-up
system, which develops teachers' professionalism and commitment to
students. Teachers develop specific tasks that arise from the overlap
between the curriculum and student interests. We are supported in this
work through extensive professional development at our school, which is
primarily teacher run. It should be no surprise then that the teacher
turnover rate for teachers with less than 5 years experience at
consortium schools is only 15 percent, compared with 26 percent at
charter high schools and 58 percent across all New York City high
schools. These results are in spite of the fact that consortium
teachers do more work and bear more responsibility than conventional
teachers. We design more challenging curriculum and tasks for students.
Right now, my students are sharing oral histories that they conducted
of immigrants to the United States and comparing those with the
experiences of immigrants throughout U.S. history, which they have
researched. We collaborate with our peers, both in our school and
across the consortium, far more than most other teachers. We also serve
as external evaluators to ensure other schools maintain our high
standards for students, and evaluate other schools' assignments and
work at our annual moderation study. This is the combination of
autonomy and accountability that Sizer called for, which allows us to
recruit and retain teachers of extraordinary quality for our students.
This leads to better results for students. The consortium
graduation rate exceeds that of the overall New York City public
schools. And a study conducted by Dr. Martha Foote (``Keeping
Accountability Systems Accountable,'' Phi Beta Kappan, January 2007)
shows that he consortium has ``a proven record of producing graduates
who go on to successful undergraduate careers.'' Eighty-five percent of
consortium graduates attended colleges rated competitive or better
according to Barron's Profiles of American Colleges and persisted in
college at rates higher than the national average. All this was
accomplished despite the fact that the consortium schools' pool of
students include more students living at the poverty level, a higher
percentage of Latinos and English language learners, and a higher
percentage of students with lower English and math skills than the
overall NYC public high school population.
While consortium graduation rates exceed NYC averages across the
board, the difference is most staggering for the most-challenged
populations: In consortium schools, the graduation rate for English
language learners is 69.5 percent, compared with 39.7 percent citywide;
the rate for students with special education needs is 50 percent, more
than double the 24.7 percent citywide rate. Moreover, graduates of
consortium schools are better prepared for college than their peers.
For the cohort of 2008, the consortium's persistence rate at 4-year
colleges was 93.3 percent, compared with 74.7 percent nationally. At 2-
year colleges, consortium students persisted at a rate of 83.9 percent,
compared with 53.5 percent nationally. These results arise from only
one structural difference between our schools and others in the city:
We do real, authentic performance assessments in place of standardized
tests. Models like the consortium need to be able to exist, and thrive,
within any reauthorized ESEA bill.
Despite its many well-known flaws, No Child Left Behind did include
some important features that should not be abandoned. Its
disaggregation of student achievement data has put a much-needed
spotlight on how the education of American youth is negatively affected
by economic and social inequality. Growing economic disparity has now
left the majority of our public school students living in or near
poverty, and we clearly do not do enough to help these students
overcome the challenges that their economic condition places in the way
of successfully completing their education. Racial and class
segregation not only continue to plague American schools, but are
actually on the increase. On the whole, students attending schools with
segregated poverty and high concentrations of students of color do not
receive the same quality of education as other American youth. At a
time when education has become an increasingly important factor in a
young person's opportunities for a better future and entry into the
middle class, these stark inequalities doom far too many of our
students with the greatest need to lives of economic, social and civic
marginality. We cannot afford to turn a ``blind eye'' to that
injustice.
That is why I believe that a stance that is opposed to any ESEA
requirement for student assessment is misguided. We should be more
careful and precise, more intelligent in our approach. We need to track
how well our schools are serving our students with the greatest needs,
so that States and local school districts can provide the supports and
interventions struggling schools need to improve and help those
students. The current NCLB regimen of annual high-stakes standardized
exams provides only crude and inadequate measures of student
achievement. Basing high-stakes decisions about the futures of
students, teachers and schools on such limited assessments has done
great damage. I support the position of my union, the American
Federation of Teachers, that in reauthorizing ESEA, Congress should
remove the high stakes from mandated tests, limit the number of tests
used for accountability purposes, allow schools to use more
sophisticated and useful assessment tools such as performance
assessments, and schedule mandated assessments at a time that they
would provide useful and actionable information on the academic needs
of students.
To do this requires a better balance of the Federal Government's
role in education with that of local decisionmaking. The ESEA was first
enacted into law 50 years ago in an effort to address the many unmet
educational needs of students living in poverty. The Federal
Government's role is to ensure that American students receive a high-
quality education that meets their needs. It seems clear that when
setting standards and evaluating success, the Federal Government needs
to hold States, school districts and schools accountable for not
perpetuating a ``soft bigotry of low expectations.'' Federal and State
governments need to recognize that the best educational decisions for
students are made by those who are closest to them, those who possess
the fullest and deepest understanding of their needs. Educators' voices
need to be the loudest in making the decisions of what is tested, how
students are tested and when students are tested.
To assess well, we also need the support of the Federal Government
in developing and implementing new, better assessments. While the
Smarter Balanced and PARCC consortia have done excellent work to this
point in developing more meaningful assessments aligned with the Common
Core, the cost of these exams makes the already challenging political
climate even more treacherous. We need these exams to be less
expensive, and the funding to make similar assessments aligned to the
Next Generation Science standards and the C3 Framework. All of these
assessments should then be available as options for school communities
to choose, rather than being forced upon them by Federal or State
mandates.
Despite their promise, the current implementation of Common Core-
aligned tests has been extraordinarily uneven, with devastating
consequences for students in places such as my home State of New York.
Most schools, teachers and students have not been provided the supports
and resources they need to reach the higher Common Core standards, but
poorly designed and executed tests are still forced upon them with
disastrous results for students. In California and other States that
have provided the requisite supports and resources and used high-
quality assessments, implementation has been more successful. The
Federal Government should not mandate the high-stakes testing of every
student in every grade, and neither should the States. School
communities need flexibility and choice in the modes of assessment they
choose for their students. Models such as the New York Performance
Standards Consortium need to be encouraged to grow and flourish.
If we can develop a battery of better assessment tools, then the
next shift I would ask this committee to consider is a rethinking of
what is measured by assessments. Currently, students are scored in
relation to an age-based standard. We need to shift our thinking toward
a broader continuum of growth within a grade band. At my school, we get
students who as ninth-graders are stronger than I was in 12th grade,
and others who are reading at a third-grade level. Therefore, we assess
students on a continuum that can capture their growth throughout 4
years of high school. We should not be satisfied when strong students
meet age-based goals at the beginning of the year, nor should we expect
students who begin the year years away from those same goals to meet
them that year. Again, what is useful about assessments for teachers
and students is the knowledge they give us about what to do next. It
makes no sense to give a 15-year-old who reads at a third-grade level a
10th-grade exam; we know the student will fail. Not only is this
useless, but as a recent report from Columbia University's Teachers
College points out:
``for struggling students, repeatedly confronting demands for
performance they cannot reach can undermine the motivation and
confidence they must have to persist in school.''
This is the effect of regular grade-based testing.
Our current system, in which struggling students who are not
meeting standards in third grade are overwhelmingly not meeting
standards in ninth grade, does not work. It makes no sense that high
schools are expected to change the course of a student's previous 9
years of education in 4 years. NCLB actually penalizes high schools
that work with struggling students for as long as it takes for them to
meet standards and graduate: For school accountability, any student who
takes more than 4 years to graduate appears on the high school's roll
as a dropout. If our goal is truly to ensure that academic achievement
gaps are closed, then we need to offer students and schools the time to
do so. With that time, students can actually develop the skills of
problem-solving and persistence that are crucial for future success. If
we shift measurement, and therefore accountability, toward growth on
authentic tasks, then we can actually have a real conversation about
how to make that happen for all students.
While up to this point I have focused on flexibility and a shift
toward assessing student placement on a continuum, at some point we do
need standardized information about how schools and districts are
doing. My brothers and sisters at Ed Trust and in the civil rights
community are right to be concerned that students who are not tested
are not counted. We must ensure that every student is counted. We can
do this without testing every kid, every year. Under the current law,
we use grade-span testing for high school. Believe me, even though the
English test in my school isn't coming until junior year, every ninth-
and 10th-grade teacher has it on his or her mind as well. If grade-span
testing works for high school accountability--and I have yet to see a
single proposal that says we need to adopt annualized high-stakes
testing in high school--why isn't it good enough for elementary and
middle schools?
We could even go a step further to remove the burdensome time
standardized testing takes from student learning. The National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), universally considered to be
the ``gold standard'' of educational assessment in the United States,
does not test every student. Instead NAEP uses sampling, testing only a
representative cross section of students, to see how well a State or a
school district is performing. While getting school level data would
require more students than are currently tested using NAEP, it would
still be possible to use a similar representational sampling method to
get key information about districts and schools. To test every student,
every year, simply for the sake of school accountability is the very
definition of government waste. Senator Alexander, Senator Murray and
the other distinguished members of this committee, my students, my
colleagues, and I are all encouraged and inspired that Congress is
putting serious thought into how to improve the education of all of our
Nation's students. Far too much of the current political discourse
around education misses the most important part of schooling: teaching
and learning. When you make decisions about the role of testing and
assessment with the reauthorization of ESEA, I ask you to keep your
``eyes on the prize'' of how your choices will affect what takes place
in our Nation's classrooms. The fundamental purpose of testing and
assessment is to inform and improve teaching and learning, so that
every student can be successful in school. When we use testing as a
high-stakes vehicle for sanctions and punishments, we undermine that
purpose and harm American education. When standardized exams replace a
rich curriculum in driving instruction, the quality of our education
suffers. It is time to fix a broken system of testing and
accountability. It is time to do so with the inclusion of teachers'
voices in the process. Thank you for allowing me to add my voice today,
and I hope a reauthorized ESEA will formalize the inclusion of
teachers' voices across the Nation.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. This has been an
extraordinary variety of views. It's very helpful to us as
Senators, and I thank Senator Murray and the staffs for working
to have us presented with those different points of views.
Thank you, all of you. You get an A for sticking to 5
minutes. I thank you for that, and I hope we'll see the
Senators do as well, as our time comes.
I will begin a period of questions. I'll take my 5 minutes,
and then Senator Murray, and then after that, Senator Collins,
Senator Warren, Senator Roberts, and Senator Bennet will be the
first four, and we'll go based on first arrival. We will
conclude the hearing by noon.
Let me start with you, Dr. West. You seem to be saying
this--see if I've got it right--keep the tests, maybe make them
more flexible; keep the disaggregation of the results; keep the
accountability system but let the States create the
accountability system. Have I got that about right?
Mr. West. That's about right. In my view, there's a clear
Federal role to play----
The Chairman. Keep thinking about your answer and let me go
to something else. Just to frame the question, we're talking
about testing and accountability, and sometimes that gets off
into educationese, and I have to refresh myself every 15
minutes about it even though I've been fooling with it for
years.
The Federal Government, under No Child Left Behind,
requires 17 annual standardized tests. Am I right about that?
Mr. West. That's correct.
The Chairman. Seven tests in math, seven in reading once
each year in grades three through eight and once in high
school. Then three tests in science, once in grades three
through five, once in grades six through nine, and once in high
school. These are 17 tests that must be used by law as the
primary means of determining the yearly academic performance of
the State and each school district and school in the State.
But those aren't the only tests that kids take, and I think
that's one spotlight we ought to put on today. I'd like for you
to think about that--and other members--in answer to the
question. For example, the Excellence in Education Foundation
in Florida reported that in Florida, in addition to the 17
Federal tests, there are between 8 and 200 tests administered
in schools each year on top of those tests. Those are
administered by the State government and required by local
government.
In Lee County, FL, which is Fort Myers, there were 183
State and local tests in addition to the 17 Federal tests, and
when this report put the spotlight on the Lee County tests,
they said, ``Oh, well, maybe that's too many tests,'' and
they've started giving fewer tests.
As we're talking about too many tests and what kind of
tests, but certainly too many tests, I think I'd like to have
your thoughts about whether the culprit is the Federal 17 tests
or whether it's all the State and local tests. Or is it because
of the high stakes in the Federal 17 tests that's causing the
State and local governments to create so many local tests?
I think the most difficult issue we have to figure out is
this testing and accountability issue. I mean, testing--goals,
standards, tests, and then the accountability is really--what
are the consequences? What is the definition of success on the
tests? What is the definition of failure, and what are the
consequences of failure?
Really, the debate is who decides that. Do we decide that
here, or do States decide that there? I think I hear you saying
Washington should keep those 17 tests and the disaggregation,
but States should design the accountability systems.
Mr. West. That is, in fact, an accurate summary of my
recommendation. As I said, we don't have great data on the
amount of testing that's going on for various purposes
everywhere around the Nation. The studies that have been
conducted, like the one you referenced in the State of Florida,
do suggest that the bulk of testing time is not devoted to the
17 federally mandated exams.
That being said, I do think a lot of those tests are
adopted by schools in an attempt to prepare themselves for the
federally mandated annual exams precisely because those exams
carry so much weight with respect to how their schools are
going to be treated by the accountability system. That
accountability system sets up unrealistic expectations with
respect to student achievement. Those expectations are most
challenging for schools that serve students that face a lot of
disadvantage outside of school.
The Chairman. Let me go on to Mr. Leather or Mr. Boasberg
in my few remaining seconds.
Does New Hampshire and Colorado require a lot of extra
tests in addition to the 17 Federal tests? Or do you and your
local school district require a lot of extra tests as a result
of the 17 Federal tests?
Mr. Leather. In New Hampshire, we just require the basic
Federal expectation of the 17 tests, plus we have alternative
assessments for students with disabilities as well as students
who are English language learners. That's what we do.
The Chairman. Mr. Boasberg.
Mr. Boasberg. We as a State have adopted certain other
tests in Colorado, and I and other superintendents in the State
are urging that the State not require those additional tests
beyond, again, annual testing in third through tenth grade in
literacy and math plus the science tests.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Murray.
Senator Murray. Mr. Henderson, since No Child Left Behind
passed back in 2001, we have seen achievement gaps narrow for
black and Latino students in both reading and math, according
to the NAEP long-term trend data, and the dropout rate for
those students has been cut in half. I wanted you to talk a
little bit about what you saw as the role that the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act's assessment and accountability
provisions played in narrowing those achievement gaps and
increasing graduation rates.
Mr. Henderson. It's a very important question, Senator
Murray. Thanks for asking it. We have seen that the Federal
Government's mandated requirements under ESEA, under No Child
Left Behind, indeed, have helped to push greater accountability
on the part of State systems to address the particular needs of
poor students and often students of color, students with
disabilities.
In the absence of those standards, we fear that there will
be a rollback of requirements that are otherwise producing the
positive results that you have identified. We have seen, for
example, in the States that were given waivers under the
previous law that, in many instances, those waivers have
allowed those State systems to avoid the kind of meaningful
accountability that actually drives the kind of change that
you've talked about.
