Education Week - August 3, 2016 - 14

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Principals Clamor for Inclusion in States' ESSA Planning
Some worry commitment
may be far from uniform
By Denisa R. Superville
The new federal K-12 education law contains the strongest requirements to date that
states gather and weigh the opinions of principals, parents, and others as they create new
education plans.
But whether states are practicing this kind
of "meaningful consultation"-and particularly whether they are tapping the expertise
of their principals -depends very much on
the state, according to the two national organizations that represent elementary and
secondary school principals.
That is worrisome for the two groups, whose
representatives argue that the new law was
written to be more inclusive. Principals can
provide valuable input about what's likely to
work in schools, since they know firsthand
that ideas that sound good on paper may not
play out well in the real world.
It's also important for principals to be part
of those discussions because changes in the
new K-12 law, the Every Student Succeeds
Act, will affect their jobs, the groups say.
"There are a variety of efforts underway,
and it's really-no pun intended-all over the
map," Kelly Pollitt, the National Association
of Elementary School Principals' chief strategist for policy and alliances, said of an unofficial survey of where state education departments stood with their ESSA plans and how
they were involving principals in the process.
Efforts include those in Washington state,
where principals are key participants in 13
working groups on topics including learning
and teaching, effective educators, assessments, early-childhood education, and students with disabilities. Those groups operate
under a nearly 50-person consolidated team,
which also includes representation from the
state's principals' associations.
In Georgia, principals are serving on the

committees examining accountability systems
and school leadership and development.
Still, in other states, principals are being directed to slide-shows and "Frequently Asked
Questions" sections on state education websites, Pollitt said.

'Meaningful Engagement'
The latter is not what the law envisioned
as meaningful engagement, representatives
from the principals' organizations say. And
they worry that unless principals play a significant role in crafting policy, they may be
left to deal with the unintended consequences
of education policies as they did under the No
Child Left Behind Act, the last iteration of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act before ESSA.
"It's about talking about the process-setting goals, priorities, what this is going to look
like," Amanda Karhuse, the director of policy
and advocacy at the National Association of
Elementary School Principals, said about the
engagement process.
"It's not just the department of education
and the governor's office sharing information
and getting feedback," she added.
The principals' groups are urging principals
and superintendents in states that appear to
be lagging to work with teachers, parents,
students, and others to create their vision of
what state plans should include.
There are a number of areas in the new law
in which implementation could benefit from
the principals' voices, they said. Principals
saw first-hand the onerous testing that resulted from the NCLB law, for instance, and
can make suggestions about assessments that
would provide timely feedback and the right
kind of information to teachers. Principals
can also provide input on other measures
that can be used as part of new multimetric
accountability systems. They can also offer
valuable insight on how to improve the performance of subgroups within schools.
The federal law allow states to dedicate

funds to principal professional development, and principals can have a say in what
evidence-based programs and initiatives will
best support and prepare them, Pollitt said.
The principals' groups say they don't believe that any state is deliberately excluding
principals from the process. In many cases,
they said, the extent of collaboration, or lack
thereof, between the state departments of
education and principals is often influenced
by state capacity and the previous working
relationship between the two groups.
Washington state has included 12 principals or members of the Washington Association of School Administrators in its working
groups. The state went beyond the groups
specifically mentioned in the law to include
representatives from non-profit organizations,
business leaders, and civil rights organizations.
"We reached out to anybody who we knew
had an interest in public education," said Gil
Mendoza, the deputy superintendent for K-12
education, who is leading the state's ESSA
engagement process.
Principals' "insights are invaluable" in
shaping the state's education plan, Mendoza
said. They've often served as teachers and
paraprofessionals, and sometimes in district
administrative positions. They know the demographics of their schools, and can speak
about what's likely or unlikely to work for
various subgroups, he said.
"They offer a plethora of perspectives to the
ongoing work," he said.

