Education Week - August 5, 2015 - 18

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Americans With Disabilities Act
Fresh Crop of States Get Renewal
Turns 25, Continues Impact on K-12 Of Waivers From NCLB Mandates
| ON SPECIAL EDUCATION | Twenty-five years after the
Americans With Disabilities Act passed, schools and
other public spaces have made strides to accommodate
children and youths with disabilities, said participants
at a recent U.S. Department of Education event to honor
the civil rights law.
But there is still work to be done on making the promise
of the ADA the "delivered reality of our kids in schools," said
Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights
at the July 24 commemoration. She rattled off a list of
settlement agreements that the department had entered into
in July alone:
*
after finding out on orientation day that he had a mobility
issue that would require him to use the school's elevator.
School officials told the department that it only handles
"mild disabilities," and that they couldn't ensure there would
be an adult to ride the elevator with the student. "Well, they
can now," Lhamon said.
*
going on a field trip, because the school said it couldn't
guarantee her safety. The civil rights office intervened, and
the school has bought a special vehicle to accommodate her.
*
were sent to an "alternate learning lab" with no teacher. The
OCR worked with the school to make sure they were fully
included.
"Our kids are fully part of our schools," Lhamon told the
audience of disability-rights advocates. "We need to make
sure the rights of our kids are realized."
The 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities
Act happens to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which was
signed by President Gerald Ford in November 1975. The ADA
prohibits disability-based discrimination in employment,
accommodations, and public services. The education rights
of students with disabilities are not directly protected by the
ADA, but the law does require "reasonable accommodations" for
students. School programs, including extracurricular activities,
must be made available for students with disabilities.
-CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS

| POLITICS K-12 | Twelve more states and Puerto Rico
received the greenlight from the U.S Department of Education
to hang onto their flexibility from mandates of the No Child
Left Behind Act in two rounds of announcements in July.
The renewals vary from one year to four years, and many
come with "conditions," which is waiver-speak for things
states need to follow up on to keep their flexibility.
Receiving one-year waivers were: Delaware,
Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Utah. Receiving threeyear waivers were: Alaska, Indiana, Maryland, New
Jersey, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and South
Carolina. Tennesee received a four-year renewal.
-ALYSON KLEIN/ANDREW UJIFUSA

Messy, Missing Teacher-Prep Data
Stump Even Federal Watchdog
| TEACHER BEAT | We may have a winner of the Black Hole
Award for transparency: Teacher preparation. It's hard
to tell if states are doing anything about poor teacher
education programs, since many are not evaluating them
like they're required to do.
Even the federal government's watchdog arm seems a bit
stumped by the absence of performance information. At least
seven states aren't complying with a key federal reporting
requirement for teacher colleges-and the U.S. Department
of Education hasn't forced them to, the Government
Accountability Office found in a newly released report.
Based on surveys and interviews with state officials, the GAO
found that those seven unnamed states ignored the Higher
Education Act's requirement to identify "at risk" and "low
performing" teacher programs, some of them blatantly: "They
believed their other oversight procedures [were] sufficient to
ensure quality" without having such a process in place, the
GAO said.
Also at fault: the U.S. Department of Education, which
didn't have a monitoring process in place to ensure that
states met their responsibilities under the law.
Twelve states told the GAO they could not provide
information on which providers they approved, approved

conditionally, or denied approval to; elsewhere, just two
providers were shuttered in 2013-14.
The GAO also faulted the Education Department for not
figuring out how to make the federal reporting more useful
for states. Nor has the agency made clear the limitations of
the federal data, including inconsistencies among states in
how they define terms like "program completers."
The department responded by saying it would work with
the noncompliant states, and it also cited its controversial
proposed regulations to strengthen the HEA requirements as a
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK
sign that it's committed to improvement.

Little Surprise in AFT Endorsement
Of Hillary Clinton for White House
TEACHER BEAT | The 1.6 million-member American
Federation of Teachers has endorsed Hillary Rodham
Clinton as the Democratic nominee for the presidency in
2016. The July 11 move puts the union's significant political
war chest-and, potentially, thousands of teachers-turneddoor-knockers-and-canvassers-behind Clinton, far and
away the front-runner in the Democratic primaries.
The union's endorsement follows the approval of its
executive council, which is composed of the union's
leadership and its 40-odd vice presidents. The council
weighed interviews with the candidates, as well as feedback
from town-hall-style events and polls of the union's members.
The endorsement is not much of a surprise. In the
run-up to the 2008 presidential contest, the AFT endorsed
Clinton at the height of the fierce primary campaign
battle between the former first lady and Barack Obama.
And a former senior adviser to AFT President Randi
Weingarten, Hartina Flournoy, is a top aide to former
President Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton has not explicitly outlined her education
priorities. But she has historically supported early-childhood
education and she has been critical of the No Child Left
Behind Act's emphasis on standardized testing, positions
that align well with the AFT's. On the other hand, she has
also supported charter schools, and the AFT remains deeply
wary about the expansion of the typically nonunionized,
privately managed schools.
The National Education Association has not yet endorsed
-S.S.
a primary candidate in the race.
|