Senator Alexander, you mentioned, of course, the
proliferation of tests at the State and local level, and that
may well be true. I think the Federal requirements that are in
place have been so important in producing the kind of high-
school and career-ready graduation rates that are really
important.
I started school when Brown v. Board of Education was first
decided. I can assure you that here in Washington, DC, there
was a tremendous absence of the kind of consistent standards
that helped to produce the kind of change that we have seen and
that Senator Murray has cited. In the absence of ESEA
standards, I am convinced that there will be the use of title I
funds for students who do not otherwise qualify and a step back
from the Federal Government's commitment to ensure the positive
results that Senator Murray cited. It makes a difference.
Senator Murray. Mr. Henderson, what improvements would you
recommend as we reauthorize to make progress, to close that
achievement gap?
Mr. Henderson. Certainly, I think that you have many
schools that lack the kind of financial equity and commitment
to students that either their State constitution requires or
their common sense for purposes of producing positive results
would require. I cite Senator Roberts' Kansas, which now has a
Supreme Court decision, of course, indicating that the State's
funding of its schools is unconstitutional by Kansas' own
constitutional requirement, and the result has been a
significant lack of compliance on the part of the State and its
ability to educate its students.
Senator Casey, I've seen the same thing in Pennsylvania,
where the failure of the previous Governor to invest in
resources to address the problem, the shortcoming in funding of
schools, has been significant. In my judgment, these standards
help to drive the kind of investments that States must make in
their educational system to ensure that their students do meet
the challenges of today and prepare to meet the challenges of
tomorrow.
What I would hope is that there would be restrictions on
the casual use of title I funding for students who are not
eligible for title I and to require that those funds be used
precisely for what they were intended, and that is to help the
poorest of students.
Senator Murray. Thank you.
Mr. Lazar, you mentioned that your classroom, that is
apparently watching you, is very diverse in terms of their
backgrounds and learning styles and performances. How do high-
quality assessments help you cater to your students' unique
needs?
Mr. Lazar. At my school, we've designed a fairly robust
assessment system to use to help us get better. We designed
tasks that are accessible to a range of learners but that allow
a range of performances. This includes something like when we
were studying the Declaration of Independence earlier. I gave
students adapted readings from two historians that would be
accessible reading to all students, and then they had to write
an argument about what the Declaration of Independence really
means.
That's a task that even somebody reading on a fourth grade
level can say something intelligent about. My students who are
doing better work now than I did, even a few years into
college, are able to approach that task in a really
sophisticated way. The key thing is how we use that
information. We use that to inform what happens in our
classrooms. We use that to inform how we professionally develop
our teachers. Then we judge ourselves based on how students are
doing in similar tasks later in the year.
We're measuring growth so that we're not just happy with
some kids making progress. We're looking at all of our
students, even the ones who are doing amazingly well, and
ensuring that we are continuing to push them, as well as the
students who are struggling.
Senator Murray. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Collins.
Statement of Senator Collins
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Mr.
Chairman and Ranking Member Senator Murray, let me tell you
what a pleasure it is to return to this committee after an
absence of many years. Some people would say that I was here
when we crafted No Child Left Behind, but remember I was very
young then.
[Laughter.]
In 2005, former Senator Olympia Snowe and I, in response to
a lot of concerns about the law, put together an NCLB task
force to evaluate the impact of the law in Maine. We had
parents, teachers, educational specialists, superintendents,
school board members, so it was really a broad group.
The task force identified several unintended consequences
of the law's requirement for annual tests. They included
increased test anxiety for students, loss of teaching time,
misinterpretation of the meaning of schools classified as
failing when they didn't make adequate progress, and the
scapegoating of certain subgroups like special education
students and English language learner populations.
Our task force concluded that States needed greater
flexibility, and they recommended allowing States to measure
student progress over grade spans, which has been mentioned by
some of our witnesses today, and to track student growth over
time. As we know, the current law measures schools grade by
grade, essentially comparing this year's fourth graders with
last year's fourth graders.
The approach that was recommended by our task force, known
as grade span testing, essentially is looking at the same
students and seeing whether they have progressed, which
intrigues me. Before the No Child Left Behind law was passed,
that was the approach used in Maine, and it allowed Maine to
track the progress of individual students and gave teachers
greater flexibility.
My question to each of you--and some of you have touched on
this--is do you believe that giving States the flexibility to
choose grade span testing, which is used now for science, would
help resolve the concerns about over-testing that have been
expressed? Or would the result be that we decrease
accountability? If I could, I'll just start and go straight
across with Dr. West.
Mr. West. I actually think it would be very difficult under
a grade span testing regime to develop a fair system of
accountability because, actually, with grade span testing, it
becomes more difficult to look at the progress that individual
students make over time. You're looking at their performance at
a single point in time, at the end point of their time in a
given grade, you know, configuration, elementary, middle, or
high school.
At that point, you are focused on the level at which
they're performing, which, as I said, is heavily driven by
influences of factors outside of the school's control. Those
types of systems end up having a punishing effect on schools
serving low performing students and yielding very inaccurate
information about the school's effectiveness.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Leather.
Mr. Leather. I would add that we really need consistency.
We need to make sure that every student and every parent
receives annual information on how their child is performing
academically. We do not want to go back to a system where
parents really have to guess on the off year how their student
is doing--are they meeting academic and other goals--and
whether their school is working to improve outcomes for all
students.
I would point you to some of the research that shows that
if a year of ineffective learning occurs for a student--and
there's lots of reasons why that could happen--the student
falls behind, and their growth is really impeded in successive
years. I think the more we keep track of how students are
doing, the better off those students are going to be and the
better off their parents are going to be in terms of their
expectations.
Mr. Boasberg. Thank you, and I would echo Professor West's
comments and agree with you, Senator, on your basic premise on
the importance of growth, the importance of measuring the same
students as they grow from one year to the next, because that
is what's most relevant. It's not how this year's fourth
graders did against last year's fourth graders. It's how did
those students do from one year to the next.
You do need annual measurements in order to be able to see
that growth from one year to the other, because to measure
someone on how they did in fifth grade and then see again how
they did in eighth grade, there is so much that intervenes to
make that less worthwhile. That's equally important for high
achieving kids as it is for low achieving kids.
If you're the parent of a kid who is a year ahead of grade
level, you don't just want to be told, ``Oh, that kid's at
standard.'' That means that kid might have lost an entire year
of learning. You want to see how much growth did that high
achieving student make.
Likewise, with a low achieving student, those students need
to catch up. And just to say, ``Oh, they're still not at
standard''--you want to know how much they have grown, how
close have they gotten, are they on a trajectory, hopefully,
within a short period of time, to get back on full track to be
ready to graduate prepared for postsecondary. We do think
without annual measurements, you simply can't measure growth in
a meaningful way.
Senator Collins. Mr. Chairman, I note that I'm over my
time. Could I have the rest respond for the record, if you
want?
The Chairman. Yes, and let me give two answers to that. One
is I appreciate you saying that, because if every Senator uses
4\1/2\ minutes and then says, ``Now, what do you all think?''
we'll be here all afternoon.
[Laughter.]
It's been done before, right? We do want to know what you
think. So, yes, please send us your thoughts.
But I'd like to invite the other three witnesses--can you
give a succinct answer and then supplement it later?
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Henderson. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'll be very brief.
I associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues who have
already spoken about the importance of annual assessments as a
way of determining progress. I would also mention there are
collateral factors that affect the performance of students that
we haven't talked about. Obviously, poverty is a huge issue for
students who come to school under those circumstances.
We also have teachers who have misaligned with their
ability to really impart education. We need teachers who are
well-trained to go to schools that most need their services and
assistance. There are other factors that, obviously, affect
student performance, including school discipline that often
runs amuck in terms of the interests of students. I'd like to
amplify that, and I will submit additional comments.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Henderson.
Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Yes. This is assuming that these tests are able to
measure what they purport to measure. I want to argue that
teachers assess every day in multiple ways, and these
standardized assessments that you speak of can only measure
right or wrong type of questions, and the kinds of answers that
we want our students to be able to solve are much more complex.
To be able to quantify it, I think, is difficult.
Another point is that in New York State, at least, these
tests have changed from year to year. The cut scores have
changed from year to year, which makes them flawed and invalid.
I just wanted to put that out there.
The Chairman. Mr. Lazar.
Mr. Lazar. Senator Collins, I agree. What we do need to be
focused on is growth, and not growth as to where this kid is in
relation to where fourth graders are supposed to be, but where
the student is compared to where they were. The thing I want us
to be careful about is that it's the learning driving the
assessment instead of the accountability driving the
assessment.
I think we do need to assess regularly. Like Ms. Lee said,
we assess our kids every day. I do think parents need
information about how schools are doing year to year. I don't
think the Federal or State government needs accountability
attached to yearly tests. I think those should be used to
inform practice, and if we do need to have Federal and State
accountability based on some sort of assessment, let's have
that be as small and as little intrusion into real learning as
possible.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Warren.
Statement of Senator Warren
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'm looking
forward to working with you and Ranking Member Murray on this
committee this year.
The Federal Government provides billions of dollars every
year to the States to support public education, and it's a lot
of money. We should start with accountability, the
accountability of the States that take this money. If the
States are going to get Federal tax dollars to improve public
education systems, then we need to make sure that those dollars
are not being wasted, but that they're actually being used to
improve education.
One of the reasons that Republicans and Democrats came
together to pass No Child Left Behind in the first place was
because the Federal Government had gotten really good at
shoveling tax dollars out the door but not very good at
improving student achievement.
There are a lot of problems with No Child Left Behind.
According to the most recent National Assessment of Education
Progress, over the past 12 years, both reading and math
performance across the country has risen for all groups of
students, poor children, wealthy children, urban children,
rural children, minority children. They are all doing better.
While we all agree that there need to be changes here, we need
some basic accountability on the part of the States to make
sure that these billions of dollars in tax money are actually
buying us a better education for our children.
Mr. Boasberg, you've reviewed the Republican draft proposal
for reforming No Child Left Behind. Are you confident that the
Republican draft proposal would ensure that the States who take
the Federal dollars will be held accountable for improving
student achievement?
Mr. Boasberg. Thank you, and without speaking to details in
the draft--that's obviously your prerogative--I do agree both
as a taxpayer and as an educator that accountability is
important, very important, and, again, accountability not in
the blaming or punishment sense, but accountability in the
sense of needing to make change, that when schools are failing
and where kids aren't making the progress they need to, where
they aren't graduating, there has to be accountability to make
change.
That change is very difficult. It's politically
controversial. It's messy. It's sensitive. There's resistance
to it. It's essential that change happens to close our
achievement gaps and to give our kids who have been
disadvantaged the opportunities that they deserve. I do believe
that accountability is very important.
Our system in Denver absolutely looks at student growth. It
looks at disaggregated data. It also looks at important things
like graduation rates, remediation rates in college, parent
satisfaction--multiple measures. Some people have spoken on
this panel about the importance of multiple measures that I
agree with. But at the bottom, we do need to be accountable
when kids aren't learning to make change.
Senator Warren. As I read the Republican draft proposal,
all a State would have to do to get Federal dollars is submit a
plan with a bunch of promises with no proof that the promises
are ever kept. The Department of Education would lose any
meaningful tools to make sure that the States actually follow
through on this.
Mr. Henderson, you've worked hard to make sure that those
children who face the greatest hurdles have real educational
opportunities. Do you see anything in this proposal that would
make sure that the States who take this money actually end up
helping the kids who need it most?
Mr. Henderson. Senator Warren, unfortunately, I do not. I
think the bill now would allow--this draft would allow the
States to repurpose title I funding to serve otherwise
ineligible students and without any measureable accountability
to ensure that students who are most in need get the support
and resources they most deserve.
Interestingly enough, your point about taxpayer
accountability was just reinforced within the last several days
by the George W. Bush Institute which issued a report under the
authorship of Margaret Spellings that talks about the
importance of annual accountability for purposes of ensuring
that dollars and tax dollars, indeed, are well spent.
From the standpoint of those who are concerned about the
services provided, we think when you allow States to weaken
standards--and we have seen, again, how States have used
waivers to, in effect, create a de facto weakening of
standards--we are deeply concerned that the interests of every
student--but the students we most represent--will not be
adequately serviced.
Senator Warren. I understand the need for flexibility, but
if the only principle here is that the States can do whatever
they want, then they should raise their own taxes to pay for
it. Throwing billions of Federal dollars at the States with no
accountability for the States for how they spend taxpayer money
is not what we were sent here to do.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Warren.
I didn't welcome Senator Collins to the committee, which I
should. We're delighted to have her back. She and Senator
Cassidy are the only two new members of the committee this
year. And you're not really new, as you mentioned.
Senator Roberts.
Statement of Senator Roberts
Senator Roberts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No. 1, I would
observe that we have flipped the seating arrangement here as a
brand new start. The lights are a little brighter. The heat is
a little warmer. You can see what the majority used to enjoy.
[Laughter.]
But, basically, I observe that the minority is to your
right, which is a little bit confusing, and we, sir, are to
your left, which is seldom. At any rate, I just thought I'd
make that observation.
I'd like to concentrate on the teachers, Jia Lee and
Stephen Lazar. Thank you for your statements on behalf of
teachers. Some years ago, way before Senator Collins, I was a
teacher for 3 years. I worried about standard deviation. I had
a principal who insisted in doing that. We finally had
meaningful dialog, and I was free from that effort.
I have no idea how I could have done what you are doing
right now with teaching X number of months the way you want to
teach and seeing results, and then 1 month being, quote, ``a
dumb teacher.'' I think it was Jia who pointed out the mindless
test preparation, et cetera. Thank you for your viewpoint.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on testing
and accountability. I'm pleased we're looking into this issue.
I want to let everybody know--the witnesses--and thank you all
for coming--this is a working draft. This isn't set in stone.
That's why we have you here. It isn't a Republican view or a
Democrat view. It is a bipartisan view, and it is a working
draft. I think that should be emphasized.
I am concerned about the recent administration efforts to
sidestep Congress on our congressional intent. There are a lot
of strings attached to waivers to States. The waivers are not a
waiver. They're only granted to States that agree to implement
a preferred education process.
Now, Kansas has created a statewide commission. By the way,
our Governor and our State legislature will handle that issue
with the courts. They have before. I'm sure they'll do it
again. That, I think, was brought up by Mr. Henderson.
But, at any rate, we created a statewide commission to
develop and implement teacher and principal evaluations. It has
been a comprehensive state-led approach to design a robust
evaluation system. The Department of Education, I believe, is
going beyond the statute in issuing conditioned waivers to
force State adoption of policies.
