Wake wants to have its say in revising the federal No Child Left Behind program.
Some changes are expected now that the No Child Left Behind Act is up for congressional reauthorization. Various groups have proposed changes with Wake soon to be joining them.
“As one of the largest school systems in the country and one of the most successful, we think our input would be valuable," said school board member Lori Millberg at last week's board meeting.
Millberg's student achievement committee has been charged with developing proposed changes.
Not surprisingly, one of the changes that Wake will probably recommend is eliminating the "one strike: you're out" sanctions. Currently, a school can be considered to have failed if a single subgroup didn't meet proficiency standards.
While critics say such high standards are unfair, NCLB supporters say it forces schools to help all students.
Wake is also looking at asking for more flexibility in how to measure the success of students with disabilities and English Language Learners.
Wake also wants more emphasis to be placed on academic growth in addition to proficiency. Currently, schools are assessed by whether subgroups meet a target passing rate on math and reading tests with the goal of having 100 percent passing by 2014.
But under the state's ABCs testing program, schools are also evaluated based on academic growth to see how much the raw scores have improved. A school could still have a fairly low passing rate while showing high growth.
Click here for a handout looking at potential NCLB changes that Wake may recommend. The board hasn't officially adopted the recommendations yet.
Click here for the minutes from an Aug. 25 student achievement committee meeting in which the proposed changes were discussed.
Comments
NCLB
Mon, 09/28/2009 - 19:29 — THEFIREDOGThat schools aren't doing there job is a pathetic reason to argue for changing NCLB. It's equally pathetic that we don't have parents rioting in the street over the quality of education or for that matter taxpayers in general. The non-parent taxpayer is the one who loses the most, since the return on their investment must be judged by the success of the whole and not upon a few children as many parents judge. That being said, could the nation, state, and county find even more ineffecient ways to reach NCLB's goals?
You can decide....
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 12:34 — lferreriYou can make up your own mind, but I would argue that we need to tighten, not loosen, the requirements. Here’s an example of the passing rates for a school that is considered to have made Adequate Yearly Progress last year.
Washington Elementary
Whites 94.4%
Blacks 38.5%
Hispanics 43.3%
SWD 58.1%
LEP 25.0%
ED 37.4%
On another issue, I do agree with the suggestion to make academic need, not F&R status, the standard for whether children receive help.
OH NO
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 22:09 — SDR256Oh, but that would label them you see and that might damage someone's self esteem. Its SO much better to give them an F&R tattoo for life (this label never comes off according to one well informed educator) and assume that they are academically challenged even when they are maybe AG. Its SO much better for their adjustment to ship them all over the county like potatoes - because if we labelled them as (what's the new acronym? AD? Academically Disadvantaged?) then it might make them feel different. And they would feel so much more different than being shipped someplace where they know no one as thousands of children currently are.
No no, that would be too close to the truth. Too close to actually solving the problem. You don't understand this game very well yet.
Washington Elementary
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 07:25 — lferreriActually, Washington Elementary is a magnet school located just south of downtown on Fayetteville St. I suspect that many of the F&R children are not being bussed far from home at all. They just aren't being taught. Keeping students close to their home is not a panacea.
kill the whole stupid thing
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 12:42 — tboard47kill the whole stupid thing it doesn't work , will not work and is just an exercise in paperwork and bureaucracy
Ironically, the title of the
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 10:21 — shearertwIronically, the title of the program is No Child Left Behind, not No School Left Behind. How and anyone know if a child is being left behind if they just hide their scores through the process of a "healthy schools" goal? WCPSS has nothing to add to this discussion given that they clearly only care about "schools", not children.
Agree
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 12:58 — TrailerParkGirlNot only because the current BOE and Sr. Mgmt only care about schools, but also because the way WCPSS fixes their 'failing' schools is by moving the failing students out to another school, which is counter to what the purpose of NCLB was in the first place.
Edited - actually they do have one thing to add. I agree with their proposal to change participation eligibility from SES to academic need.
