Education Week - February 25, 2015 - 21

goVeRnMent & politics
New SIG Rules Offer Leeway Beyond Turnaround Program
NCLB waiver states
share in flexibility
By Alyson Klein
For years, the Obama administration's
supercharged School Improvement
Grant program has been
maligned as too prescriptive, too
complicated, and-ultimately-not
very effective when it comes to improving
outcomes for the nation's
most troubled schools.
Now, under regulations for the
program unveiled this month and
written at the behest of Congress,
states would have a lot more leeway
in spending more than $500 million
in sig funding.
The new options unveiled Feb.
9 also have implications for states
with waivers from provisions of the
No Child Left Behind Act, currently
in place in 42 states and the District
of Columbia. States will have
a greater range of strategies to try
when it comes to intervening in all of
their low-performing schools, not just
schools that get sig funding.
Specifically, the new regulations
allow states that receive sig money
to move beyond the administration's
four current school improvement
models, which are widely disparaged
as inflexible and ineffective. States
can now come up with their own
turnaround remedies and pitch them
to the U.S. Department of Education
for approval.
Beyond that, the regulations,
which apply to grants for the 201516
school year, add two more options
to the mix.
One-created by Congress in an
unrelated spending bill last year-
would permit a state to partner
with an outside organization that
has at least one high-quality study
to back up its approach to turning
around entire schools. The other, devised
by the Education Department,
would permit states to beef up earlychildhood
education programs as a
turnaround strategy for foundering
elementary schools.
The regulations also extend the
period of the grants-to five years,
from just three years-to give turnarounds
more time to take root.
Schools would still be eligible for the
same amount of money, up to $2 million,
but it would be spread out over
a longer period.
And rural schools will also get
added flexibility. For example, those
choosing one particular turnaround
model will no longer have to incorporate
extended learning time,
which had been difficult for some
remote schools since it involved
changing bus routes or reworking
the schedule.
Huge Shift
Taken together, the regulations
represent a huge shift from the past
several years and the Education
Department's menu of options that
all included some dramatic steps
such as closing a school or turning
it into a charter.
In the past, most schools chose to
use either the "turnaround" model,
which meant getting rid of half the
school's staff and in many cases, the
principal; or "transformation," which
meant trying out a basket of strategies,
including extended learning
time and data-driven instruction.
But those options may not have
given states enough running room
to try strategies that would work for
their schools. While two-thirds of sig
schools showed some progress after
the first two years of the program,
another third slid backward.
"All of our research has shown that
the models as they existed before
didn't work" as well as they could
have, said Diane Stark Rentner, the
deputy director of the Center on Education
Policy, a research organization
in Washington that has taken an extensive,
on-the-ground look at sig implementation
in states and districts.
But that doesn't mean sig was totally
ineffective. "Just having the money
seemed to make the difference. ...
[Districts and states] rarely get this
extra money to think through things
like how do you improve instruction."
Waiver Question
The sig regulations also have major
implications for states with waivers
from the nclb law.
To get flexibility from the law,
waiver states had to agree to use a
set of particular "turnaround principles"
at their lowest-performing
schools-dubbed priority schools
under the waivers, whether those
schools receive sig funding or not.
The turnaround principles are almost
identical to the transformation
model, used by roughly three-quarters
of sig schools. They call for steps
including extending the school day,
using data to inform instruction, and
providing schools with operational
PAGE 24 >
Testing Drama
Latest Tension
In Indiana K-12
By Andrew Ujifusa
Indiana officials have been scrambling to alter
the state assessment that students are due to
start taking this week, after the state education
department announced late last month that the
test for elementary and middle school students
would take more than 12 hours to complete-
more than double its previous length.
K-12 leaders in the state agreed on a hastily
constructed plan to eliminate or make optional
the social studies portion of the test and waive
other requirements for the Indiana Statewide
Testing for Educational Progress-Plus, or istep+.
But the department's announcement also
triggered another flare-up between state Superintendent
of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz
and Gov. Mike Pence, the latest in a long line
of such disagreements, and one that could lead
to a further reduction in Ms. Ritz's power. The
fight over the istep+ landed in the middle of a
debate over legislation to strip Ms. Ritz of her
role as chairwoman of the state school board.