Back in August of last year, Kansas agreed to the
Department of Education's prescriptive requirements. They were
informed that their ESEA flexibility request was fully
approved, and they would no longer be labeled a high-risk
status. I think that's a pattern we've seen nationwide, and
it's clear to me that the administration has tried to coerce
States to implement something called Common Core.
I introduced the Local Level Act to explicitly prohibit the
Federal Government's role and involvement in that. My
legislation would strictly forbid the Federal Government from
intervening in a State's education standards and curriculum and
assessments with the use of incentives, mandates, grants,
waivers, or any form of manipulation.
I appreciate the chairman's Every Child Ready for College
and Career Act draft. It is going in the right direction, I
believe, in reducing the Federal footprint but still providing
accountability. I look forward to continuing to work with the
chairman to, hopefully, include my language in the final draft.
I just don't think Washington has any business dictating to
States and school districts what is best for the students that
they serve. My main objective for renewing and improving ESEA
is to make commonsense changes to simplify the law and make it
more flexible for States without sacrificing any
accountability.
The question I have, basically, is does continued reliance
on annual testing best strike the right balance? Or what is the
most effective pared back version of accountability that still
ensures a quality education for all, as well as fiscal
stewardship?
Now, I've done exactly what the chairman said I would do,
talk for 4 minutes and now 42 seconds. I'd like to ask Jia and
Stephen if they would address that question.
Stephen--or Jia, you go first.
Ms. Lee. Sure. I definitely see the role of assessments at
a larger level, but reviewing not at the State level. I do feel
that the Federal role--in addressing Senator Warren's
concerns--is to ensure that States are using tax dollars
appropriately for public education. It hasn't happened in our
State. Our State has not been held accountable to those Federal
tax dollars.
But what I do feel is that there needs to be a balance of
communication. If you were to ask me what my vision is, it's to
create alongside educators, alongside district administrators,
a system of communication that involves much more comprehensive
assessments and ways of communicating information besides a
single metric that can be very flawed. I just wanted to put
that out.
Senator Roberts. Mr. Chairman, could I ask Stephen to
summarize in 20 seconds or something like that?
Mr. Lazar. I'll try to do less. We need better and more
diverse assessments that are used primarily to help schools and
teachers adopt and plan. We need to remove high stakes from
those assessments. We then need to limit accountability through
the use of grade span or representational sampling.
Senator Roberts. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Lazar gets the award for succinctness
today.
Senator Bennet will be next, and then Senator Scott, if he
is here, Senator Franken--well, let's just go to Senator Bennet
and then we'll see who's here after that.
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that wasn't
as reluctant as it sounded.
The Chairman. No.
[Laughter.]
Senator Bennet. I read last week--and others on the
committee, I'm sure, did as well--that for the first time in
the country's history, a majority of our public school children
in this country are poor enough that they qualify for free and
reduced lunch. That is a shameful situation that we find
ourselves in, and when No Child Left Behind was passed, we
couldn't say that. The majority of our children weren't that
poor.
They are today, and, in my view, that's why this discussion
is so important, because the attempt of No Child Left Behind
was to create a system of accountability that disaggregated
data and showed us how kids were performing by income and also
their ethnicity, and it's demonstrated the huge achievement gap
that exists in this country.
All of us have different policy issues that we focus on. In
my mind, if you want to cure this problem of poverty in our
country, the way to do that is by making sure people can read
when they're in the first grade. That's the most important
thing that we can do.
Senator Collins made an excellent point, I thought,
earlier, which was that No Child Left Behind really asked and
answered the wrong question, which was how did this year's
fourth graders do compared to last year's fourth graders. Not
only did it ask the wrong question, an irrelevant question, if
you're a fourth grader becoming a fifth grader, but then there
was high stakes accountability tied to that. That meant that
States and local school districts and schools were responding
to the wrong question by attempting to make changes, which, in
the end, didn't do much for our kids.
The field has moved well beyond that. The people out in our
communities and across the country have moved well beyond that.
We're now asking and answering relevant questions rather than
irrelevant questions. Part of that is because of waivers that
we've been able to get.
But I wonder, Superintendent Boasberg, whether you could
describe to the committee how you've used student growth
measures to drive change in the school district. How has it
informed the district's policies with respect to choice? I
think we would benefit from understanding that, because this is
bigger than just what's happening in a single classroom
someplace. Also, could you hit the important distinction
between growth and status for the committee?
Mr. Boasberg. Thank you. I think that is the fundamental
question. The former law just used to look at the percentage of
kids that are proficient or at grade level, and as Professor
West mentioned, that's more likely to predict where kids start
than how much they're learning in school.
Where we have moved is looking at growth, which is how much
progress does a student make from 1 year to the next. Again,
that's equally important for high achieving students as it is
for low achieving students. When you just measure status, i.e.,
are they proficient or are they at grade level, you're ignoring
kids who are well above, and you're ignoring kids who are well
below because it's unlikely their status will change from 1
year to the next.
But you want to see their growth. You want to see how much
they are learning, and that's why the annual nature of
assessments are so important. We do look first and foremost at
growth, because, for example, we used to have schools where the
students were relatively high status but their growth was low,
and they coasted. They said, ``Look, X percent of our kids are
at grade level. We're going great. Congratulate us.''
But kids weren't really doing that well. They were going
into those schools doing well, and they were stagnating, or
they were slowing down. When we began to measure growth and to
disaggregate growth based on race, ethnicity, students with
disabilities, that has shown a real light on how kids were
actually doing.
Again, the important thing was not just to shine the light,
but to say, ``What are we going to do differently?'' That's
accountability. What are we going to change to see more growth?
I also think the growth data is absolutely essential for
parents as well, because parents, again, want to see how much
their student is going to grow. Now, parents, of course--I
think the first thing they should do in looking at schools is
to visit schools and visit classrooms to see if they have the
kind of teaching in those classrooms--the kind that Ms. Lee and
Mr. Lazar talked about, this wonderfully rich and deep teaching
around critical thinking.
But it's also important, again, for parents to see the
growth. We're very transparent about that, and that's
published. Particularly, when you're in a district where
parents do have choice, where you have charter schools and
district-run schools, it's extraordinarily important that the
community and parents get information about how much kids are
growing.
Again, if you have a system that just says X percent of
kids are proficient, you set up a set of essentially more
hazard, a disincentive to take kids who are lower performing,
because somehow that'll show you have X percent that are not at
standard. When you look at growth, you equally then have that
obligation and incentive to serve all kids and serve all kids
well.
Therefore, particularly in an era of choice and
accountability--for example, with charters, we have to make
decisions about which charters to authorize, which charters to
close. We've welcomed high performance charters. We've closed
more low performing charters in Denver than the rest of the
State has, combined, and that's really helped us. To encourage
our growth as a district is, again, really to focus on the
growth that schools are making from year to year and make sure
that parents have that information about their kids and their
schools.
Senator Bennet. I'm out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Burr.
Statement of Senator Burr
Senator Burr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here and sharing your knowledge and
suggestions with us. I've got to admit that Senator Warren
stimulated something in my mind, because I agree with her.
Federal tax money should be held accountable.
If we said to a State, ``OK. We're not going to take your
tax money for education. We're going to let you keep it, and
you figure out--you fund education,'' the first question I
thought of was: How many States would take us up on that? The
Federal Government gets out of my way. I get to decide how it's
done.
Really, the important question that came to my mind was:
How would they do it differently than they do it today if, in
fact, we got out of the way but we didn't penalize them
financially but we put the burden on them? I throw that out to
you just as a thought to go through.
Here's my question, and it's extremely simple. I'm going to
start at this end with Dr. West, and I'll end with Mr. Lazar,
and it's a more simplified question than what Senator Collins
asked. My kids, now adults, never tested well. It's probably
genetic.
[Laughter.]
But they didn't test well. My question is this: Is it more
important that we know what students know, or is it more
important that we know students are learning?
Dr. West.
Mr. West. It's much more important if we're trying to think
about the performance of the school system to focus on what
students are learning, because that's what schools have more of
an impact on. What students know at a given point in time is
going to be heavily influenced by genetics, as you mentioned,
perhaps, but by the family environment that they grew up in and
a whole host of factors outside of the school's control. When
we're thinking about accountability, it should be for student
learning.
Senator Burr. Mr. Leather.
Mr. Leather. It's a conundrum, I think, to try to separate
whether we need to know what a student knows versus whether
they're learning. I don't see how you could go one way or the
other. I think you need to know both. You need to know, in the
end, if a student is ready to make use of knowledge----
Senator Burr. Mr. Leather, do you only reward a student for
what they know, or do you reward a student if they're learning?
I mean, I go back to No Child Left Behind, and it hadn't rolled
out exactly like I envisioned when I worked closely with the
Bush administration. Average yearly progress--that's not
necessarily what you know. That's whether you're learning. Now,
I think this got hijacked somewhere to where everything is
about what they know. That's what the annual test is.
Mr. Boasberg.
Mr. Boasberg. Sure. Again, I think those two are pretty
linked. I think we emphasize how much students grow every year,
how much they're learning. At the same time, that's to a
standard. It's very important that our kids graduate from high
school ready for college or for career. That is a standard, and
it's a clear and articulate standard, and it's important that
we do everything to help our students and prepare our students
and to have accountability and transparency. Are we graduating
kids where they're prepared to succeed in college and in
today's knowledge-intensive economy?
Senator Burr. Mr. Henderson.
Mr. Henderson. It's an important philosophical question. It
assumes that students basically begin on an even playing field.
I mean, part of the concern I have about the way in which the
question is framed is that students who are poor, students of
color, students with disabilities, students who are not
proficient in English are often not given the resources that
they need. Only through these assessments are we able to
demonstrate that the State has failed to meet either its own
constitutional obligation under State constitutional law, or
whether they have failed to make the kind of progress that
would allow them to continue doing what they're doing without
interventions of the kind that the law now would require.
Part of the problem we have is that when States are given
the kind of deference and the kind of latitude that they have,
you see a weakening of standards. You see a failure to invest
in communities most in need. You see a reinforcement of
existing inequalities about how schools are funded. There is no
way of reaching those problems because the State has no
incentive to necessarily correct the problem other than to say,
``Yes, the business community in the State wants to have a
stronger graduating pool.''
But leaders of the State are not held accountable by the
failure to meet those standards unless the Federal Government
steps in. I think the history of how the waivers have been used
and how States have squirmed out of their responsibility
reinforces that point.
Senator Burr. Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. I want to start by saying, yes, I know
many students who are brilliant but are poor test takers, and
they go on to become brilliant people and go on to do amazing
things. The test alone does not define their value nor their
contributions to society. I want to emphasize the fact that
these tests--again, they narrowly measure. They are narrow
measurers.
I can test my students on basic skills and tell you--
quantify that information, such as multiplication facts,
spelling, things like that. When it comes to the kind of
knowledge that we're talking about, that is not easily
quantifiable because it's limitless. There has to be a better
way to assess students, to share information that goes beyond
the realm of standardized assessments.
Senator Burr. Mr. Lazar.
Mr. Lazar. My job is students learning. For my students, I
care what they know and can do. I think schools should be
accountable for students learning, but I think students need to
be held accountable for what they know and can do, which is
exactly the model we use in Consortium.
Students at the end of high school need to demonstrate
mastery on four different performance tasks. We could do a lot
better job of helping students prepare for those and truly
learning if we got rid of this notion that a kid who enters in
ninth grade needs to be done 4 years later.
Senator Burr. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Burr.
Senator Franken and then Senator Isakson.
Statement of Senator Franken
Senator Franken. I want to thank the Chairman and the
Ranking Member for this great group of witnesses and where
we're getting.
Mr. Boasberg, I think you, from Senator Bennet's
questioning, hit on this proficiency versus growth. It's a
great topic, because a sixth grade teacher who brings a kid
from a third grade level of reading to a fifth grade level of
reading is a hero. Under the proficiency measure, they're a
goat.
In Minnesota, we had a thing--you touched on this--a race
to the middle. They would focus on the kid just above
proficiency and just below proficiency to get that percentage
above proficiency, and the kid up on the top would be ignored--
and, Mr. Lazar, you hit on this--and the kid at the bottom
would be ignored.
That's why growth is so important. To me, to do growth,
you've got to measure every year. Now, I also think you should
do it in real time, all the assessments in real time. That's
why I like computer adaptive tests so the teacher can use the
results to inform their instruction.
The question in the nub, I think, that we're getting to is
what kind of assessments you're making. Because the assessments
that measure these fine little discreet skills--that's what
you're going to teach to. That creates a curriculum that is
focusing on the wrong thing. If we can create assessments that
are measuring what Ms. Lee and Mr. Lazar want to measure, then
we have the answer to our question.
What I'm saying is when I go to talk to employers in
Minnesota, they want people who can do critical thinking. They
want people who can work in teams. We have to hold schools
accountable, but we also have to make sure that they're
accountable for making citizens and people who can think
critically and really learn, and that's what everybody on this
panel wants.
Mr. Boasberg, I just want you to run with it. Anyone else
can run with what I just said.
Mr. Boasberg. Great. Thank you, Senator. I think you put it
very, very well about how important it is to care about growth
for all kids and not just kids on a cusp of a particular line--
--
Senator Franken. The thing I like about the law--it was
called No Child Left Behind. That's the thing I liked the most
about it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Boasberg. Also, I think one of the things we're very
much looking forward to is that the new generation of
assessments, which will be introduced this spring, is a much
more sophisticated set of assessments. It is much more around
complex thinking, problem solving. It's not about rote
memorization. If you're someone who's teaching rote
memorization, your kids aren't going to do well. It's about the
kinds of skills that we do care about for our universities and
for our economy.
At the same time, I think sometimes we try and create too
much--this one vessel or this once a year assessment to hold
everything. It can't. I think you want a good assessment to
measure progress in literacy and math at the level now of
sophistication and challenge that we're seeing in the
assessments that will be introduced this year, and at the same
time to welcome multiple measures--the performance-based
assessments that Mr. Lazar and Mr. Leather talked about--to be
able to judge--as Ms. Lee said, no one assessment is going to
be able to judge everything.
This isn't an either/or. To be able to have common
statewide measures, sophisticated measures, of student progress
in literacy or math is essential so you can see how kids are
doing from district to district. You can see where are the best
schools in the State working with English language learners.
If you have completely different measurements from school
to school or district to district, you can't capture best
practice. You can't truly be able to understand where the most
progress is being made.
But, again, I do think those should be short. I'd like to
keep them to no more than 4 hours a year, but then welcome
other more performance-based assessments, and all of that
should be part and parcel of what a teacher looks at, what a
school looks at, what a district should look at, and,
potentially, if a State can get to that level, what a State
looks at as well.
Senator Franken. Anybody else want to weigh in?
