The ChamberPost

9 States and DC Big Winners in Education Race

by Rosemary Lahasky

Congratulations to the Department of Education’s phase two Race to the Top competition winners: The District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

These ten winners, along with Tennessee and Delaware (grantees in phase 1), were awarded $4.35 billion in competitive funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative. RTTT, a small part in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, created the opportunity for states to compete for federal dollars by promising to meet four assurances: enhancing standards and assessments, improving the collection and use of data, increasing teacher effectiveness and achieving equity in teacher distribution, and turning around low-performing schools.

Many of the states applying for these funds have made huge strides in enacting new laws just over the past few months. For instance, most states have adopted a common set of rigorous English and math standards, many have increased their charter school caps, and others have improved their teacher evaluation systems including performance pay and value-added metrics.

"Every state that applied showed a tremendous amount of leadership and a bold commitment to education reform,” announced U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "We set a high bar and these states met the challenge." (MSNBC)

This fall, the Chamber’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW) will begin hosting a series of five business roundtables in selected states that have won RTTT grants. ICW will bring together businesses and chambers of commerce in the state to discuss outcomes and accountability in their RTTT plans.

While today we recognize these states for this great accomplishment, we are going to be keeping a close eye on them to ensure they are making progress on all of their promises.

LA Times to Shine Light on Teacher Effectiveness

by Rosemary Lahasky

Yesterday, the LA Times announced it would be publicly releasing a database that measures the effectiveness of more than 6,000 elementary school teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District next month. Through an analysis known as “value-added”, the Times will use the math and English scores of students from the year prior to project what the student’s performance should be in the future. It will then compare the actual performance to that projection to calculate the “value” the specific teacher added or subtracted overall to a student’s academic gain.

Measuring performance on the value add alone is not, and should not, be the only way to evaluate effectiveness. However, this analysis will shed some light on data that has been collected by the school district for years but never used – and helps to illustrate the importance of how an effective teacher year after year greatly benefits a student’s academic achievement level.

Value add is gaining nation-wide attention, and just last month the Washington, D.C. public schools Chancellor used a similar metric as one component to remove a few dozen ineffective teachers from the school system completely. In fact, many of the Race to the Top state finalists have also begun discussions on changing their teacher evaluation systems to include value added metrics to produce a more robust and comprehensive system when measuring effectiveness.

Most of us can recall a great teacher that impacted our learning tremendously. Hopefully the LA Unified School District can use this information combined with other metrics to ensure that all students will get the education they deserve.

Michelle Rhee making an IMPACT on D.C. Public Schools

by Caitlin Ward
 
For as long as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools Michelle Rhee has been in office, she has been under fire for her tough, no-nonsense approach to teacher accountability and her willingness to challenge traditional tenure rules. Recently, however, the maelstrom surrounding Rhee has worsened with her decision to dismiss 241 D.C. teachers--or approximately 6 percent of the D.C. teaching force, 165 of whom performed poorly under an evaluation system called IMPACT.

Developed by D.C. Public Schools in collaboration with Mathematica Policy Research, IMPACT informs teachers of the required standards and then evaluates their performance across four metrics: 50% on student value-added growth scores, 40% on classroom observations by their principal and outside evaluators termed "master educators," 5% on contribution to the school community, and 5% on value added to the school. The results from IMPACT clearly showed that at least 165 of the teachers had insufficient performances across all four categories of evaluation. Teachers with scores that ranked them as "ineffective" or "minimally effective" were let go. The remaining 76 teachers were let go for licensure problems.

IMPACT is the first evaluation of its kind in D.C., and it comes at a time when the District needs it most. Prior to Rhee's time in office, D.C. was considered one of the bleakest school systems in the country. In ICW's 2007 Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness, D.C. received a solid F in academic achievement, and in ICW's 2009 Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Innovation, the district received a similar dismal grade on removing ineffective teachers from its workforce. Ineffective teachers consistently had high performance ratings but nearly none were fired, indicating severe flaws in the accountability system. More importantly, students were graduating from D.C. schools without the basic knowledge or skills needed to succeed in college or the workforce.

