According to the Center on Education Policy, 23 states engaged in some form of “backloading” their NCLB proficiency targets–requiring small gains in the first few years of implementation, with more aggressive goals later on. Later on has arrived, notes Thompson Publishing’s Andrew Brownstein.
Some educators rolled the dice and hoped for relief from a new president or, at the very least, a reauthorization that would eliminate some of the law’s more onerous mandates. Others, like Delaware education secretary Valerie Woodruff, merely wanted to give their school districts time to adjust their curriculum and instruction to get in sync with the law. “We knew this might happen, but we were also hoping there’d be some adjustments and a little more reality along the way,” said. “It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. There’s always part of you that hopes the problem will go away.”
Reauthorization is not on the agenda at present, and the new president will have his hands full with the econony and two wars. Comparisons to the financial crisis are inevitable. “Just like over-optimistic homebuyers, states chose to defer payment until later, hoping that some miracle would bail them out before the bill came due,” Brownstein notes.
At a recent meeting at the U.S. Department of Education (ED), Scott Marion, vice president of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, warned, “The Fannie Mae of NCLB is about to hit.”
Bailout? What bailout?
States established “balloon mortgage” AYP goals in order to avoid federal intervention for failure to continually meet them. They placed a bet that by the time the “balloon” AYP targets kicked in, NCLB would either disappear or get seriously altered with respect to federal school interventions. Pure, plain and simple.
Now that the “balloons” are due and those AYP targets are escalating, states will get bailed out by the US Dept. of Education’s “differentiated accountability” regs. These regs will probably go into place sometime next year after the current pilot program is completed.
What this means is states, not the Feds, will call the shots on what interventions should be put into place for their AYP-deficient schools. Just as we have witnessed in the past, look for more state tap dancing to follow the letter of the law but not the spirit.
So, in the end, the states with “balloons” made a good bet after all. NCLB did become more lenient by the time the “balloons” came due.
“It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. There’s always part of you that hopes the problem will go away.”
This is “Delaware education secretary Valerie Woodruff” talking?
The person in charge of an entire state’s public education system?
I don’t even know where to begin with this one.
Compare and contrast.
Delaware education secretary Valerie Woodruff:
“It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. There’s always part of you that hopes the problem will go away.”
Superintendent of schools Kathleen Cashin, Region 5:
These days, Dr. Cashin, who is 6 feet tall with short blond hair, strides into schools, juggling her cellphone and BlackBerry, doling out hugs to parents, kisses to principals and a never-ending stream of thank-yous to her teachers. She calls everyone Baby or Hon.
“You have to be kind to people,” she said. “If people feel they don’t have a voice, they are going to strike back at some point.”
Although Dr. Cashin is beloved by parent and community groups, often impressing them with her passion for children, some who have worked with her say that she can be imperious, that she listens intently but can be difficult to persuade to change her mind.
She is often generous with praise, but her criticism can be merciless. “It’s got to be much more rigorous,” she told a principal after touring a Brownsville elementary school. Her quiet tone did not mask her fury. “I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency.”
Bucking School Reform, a Leader Gets Results by David Herszenhorn, New York Times: December 4, 2006