Common-Core Connection
The state's troubles come on the heels of its
decision last year to drop the Common Core
State Standards and seek a test aligned to its
new standards.
By contrast, Arizona and Florida are two
states where officials have made a relatively
smooth transition to new assessments after
they decided, like Indiana, to drop a commoncore
consortium's test, said Anne Hyslop, a
senior policy analyst who follows assessment
issues at Bellwether Education Partners, a
Washington consulting firm.
"Part of that may be because there was more
collaboration among state government officials
who had a better working relationship," Ms.
Hyslop said.
adopted recommendations from testing
consultants selected by Gov. Pence on how
to shorten the istep+ exam. In addition to
eliminating the istep+ in social studies for
grades 5 and 7, the board agreed that the
state should administer portions of the test
to a smaller sample of students and limit the
release of certain open-ended test items.
The consultants, however, told the board
that even though overall proficiency levels
wouldn't be affected by restricting the sample
of students taking portions of the test, the
reliability of scores from individual students
might be reduced. The testing window for
istep+ was slated to begin Feb. 25, according
to the department.
Part of the Struggle
The Indiana state board agreed to limit the
Supporters of Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz, who has clashed with GOP policymakers,
turned out at the statehouse in Indianapolis, amid a controversy this month over testing.
At an Indiana state board meeting in August,
board member Brad E. Oliver asked
about the length of the new istep+, which is
based on the standards the state adopted last
April to replace the common core. He said this
was a "paramount concern" for schools because
of worries about a loss of instructional time.
The department's assessment director, Michelle
Walker, said at the August board meeting
the department wouldn't know the answer
about testing time until December because
teachers were still reviewing items to be selected
for the test.
Ms. Ritz, a Democrat, also said at last August's
meeting that her department would
give answers to that and other frequently
asked questions from parents and others
about the test.
But in fact, the news about the longer istep+
to be given to 450,000 students in grades 3-8
did not break until the end of last month.
Teachers and others expressed shock about
the 12-hour length of the test that was slated
to be roughly as long as the state's bar exam,
and board member Gordon Hendry told the
Indianapolis Star that the entire state "has
been taken off guard by this bombshell."
Emergency Action
In response, Gov. Pence, a Republican, issued
an executive order Feb. 9 requiring the state's office
of management and budget to make recommendations
regarding how to shorten the test.
The governor's order states in part that "tests
of this extraordinary length can create significant
anxiety for Hoosier students, families, and
educators."
Gov. Pence and Ms. Ritz briefly traded barbs
in the local media, with Ms. Ritz arguing that
the governor was using the testing issue to attack
her. She added that the test was designed
to accommodate the standards Indiana adopted
to replace the common core.
Ms. Ritz also said the state board should have
been prepared for a longer test based on the
board discussions in August. She and the state
board have also had several high-profile disputes.
On Feb. 13, during an emergency state
board meeting called by Ms. Ritz, members
release of certain items and administer portions
of the tests to fewer students. Legislators
quickly moved to codify the state board's
support for eliminating the social studies portion
of the istep+ for certain students.
But the long-term power struggle between
Ms. Ritz and the rest of the state gop leadership
also could affect the issue. A controversial
piece of legislation under consideration
by lawmakers would remove the state
superintendent as the state school board's
chairperson-the governor also supports removing
the state superintendent's role as the
state board's leader. Ms. Ritz has said the bill
is designed specifically to isolate her. (Her
department did not respond to requests for
comment.)
A separate measure, Indiana House Bill
1072, which originally dealt with higher education
and not K-12 testing, was altered on
Feb. 17 to allow the state board to seek legislative
analysts' help in determining the accuracy
of istep+ performance categories created
by Ms. Ritz's department. State board members
would also be given new powers to review
student-performance data from schools
and districts. A spokeswoman for Gov. Pence
wrote in an email that House Bill 1072 is "not
part of the Governor's agenda."
EDUCATION WEEK | February 25, 2015 | www.edweek.org | 21
AJ Mast/AP
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - February 25, 2015

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