As States Jump Ship, Tough Choices for PARCC Consortium
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

PARCC under the common core is the

economies of scale afforded to states
through large testing consortia.
So is PARCC in a "death spiral," as
one Boston Globe opinion writer put
it? Or does it have a good plan and
good chances for survival?
Douglas J. McRae, a retired testing
executive who's worked at McGrawHill Education, among other places,
noted that more important than
making the financial numbers work
for states "will be the political will to
stay together." PARCC is also thinking about how to spread its reach
beyond state education departments.
In short, various factors are working for and against PARCC. It's just
unclear which ones will win out.

Crumbling Core of States
In the 2014-15 school year, according to an Education Week analysis of
states' testing plans, just 10 of the
PARCC states and the District of Columbia actually gave the exam statewide; Massachusetts and New York
did not. That number is slated to be
smaller this coming year. How much
smaller is still unknown. Here's why:

*
PARCC states from 201415, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Ohio,
no longer plan to give the test because of budget reasons or votes by
state school boards.
*
gave the exam this past school year,
Louisiana, is barred from using
PARCC test items for a majority of
its exam in 2015-16. It's hard to categorize Louisiana as a PARCC or nonPARCC state, at least for now.
*
ous push not to give PARCC at all in
the coming school year, the Associated Press reported.
By this reckoning, just six
states-Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, and
Rhode Island-plus the District of
Columbia appear certain to give
PARCC in 2015-16.
There's another transition at
work, Mr. McRae said: The consortium is shifting away from the
"heavy duty, test development"
work and into a "maintenance and
operations" mode. In other words,
even though PARCC has to keep the
bank of test items fresh in the years
to come, he said, "the ongoing testdevelopment costs will be far less."
It's also not impossible, Mr. McRae

18 | EDUCATION WEEK | August 5, 2015 | www.edweek.org

said, that some states could decide
to join, or rejoin, PARCC, especially if
the political furor over the common
core dies down.
As for Smarter Balanced, the other
common-core testing consortium, its
membership situation isn't as dire
as PARCC's in total numbers-it officially lists 18 states. However, Maine,
Missouri, and Wisconsin are all set to
ditch Smarter Balanced this coming
year after giving the test in 2014-15.

Challenges Loom
But a few factors might make
things harder, not easier, for PARCC.
The maximum projected costs
for PARCC -$24 to $25 per student-were based on 5.5 million to
7 million students taking the PARCC
test in 2014-15. Recent K-12 enrollment figures for the six states
and the District of Columbia that
appear firmly committed to PARCC
for the new school year add up to
(neatly enough) just over 5.5 million students.
But PARCC tests are given only to
students in grades 3-8 and some
students in high school. So that
means the total number of students
taking the test in 2015-16 will be

much lower than the 10 million students in grades 3-11 in states that
were planning to give the test just
over a year ago. The total number of
eligible PARCC test-takers next year
also appears to be lower than the
5.5 million-student threshold used
to calculate its maximum cost figures last year. How much lower isn't
certain.
In her June letter to the consortium's allies, Ms. Slover said that
PARCC is "confident we will maintain
current competitive pricing into
the future." And in a July 10 email,
PARCC spokesman David ConnertyMarin said, "The PARCC states have
committed to not increasing the
pricing (which is already well below
what many of them were paying previously)."

Broadening the Market?
Mr. Connerty-Marin added that

PARCC is not just thinking about how

to add new member states, but also
about seeking out private schools,
Catholic schools, the Bureau of Indian Education, and other K-12 entities that may want to use its content.
But the prospect of adding private
schools and other K-12 users as part

of an effort to combat PARCCC price
hikes raises new questions:
*
or other enticements for private
schools and the BIA to use PARCC, or
at least some of its test items?
*
align their curricula and instruction
more closely with those of public
schools, even though many parents
send their children to private and
Catholic schools precisely because
they may not like what they see in
or hear about public school classrooms?
*
PARCC's purpose and usefulness become cloudy if a hodgepodge of K-12 institutions used it,
particularly since the consortium
was created to be run by states?
Ultimately, Mr. McRae's point
about political willpower could be
the key issue. Even if the prices for
states end up rising dramatically,
PARCC could survive if those states
like the test enough and don't care
about any political fallout.
But if states decide they don't like
the test anymore or are feeling too
much heat from those opposed to the
common core or to PARCC, it doesn't
matter how low the price is-PARCC
will be in serious jeopardy.

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Education Week - August 5, 2015

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