Mr. Lazar, just on your kind of performance criteria, don't
you agree that if you're going to hold schools accountable, you
have to have something that you can objectively look at? Can
you design a computer adaptive test, say, where you're filling
in circles? Can you design something that gets more at the kind
of thing you want to measure?
Mr. Lazar. You can. It takes more time, and it's more
expensive. I've worked on a lot of assessment development, both
at the city level--I did some work on doing prototype tasks for
Smarter Balance. It's a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of
time and a lot of expertise to design those.
I think if we were going to identify a role for the Federal
Government in education, it's to put funds and put resources
behind test development and assessment development, do a range
of them, and make them available to schools to choose. The type
of work we do in my school--we have a group of wonderful
teachers who are committed to doing it, and we've arranged the
time in our program to be able to do that in large part through
the PROSE initiative in New York City.
But what we do actually isn't something that all schools
can start doing tomorrow. If these assessments were out there
and schools could choose the ones that fit their curricular
needs, we're in good shape.
Senator Franken. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Lazar.
Senator Isakson.
Statement of Senator Isakson
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to
Ranking Member Murray for having what I think is a very
important hearing. I was listening to Michael Bennet talk a
minute ago. I happen to be one of the two remaining Members of
Congress that actually wrote No Child Left Behind. Everybody
else has gone on to bigger and better things.
We would all tell you the following. The last night when
the conference committee finished meeting and Ted Kennedy and I
and George Miller, Fred Upton, John Boehner were in the
basement of the Capitol and we signed off on the conference
committee report, we almost said in unison,
``You know, if this works, we're going to be in
trouble in 6 years, because it'll be impossible for
schools to maintain AYP because it's going to get
harder and harder and harder to do.''
If we had done a reauthorization 7 years ago, a lot of the
problems we know there are today wouldn't be going on because
we would have corrected that. That's No. 1.
No. 2, and this is not a defensive speech I'm making here,
but it is for educational purposes. Assessment was very
important, disaggregation was more important, and focusing on
the individual student was most important, and No Child Left
Behind did that. No child flew under the radar screen.
Everybody got in a disaggregated group by race or ethnicity or
language or speech or disability or whatever.
We did something--we'd always amalgamated everybody and
averaged them out and said our test of basic skills says we're
doing X. Well, that wasn't anything good for little Johnny who
couldn't read. I hate that reference, but I guess I have to use
it.
[Laughter.]
But we need little Johnny involved equally as well, too. I
have a question for Ms. Lee, or probably a little bit of a
statement.
I think you--and I didn't get to hear your testimony, and I
apologize. In the last attempt--which I commend the Chairman on
doing what he did--where we almost got there on a
reauthorization and it fell apart, I fought very hard to allow
for alternative assessment for special needs children.
To take a standard test for a disaggregated group and make
a special needs student take it, when you've got psycho
evaluations, you've got physical disabilities, you've got
cognitive disabilities, you've got connective disabilities--
it's just impossible to have a one-size-fits-all assessment.
I've always felt that the teacher was best--and the teacher and
the parent and the IEP were best to decide what kind of
assessment the child ought to have. I would like for you to
comment on that.
Ms. Lee. Yes, I completely agree. As a special education
teacher----
Senator Isakson. Everybody make note of this answer, now.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Lee. I actually started teaching the first year of
NCLB. I've seen firsthand--I actually started teaching in what
was called the high school for students who were at risk,
special education district in New York City. What I found was
that you're right. No assessment fits all, including all
students.
What I would have to do in my assessments is diversify.
Right? What I know about my students--I assess them, again, sit
alongside--Latin root--get to know them and who they are, their
abilities, set very high standards, work with the parents and
the team. It's not just me. It was related service providers.
You have experts and specialists coming in, and we work
together as a team to develop assessments to determine
students--where they were, and where we wanted--and to set
goals for them. That work has continued, and I feel as though,
again, to echo Steve Lazar, that Federal Government does have a
role in ensuring that this is made possible at the States.
Senator Isakson. One thing I learned as--I'll get to you in
just 1 second. One thing I learned as State board chairman in
Georgia is that if your testing is not aligned with your
curriculum, you're never going to get good data.
Ms. Lee. Right.
Senator Isakson. We had a big problem in NCLB, because to
align a test that we required with a curriculum that was
national would blow up in our face, because nobody wanted a
Colorado set of curriculum to apply to a Georgia student any
more than Colorado didn't want a Georgia--so what we did is we
did a random sample--NAEP--to try and assess the integrity--
whatever assessment they were using.
But I think one of the things the Federal Government could
do to help the schools out is give them the excuse that we're
making them do it, but make sure the curriculum and the
alignment of testing, whatever assessment model you use, are in
line. If you do that, then you really do find out what the
student is learning.
I know a lot of people will say, ``Well, that's teaching to
the test.'' Well, that's what education is all about. If you
teach a subject and you test what the student was taught,
that's curriculum alignment, and then you'll get a true measure
of how much they achieved.
Mr. Henderson, you wanted to speak?
Mr. Henderson. Yes, Senator. Thank you. I think mainstream
assessment means that students are more likely to have access
to mainstream curriculum, and I think one of the principles
that the communities representing students with disabilities
have said is that the only exemption in the regulation is for
students with the most severe cognitive disabilities.
One of the concerns we have is that you see frequently that
students are misclassified as having emotional disturbance
disabilities or being intellectually disabled, and those labels
frequently apply to students of color. They are then taken out
of mainstream curriculum, given, inconsistent with the
requirement of the law, access to less rigorous forms of
academic accomplishment, and the results have been disastrous
for many of those communities.
I think there is a real concern--certainly among students
with disabilities--representing persons with disabilities, that
they not be taken out needlessly from mainstream curricula
offerings. That doesn't have anything to do with the kind of
assessment that States might develop.
I completely agree with Mr. Lazar. There should be a more
sophisticated form of assessment to complement and provide the
kinds of insights that these wonderful teachers have asked for.
That is not inconsistent with a requirement of an annual
assessment that is used to really get diagnostic assessments of
how communities are doing that might otherwise be left behind
unless you have a uniform standard and application.
Senator Isakson. My time is up, but thank you both for the
response.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Isakson.
Now, we have Senator Baldwin, Senator Casey, Senator
Whitehouse, Senator Murphy, and--unless some random Republican
wanders into the room--and there should be time for all of you
to have a full 5 minutes, and we'll be close to the noon hour
when we want to conclude the hearing.
Senator Baldwin.
Statement of Senator Baldwin
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am very
grateful to you and the Ranking Member for getting us off to a
great start with a bipartisan dialog on how we can best address
the shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind law. I'm hopeful
that we can find a thoughtful path forward to fixing this law
for all students, parents, teachers, administrators, and
policymakers. We need this information, also.
This is a great panel. Thank you to the witnesses.
A well-designed standardized test is one important tool
among many that can help all of the stakeholders I just listed
understand how well individual students are doing as well as
how our Nation's schools are serving all of our Nation's
children. As such, we should know if the tests given, those
required by Federal law as well as those that are required by
State and local districts, are of high quality and aligned to
States' learning standards.
We should also have a clear idea of how much classroom time
is spent on preparing for and taking the standardized tests as
opposed to instruction. In preparation for this very debate, I
introduced the SMART Act along with Representative Suzanne
Bonamici in the House of Representatives and Senator Murray and
others here in the Senate.
The SMART Act is designed to update a specific Federal
grant program that already goes to States every year for
assessment and development and implementation. It will allow
States and districts to audit their assessment systems and
reduce unnecessary and duplicative State and local tests with
the design of freeing up more time for teaching and learning.
I think this legislation presents a commonsense approach to
help reduce unnecessary testing, which is why it has widespread
support from our Nation's largest teachers union and other
education reform groups. I'd like to turn to our panelists for
their perspectives as well.
Particularly, I'd like to ask both Dr. West and Mr.
Boasberg, because you've referenced the importance of these
sort of audits--understanding what's truly happening across the
country. Can you talk about the importance of States and
districts auditing their assessment systems and how such audits
could take place at the State and local level?
Why don't I start with you, Dr. West, and then go to Mr.
Boasberg.
Mr. West. Sure. I have not reviewed your legislative
proposal in detail.
Senator Baldwin. Just in general. Don't worry.
Mr. West. In general, I think it's absolutely critical that
State and local education officials have a good idea of the
role that testing is playing, the amount of testing, and the
quality of those tests as they try to understand how districts
are trying to improve student learning.
Senator Baldwin. Didn't you testify that that was sort of
lacking at this point, that we have----
Mr. West. Absolutely. We have very few systematic sources
of evidence on this, and there's often a lot of confusion at
the school building level, I have found in my own experience,
about what's being assessed for what purpose.
There are a lot of frustrations among teachers about a lack
of alignment between a given interim assessment program, that
is, tests that they administer to students over the course of
the year to see how they're doing--a lack of alignment between
those assessments and the schedule of the curriculum,
essentially, the district scope and sequence that they're
required to teach. If those aren't lined up, then you're
getting useless information out of the interim assessments.
There are huge potential gains from getting a better handle
on this. I think it makes sense to encourage States and
districts to do it. I would be cautious about the Federal
Government trying to say--direct States and districts to test
less. As I said, we don't know the optimal amount.
My understanding of what's going on in New Hampshire is
that as they move to a more competency-based model, they may be
testing more often, using higher quality assessments over the
course of the year. That might look bad in some audit or the
premises that we're testing too much and we need to get that
down. I would be cautious about that type of heavy-handed
approach.
Senator Baldwin. Mr. Boasberg.
Mr. Boasberg. Thank you. I think Professor West says it
very well. I do think it's important that States and districts
be very transparent about what is required. We, in our State,
have a committee that is doing just that, and that committee is
making a series of recommendations to the legislature to reduce
some of the State mandated testing that's completely--has
nothing to do with No Child Left Behind. We, as a district,
also published exactly what we do and what we don't do.
I do think there is also a balance of exactly what the
Federal Government says in terms of how much reporting, exactly
how things are reported. I think, as Mr. Lazar and Ms. Lee
said, our teachers assess our kids in some way every day. That
could be a little quiz. That could be a check for
understanding. That could be an exit ticket. That could be
daily. That could be weekly.
Boy, there's nothing that I would dread more than our
teachers in some compliance exercise having to classify and
record every single thing that could be somehow classified as
an assessment or test of student progress or student learning.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Baldwin.
Senator Casey.
Statement of Senator Casey
Senator Casey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the panel for being here today and for your
testimony, especially giving us firsthand information and
experience from the trenches where a lot of you work.
I wanted to focus on a particular question for Mr.
Henderson. I wanted to commend him and others who talked about
the broader context. This is a hearing about No Child Left
Behind and Elementary and Secondary Education. At its core,
because of what undergirds those policies and those strategies,
it's also a hearing about child poverty, and it's also a
hearing about other major challenges facing children.
Some of the numbers, just by way of a background--some of
the numbers on childhood poverty are really bone chilling.
There's a report from about a year ago--and I'm sure they'll
update it this January or soon--from the OECD, the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development. They ranked the top
20 countries on a whole range of areas. One of them is on child
poverty.
Of the top 20 in the world, we are fifth from the worst.
Our child poverty rate--this is a 2010 number--it'll be
updated--21.2 percent of children in the United States of
America live in poverty. We are just a little better than Spain
and Italy, and we're not too far off from Mexico and Turkey by
way of example.
If you update it, the Annie Casey--no relation to me--the
great organization that tracks data on children--Annie Casey
Foundation says that that childhood poverty number in 2012 was
even higher. It goes to 23 percent. It puts us ahead of Chile.
By that ranking, we're fourth from the worst, not fifth.
When you look at that data, and you look at some of the
data on progress that's been made--and some of it can be
attributed to Federal policy--but when you step back and look
at all these issues, what we have not done for our kids is
really a national, and I would say, bipartisan failure.
After World War II, we had the GI bill. That was a good
idea. We did a lot of things that were smart at that time, but
we also had, for Europe, a Marshall Plan. We've never, ever had
anything even approaching a Marshall Plan for our kids. That's
the predicate, and I think that is kind of the background.
But I want to be much more focused, Mr. Henderson, on the
question of children with disabilities. You mentioned the
concern you have about treating them differently as it relates
to some of the assessment that we undertake. One piece of
data--and I just want to have you in the remaining time walk
through your reasons--is that we've got about 6 million
students in the country with disabilities, educated in public
schools, most of whom spend their day learning alongside other
students.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics,
90 percent, 90 percent of students with disabilities do not
have intellectual or cognitive disabilities that would limit
them. You're talking about 10 percent of children with
disabilities are in the much more severe category.
Mr. Henderson, what's your basic concern about where we are
now and where we could be if the draft that's on the table now
were to be enacted?
Mr. Henderson. Senator Casey, thank you for your question,
and thank you for putting your question in the broader context
of the totality of circumstances that students in poverty,
students with various disabilities will face in States that are
making policy choices about where to make investments. Let me
say, as Senator Bennet said, investments in early childhood
education pay big dividends, but States often don't require
that.
You also recognize that while there may be a cap on
ensuring that only the students with the most severe cognitive
disabilities are classified as such, schools now will use
various methods to allow more students to be classified as
having disabilities for purposes of avoiding the kind of
rigorous adherence to standards that we would like.
There's about 6.4 million kids with disabilities in the
country. What we have found--I mean, obviously, those living in
poverty would have a huge problem. What we have found from the
draft that we have seen--and, by the way, I'm drawing this from
a Council on Parents, Attorneys, and Advocates representing
persons with disabilities and from organizations representing
persons with disabilities within the Leadership Conference.
They have really stressed the importance of trying to
adhere to standards, because what they have seen is that
students with disabilities are often classified as proficient,
because they have somehow met the alternative achievement
standard and have somehow been exempted from the more rigorous
mainstream standard that would be required under existing law.
That, for us, is a huge problem. When you add to the fact
that States now, because of budgets, are choosing not to invest
in public education in the same way--quite frankly, sir, that's
what happened in Pennsylvania over the last several years,
creating huge problems, particularly for kids with
disabilities. Our view is that States will choose to really
make cuts where the voices of the advocacy community are
perhaps the weakest.
Unfortunately, that sometimes applies to our students with
disabilities. They are often in poverty themselves, and they
lack the kind of strong advocacy network, aside from the
organizations that I've identified here, that can really
represent their interest.
One last point----
Senator Casey. We're over time.
Mr. Henderson. I'm sorry. The New American Foundation
looked at 16 States that----
The Chairman. We're running short on time, but conclude
your remarks. Go ahead, Mr. Henderson.
Mr. Henderson. I will. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
Four thousand-four hundred schools that have been previously
established for purposes of intervention were largely ignored
under those States once the waivers have been given. That is
the reality of what we face. Thank you, sir.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Henderson and Senator Casey.