With the use of IMPACT, D.C. teachers are, in part, being held accountable for their students' performance. The results help school administrators take action to improve their schools. Not only is IMPACT allowing administrators to identify and remove unsatisfactory teachers, but the system also helps recognize high-performing teachers. These excellent teachers now have the opportunity to participate in DCPS's new merit pay program, wherein teachers can opt in to receive pay raises for good performance if they forgo tenure. Rhee's use of IMPACT is just another example of her dedication to challenging the status quo in a quest to turn around D.C. Public Schools for the better.

Learn more about IMPACT, and download the guidebook.

Race to the Top - The Final 19

by Rosemary Lahasky

The second phase of the U.S. Department of Education’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTTT) finalists were just announced. Tennessee and Delaware were the only two states to win during phase 1, and over 30 states applied for the second round of funding. While the competition is tough and many won’t win, students across the country have already benefited greatly from this race.

Since the competition began earlier this year, states have passed more significant education reform laws in the past six months than in the previous decade, all in the hopes of garnering the remaining RTTT funds this September.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what the finalists have accomplished or promised in the past few months:

Arizona – Governor signed legislation that ties teacher evaluation to student achievement.

California – Limited its Round 2 application to a core group of districts that were in support of reform proposals.

Colorado – Passed a sweeping teacher evaluation initiative which will base half of evaluations on academic progress.

DC – Approved new teacher’s contract which includes performance pay.

Florida – Passed a sweeping tenure reform bill; however, it was vetoed by the Governor.

Georgia – Passed legislation that gives the state more power to intervene in low-performing school districts.

Hawaii – Eased its limits on the number of new charter schools.

Illinois – Passed a law that improves professional training for school principals.

Kentucky – First state to adopt the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics.

Louisiana – Passed a new teacher evaluation bill based on student academic performance.

Maryland – Passed a new law that links student achievement to teacher evaluations.

Massachusetts --- Passed laws allowing state to intervene in poorly-performing schools and districts.

New Jersey -- Governor unveiled bill reforming teacher tenure and pay.

New York – Passed law tying student achievement to teacher evaluations and doubling the number of charter schools allowed to open statewide.

North Carolina – Changed state law to adopt federal guidelines on improving low-performing schools.

Ohio – Within the second RTTT application, school districts had to commit to evaluate teachers and principals annually, using students' academic progress as one of the measures.

Pennsylvania – Bill passed the Senate attempting to create an alternative teacher certification system.

Rhode Island – Passed a new statewide public school funding formula that aims to achieve equitable funding to school districts that serve large numbers of poor students.

South Carolina – Current law tracks improvements in student achievement at the state and district level. The state’s proposal would create a teacher performance system tied to those measurements.

In addition, 29 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the recently released Common Core State Standards which provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn. The Common Core State Standards were developed by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers in conjunction with teachers, school administrators, and other experts.

We congratulate the 19 finalists and encourage all states to keep up the hard work!

Private Sector Institutions under Greater Scrutiny

by Karen Elzey

“For-profit institutions play a vital role in training young people and adults for jobs and for-profits will continue to help families secure a better future for themselves,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in remarks he made during a May 2010 DeVry policy forum.

The U.S. Department of Education today released its proposed regulations to define gainful employment. To qualify for federal aid, the current law requires that career colleges and training programs prepare students for gainful employment in recognized occupations. The 97-page notice of proposed rulemaking and 68 pages of appendices outline a complex system. The Department proposed a two-part test to determine whether private sector college programs are preparing their students for gainful employment. The first part of the test involves measuring the relationship between student loan debt and average earnings after a postsecondary education training program. The second test examines the rate at which all students, regardless of completion, repay their loans on time. 

Based on the results of these measures, programs would be grouped into three categories on their ability to qualify for federal aid: fully eligible programs, ineligible programs, and restricted programs. According to the Department’s analysis, If the rule were put into effect today, an estimated 5 percent of all programs would no longer be eligible to offer their students federal student aid and 55 percent of all programs would be required to inform their students about high debt-to-earnings ratios. 