Where the Buck Stops
Principals, also, under the NCLB law, bore
the brunt of accountability, he said.
"By federal law, we hold the building
[leader] and district accountable, but the accountability falls mostly on the building," he
said. "The buck stops with the principals."
In addition to ensuring principals' representation on the committees, Mendoza also
conducts forums that give principals addi-

tional opportunities to provide input. He also
encourages them to call or e-mail him if they
have questions.
"We only get one shot at this," Mendoza
said of the state's effort to be transparent and
solicit input from as many voices as possible.
Georgia principals who have been tapped
to participate in the working committees say
that better policies are made when all educators are involved. Georgia started convening
its committees in July.
Christopher P. Watkins, the principal of
Treutlen County middle and high schools
in Sopperton, Ga., a rural town about 170
miles from Atlanta, is one of 21 members of
a committee that is reviewing accountability
systems and includes another principal, an
assistant principal, and two district superintendents. Within the committee's charge: Review the state's current accountability systems and come up with ways to make them
better, more flexible for school districts, and
easier for the public to understand.
Watkins said that if principals and other
stakeholders were as involved in the process
during No Child Left Behind, some of that
law's unintended consequences might have
been averted.
"I think there would have been more buy-in
and a whole lot more support to make sure it
was effective," he said.

Soliciting Perspectives
Soliciting the perspectives of educators is
"an excellent idea," he said, "because if you
are making policy and you want policy to be
effective, you've got to include the stakeholders it's going to affect the most."
Cecelia McLoon, a principal at Jeff Davis
High School in Hazlehurst, Ga., with a decade
in the principal's chair, is also a supporter of
the state's stakeholder engagement process.
McLoon, who was asked by the state to
serve on the assessment working committee, says she brings a principal's voice to the
discussion.

Minorities Identified for Special Education: Defining 'Too Many'
For more than 10 years, the federal
government has said that if school
districts have too many minority
students enrolled in special education,
they should use part of their federal
money to provide early intervention in
an attempt to fix the problem. But how
many is "too many"? That's been left
up to the states to decide-and only
a tiny fraction of districts have been
identified over the years.
The U.S. Department of Education
proposed a rule earlier this year
that would create a more-standard
method of measuring what's
called disproportionality. More
than 300 educators, researchers,
and advocates responded to the
department's request for comments
on the proposal before a final rule
is adopted later this year. Here's a
sample of their remarks:

EDUCATORS

If states must adopt a more rigorous
methodology for measuring significant
disproportionality, then states must also
have greater flexibility in exempting districts
from setting aside [special education] funds
to address this issue."
STEVEN T. WEBB, superintendent, Vancouver, Wash.,
schools

While we understand the need to
create guardrails at the federal level to
ensure that any instances of significant
disproportionality are addressed, the
recognition of the variance within and
among states is important."
COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS

14 | EDUCATION WEEK | August 3, 2016 | www.edweek.org

Presently it is not clear whether
overidentification or underidentification of
students of color for special education placement is the greater problem. In fact, there is
compelling research that underrepresentation is the concern."
SANDRA BEYDA, special education department chair,
Northeastern Illinois University

CASE does not support the adoption
of a uniform methodology for determining
significant disproportionality. ... We do not
believe the 'one size fits all' approach will
change outcomes for students. In fact, we
believe such an approach is inconsistent
with the basic tenet of the [Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act]-focusing on the
unique needs of the individual student."
COUNCIL OF ADMINISTRATORS OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

RESEARCHERS

We applaud the proposed use of standard methodology, particularly because of
wide variation in state and [district] determinations of overrepresentation."

WENDY CAVENDISH AND ELIZABETH HARRY, professors,
special education, University of Miami

If insufficient resources are provided
in the face of regulations that may increase
pressure at the local level to find higher rates
of significant disproportionality, there is
indeed a danger that [districts] with significant disproportionality will let it be known,
formally or informally, that fewer students
in that racial/ethnic category should be
referred."
RUSSELL SKIBA, director, Equity Project at Indiana
University

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