Senator Whitehouse.
Statement of Senator Whitehouse
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
My experience with the education universe is that there are
really two worlds in it. One is a world of contractors and
consultants and academics and experts and plenty of officials
at the Federal, State, and local level. The other is a world of
principals and classroom teachers who are actually providing
education to students.
What I'm hearing from my principals' and teachers' world is
that the footprint of that first world has become way too big
in their lives, to the point where it's inhibiting their
ability to actually do the jobs that they're entrusted to do. I
understand that there are lots of concerns--and I share those
concerns--about making sure that the benefit of education is
spread evenly across the children of this country and that
people who don't have a voice don't also lose out on their
chance to join the ranks of economic success where they will
have more of a voice.
But I went through the PARCC tests a week ago for
mathematics and for something that they call English language
arts--it's off to a pretty bad start if that's what you have to
call it--and I wasn't all that impressed with those questions
and with those tests. I didn't see test questions that couldn't
have been integrated in a regular test that was given by
regular teachers in the ordinary course of teaching and
assessing their students.
To me, it's pretty clear that these tests are designed to
test the school and not the student. When it first started up
in Rhode Island, the timing of the reporting of the results
that the contractor assumed was such that the teacher in the
coming year wouldn't even have the information. Clearly, the
next year's teacher was not the focus of this effort.
The scheduling and the preparation for this is important,
because kids are not stupid, and they know the difference
between a test that's going to affect their grade and a test
that's not going to affect their grade. The school has to go
through huge heroic efforts to try to get them interested and
prepared for a test that they know they're not going to be
personally graded on or responsible for the outcome of.
Then kids have scheduling problems. They can't all get them
in at once. Many schools in Rhode Island simply don't have the
electronic bandwidth for a class to take the test at once. It's
not one test. It's three tests. You can't teach the other kids
while the other kids are in the test.
We have to solve this problem. It is an efficiency problem.
It is a problem of simply being smart about gathering
information. I'm really concerned about this, and I'm saying
this at this point to invite conversation with my colleagues as
we go forward.
The superstructure of education supervision I'm not sure
passes the test of being worth all the expense and all the
trouble. It's very discouraging to teachers in Rhode Island who
have talked to me. They hear about the Race to the Top money
that comes in to the State, and the State gets a big grant, and
everybody has a press conference, and it's like the rain
falling over the desert, where the rain comes pouring out of
the clouds, but by the time you're actually at the desert
floor, not a raindrop falls. It's all been absorbed in between.
I have never had a teacher say to me, ``Boy, Race to the Top
gave me just what I need in terms of books or a white board or
something that I can use to teach the kids.''
I think we've got to be very careful about distinguishing
the importance of the purpose of some of this oversight and not
allow the importance of that purpose to allow the oversight to
be conducted in such an inefficient, wasteful, clumsy way that
the people who we really trust with our students' education,
the people who are in the classroom with them, are looking back
at us and saying, ``Stop. Help. I can't deal with this. You are
inhibiting my ability to teach.''
I think that damage in the classroom falls just as hard on
the communities that are having difficulty getting their fair
share of education as it does anywhere else. I think we really
need to grapple with that in this committee.
I have basically used all my time with that set of remarks.
It was less in the manner of a question and more in the manner
of an invitation to my colleagues to continue this discussion
and to let you know what I think is important as we go forward.
You have 2 seconds. No, you don't. One, zero--gone.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse, and the
invitation is accepted. I think we need to have lots of
discussions about this, and not all these discussions, I'm
discovering as I talk, fall down in predictable ways. That was
very helpful. Thank you.
Now, our wrap-up with Senator Murphy.
Statement of Senator Murphy
Senator Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much for convening a really well-balanced and thoughtful
hearing.
I got the chance to read almost all of your testimony,
although I wasn't here in person.
I came to Congress as a vocal opponent and critic of No
Child Left Behind for a lot of the reasons that Senator
Whitehouse enunciated, but also because I come from a family of
educators. My mother was a wonderful elementary school teacher,
and then an English as a second language teacher. She walked
away from teaching, frankly, before she thought she was going
to in part because she ended up spending a lot more time on
bureaucracy and a lot less time on teaching, and that's not
what she went into it for.
But one of the first meetings I had when I got here as a
freshman Member of Congress was with the Children's Defense
Fund. They came in because they had heard that I had been a
real active critic of No Child Left Behind.
They wanted to just present the case for me as to what was
happening in other parts of the country, maybe not Connecticut,
prior to No Child Left Behind with respect to children with
disabilities, to explain to me that there were places in
which--largely because of the cost pressures on local school
districts to provide a full complement of educational services
for kids with disabilities--that many of them were spending
part of their week with the janitor in technical education and
were being largely ignored.
While they had critiques of the law, as I did, their point
was that it's important for us not to abandon the gains that
we've made with respect to children with learning disabilities
who had maybe in some places not been getting a fair shot
before. I wanted to just build on a question that Senator Casey
raised, and maybe I'll direct it to my friend, Dr. West. We
were college classmates, and I'm pleased that he's here today.
Senator Casey referenced some data suggesting the enormity
of students with disabilities who were in special education
programs who do have the ability to take these tests. Yet the
fear is that if you move to alternative assessments and give
school districts the ability to move broad swaths of children
with learning disabilities out from under the test, you lose
the pressure to provide the appropriate education, but you
also, as you, I think, cautioned more generally in your
comments, lose the ability for parents of children with
disabilities to really figure out where their children are
going to succeed and where they aren't.
Even if you preserve annual statewide testing to give broad
measurements for schools for parents, if you exempt it all--big
portions of children who had learning disabilities--those
parents aren't helped by the overall assessments of the school.
I'd love to hear what the data shows about what happens when we
require that the majority of children, except for those with
severe cognitive disabilities, take the tests and what that
might mean for accountability moving forward.
Mr. West. As Senator Casey mentioned, the vast majority of
students with disabilities do not have intellectual
disabilities. They should be able to reach the same standards
with appropriate modifications to the assessments that they're
given.
The second point I would make is that there has to be some
form of a cap on the number of students who are allowed to take
those alternative assessments. I'm not sure that the 1 percent
cap that was in the No Child Left Behind legislation is exactly
the right number. I'm not an expert on the education of
students with disabilities.
But one thing we know from the study of accountability
policies and how our schools respond to them more generally is
that some schools will find a way to game the system. They
might reclassify students as being eligible for special
education if that exempts them from the accountable pool of
students in order to avoid being sanctioned. There needs to be
some mechanism in an accountability policy to account for that
dynamic.
One of the concerns--there also needs to be, if there's a
cap, some degree of flexibility to allow for natural variation
in the share of students at a given school or in a given
district that might actually be appropriately excluded from the
standard assessment. I think those policies have been a bit
more rigid than they actually should be. There needs to be some
mechanism, and I'm not the one to tell you the details of how
to do it.
Senator Murphy. Thank you, Dr. West. I'd commend to the
committee a study which suggest that, on average, you're
talking about half a percentage of kids who don't have the
ability to take those tests. But I think you're right. There
are going to be variations. I look forward to working with the
chairman and the Ranking Member on this issue moving forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murphy.
I'll ask Senator Murray if she has any closing remarks.
Senator Murray. I would just say that there is tremendous
interest on our side of the aisle in fixing the No Child Left
Behind law to really make sure that in this country we really
do make sure that every child, no matter where they live or who
their parents are or how much money they have, has the
opportunity of the American dream of a good education. That is
the equalizer that I think is so important for our country and
will allow all of our young people to be able to grow up and
have a job and support all of us and be competitive in a global
marketplace. It's a huge, huge goal.
But I think there is tremendous interest here. We want to
work with you on a bipartisan basis to move forward on this
bill, and I really want to thank everybody who participated
today.
The Chairman. Thank you. This is a good beginning. I've
learned a lot from the witnesses. I like the exceptional
variety we had of points of view. I thank the staff for their
work on coming up with that. I think the Senators--you could
see the large number of Senators who came today and who had
thoughtful comments.
For those who came and couldn't get in the hearing room,
we'll do our best to have a larger hearing room for our next
hearing, which will be next Tuesday at 10 a.m., and it will be
about fixing No Child Left Behind, supporting teachers and
school leaders. We look forward to that.
I'd like to invite the witnesses--if there's something
today that you wanted to say that you didn't get to say, we'd
like to hear it. If you could let us hear it, especially if you
could do it within the next 10 days, that would be very
helpful. We would welcome it.
To the Senators, I would say if you have additional
questions, please ask them. For example, Senator Baldwin raised
the question of how we put the spotlight on whether it's the
States and local governments who are coming up with all these
extra tests. Senator Bennet asked the same question.
Senator Murray and I have written to State and local school
districts, trying to identify the number of tests. If you have
an idea about that, on Senator Baldwin's effort, we would
appreciate it.
I'm going to send you a question and ask: Do high stakes
discourage multiple assessments? I would ask that question.
Then I would like to invite Mr. Lazar to followup his
suggestion that one area where we might provide more funding is
in developing better assessments. One of the dangers is that
whenever the Federal Government does that, it likes to put its
sticky fingers on exactly what to do and who must do it. Your
comments on that or from anybody would be helpful.
Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Yes.
Senator Whitehouse. I'm interested in taking advantage of
that opportunity and particularly because none of the witnesses
had a chance to comment on what I said. Could you let me know
by what time you would like our additional questions. What's my
deadline?
The Chairman. What's convenient for you?
Senator Whitehouse. End of the week.
The Chairman. OK. That would be great.
We'll work with you, and I think the sooner we get the
questions out, the sooner we'll get good answers back, and
we'll see how this goes. I'll work with Senator Murray. It may
be that we have roundtable discussions rather than hearings at
some point, where we can sit around and actually have
conversations about particular points and not be limited to 5
minutes of questions. There are different ways to go about
this.
If you could let us know within a week or sooner, Sheldon,
that would be a big help, and then we'll go to work on that.
Usually, we say at the end of close of business this Friday.
That's what we usually say, I'm told. I'm just learning. If you
can do it by the close of business Friday, that would be
helpful.
The hearing record will be open for 10 days. We thank you
for being here today. Are there any other outbursts or comments
anyone wants to make?
Thank you to the witnesses. Thank you very much for coming.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Response to Questions of Senator Murkowski, Senator Bennet
and Senator Whitehouse by Martin R. West, Ph.D.
senator murkowski
Question 1. In your written testimony, you stated that a 2014 study
found a strong positive correlation between assessment and identifying
effective teachers and that being assigned to an effective teacher has
a strong positive correlation to adult success. Do you then recommend
that Congress maintain the requirement under NCLB waivers that States
link teacher evaluations with test score results?
Answer 1. I do not recommend that Congress maintain the requirement
under NCLB waivers that States link teacher evaluations with test score
results. Instead, I recommend that States be explicitly permitted to
use title II funds in order to design and implement such evaluation
systems.
A large body of research conducted over the past two decades
demonstrates that teacher effectiveness is the most important school-
based factor influencing student achievement as measured by State
tests. The 2014 study referenced in my testimony, conducted by Harvard
economist Raj Chetty and colleagues, found that being assigned to a
teacher who is very effective in raising students' test scores also
leads to large gains in important long-term outcomes, such as the
likelihood of attending college and adult earnings. This research
suggests that information on a teachers' effectiveness in raising test
scores is useful in identifying those teachers who are most likely to
make a positive difference. In other words, this research does
strengthen the case for developing new systems of teacher evaluation
that incorporate information on how much teachers contribute to the
growth in their students' test scores from 1 year to the next.
At the same time, it is important to emphasize that we have very
little evidence on how best to design and implement such systems and on
their effectiveness in improving teacher effectiveness. It is possible
that they could have unintended consequences, particularly if
implemented by States and districts that have not developed adequate
capacity to do so well and have limited flexibility to adapt them to
meet local needs. Allowing States to use Federal funds to develop new
teacher evaluation systems would encourage innovation and provide new
evidence on its consequences while avoiding the potential unintended
consequences of a one-size-fits-all Federal mandate.
Question 2. You recommended in your written testimony that Congress
require States, districts, and schools to report on per-pupil spending,
including teacher salaries, to highlight disparities and inequities and
put pressure on districts to address them. Alaska posts per-pupil
revenue (State, local, and Federal) online and requires 70 percent of
State revenue be spent in the classroom. (See www.eed.State.ak.us/
schoolfinance/ and click on school revenues.) If we can all agree that
spending in and of itself does not, in and of itself, predict student
success--that how schools target dollars to effective practices is more
predictive--what is gained by per-pupil spending reports?
Answer 2. Although how money is spent is more important for student
success than the amount of spending alone, improving transparency about
per-pupil spending at the State-, district-, and school-levels could
help encourage our school systems to use their financial resources more
effectively. The accountability systems States have been required to
implement under NCLB focus exclusively on improving student test scores
and closing achievement gaps without considering whether school
districts and schools accomplish those goals in a cost-effective way.
Accountability programs' inattention to inputs, combined with the
complexity of State school finance systems, makes accurate information
on school spending difficult for the public to obtain. It is no
surprise, then, that surveys have repeatedly shown that Americans lack
vastly underestimate per-pupil spending levels in their local school
district. Alaska's decision to post per-pupil revenues online is a
positive step toward greater transparency, but this information appears
to be independent from its district and school report cards and to be
limited to the district level, rather than broken down for individual
schools. School-level financial reporting is important as there are
often wide disparities in spending between schools within the same
district.
senator bennet
Question 1. Dr. West, can you explain why you think ``Using average
test scores from a single year to judge school quality is . . .
unacceptable from'' as you put it ``a fairness and equity
perspective?''
Answer 1. Using any level-based measure of student achievement on
its own to judge school quality, whether it be average test scores or
proficiency rates, is unfair because of the strong role that out-of-
school factors play in shaping student achievement. For example,
students from economically disadvantaged families tend to enter
kindergarten with far lower academic and behavioral skills than their
more advantaged peers. Under a level-based accountability system,
schools that serve many disadvantaged students are therefore at risk of
being identified as underperforming even when their students are making
more rapid academic progress than students elsewhere. This is exactly
what has occurred under NCLB, which requires States to determine
whether a school has made Adequate Yearly Progress primarily based on a
level-based measure of student achievement: the percentage of students
who are proficient in math and reading. Basing accountability systems
instead on how much student test scores improve from 1 year to the next
would provide fairer and more accurate information on schools'
performance.
At the same time, some advocates have criticized proposals to judge
schools based solely on growth measures, as doing so could allow
schools serving disadvantaged students to avoid sanction even if their
students' academic progress over time is insufficient to close
achievement gaps. This is a legitimate concern, and State policymakers
may want to strike a balance between average scores and growth when
deciding where to focus improvement efforts. However, absent annual
tests required to produce measures of the growth in student test scores
over time, it is impossible to distinguish those schools where students
achieve at low levels because they are learning very little from those
schools that perform well despite difficult circumstances.