The great unknown is what kind of impact these regulations will have on individual companies and programs. Accountability and transparency in higher education are important. However, unduly burdensome rules which are aimed specifically a small portion of the higher education sector raise some serious concerns.

Celebrating Junior Achievement

by Margaret Spellings

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of addressing the 2010 Junior Achievement (JA) National Leadership Conference in Minneapolis – more than 250 dedicated JA staff members who are helping to shape the future of American business, and to ensure the strength of the free enterprise system, the key to the American dream,  is alive and well.  As a current business owner and former Junior Achievement parent, I know how important and influential programs like JA are to inspiring creative thinking and inventiveness. It’s programs like JA that arm up-and-coming entrepreneurs with the knowledge and know-how to take a simple business idea and turn it into a successful enterprise.

Education is inexorably linked to our economic success, and that is why the National Chamber Foundation has collaborated with JA to sponsor and support our nation’s budding entrepreneurs through the innovative high school program JA Be Entrepreneurial.  Developed to educate and encourage high school students to plan and launch their own businesses, JA Be Entrepreneurial is helping to boost schools’ curricula and create awareness around free enterprise through programs, events, and contests that engage our nation’s youth. It challenges students to think, build, strive, and achieve, and it exposes students to knowledgeable volunteers from a variety of backgrounds, including established entrepreneurs.

The program has experienced great success since it was first launched last fall, and as a result, we are eager to expand our reach – by spreading the word about the program to over 17,000 small businesses and 2,500 chambers of commerce and associations across the country.  We want to ensure that a greater number of young, aspiring entrepreneurs receive the foundation they need to start their own businesses and succeed in the workplace.  And by continuing to educate and motivate our students, we can unleash the full potential of our free enterprise system in a way that preserves the promise of the American Dream for generations to come.

Throughout my career, I have heard countless people say how much they care about education, and how they want to do something, to get involved in an active way.  Well, JA is that “something” tangible, worthwhile, and eminently doable for so many people – it is doing something long-lasting, something that supports our free enterprise system, and something that changes lives.

Stepping Back from the Crack-Up

by Brad Peck

Daniel Henninger writes about change versus the status quo:

In the distant future, some U.S. historian in kindergarten today will write about Congressman David Obey's contribution to the splitting apart of American liberalism's assumptions about the purpose of government. Mr. Obey of Wisconsin is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the spenders. People have said for years that government robs Peter to pay Paul. Now brother is ripping off brother. Mr. Obey plans to send $10 billion to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs and will pay for it in part by taking money from several school reform programs, such as Race to the Top.

President Obama has threatened a veto. Keep an eye on it. If this Democratic president stops that Democratic congressman from knee-capping school reform to protect unionized teachers from the world the rest of us live in, you can mark down August 2010 as a first step back from the crack-up. That would be the kind of change Mr. Obama's admirers thought they were getting.

Keep going. Our take here.

Save Teachers or Save Education Reform Programs?

by Rosemary Lahasky

The question on the National Journal's Education Expert blog is:

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., defied the White House and shook the education community with his decision last week to cut from the administration's education reforms to pay for $10 billion in federal aid to avert teacher layoffs (see related story here). The jobs money is part of a military supplemental package passed by the House last Thursday. Now it is up to the Senate, which returns from recess on July 12, to pass the bill out of Congress. The White House has threatened to veto the measure if the $800 million cut from the education reform programs -- Race to the Top, the federal Charter Schools Program and the Teacher Incentive Fund -- is not restored.

Are the education reform programs appropriate places to cut? If not, what are better alternatives and why?

Arthur Rothkopf responds:

The action by the House of Representatives to pay for keeping teachers at the expense of Race to the Top competitive funding, teacher incentive grants, and charter school support is totally misguided. The White House should be commended for issuing a veto threat if these reductions are kept in the final appropriations legislation.

