What About "no Child Left Behind"

[debmartin]

Feb. 26, 2005, 10:58AM

State defies U.S. rules on grading schools

TEA maneuver cuts number of failing campuses but may endanger federal funding

By JASON SPENCER

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Faced with the prospect of tagging nearly half of the state's school districts with failing grades under the federal accountability system, Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley instead changed the rules to reduce the number of failing schools sixfold.

The move, described by some as a direct challenge to the U.S. Department of Education's enforcement of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, sets up a potential showdown between Neeley and the Bush administration.

National education observers said Neeley's move makes Texas the first state to outright refuse to follow the law's requirements.

Texas receives more than $1 billion in federal money tied to compliance with No Child Left Behind. Some of that money could be in jeopardy, depending on how federal officials react to Neeley's decision. The TEA released grades Friday.

"It sets up, obviously, a rather interesting situation between the U.S. Department of Education and the state of Texas and you could see administrative funding cuts due to noncompliance," said Scott Young, a senior policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Just days ago, the Denver-based group issued a report criticizing the president's education initiative as an overly rigid piece of legislation that undermines states' efforts to educate students.

The disagreement centers on the federal government's requirement that schools exempt no more than 1 percent of their students from testing because of learning disabilities. Once a school crosses that 1 percent special education threshold, any additional students must be counted as failing. In Texas, nearly 10 percent of all students don't take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills because of their special education needs. Instead, they take a state-mandated alternative test.

It's a predicament that has hurt the ratings of schools in other states as well, including Michigan, where special education participation rates were mostly to blame for the failing grades that went to a third of that state's schools.

Waiver request denied

Last April, Neeley asked the Education Department for a waiver from the special education policy. It was denied in July, long after Texas students had already been tested.

But rather than go along with the ruling as did many other states that lost similar appeals, Neeley granted appeals from 431 school districts and 1,316 campuses that stood to fail under the federal guidelines. When she was finished, only 86 school districts and 402 campuses were on the "needs improvement" list. Those that make the list in consecutive years must allow their students to transfer to better schools.

"We really think this is more of a fairness issue," said Debbie Ratcliffe, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman. "The poor school districts are caught between conflicting state and federal laws."

The number of passing schools varies wildly under the federal system because each state develops its own tests and sets its own standards. So comparisons across state lines don't work. In Alabama and Florida, for example, 77 percent of schools missed the mark, while all but 4 percent of Wisconsin's campuses got passing grades.

The Washington, D.C.-based Achievement Alliance criticized Neeley for giving the failing schools passing grades. Alliance members include Just for the Kids/National Center for Educational Accountability, the Education Trust, the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights and the Business Roundtable.

"This is a message that we're not going to pay attention to the indicators. Instead, we're going to change the indicators so that we as schools look good," said Delia Pompa, the alliance's director and a former Texas Education Agency assistant commissioner. "The focus shouldn't be on whether the school looks good, but on whether children are learning. If children are learning, eventually, the school will look good."

HISD benefited

The Houston Independent School District was among the hundreds of school systems that benefited from Neeley's decision. The district would have landed on the "needs improvement" list had Neeley followed the federal guidelines. The number of failing HISD campuses shrunk from 77 (more than a quarter of all Houston schools) down to 26 because of her ruling.

HISD officials said they had no reaction to Neeley's ruling.

"That is between the TEA and the U.S. government," said district spokesman Terry Abbott. "We simply follow the guidelines of the TEA."

All of the state's other major urban school districts

[dalparadise]

Feb. 26, 2005, 10:58AM

State defies U.S. rules on grading schools

TEA maneuver cuts number of failing campuses but may endanger federal funding

By JASON SPENCER

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Faced with the prospect of tagging nearly half of the state's school districts with failing grades under the federal accountability system, Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley instead changed the rules to reduce the number of failing schools sixfold.

The move, described by some as a direct challenge to the U.S. Department of Education's enforcement of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, sets up a potential showdown between Neeley and the Bush administration.

National education observers said Neeley's move makes Texas the first state to outright refuse to follow the law's requirements.

Texas receives more than $1 billion in federal money tied to compliance with No Child Left Behind. Some of that money could be in jeopardy, depending on how federal officials react to Neeley's decision. The TEA released grades Friday.

"It sets up, obviously, a rather interesting situation between the U.S. Department of Education and the state of Texas and you could see administrative funding cuts due to noncompliance," said Scott Young, a senior policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Just days ago, the Denver-based group issued a report criticizing the president's education initiative as an overly rigid piece of legislation that undermines states' efforts to educate students.

The disagreement centers on the federal government's requirement that schools exempt no more than 1 percent of their students from testing because of learning disabilities. Once a school crosses that 1 percent special education threshold, any additional students must be counted as failing. In Texas, nearly 10 percent of all students don't take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills because of their special education needs. Instead, they take a state-mandated alternative test.

It's a predicament that has hurt the ratings of schools in other states as well, including Michigan, where special education participation rates were mostly to blame for the failing grades that went to a third of that state's schools.

Waiver request denied

Last April, Neeley asked the Education Department for a waiver from the special education policy. It was denied in July, long after Texas students had already been tested.

But rather than go along with the ruling as did many other states that lost similar appeals, Neeley granted appeals from 431 school districts and 1,316 campuses that stood to fail under the federal guidelines. When she was finished, only 86 school districts and 402 campuses were on the "needs improvement" list. Those that make the list in consecutive years must allow their students to transfer to better schools.

"We really think this is more of a fairness issue," said Debbie Ratcliffe, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman. "The poor school districts are caught between conflicting state and federal laws."