Question 2. Dr. West, what role should student achievement play in
identifying under-performing schools? I think it shouldn't be the only
factor, but I do think it matters and that its weighting matters.
Answer 2. In my view, student achievement--in particular, the
growth in student achievement from 1 year to the next--should be the
predominant factor in identifying under-performing schools. Scores that
students receive on standardized tests administered in schools are
strongly predictive of later life outcomes that are of great value to
those students and the Nation, after controlling for all the other
observable characteristics of those students that are associated with
later success. What's more, gains in test scores that result from
interventions such as being assigned to a particularly effective
teacher or attending a school facing accountability pressure also
predict improvements in adult outcomes. Of course, teachers and schools
also contribute to student outcomes in ways that are not captured by
test scores and therefore harder to measure. States and districts may
therefore want to incorporate additional sources of evidence into their
systems for evaluating school performance. However, any system for
identifying under-performing schools that is not based primarily on
information on student learning as measured by tests that are
comparable statewide would be badly compromised.
Question 3. Dr. West, you recommend we require districts to report
comparable measures of per-pupil spending at the school level. Why
don't districts publish this information already? Why is having this
data important?
Answer 3. I can only speculate as to why many districts do not
currently report comparable measures of per-pupil spending at the
school level. In many cases, however, districts are simply unable to
provide accurate school-level spending information because their
internal data systems make it very difficult to produce this
information. In particular, when school budgets are based on staff
positions and the average cost of those positions district-wide, rather
than the salaries of the employees working in each school, school
budgets do not provide accurate information on school spending. In
other cases, district officials may not want to provide this level of
transparency.
Requiring transparency about per-pupil spending at the school level
is important both to encourage the effective use of resources and to
highlight within-district disparities in spending. While many States
have made considerable progress toward equalizing spending across
districts, there are often large disparities in what is spent across
schools within the same district. A common source of these disparities
is the gradual migration of more experienced teachers with higher
salaries to schools that serve more advantaged students. Requiring
districts to publish accurate school-level spending information would,
at a minimum, ensure that citizens are informed of these patterns and
could create pressure on districts to address the policies and contract
provisions that drive them.
senator whitehouse
Question 1. I am intrigued by the idea of an accountability system
where the more progress a district or State makes for all students and
student subgroups, the more autonomy that district or State receives.
Conversely, if a district or State struggles to make progress or has
persistent inequities it would have less autonomy and increased
oversight. What would be the best way to create an accountability
system where districts or States could ``earn'' their way toward
greater autonomy, perhaps by being relieved of the requirement of
annual testing, through actual student academic success and outcomes?
Answer 1. The ``earned autonomy'' concept you suggest is attractive
and could be implemented by granting greater autonomy to States and
districts in which students are achieving at high levels and
demonstrating strong growth in achievement over time, overall and
within student subgroups. Yet I would suggest that such an approach
should not entail relief from the requirement to administer annual
tests that are comparable statewide, as the data from those tests would
be essential to know whether the granting of autonomy has been a
success. Rather, the autonomy should take the form of greater
flexibility with respect to such matters as curricula, staffing
arrangements, and any consequences for schools based on student test
results.
Question 2. Some argue that over-testing is the result of States
and districts supplementing the NCLB requirements (17 tests throughout
K-12) with additional layers of assessment. If we were to keep annual
testing in place, what would be the best ways to reduce the overall
testing burden?
Answer 2. Although we lack comprehensive evidence on the extent of
over-testing and the factors contributing to it, emerging data does
suggest that over-testing often results from States and districts
overlaying their own testing programs on top of the 17 tests required
under NCLB. It is important to note, however, many of these additional
tests may stem directly or indirectly from related Federal policies.
For example, many States have recently increased testing in order to
include teachers in previously non-tested grades and subjects in the
teacher evaluation systems required under ESEA waivers. The unrealistic
expectations for the pace of school improvement embedded in the NCLB
accountability system may also have increased the extent of testing, as
many districts have introduced various interim assessment systems
throughout the school year to gauge whether students are on progress to
perform well on required State tests. Although this may be an effective
educational strategy in some districts, in others it may in fact
constitute over-testing. By giving States greater control over their
school accountability and teacher evaluation systems, the Federal
Government could therefore ensure that it is not contributing to the
problem of over-testing.
Chief State school officers should then work with district
superintendents to investigate the extent of testing and how various
tests are used within their own States. For example, Florida
Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart recently asked her State's
district superintendents to catalogue the various standardized tests
they administer, the amount of time the required, and the purpose they
serve. This enabled her to make concrete recommendations to reduce the
testing burden on teachers and students. Although the States are best
positioned to scrutinize and make decisions about the appropriate level
of testing in their schools, the Federal Government could encourage
their efforts by explicitly allowing State educational agencies to use
ESEA administrative funds for this purpose.
Question 3. One way to reduce the testing burden could be to
decrease the number of questions we use to assess students. If the
number of questions were sufficiently reduced, those questions might
then be embedded in existing, annual exams such as the PSAT. Would
streamlining or consolidating assessments be a viable approach to
reducing the testing burden? Why or why not?
Answer 3. There is often a tension in test design between the
number of items and the test's ability to cover the knowledge and
skills it is intended to assess and to provide sufficiently reliable
information to support decisions about student or school performance.
Streamlining tests may be a good strategy for reducing the testing
burden in some circumstances. However, it is important to ensure that
any streamlining does not undermine the quality of the information
provided such that the test no longer provides information that is
valid for the purposes for which it is being used.
Response to Questions of Senator Murkowski, Senator Baldwin
and Senator Bennet by Paul Leather
questions from senator murkowski
Question 1. Standards based teaching, testing, and grading requires
a great deal of work to promote buy-in by teachers and parents. Can you
talk briefly about the steps you took to ensure that all stakeholders
were completely on board with this new way of delivering education and
reporting student results?
Answer 1. The Senator is correct that moving to standards based
teaching, testing, and grading requires a great deal of work to promote
buy-in by teachers and parents. To complicate matters in New Hampshire,
there has long been a very strong tradition where curriculum and
instruction are locally controlled. For this reason, the NH State
Department of Education (NHDOE) has gone about a process that enlists
local educators and parents in the process. This methodology started as
far back as 1996, when NHDOE held a series of regional forums around
the State with educators and students, asking what will education look
like in 5 years. Students identified personalized, student-centered
learning and educators identified standards-based learning. Upon
analysis of this data, NH started its work in competency education,
where standards are ``owned'' by students, and they can pursue
personalized learning models to demonstrate their mastery of
competencies, i.e. standards. NHDOE developed this approach via a
series of grants to networks of schools and districts. The research
results from these grants led the NH State Board of Education to launch
a process of amending the NH School Approval Standards so that a system
of identifying student mastery of competencies would take the place of
the Carnegie unit (seat time) for the attainment of high school credit.
The Board went through a formal rulemaking process, holding over 10
hearings in Concord and across the State, engaging educators and
parents in the discussion. These rules were approved in July, 2005,
with an effective date of July, 2008, giving districts and schools 3
years to implement.
Subsequently, the NHDOE provided guidance, continued establishing
cohorts of schools/districts to further develop the model, and
identified key partners in-State and nationally to support the work.
Our research data was shared publicly through a series of State and
regional meetings with school boards, parents and educators. In 2010,
the NHDOE received a grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation
(NMEF) to develop an accountability system for State and Federal
purposes that would be more aligned with the work done statewide in
competency education. This grant, and subsequent grants from NMEF and
from the William J. and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has assisted in
supporting cohorts of educators from schools across the State in
Quality Performance Assessment professional development and in the
creation of the Performance Assessment for Competency Education, or
PACE model. In 2011, the NHDOE received the first of two grants from
the National Governor's Association to communicate broadly the work
done with educators and parents on standards-based learning and
competency education. This resulted in new State legislation in 2012,
identifying competency education as a preferred outcome of public
education in New Hampshire. Also in 2012, the NHDOE identified moving
to a new model of accountability in its first ESEA Flexibility Waiver
submission, and went through the public vetting process with many
groups of stakeholders across the State. In 2014, the NHDOE completed a
2-year long review of the NH School Approval Standards, where
competency education was put in place K-12, effective July, 2017. To
sum up, the NHDOE approached the engagement and development of this new
system through public engagement processes for citizens and parents and
through cohorts of professional development and implementation for
educators. We also highly publicized new components of the change as
they developed, such as new assessments and new grading systems and
encouraged sharing across districts among leaders and professional
networks. New Hampshire is a small State and the word has gotten out
quickly. With this said, we do want to note that this has been an 18-
year journey to date, and we continue to develop the system going
forward.
Question 2. How much has it cost New Hampshire to develop,
implement, and evaluate your pilot PACE program? How much do you
estimate it would cost to expand it to all of your districts?
Answer 2. To date, it has cost the State approximately $1 million
to develop, implement, and evaluate the PACE Pilot. These costs have
largely been borne by two grants from the Nellie Mae Education
Foundation (totaling $600,000) and one from the Hewlett Foundation,
(totaling $400,000). Much of the development work is now completed. NH
has a performance assessment bank, and a calibration and moderation
process. The NH Technical Advisory Committee (NHTAC) is currently
evaluating the systems, and will evaluate results as they come forward
this spring. Eight districts have been involved in the process, four
implementing and four in a planning mode. They make up approximately 10
percent of the 80+ Supervisory Unions across New Hampshire. We estimate
that full implementation of PACE will cost approximately $6.725 million
over a multi-year period, broken down broadly as follows:
Training and Coaching: (Center for Collaborative Education and
contracted consultants) 400,000 x 5 yrs. = $2,000,000--Statewide and
regional and content meetings; in-school coaching; attendance at policy
and management meetings; consultation for DOE leadership;
Technical Quality and Accountability: (NCIEA) 100,000 x 5 yrs. =
$500,000--Direct development of materials, protocols, policies, and
procedures; consultation for DOE leadership and project management;
management of NHTAC; attendance at policy and management meetings;
Task Bank development and maintenance: (in conjunction with the
Center for Collaborative Education and Stanford University) $325,000
(yr 1 & 2 = 100,000; yr 2&4 = 50,000; yr 5 = 25,000)--Review and
organization of task bank submissions, uploading, management, and
development of task bank site; recruitment of and coaching on task
development;
Local development: (teacher leaders and local implementation PD)
1,500,000 x 2 = $3,000,000 (80 SAUs x 18,750 per first 2 years, scaled
to size of districts and staffing ratios)--Stipends for teacher leaders
to pay for their extra training and out of school time; local PD
materials such as books; workshops or trainers deemed necessary to the
development of staff or leadership, substitutes to allow attendance at
statewide meetings and trainings either as presenters or as attendees;
local content coaches for the classroom implementation of performance
tasks and assessments; coaching for leadership.
Statewide Public Communications Strategy: $100,000--Payments for
transcription; translation; web-based roll-out; and articles and papers
about the effort, with an update of NH Story of Transformation;
Statewide Rollout: (summits, legislative presentations, workshops,
etc.) 100,000 x 5 yrs = $500,000--To include one state-wide conference,
one summer institute, and 5 regional meetings annually; and
Statewide Recording and Reporting: $300,000 (Development first 2
years @ 70,000; i4see maintenance $32,000 x 5 yrs = 160,000)--To
further develop a statewide Student Information System (SIS) platform,
and to assist schools and districts in implementing Learning Management
Systems, (LMS). This also includes on-going support to pay for adapting
and maintaining the i4see system for uploading accountability data.
senator baldwin
Question. Educational experts in Wisconsin have stated that the
turnaround time for the results of the tests required under NCLB is a
significant issue, sometimes leaving students, parents, teachers and
administrators waiting for those test scores long past the time when
they are most (or at all) useful for instruction or transparency. For
example, if a teacher is unable to get a student's test results from
the prior academic year before he begins planning for the next school
year, it is difficult for him to prepare for the specific educational
needs of that child or at least have baseline knowledge of his academic
needs.
Please describe what you believe the ideal timeframe would be for
teachers to receive the results of annual assessments, as well as the
current timeframe for the dissemination of the results of annual
assessments in your individual school, district or State.
Answer. We agree with the Wisconsin experts. Ideally, the results
of a State assessment should be actionable in terms of curriculum and
instruction. For example, if a good percentage of students ``miss''
questions on the math assessment as it pertains to multiplicative
reasoning and operations, then educators can adjust and augment the
curriculum to address this shortfall. When such data is not available
in a timely way, educators find themselves in a place where they will
use another test with a more rapid turnaround for formative purposes.
For this reason, we believe that an immediate turnaround time of 1-2
weeks is ideal for a summative assessment that is also used for
formative purposes, but that in the worst case, it should take no more
than 1-2 months.
senator bennet
Question 1. Commissioner Leather, competency-based education and
more personalized learning is absolutely something we need to do.
Technology has made that more possible than ever before. Much more goes
into creating a competency-based education system than the assessment
components you spoke about in your testimony.
Can you tell us more about how this transformation in learning has
taken place in New Hampshire classrooms? What does it mean practically
speaking to eliminate the Carnegie Unit?
Answer 1. For the first question, I am including much of the answer
that I provided to Senator Murkowski, with some augmentation. The
Senator is correct that there are more moving parts to a competency
education system than I gave in my testimony. To complicate matters in
New Hampshire, there has long been a very strong tradition where
curriculum and instruction are locally controlled. For this reason, the
NH State Department of Education (NHDOE) has gone about a process that
enlists local educators and parents in the process. This methodology
started as far back as 1996, when NHDOE held a series of regional
forums around the State with educators and students, asking what will
education look like in 5 years. Students identified personalized,
student-centered learning and educators identified standards-based
learning. Upon analysis of this data, NH started its work in competency
education, where standards are ``owned'' by students, and they can
pursue personalized learning models to demonstrate their mastery of
competencies, i.e. standards.
Here are two sets of frameworks, the traditional framework and the
new CBE framework, as developed by Rose Colby, NH's nationally
recognized Competency Education Consultant:
the traditional framework
the new cbe framework
As can be seen above, really a great deal changes in a CBE
classroom. Learning progressions ideally move across multiple years,
and are mapped to a trajectory and taxonomy of competencies. Learning
is more project based, with an emphasis on greater depth of knowledge.
Assessment is embedded into the projects and aligned, again through a
K-12 taxonomy, to the standards and competencies. Students work against
personal learning plans, with systems of supports both in-person and
on-line. Grading is focused on demonstrating mastery of competencies
and standards. Work study practices, or dispositions, are also measured
along trajectories, but disaggregated from content mastery. It is
important to know what a student has learned and can do, not just how
hard she or he tried. It is also important to recognize the student's
development in problem solving strategies, communication, creativity,
and collaboration.
