The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Current Federal Policy and Legislation Reauthorizing ESEA

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Current Federal Policy and LegislationReauthoriz
ing ESEANHSAA/NHASBOSeptember 24, 2009
Bruce HunterAssociate Executive Director,
Advocacy and Communications
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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

• Goals of the Money
• Spend funds quickly to save/create jobs
• Improve student achievement through school
  improvement and reform
• Ensure transparency, reporting and
  accountability
• Invest money thoughtfully to minimize funding
  cliff

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Core SFSF AssurancesGovernors Must Make These
Assurances

• Making improvements in teacher effectiveness and
  ensuring that all schools have highly qualified
  teachers
• Making progress toward college and career-ready
  standards and rigorous assessments that will
  improve both teaching and learning
• Improving achievement in low-performing schools,
  by providing intensive support and effective
  interventions in schools that need them the most
  
• Gathering information to improve student
  learning, teacher performance, and college and
  career-readiness through enhanced data systems
  that track progress.

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Includes regular FY 09 appropriations
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SEA and LEA Coordination
Who Applies
State
District
Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
State
250 million
Teacher Incentive Fund
300 million
Race to the Top
Both
Who Spends
4.35 billion
Investing in Innovation Fund
SFSF Phase Two
School Improvement Grants
District
650 million
3.5 billion
Teacher Incentive Fund
Ed Tech
650 million
12.6 billion
300 million
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Planning Timelines
Allows applicants to frame in overall reform
context
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ARRA Leverage Over StatesRace To The Top Grants
4.35 billion

• Second we propose that to be eligible under this
  program, a state must not have any legal,
  statutory or regulatory barriers to linking
  student achievement and student growth data to
  teachers for the purpose of teacher and principal
  evaluation

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RACE TO THE TOP (CHARTER SCHOOLS) ED Review
(06/19/09)

• Prefacing his speech on school turnarounds, the
  Secretary told reporters on a June 8 conference
  call that states must be open to charter
  schools.  States that do not have public charter
  laws or put artificial caps on the growth of
  charter schools will jeopardize their
  applications under the Race to the Top Fund,
  he declared. 

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Federal Leverage Re State and Local Decisions

• SIG -School improvement Grants 3.5 billion for
  school turnarounds
• Aimed at the 5000 lowest scoring schools-5
• Three tiers of eligibility 1. The lowest
  scoring 5 of all Title I schools in punishment
  stages, 2. Equally low scoring middle and high
  schools that do not get Title I funding, 3. the
  rest of the schools in punishment stages

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Federal Leverage Re State and Local Decisions

• SIG Grants -Four turnaround models
• Restart Model -Turn the school into a charter
  school or over to a private educational company
  fire the principal
• Turnaround Model- Fire the principal and at least
  50 of the teachers and implement changes
• Closure Model - Close the school and disperse
  students to higher scoring schools fire the
  principal
• Transformational Model - Transform the school
  through PD, use of data, alignment and proven
  practices fire the principal

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Federal Leverage Re State and Local Decisions

• SIG conditions
• Fire the principals
• Use test scores to evaluate teachers
• Agree to teacher placement decisions authority

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IDEA Flexibility - Problems Emerge

• Sec. 613 (a)(C) Adjustment to local fiscal effort
  in certain fiscal years.
• Amounts in excess.--Notwithstanding clauses (ii)
  and (iii) of subparagraph (A), for any fiscal
  year for which the allocation received by a local
  educational agency under section 611(f) exceeds
  the amount the local educational agency received
  for the previous fiscal year, the local
  educational agency may reduce the level of
  expenditures otherwise required by subparagraph
  (A)(iii) by not more than 50 percent of the
  amount of such excess.
• (ii) Use of amounts to carry out activities under
  ESEA.--If a local educational agency exercises
  the authority under clause (i), the agency shall
  use an amount of local funds equal to the
  reduction in expenditures under clause (i) to
  carry out activities authorized under the
  Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
• (iii) State prohibition.--Notwithstanding clause
  (i), if a State educational agency determines
  that a local educational agency is unable to
  establish and maintain programs of free
  appropriate public education that meet the
  requirements of subsection (a) or the State
  educational agency has taken action against the
  local educational agency under section 616, the
  State educational agency shall prohibit the local
  educational agency from reducing the level of
  expenditures under clause (i) for that fiscal
  year.

Budget and Appropriations
Budget and Appropriations
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Forty-Nine States and Territories Join Common
Core State Standards Initiative

• NGA Center, CCSSO Convene State-led Process to
  Develop Common English-language arts and
  Mathematics Standards
• By signing on to the Common Core State Standards
  Initiative, governors and state commissioners of
  education across the country are committing to
  joining a state-led process to develop a common
  core of state standards in English-language arts
  and mathematics for grades K-12.

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Common Core Standards

• Increased Congressional support for common core
  (not national) standards.
• CCSSO and NGA have joined together with 49 states
  and territories to develop them.
• Partnership also with Achieve, ACT and the
  College Board.
• States may choose to include additional standards
  beyond the common core as long as the common core
  represents at least 85 percent of the states
  standards in English language arts and
  mathematics.
• Still unclear what Congress sees as their role in
  these discussions without leading to the
  development of national standards.