The number of passing schools varies wildly under the federal system because each state develops its own tests and sets its own standards. So comparisons across state lines don't work. In Alabama and Florida, for example, 77 percent of schools missed the mark, while all but 4 percent of Wisconsin's campuses got passing grades.

The Washington, D.C.-based Achievement Alliance criticized Neeley for giving the failing schools passing grades. Alliance members include Just for the Kids/National Center for Educational Accountability, the Education Trust, the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights and the Business Roundtable.

"This is a message that we're not going to pay attention to the indicators. Instead, we're going to change the indicators so that we as schools look good," said Delia Pompa, the alliance's director and a former Texas Education Agency assistant commissioner. "The focus shouldn't be on whether the school looks good, but on whether children are learning. If children are learning, eventually, the school will look good."

HISD benefited

The Houston Independent School District was among the hundreds of school systems that benefited from Neeley's decision. The district would have landed on the "needs improvement" list had Neeley followed the federal guidelines. The number of failing HISD campuses shrunk from 77 (more than a quarter of all Houston schools) down to 26 because of her ruling.

HISD officials said they had no reaction to Neeley's ruling.

"That is between the TEA and the U.S. government," said district spokesman Terry Abbott. "We simply follow the guidelines of the TEA."

All of the state's other major urban school districts

[Parrothead]

^^^^^^^ AMEN!!!!!!!

[jmancuso]

i second that. i have a friend who is a teacher in HISD and she'll agree that there are some kids that need to be left behind becuase they are only bringing down the ones who want to learn.

[westguy]

Growing up, my parents made sure I worked hard in school. Couple that with the fear of humiliation of being "left back" and I had real incentives to keep my grades up. Maybe parents should re-engage in their kids' education and stop seeing the schools as state subsidized day care. I am robbed every year to pay for this criminal training, though I have no kids of my own. My money is wasted and I'm supposed to be concerned that no child is left behind?

What about kids who have bad parents?

[debmartin]

"What about kids who have bad parents?" (quote, westguy)

i guess according to some people on this board this would not be your concern, although when they are not encouraged to stay in school and spend more time on the streets committing crime, your tax dollars will be spent working them through the system. and if you want to know how successful probation and parole programs are, just read the courts/crime section in the chron.

i never paid much attention to "no child left behind" - it seemed just another publicity stunt and a big waste of money to tell the public something teachers and parents have known for years. then i read the part about keeping the learning disabled students down to 1%, and that anything over 1% would be counted as failure. i realized it was no wonder texas schools were seen as so inadequate, as setting up that quota for L/D students sets up our state for failure! it took courage for the TEA to stand up to washington - as i said i hope federal money is not withheld as a consequence.

debmartin

[bachanon]

my hopes for "no child left behind" would be that the basics would be taught in a methodical manner with individual attention/or other options for those students not inclined to learn. what i fear has happened is that the school districts are scrambling to appear that they are teaching more than they are and failing even at that.

i have a fourteen year old in eighth grade under my guardianship in the conroe independant school district. his math teacher had her students write a paper on who they are and to create a chronological graph of important events in their lives. what about pre-algebra? how does bonding with the math teacher or getting to know oneself have anything to do with fractions and decimals, or solving for x? when the benchmark tests or tasp comes along they have days where the entire school prepares for what will be the items (or most likely items) on the tests.

i realize my experience is anecdotal. i fear the public school structure is a failure and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

"no child left behind" is a nice try. however, it's like putting a bandaid on a broken back.

[debmartin]

bach, don't let it get you down - just think of the karate kid painting fences and waxing cars, only to discover he'd learned martial arts! but seriously, at age 14 kids are so self-absorbed (mine is) an experiential math lesson may not be such a bad thing. as a teacher i was guilty of quite a few myself. you are correct to be concerned because the days of creative teaching are long past, with the single-minded emphasis on standardized testing. and do not fool yourself that the problem only exists in public school, because i've taught in private schools as well and it's not altogether different. i'd have to say there's somewhat of a decline in education overall - at the least a pronounced gap between secondary and post-secondary readiness.

now for the good news- never thought i'd ever have one good thing to say about rick perry but i must give credit where credit's due. i nearly dropped my coffee this morning reading the chron - about perry supporting shirley neeley of TEA in rejecting the federal guidelnes of "no child left behind". i've always assumed perry was a bush puppet but it appears he's made a decision to stand up for the students and teachers of texas in a major way. i left teaching when i realized my own children's educational needs were not being met, and it felt hypocritical to focus on the needs of other kids while mine languished. since they're nearly grown and on solid ground, i've been working as an educational advocate and it's been almost if not more discouraging than teaching. all of a sudden, hisd's being restructured, neeley's been appointed to head TEA and now the gov has decided to be a stand up guy - talk about a turn around! houston is changing for the better, and with properly integrated state support it now appears as if our kids will get what they deserve.

debmartin

[Parrothead]

"What about kids who have bad parents?" (quote, westguy)

i guess according to some people on this board this would not be your concern, although when they are not encouraged to stay in school and spend more time on the streets committing crime, your tax dollars will be spent working them through the system.  and if you want to know how successful probation and parole programs are,  just read the courts/crime section in the chron.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Speaking only for myself, I disagree with this. There are crappy kids who no matter WHAT you do or say to encourage them are simply not going to listen and they certainly aren't going to do what you think is right. That they go on to the criminal system is definitely a possibility. Me paying to ensure their education when they don't want it bad enough isn't going to change that situation much.

On the other hand, some kids finally get their ____ in one sock (forgive my language) and realize that they can still make it--those kids I will be glad to help in any way I can. Some people in this country forget that education is not a basic human right, it is a privilege. Just ask anyone who can't afford it.