When we look at delivery and classrooms, here are two more
pictures, the first of a traditional HS course model, the second for a
competency based HS:
School is traditionally set up in courses that deliver content
sequentially rather than based on relevant pairings and opportunities
for more authentic learning acress subjects.
As can be seen above, courses become more project based, and more
inter-disciplinary, however, the learning is still disaggregated and
captured so that we know where on the trajectory a student is, say in
math or science, because we are collecting mastery of competencies that
are aligned to the standards.
NHDOE has developed this approach via a series of grants to
networks of schools and districts. The research results from these
grants led the NH State Board of Education to launch a process of
amending the NH School Approval Standards so that a system of
identifying student mastery of competencies would take the place of the
Carnegie unit (seat time) for the attainment of high school credit. The
Board went through a formal rulemaking process, holding over 10
hearings in Concord and across the State, engaging educators and
parents in the discussion. These rules were approved in July, 2005,
with an effective date of July, 2008, giving districts and schools 3
years to implement.
Subsequently, the NHDOE provided guidance, continued establishing
cohorts of schools/districts to further develop the model, and
identified key partners in-State and nationally to support the work.
Our research data was shared publicly through a series of State and
regional meetings with school boards, parents and educators. In 2010,
the NHDOE received a grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation
(NMEF) to develop an accountability system for State and Federal
purposes that would be more aligned with the work done statewide in
competency education. This grant, and subsequent grants from NMEF and
from the William J. and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has assisted in
supporting cohorts of educators from schools across the State in
Quality Performance Assessment professional development and in the
creation of the Performance Assessment for Competency Education, or
PACE model. In 2011, the NHDOE received the first of two grants from
the National Governor's Association to communicate broadly the work
done with educators and parents on standards-based learning and
competency education. This resulted in new State legislation in 2012,
identifying competency education as a preferred outcome of public
education in New Hampshire. Also in 2012, the NHDOE identified moving
to a new model of accountability in its first ESEA Flexibility Waiver
submission, and went through the public vetting process with many
groups of stakeholders across the State. In 2014, the NHDOE completed a
2-year long review of the NH School Approval Standards, where
competency education was put in place K-12, effective July, 2017. To
sum up, the NHDOE approached the engagement and development of this new
system through public engagement processes for citizens and parents and
through cohorts of professional development and implementation for
educators. We also highly publicized new components of the change as
they developed, such as new assessments and new grading systems and
encouraged sharing across districts among leaders and professional
networks. New Hampshire is a small State and the word has gotten out
quickly. With this said, we do want to note that this has been an 18-
year journey to date, and we continue to develop the system going
forward.
Practically speaking, eliminating the Carnegie Unit means that a
student can demonstrate the learning for a competency and thus for a
course or credit, before, during, or after when the course is
delivered. This way, a student's trajectory of learning is honored, and
the student is not hampered by the annual delivery of courses. It
requires a more flexible approach on the part of educators and for the
system as a whole. Assessments need to be available, not simply tied to
units of study through the year. There are many examples of schools
across the country now approaching this, including in Adams 50 in
Colorado.
Question 2. Commissioner Leather, you spoke about the need for
space in ESEA to innovate. Beyond assessment, are there other areas in
the law that we should be looking for innovation? Places to have small
pilots or incentive grant programs? What's next, in New Hampshire and
across the country?
Answer 2. We believe that in all of the areas of Curriculum,
Instruction, Assessment, and Accountability there is a need to
innovate. Since ESEA does not regulate curriculum and instruction, but
does in assessment and accountability, we believe this is where the
attention should mostly lie in reauthorization.
With that said, as was stated in the first question, there is much
that is not yet known about the interaction between technology and
instruction, technology and assessment, and how learning is incented in
a blended environment. This is one area where much will occur over the
next 10 years. One could take the position that government should stay
out of the way and let the innovation occur. The problem, in this case,
is one of access. Those educational systems that choose to invest in
1:1 environments, that have strong Internet access, that have
enlightened leadership and adequate resources to invest, those
communities will prosper in this arena. Those without the basic
technology, or leadership, or ability or will to invest, will fall
behind.
senator whitehouse
Question. I have heard concerns that locally developed assessments
could lead to disparities in the quality of assessments from district
to district, and could lead to further educational inequity within a
State (where wealthier districts develop high-quality state-of-the-art
assessments and low-income districts are left behind.) What would be
the best way to create and implement locally developed assessments in a
way that is fair, comparable, and equal across all districts?
Answer. We agree with this argument. If guardrails are not imposed
into the process, disparities from one district to another will occur.
For this reason, we believe a fully developed accountability system
will have certain components that have been described in the 51st State
Paper authored by Linda Darling-Hammond, Gene Wilhoit, and Linda
Pittinger, (submitted with my original testimony). Specifically, the
design of the system should have the following, as shown on this
schematic:
Such a system should have a clearly defined system of State and
local assessments, and indications as to how student status and growth
will be measured, collected, and disaggregated. There should be a base
of common assessments, (in PACE, there is a system of common
assessments, Smarter Balanced AND Common Performance Assessments).
There should also be a School Quality Review process, where expert
reviewers along with teams of peers review school and district
performance and the overall system to assure that there is calibration
and moderation of assessment, that the results are reliable and valid.
We also believe that there should be an expectation of reciprocal
resource accountability, where the State should assure equity between
districts, and that districts should assure equity between schools and
neighborhoods, and that principals should assure equity from classroom
to classroom. We look for these assurances and include this information
as part of our school quality reviews. Additionally, we look for a
coherent system of educator accountability, and a system of supports
and conditions for educators, schools, and districts. We believe the
Federal law should also have such supports and conditions for States as
well, as they apply for greater flexibility. Such a system, at the very
least, should account for the following requirements among districts:
Focused on college and/or career outcomes and promotes
deeper learning for all students.
A clear commitment toward improving the achievement of
educationally-disadvantaged students.
A clearly described internal accountability process
supported by the local board of education.
Commitment of resources necessary to ensure the plan's
success.
Leadership and educator capacity to design, implement,
support, and sustain the system.
Attached, please also find the CCSSO description of guardrails for
States, which we helped development and to which we subscribe.
To develop a system of local assessments that would meet all of
these requirements, we recommend that Senator Whitehouse look to the
PACE Pilot model, where, a cohort of schools and districts have worked
together to design a system that is coherent, comparable, and, we
believe, equitable.
Attachment--CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers)
piloting new models of assessment and accountability: state commitments
Over the past several years, States have significantly advanced
accountability systems grounded in college- and career-readiness for
all students. Since the release of CCSSO's 2011 Principles for Next-
Generation State Accountability Systems,\1\ States have used the
Principles as a framework to develop stronger systems that better
support schools and districts to advance student learning. As States
reflect on their accountability systems and continue to improve them,
they remain committed to these Principles.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2011/
Principles%20and%20Processes%20for%20State
%20Leadership%20on%20Next-
Generation%20Accountability%20Systems%20(Final)%20(2).
pdf.
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While fully upholding their commitment to implementing the
Principles, some States have gained interest in piloting new models for
assessment and accountability intended to measure more robust
dimensions of college and career ready knowledge, skills, and
abilities; and to provide information on student progress in more
frequent and actionable ways. Through carefully monitored pilot
initiatives, interested States seek to develop and continuously improve
models of authentic and meaningful assessment and accountability that
can scale to statewide transformation.
States remain committed to making annual determinations of student
progress for all students; the innovation they seek is in developing
better methods for assessing and supporting that progress, while still
ensuring equity and transparency.
Box 1: Raising the Bar While Staying Committed
1. States are raising the bar on how they assess student learning
while maintaining the ability to make annual accountability
determinations that result in more useful data to inform teaching and
learning. These innovative approaches to assessment and accountability
will allow for:
More timely and useful data.
More valid and reicher measures of student learning.
Assessment of a broader set of skills.
Advancing shifts toward personalized learning.
2. States remain committee to ensuring there are valid and rigorous
measures of student performance for every school and comparisons can be
made across schools and districts.
3. States remain committed to ensuring all students are progressing
and remain focused on closing achievement gaps.
4. States remain committed to transparancy and engaging
stakeholders, including parents and students.
5. States will engage in a rogourous evaluation process to
determine what is working well and where improvement is needed
throughout the first serveral years of implementation.
In order to pilot these new models successfully, interested States
are committing to a series of readiness efforts that must be undertaken
by both the interested State and its pilot districts. These commitments
represent the application of the Principles to the unique circumstances
that surround a pilot initiative. Further, while the commitments remain
consistent across States, the way in which they are executed may vary
based on each State's unique context.
Ultimately these pilot districts will create scalable proof points
for reimagined assessment and accountability systems that better
advance our collective goal to ensure all students are prepared for
college and careers.
State Commitments for Assessment and Accountability Pilots
1. Alignment of performance goals to college- and career-ready
standards. The performance goals underlying the State's accountability
system, and the design of the accountability pilot, will continue to be
aligned with the State's goals for college- and career-readiness in
order to promote continuous growth for every student toward that
performance level and beyond.
Additional pilot State commitments:
Comparable Student Expectations: The State has a
clearly articulated plan for ensuring that districts
participating in the pilot demonstrate the alignment and
comparability of their student learning expectations and
proposed system of assessments to state-adopted college- and
career-readiness definitions, standards, and assessments.
2. Annual determinations for each school and district. The State
will continue to make annual accountability determinations for all
publicly funded schools and districts.
Additional pilot State commitment: Capacity to make annual
determinations. The State has a clearly articulated plan for
ensuring that the proper assessment data and data analysis and
reporting capacities will be in place to ensure that annual
determinations can be made based on the pilot district's new
assessments.
3. Focus on student outcomes. The State will continue to make
accountability determinations that focus on student outcomes, including
both status and growth toward college- and career-readiness.
Additional pilot State commitments:
Assessment quality review: The State has a clearly
articulated plan for how pilot districts will demonstrate that
the assessments they elect to use meet State review
requirements for validity and reliability. The State will have
a well-defined process for reviewing and validating the
district's proposed assessments and the success of their
implementation. Each pilot district will also agree to
administer the statewide summative assessment at agreed upon
times as check-points.
4. Continued Commitment to Disaggregation. The State will continue
to support public reporting of disaggregated student data for all
districts to ensure that the needs of particular subgroups are not
masked by aggregate student achievement.
Additional pilot State commitment: Equity: The State commits to
ensuring pilot assessment systems are fair and accessible, and
that disaggregated student data factors into pilot district
quality review processes.
5. Reporting of timely, actionable, and accessible data. Data
related to school and district performance will continue to be reported
in a manner that is timely, actionable, and accessible--to improve
teaching and learning and support policy improvements at all levels.
Additional pilot State commitment: Data and reporting: The
State has a clearly articulated plan for ensuring that the
proper assessment data, data analysis, and reporting capacities
will be in place so that annual determinations can be made
based on the pilot district's system of assessments. In
addition, the State has a clearly articulated plan to work with
each pilot district to ensure meaningful data is being reported
to parents and other stakeholders on at least an annual basis.
Last, the State will have a clearly articulated process for how
to develop and implement valid and reliable ways to measure
student growth in the pilot districts.
6. Deeper diagnostic reviews. Each State will continue to include,
as appropriate, deeper analysis and diagnostic reviews of school and
district performance, particularly for low-performing schools, to
create a tighter link between initial accountability determinations and
appropriate supports and interventions.
7. Building school and district capacity. Each State will continue
to focus on building district and school capacity for significant and
sustained improvement in student achievement toward college- and
career-ready performance goals.
Additional pilot State commitments:
Supports for district capacity: The State has a
clearly articulated plan for providing technical assistance to
districts as they design and implement new approaches to
assessment to ensure they are high-quality, comparable, and
successfully implemented (for example, the State or its
external partners may develop: State model performance tasks or
other assessments and/or an open online bank of approved and
validated assessments; technical criteria for locally designed
assessments; assessment implementation guidance; and common
definitions of ``mastery'' or ``proficiency,'' etc.).
Supports for educator capacity: The State has a
clearly articulated plan to support districts in providing
educator training and professional development to ensure new
systems of assessments are successfully implemented and
reliably scored (for example, the State or its external
partners could support the development of local assessment
experts, provide live training and professional support for
teachers and leaders, such as in-person and/or virtual
professional development institutes, organize regional task
validation sessions, regional scoring sessions, etc.).
Supports and interventions for students with special
needs: The State has developed and implemented systems to
ensure that the progress of students with special needs (for
example, special education students, English language learners,
or students in poverty) will be monitored, and appropriate
interventions will be given.
Plans for scaling: To ensure that the pilot
initiative produces scalable models--and to avoid creating a
permanently bifurcated system of pilot and non-pilot
districts--the State has a clearly articulated plan for scaling
the pilot initiative if it successfully improves student
outcomes for all students. This plan should include how
districts that currently lack capacity to pilot will be
developed, and how the State will eventually bring along
districts which currently have little interest in
participation.
8. Targeting lowest performing schools. The State remains committed
to targeting significant interventions on at least the lowest
performing 5 percent of schools and their districts and those districts
with the largest achievement gaps.
9. Innovation, evaluation, and continuous improvement. The State's
accountability system will continue to drive innovation and itself be
dynamic--promoting innovative accountability approaches with rigorous
evaluation to drive continuous improvement over time.
Additional pilot State commitments:
District requirements for participation: The State
has a clearly articulated set of requirements for districts to
demonstrate readiness to participate in the pilot initiative.
As part of this, the State will establish initial threshold
levels of performance (for example, districts that include
focus or priority schools will not be able to participate),
based on reported data, below which districts or schools will
not be allowed to participate in the pilot initiative.
Stakeholder engagement and community involvement:
The State has developed and implemented mechanisms for engaging
system and community stakeholders in both the development and
ongoing review of the pilot initiative.
Pilot evaluation process: The State has a clearly
articulated plan to work with each pilot district to develop a
quality review process throughout the first few years of
implementation, so that mid-course adjustments can be made as
necessary and to support continuous improvement.
Through their continued implementation of CCSSO's 2011 Principles
for Next-Generation State Accountability Systems and their commitments
to the above readiness efforts, interested States affirm the need to
maintain accountability for student learning at all levels, while at
the same time pursuing innovations in assessment and accountability
that drive continuous improvement of their education systems toward
college and career ready outcomes for all students.
Response to Questions of Senator Bennet and Senator Whitehouse
by Wade J. Henderson
The Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights,
Washington, DC 20006,
March 4, 2015.