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Common Standards ? Federal StandardsEducation
Labor Republican Staff on September 21, 2009

• The National Governors Association Center for
  Best Practices and the Council of Chief State
  School Officers today released a public draft of
  the groups proposed common standards in
  English-language arts and mathematics. The
  standards were developed as part of the Common
  Core State Standards Initiative and are now open
  for review and comment. According to the groups
  press release, These standards define the
  knowledge and skills students should have to
  succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing, academic
  college courses and in workforce training
  programs.
• Todays release of proposed common standards
  developed by state and school leaders is a
  perfect reminder that the federal government need
  not control every facet of education reform. In
  fact, positive steps are being taken in those
  areas where the federal government has
  deliberately refrained from involving itself. The
  progress being made seems like a good reason to
  keep it that way.

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What will the common core standards look like?

• Fewer, clearer, and higher
• Articulate to parents, teachers, and the general
  public expectations for what students will know
  and be able to do, grade by grade, and when they
  graduate from high school
• Internationally benchmarked
• Research and evidence based
• Ready for states to adopt

CCSSO
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What happens after states adopt common core
standards?

• The common core state standards are the first
  step in transforming our education system. For
  systemic change to occur
• Educators must be given resources, tools, and
  time to adjust classroom practice.
• Instructional materials need to be developed that
  align to the standards.
• Assessments will be developed to measure student
  progress.
• Federal, state, and district policies will need
  to be re-examined to ensure they support
  alignment of the common core -- throughout the
  system -- with student achievement.

CCSSO
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NGA Press ReleaseSecretary Duncan Praises the
Work of NGA and CCSSO

• U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed
  state officials and education researchers.
• "Thanks to CCSSO and NGA your hard work and
  leadership is paying off... With higher standards
  that are common across states we can share best
  practices and collaborate on curricula."
• Secretary Duncan cited internationally
  benchmarked standards as one of four education
  reforms in the American Recovery and Reinvestment
  Act

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Reauthorization of ESEATwo Trains Are Leaving
the Station

• NCLB
• George Miller Edward Kennedy
• Subject to some changes
• Most influential groups will be think tanks
• 50 standards and 50 tests
• Hard to make national analyses
• Rigid punitive design, high stakes summative
  tests, all or nothing accountability, but
  disaggregation has focused instruction
• Test scores rising everywhere for all groups of
  students
• Federal control of accountability drives
  standards, curriculum and sanctions based on test
  results

• Common Core
• NGA/46 Governors and CCSSO/46 Chiefs
• New plan is still malleable
• Easier for administrators to influence elements
  of plan at the state level
• Common standards that are higher, clearer and
  fewer
• Uniform assessment system that is more rigorous
  than current tests but both formative and
  summative aligned to standards
• National analyses more possible
• Plan for open source common instructional
  materials aligned to standards
• Plan for professional development keyed to
  standards driven by results
• No punishment plan build into design
• Return of control over all facets of education to
  states

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Reauthorization of ESEAThere is no consensus

• Reform s Charter schools/Privatization
• Reform s National standards and tests/Common
  core of standards and uniform assessments,
  performance pay
• Reform s Vouchers, charters and virtual schools
• Reform s returning authority over all critical
  processes to states
• Transformation s Professional development,
  support for new teachers, better assessments,
  curriculum aligned to standards vertically
  aligned assessments

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Swine flu shots at school Bracing for fall
return

• WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. swine flu vaccinations
  could begin in October with children among the
  first in line at their local schools the
  Obama administration said Thursday as the
  president and his Cabinet urged states to figure
  out now how they'll tackle the virus'
  all-but-certain resurgence.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD July 10, 2009
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IDEA Mandatory Funding

• Congress has promised to provide 40 of the APPE
  for every child in special education.
• They are currently at 17 (not counting ARRA).
• Proposals in both the House and the Senate will
  be introduced to make the increases mandatory
  ensuring 40 within 6 years.
• S 1652 - Senator Harkin (D-IA) and Roberts (R-KS)
• Representatives Van Hollen (D-MD), Platts (R-PA)
  and Walz (D-MN)
• How do we deal with the investment under ARRA?

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Seclusion and Restraint

• Due to several high profile cases of wrongful
  death or injury due to seclusion and restraint,
  Congress is now getting involved.
• The House held a hearing several weeks ago.
• Chairman Miller (D-CA) plans to introduce a bill
  that would limit the ability of schools (both
  public and private) to use seclusion and
  restraint, except in emergency situations by well
  trained staff.
• Senator Dodd (D-CT) has also shown interest in
  this issue.

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School-based Medicaid Claiming

• The final Bush-era rule to eliminate
  administrative and transportation claiming was
  published on December 28, 2007.
• The Obama administration has rescinded this
  regulation school-based administrative and
  transportation claiming.
• July 6 meeting with new CMS Director Cindy Mann -
  CMS agrees to work with us and US DOE

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School Nutrition

• Up for reauthorization this Congress
• Senate Agriculture Committee
• House Education and Labor Committee
• Increased focused on nutritional standards
  childhood obesity.
• HR 1324 Rep. Woolsey (D-CA)
• S 934 Sen. Harkin (D-IA)
• Need to ensure exception for school sponsored
  events
• Need to look at increasing reimbursement rates
  for schools in order to provide more nutritious
  meals.

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Questions?Bruce Hunterbhunter_at_aasa.org