Change the law from school
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 10:36 — user12345Change the law from school to student and the system will follow ...
How about if WCPSS tries to
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 11:00 — Eric_BHow about if WCPSS tries to follow the law instead of taking advantage of loopholes by swapping in and out large numbers of students between schools?
Let's see, the 3-year reassignment plan has 24,000 students reassigned. In the first year of the plan we have growth of 1,600 students or, as others have pointed out, an average of 10 new students per school. What are all the other students being moved for?
Any why would they do that
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 11:22 — user12345Any why would they do that ... lawyer, accountants, etc. parents teach their kids to find the loopholes ... why wouldn't the school system do the same? Before it was sweep all the poor kids into ghettos and depended on the wealthy white students to pull up the averages ... did anyone complain about that method? ....Change the metric, change the outcome ...
The point of the NCLB subgroup metrics
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 12:45 — TrailerParkGirlwas so that not educating certain subgroups in a school could not be swept under the rug.
Did anyone complain? Yes. Isn't that what prompted doing NCLB metrics by subgroup by school?
BTW - not everyone tries to find loopholes. There are still some ethical people out there although they seem to be becoming an endangered species.
I don't think finding loop
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 13:29 — user12345I don't think finding loop holes is the same as being unethical ... most everyone contorts them self to do what they are paid for and report it in such a way so they get paid ... the school system is no different .. also, look at how much grief some got Perry for calling attention to a reporting error … there were some who felt the error should be ignored because the cause was so noble.
Correction...Perry ALLEGED a reporting error...
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 22:48 — petehsChoose your words accurately. It will soon be demonstrated that WSCA followed the CBoE's instructions to the t. Furthermore, honest people do not fear making errors because they learn from their mistakes.
Absolutely ... problem found
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 07:22 — user12345Absolutely ... problem found ... reported ... corrected ... no smoking gun ... great example of a transparent political system with responsive opposition ..... everyone (including Perry) should be proud the process worked ...
"Not surprisingly, one of
Mon, 09/21/2009 - 10:03 — user12345"Not surprisingly, one of the changes that Wake will probably recommend is eliminating the "one strike: you're out" sanctions. Currently, a school can be considered to have failed if a single subgroup didn't meet proficiency standards."
I think this criteria causing a problem for diverse schools ... if a school is mainly white, wealthy students that sub-group will always pass ... but once a school has multiple sub-groups ... at least one (besides wealthy whites) will have a problems in any given year ... making the school fail … maybe the subgroups should be across the entire system instead of individual schools … personally, I would prefer it by individual school but I don’t think the public has the fortitude to fix individual schools … especially, diverse school that have less political clout than wealthy white schools …
user--all of our schools
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 20:54 — jenmanuser--all of our schools have many of the subgroups. I think that the range is something like 17 to 25 different subgroups.
No...
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 10:46 — Bob_SconceSo, it may be that the standards for specific subgroups are too difficult, such as the measurement for students with severe disabilities. Or maybe the minimum group sizes are too small. If so, those standards should be fixed.
But, if you go to a pan-system view, then you completely eliminate the enforcement mechanism of NCLB -- moving kids from a failing school to a non-failing school.
One of the ways that NCLB remedies your problem is by requiring minimum populations of each group (I don't recall what the minimum is -- I think it's around 20 students). The idea is that very small populations have too much inherent randomness to really tell you much about the school. So, if you happen to be the sole ESL student in your school, and you fail, you're not your own failing subgroup.
Some of these subgroups may actually be better taught together than spread across the system. ESL is a great example of this -- ESL teachers are far too dilute in WCPSS; moving ESL students into a few core schools where they learn English first may be a better approach.
Also note that it's not really a "one strike, you're out" -- sanctions only kick in after two successive years of not making AYP, and then only in Title-I schools. In all other cases, the only "sanction" is that people know you didn't make AYP. Calling that a sanction is equivalent to saying that the 'Canes are sanctioned every time they lose a game -- it's just not a valid use of the word.