Hon. Lamar Alexander, Chairman,
Hon. Patty Murray, Ranking Member,
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray: Thank you for
the opportunity to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee's hearing, ``Fixing No Child Left Behind:
Testing and Accountability'' in January. In response to questions
submitted for the record by your colleagues, I have included answers
below.
senator bennet
Question 1. Mr. Henderson, can you talk about the history of
education in the country, specifically as it relates to minority
students and students from low-income families? Why did President Bush
call education ``the great civil rights issue of our time?''
Answer 1. Senator Bennet, in our education system, a deal is made
with students and their families. If you come to school, do your
homework and listen to your teacher, the school will make sure that you
are ready for college, career and a family sustaining wage job.
Unfortunately, the system is failing to hold up its end of the bargain
far, far too often. Moreover, the children most likely to be left
behind by our education system are low-income children, children of
color, those with disabilities, those who speak English as a second
language, children in Native communities, and migrant, foster or
homeless youth.
Despite the progress we have made since Brown v. Board of
Education, it is impossible to claim that we have fully realized its
promise--that all children have access to a quality education. Let's
consider these simple and inescapable facts:
Educational inequalities begin in early childhood, and by
age 3, children growing up in poverty have heard 30 million fewer words
than their more advantaged peers. Without quality pre-K programs and
other early interventions, these children will start kindergarten far
behind those from more fortunate families.
As they grow older, the least fortunate African-American
and Latino children attend schools that are increasingly segregated and
highly unequal. Six decades after Brown, millions of black and brown
young people have been offered little better than a school system that
is separate, unequal and inadequate to meet the demands of a 21st
century economy. The recent release of the Department of Education's
Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) brings this reality into sharp
focus.
Black, Latino, American Indian, and Native Alaskan
students attend schools with higher concentrations of first-year
teachers at a higher rate than White students.
Black students are more than four times as likely to
attend schools with a high concentration of uncertified and unlicensed
teachers as White students. Latino students are twice as likely to
attend these schools.
Black and Latino students represent just 26 percent of
students enrolled in gifted and talented education programs despite
making up 40 percent of the students attending schools that offer these
programs.
A quarter of high schools with the highest percentage of
Black and Latino students do not offer Algebra II. A third of these
schools do not offer chemistry. Perhaps as startling as these data for
Black and Latino students are the findings that nationwide, half of all
high schools do not offer calculus, two-thirds do not offer physics,
and a quarter do not offer chemistry.
Education has become the ``great civil rights issue of our time''
because 50 years ago, when President Johnson signed the ESEA, there
were good-paying, family supporting jobs for workers without formal
educational credentials. The era of pick-and-shovel jobs is long gone.
Those who would support themselves in the 21st century need a high
school diploma and more: career training, an associate degree or,
ideally, a 4-year college degree.
At the same time, we cannot deny the lesson of generations of
people who made it out of poverty--education can and should be the
great equalizer. Minority children continue to face gross inequity in a
nation where equal protection is a constitutionally based promise. Our
civil rights agenda for an ESEA that truly advances equity in the way
envisioned by President Johnson and Senator Robert Kennedy in 1965 says
that no child is too poor to be educated or too far gone to be written
off. We must do more for our children than any of our systems currently
allow--meeting their health, mental health, nutritional, housing, and
security needs.
Question 2. Mr. Henderson, I am very concerned about the growing
income inequality in our country. I am concerned about the persistently
low achievement of minority students and students from low-income
families. In your testimony you cited a recent report from the Southern
Education Foundation, which found that for the first time, the majority
of students in our public schools are eligible for free or reduced
price lunch. That majority is our future. It's our future workforce and
economy.
Answer 2. Education is one of the most powerful forces to break the
poverty cycle. As Congress works on ESEA reauthorization, how we can
ensure that we're giving the majority of students the chance to succeed
in life?
Public education must enable all children to reach their potential,
exercise their full social, political and economic rights, and be
prepared for a global economy. Given the heartbreaking realities of
poverty in this great Nation, we must serve as the voice for the
voiceless.
Working with more than 40 national organizations, all of whom have
signed our shared Civil Rights Principles document, The Leadership
Conference seeks to advance an ESEA agenda that builds on the historic
intent of that law: to foster greater equity in education. We can
ensure that we're giving all students the opportunity to succeed in
life by maintaining:
1. Accountability for equity in student opportunity;
2. Accountability for equity in student outcomes;
3. Targeted Federal funding; and
4. A strong Federal role to enforce the law and protect the most
vulnerable children.
senator whitehouse
Question 1. I am intrigued by the idea of an accountability system
where the more progress a district or State makes for all students and
student subgroups, the more autonomy that district or State receives.
Conversely, if a district or State struggles to make progress or has
persistent inequities it would have less autonomy and increased
oversight. What would be the best way to create an accountability
system where districts or States could ``earn'' their way toward
greater autonomy, perhaps by being relieved of the requirement of
annual testing, through actual student academic success and outcomes?
Answer 1. Senator Whitehouse, in the debate about reauthorizing the
law, some have complained that secretarial oversight is an unwarranted
intrusion by the Federal Government into State and local control of
schools. Perhaps it is an intrusion, but sometimes, intrusions are
warranted. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an intrusion on State and
local Jim Crow laws. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was an intrusion on
State poll taxes. Brown v. Board of Education was an enormous Federal
intrusion into so-called ``local rights.'' As someone who started
public school in the 1950s right here in the District of Columbia, in
schools that had been segregated before Brown, I can tell you that it
was a very welcome intrusion.
There are those who critique the current version of ESEA and its
emphasis on assessment and accountability. I understand that this
current regime is seen as a blunt instrument instead of a refined tool.
I agree. We should refine the regime. To abandon accountability, to go
back to a time when we had no idea how students were progressing in
school, is to accept the status quo of inequity in student outcomes. To
bury our heads in the sand and believe that the problem is
accountability and not what a lack of accountability has shown us, is
to resign ourselves to a system in which only some children can learn
and only some children have the chance to be great. When a test tells
us that an eighth grader is illiterate, we should be outraged and fight
back--against the illiteracy. We should wrap this student in supports
and effective, accelerated instruction, not dismiss the tool that shows
us what is going on. While we are certainly open to innovative
strategies that would improve our schools, to step in only when a
school has also let down so many students is extremely problematic. The
greater autonomy can be had while still ensuring that all schools are
accountable for the performance of all students.
We owe our kids at least a system in which they have a meaningful
and equitable opportunity to learn, in which the system is held
accountable for their achievement, and where the Federal Government
provides targeted resources and sufficient oversight to help them
overcome the barriers to their success. This has been the legacy of
civil rights in education and this is our responsibility in this next
reauthorization.
Question 2. One way to reduce the testing burden could be to
decrease the number of questions we use to assess students. If the
number of questions were sufficiently reduced, those questions might
then be embedded in existing, annual exams such as the PSAT. Would
streamlining and consolidating assessments be a viable approach to
reducing the testing burden? Why or why not?
Answer 2. One of the most important ways to be sure students are
learning is through valid, reliable, comparable, and annual statewide
assessments. Without annual assessments, many students in our schools
would fall through the cracks. While I certainly understand the concern
about the burden associated with ``over-testing'' and ``teaching to the
test,'' we need to have a comprehensive method of evaluating student
performance. Assessments are the cornerstone of accountability systems,
and they ensure the most vulnerable students' achievement is not hidden
within larger groups. Annual assessments provide a common way of
measuring student progress on State standards across classrooms,
schools, and districts.
It is important to shift the conversation from the aversion to
testing overall, to the importance of annual testing to gauge what
students are learning. While tests do not tell the entire story of
student performance and teacher efficacy, there is tremendous value in
comparable and valid markers. While it is certainly worth seeking
innovative strategies to reduce the amount of class time lost to
assessments, undermining the validity and reliability of those
assessments would only do more harm than good. We should make sure that
students are only taking assessments that are valid and reliable for
the purpose for which they're given and that the information is used to
improve the instructional program.
I look forward to continuing to work with you to advance an ESEA
reauthorization that protects the core civil rights functions of the
law and advances educational equity for the Nation's students. Please
do not hesitate to contact me or Liz King, Senior Policy Analyst and
Director of Education Policy, if we can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Wade J. Henderson,
President & CEO.
Response to Question of Senator Baldwin by Jai Lee
Question. Educational experts in Wisconsin have stated that
the turnaround time for the results of the tests required under
NCLB is a significant issue, sometimes leaving students,
parents, teachers and administrators waiting for those test
scores long past the time when they are most (or at all) useful
for instruction or transparency. For example, if a teacher is
unable to get a student's test results from the prior academic
year before he begins planning for the next school year, it is
difficult for him to prepare for the specific educational needs
of that child or at least have baseline knowledge of his
academic needs.
Please describe what you believe the ideal timeframe would
be for teachers to receive the results of annual assessments,
as well as the current timeframe for the dissemination of the
results of annual assessments in your individual school,
district or State.
Answer. Thank you for your question. This is a very
important issue since the availability of assessment results is
fundamental to our practice as educators. In order for any
assessment to be useful, it needs to be available to the
teachers and students, even parents on a timely basis. The big
problem in the State of New York, as well as, every State that
now uses these tests for evaluative purposes, is that we don't
get to see the tests at all, nor are we able to see how
students answered on open response items. It is considered a
security issue.
I can remember a time, when the tests were not used to
evaluate us. We received the test booklets in boxes, and I
would go over them and see how my students responded. Even
then, by the time they arrived, students made progress since
the testing period. On many occasions, I could see that
students often had more background knowledge than the question
required and were docked points for adding more of their ideas.
For example, one year students had to read a non fiction
passage about the life cycle of frogs, and because we studied
the effects of various factors on the growth and viability of
tadpoles, one of my students became very excited and added a
bit more information to the response, while answering the
question. He was docked two points since it did not fall into
the norms of the rubric. I would be disappointed when this
would occur, but it was not a huge deal. More importantly, in
my classroom, I was able to facilitate and watch him grow to
develop inquiry, research and critical thinking skills that
cannot be reflected in the standardized tests.
These tests do not provide any kind of useful information
that would inform our instruction. Teachers no longer have
access to the tests, and scores arrive at the end of the year,
around June, when the summer is about to begin. We no longer
have the ability to know how our students answered, let alone
have the ability to engage in any kind of meaningful dialog
around the items. They are useless for the purposes of teaching
and learning. That is because they are not meant to be
diagnostic.
Diagnostic exams in schools can be thought of as akin to
those used in medicine. Various tools are used to assess a
patient's condition, and physicians often use more than one
tool to synthesize the outcomes, in order to provide a
comprehensive diagnosis that suggests a path for treatment. The
information is immediate and informs professional judgment
about the patient's condition and possible ways of treating
them. Imagine if the results of X-rays were not made available
to doctors or their patients until months later, and the
results came in the form of a 4, 3, 2 or 1. Anyone would say
this type of practice is medically useless, if not dangerous.
To continue with this analogy, imagine the X-rays were then
viewed by a minimally trained temp hired by a major corporation
with other financial interests in this field, which then
determines the score as an indicator of the doctor's ability to
practice medicine. It is a danger to both patient and doctor.
The kind of information that is useful to us, as educators
is available in our daily work with our students. Each day,
students work in small groups and individually to discuss and
deepen their understandings of theme, author's purpose, the use
of figurative language and to make connections between texts,
as well as, to the world. In math, it is very similar. Students
work in ``math congresses'' to express their thinking and
strategizing around problem solving. They notice patterns and
share this information with each other. I use all of this
information, in real time, to inform my instruction day to day,
week to week, month to month.
I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to contact me with
further questions about this response or any other topic.
Response to Questions of Senator Baldwin and Senator Whitehouse
by Stephen Lazar
senator baldwin
Question. Educational experts in Wisconsin have stated that the
turnaround time for the results of the tests required under NCLB is a
significant issue, sometimes leaving students, parents, teachers and
administrators waiting for those test scores long past the time when
they are most (or at all) useful for instruction or transparency. For
example, if a teacher is unable to get a student's test results from
the prior academic year before he begins planning for the next school
year, it is difficult for him to prepare for the specific educational
needs of that child or at least have baseline knowledge of his academic
needs.
Please describe what you believe the ideal timeframe would be for
teachers to receive the results of annual assessments, as well as the
current timeframe for the dissemination of the results of annual
assessments in your individual school, district or State.
Answer. Senator Baldwin identifies a key point: in many cases right
now, it is months before students and schools receive test results,
which greatly limits the use of this data for instructional purposes.
This is the case for the third to eighth grade tests in New York; the
results of the spring's assessments are not released until August.
However, this is not the case for New York's high school Regents exams.
Students and schools receive these scores within a week. I cannot
account for this difference, but if we are serious about using
assessments to help increase learning, as opposed to primarily being a
means of punishment and reward, then best practices of feedback need to
be followed: feedback needs to be specific and timely. Whatever allows
New York's Regents exams to be scored in a timely fashion should be the
case for all assessments.
senator whitehouse
Question. I believe that the most effective schools are driven
primarily by teachers and school leaders. However, I also understand
that the Federal role in education is to maintain an important backstop
for quality and equity. When I talk with teachers and school leaders in
Rhode Island, what I hear is that Federal requirements, and the State
bureaucracies that are necessary to help implement them, have far too
significant a footprint in the day-to-day operation of schools. Do you
agree with this assessment, and what would be the best ways to reduce
that footprint without unduly sacrificing the Federal purposes?
Answer. Senator Whitehouse also identifies a key inefficiency in
schools: the large, and sometimes unnecessary, footprint of Federal and
State bureaucracy. This impact seems to vary not only from State-to-
State, but even within schools in a district like New York City. With
the exception of the significant and overly burdensome documentation
requirements imposed for students with special education needs by IDEA,
my school does not feel much of a footprint. The schools that do feel
it the most in my district are the ones that are most struggling. When
schools are deemed to be in need of improvement under ESEA, a range of
consequences are triggered, all of which put more of a burden on
schools and teachers and often prevent an accurate and actionable
diagnosis of the schools' needs. I cannot offer a solution to this
problem beyond reducing the footprint, as I agree with Senator
Whitehouse's assertion that the most effective schools are driven by
their teachers and school leaders. When intervention becomes necessary,
they need to be specific to individual schools, and need to empower
school leaders and teachers to better accomplish their jobs, rather
than place additional burdens and layers of accountability on them that
distract from the school's core work with students.
I would be remiss though if I did not add a note about the burden
placed on schools by IDEA. While the objectives of IDEA's focus on
students with special education needs is worthy and significant, these
goals could be accomplished without the burdensome reporting
requirements that force school psychologists, social workers, and
special education teachers to spend a significant amount of their time
completing paperwork rather than working with students. The thinking
that has already been done by Senator Alexander and Senator Bennet's in
proposing to greatly simplify the FAFSA form without changing its goals
is needed throughout our education system, and I do not believe there
would be a more impactful place to continue that work than with IDEA
reporting requirements.
[Whereupon, at 11:54 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]