ARRA included almost $100 billion in education-related stimulus funding, the vast bulk of which went to supporting the status quo in K-12 education. The true education reform elements of ARRA, accounting for about five percent of the total, are the ones targeted for reduction by the House-passed legislation. It is these reform elements that have the potential to turn around K-12 education and bring new ideas and concepts into the current stagnant system. Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation and teacher incentive grants are causing states and localities to re-examine their practices and to seriously consider dramatically improved data systems and teacher pay-for performance, among other innovations. As a result of RTT, things are beginning to change on the ground for the better - this is not the time to go back. Competitive grants made sense in ARRA and they make sense in the future.

And more from Chester Finn and Lisa Graham Keegan.

More Jobs Go Unfilled Due to Skills Shortages

by Domenic Giandomenico

The New York Times today published an article discussing what many of us have known for quite a while now – that the skills of our current workforce are not matching up with industry needs. One company highlighted, Ben Venue Laboratories in Cleveland, was only able to hire 47 people out of 3,600 job applications due to a lack of skills. Many of the applicants failed a basic test measuring literacy and the ability to do ninth-grade math. The pharmaceutical company is still struggling to fill another 100 jobs.

"You would think in tough economic times that you would have your pick of people," said Thomas J. Murphy, chief executive of Ben Venue.

With the unemployment rate today reported at 9.5%, it is a tragedy and an abject failure of our education system that we have millions of jobs -- about 3 million, according to the Obama administration -- that continue to go unfilled because our workers cannot even pass basic literacy and math requirements. Many of these Americans have high school diplomas, yet still lack the skills necessary to compete for these unfilled jobs. It is apparent that we must not only focus on raising the number of students that graduate from high school, but also that we must ensure that the quality of the education they receive in high school prepares them for some form of postsecondary education or a family-sustaining career. Furthermore, this highlights the need to ensure that all Americans receive a quality education in the STEM fields - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Even if one does not think they'll require math for their desired career, STEM education is vitally important to the development of one's ability to problem solve and to analyze situations logically. Ninth-grade math should never be the difference between having a good career and being mired in perpetual unemployment.

Finally, it is clear that we must evolve our adult education system such that the millions of Americans already in the workforce have an opportunity to obtain the skills necessary to compete for jobs. Perhaps some of them might get lucky and find a job that doesn't require upgrading their skills, but they will always be just a recession away from needing to beat very long odds to find another job. Without a system that actively reaches out to these adults and provides them with an education that meets their needs and the needs of employers, they will forever remain among the most vulnerable in our society.

Higher Education and Regulation

by Rosemary Lahasky

At the National Journal Eliza Krigman asks:

New regulations formally proposed by the Education Department last week intend to crack down on higher education institutions...Are the proposed rules in the best interests of students? Should the Education Department stick with an income-to-debt-service ratio for the gainful employment provision?

and Arthur Rothkopf answers:

There are certainly legitimate issues to be addressed in evaluating the performance of for-profit higher education, as there are in evaluating the performance of non-profit higher education institutions. (I make these comments as a 12-year former president of a non-profit liberal arts and engineering college.) As one who been been actively involved in the debate on the appropriateness of the debt-to-income formula that was being considered by the Department of Education as a standard for students at for-profit schools, I found the proposed formula to meet the definition of "arbitrary and capricious" in its conception and execution. There is no basis in the law or in sound economics for the 8 percent ratio of debt-to-income that was being proposed. The formula would have put the for-profit sector at a huge competitive disadvantage and would threaten the ability of President Obama to meet his goal of dramatically increasing the number of students attending post-secondary institutions.

The Department should be commended for holding back in the proposed regulations on its debt-to income proposal for further study. It did, however, propose that these schools provide the public and the Department with far more information on costs, debt obligations, completion rates, and outcomes. This will be a major new burden for the for-profit sector but one which ultimately should prove helpful in determining the value provided by it. (Consideration should be given to requiring similar data from the non-profit sector.) At the same time, I believe that the Department and the Congress should have the opportunity to review the information provided before moving to some new formula. The Department should not feel constrained to develop some new formula in a short time frame so as to meet an arbitrary deadline. The contributions of for-profit schools and any attendant concerns about them should be carefully studied with the relevant data before new restrictions are placed on institutions that are providing signifcant value to millions of students, generally those with lower incomes. Careful and thoughtful analysis of the issue and the data would benefit everyone.

More here.