Education Week - August 21, 2013 - 14

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Response Sharply Split to California Districts’ Leeway
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such flexibility only to states. By
granting such a sweeping waiver
to a group of districts, he rankled
and even infuriated some education
groups, including those he
generally counts as supporters.
Civil rights groups and advocates
for disadvantaged students, such
as the Education Trust, fear a separate
accountability system within
the same state will create uneven
expectations for students at risk of
academic failure.
State schools chiefs collectively
oppose the waiver as “usurping”
state power. State and local
teachers’ unions in California
objected to being left out of the
waiver process. Many members
of Congress, particularly Republicans,
are irritated that Mr.
Duncan has used his waiver
authority to hand out a special
waiver just for eight districts in
one state.
By contrast, the list of fervent
supporters is short, seemingly
limited to the districts themselves—and
U.S. Rep. George
Miller of California, the top Democrat
on the House education
committee.
“Frankly, working with dis-
tricts wasn’t an easy decision,”
Mr. Duncan said in an Aug. 6
conference call the day the waivers
were announced. He said his
department isn’t doing it because
it’s “simple,” but because it’s the
“right thing to do.”
For the secretary, the calculation
of risk vs. reward boiled down to
simple numbers. About 1 million
students will fall under the CORE
waiver—more than the student
enrollments of some entire states.
(California’s total student population
is about 6.2 million.)
“There is a compelling case to be
made to treat these districts differently,”
said Anne Hyslop, a policy
analyst who has been tracking the
waivers at the New America Foundation,
a Washington think tank.
But she added: “It’s a little bit of
opening Pandora’s box. We don’t
know what future secretaries of
education are going to do with
this authority. Does this set a
precedent to do something even
more controversial?”
Other critical questions persist:
Will other districts seek similar relief?
Will much change in the CORE
districts in the short term? And
how will the federal department
manage oversight of those districts
at a time when its portfolio includes
other NCLB waivers for most of the
states plus billions of dollars of
competitive-grant programs?
Stretching the Fabric
Until now, states had been the
only recipients of the broad NCLB
waivers first announced by President
Barack Obama in 2011—and
only if they agreed to the strings
attached, such as implementing
teacher-evaluation systems linked
to student test scores.
In exchange, those states were
relieved of key requirements of
the NCLB law, such as that schools
bring all students to proficiency in
reading and math by the end of
the 2013-14 school year.
Now, the eight California dis-
tricts, which include Los Angeles,
Fresno, and Long Beach, will have
that same flexibility.
Neither Secretary Duncan nor
groups that represent districts
know of any other school districts
that might be interested in a similar
waiver. Mr. Duncan has said
he would consider district waivers
only in states that do not win their
own state-level flexibility.
As of late last week, 40 states
plus the District of Columbia had
been granted NCLB waivers.
The CORE districts started pursuing
their own waiver in earnest
in January after federal officials
rejected California’s application,
in part because it didn’t meet the
requirements for implementing a
new teacher-evaluation system.
Many education policy experts
sharply disagree about this district
waiver’s effect on the traditional relationship
between local districts,
their state, and the federal government.
Public schools are primarily
a state responsibility, and are financed
mostly by state tax dollars.
What’s more, the NCLB law
mainly governs the relationship
between the federal government
and the states. The law is the current
version of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act.
“For the secretary to unilater-
ally dispense with 30-plus years
of state-led accountability is incredible,”
said Andy Smarick, a
partner for Bellwether Education
Partners in Washington.
But others disagree.
“The approval is within his authority
and does not undermine
state authority in any meaningful
way,” said Michael D. Casserly, the
executive director of the Council
Wave of NCLB Waivers
Put Tutoring Providers
In a Difficult Position
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
using money allocated to improve
students’ academic performance,
according to Steve Pines, the president
of the Education Industry Association,
based in Vienna, Va.
Today, he estimates, the number
of providers has dropped by
50 percent.
In its heyday, “SES was the rocket
fuel that helped ignite a new wave
of entrepreneurism,” Mr. Pines said,
noting that about half of the stateapproved
providers are businesses.
Others are a mix of districts and
community- and faith-based groups.
The earmarking of SES funding
was “a very good thing for the industry,
and the kids who before didn’t
have the benefit of those services,”
he said.
But when Title I dollars started
to be freed up after the first waivers
were granted in February 2012, SES
providers ranging from large, publicly
held companies to small “momand-pops”
needed to adjust.
“The marketplace spoke. It said
the strong and agile will survive,
and others, unfortunately, have not,”
Mr. Pines said.
The latest bad news for the SES
industry came Aug. 6, when eight
school districts in California, representing
an estimated 50,000 students
eligible for tutoring, received
a one-year NCLB waiver from the
U.S. Department of Education.
The districts, collaborating as the
California Office to Reform Education,
or CORE, now have the authority
to decide how to spend up
to $150 million in funding, some
of which had been earmarked for
supplemental education services.
(See related story, Page 1.)
As of Aug. 15, the Long Beach,
Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento,
and Sanger districts plan to discontinue
paying providers for afterschool
tutoring programs, according
to Hilary McLean, a spokeswoman
for CORE.
Already, 40 states and the District
of Columbia have received NCLB
waivers. Maine, the most recent
state, was granted its waiver last
week. An Education Week analysis
showed that very few states included
supplemental education in
their waiver plans.
In the Sacramento school system,
where the waiver freed $3.1 million
in funding from having to be spent
on SES, Superintendent Jonathan
P. Raymond said gaining that flexibility
was “our hope and desire
from day one.” His complaints with
the SES system: “A general sense of
poor accountability for student outcomes,
a lack of oversight, an inability
to have any real role in the selection
process [for providers], and no
alignment with what our children
are learning during the day.”
Mr. Raymond plans to consult
with educators, students, parents,
and providers about how to boost
student achievement. He does not
rule out contracting with outside tutoring
services. “But the rules of engagement
will be different,” he said.
“We get to decide who we’re going
to work with, when we’re going to
work with them, and how.”
The American Association of
School Administrators wants Congress
to reauthorize NCLB and has
opposed waivers. But Noelle M.
Ellerson, the assistant director of
policy analysis and advocacy for the
Alexandria, Va.-based organization,
also said the waiver process is giving
districts the flexibility to make
spending decisions that best suit
their needs. The association plans
to closely monitor how the waivers
influences’ districts Title I spending
decisions.
For many districts, “that 20 percent
set-aside and mandate for SES
is problematic,” she said.
The SES bust unfolding across the
country contrasts sharply with the
boom that occurred after No Child
Left Behind was signed into law in
2002. Funds available for the tutoring
services grew 45 percent from
2001 to 2005, according to author
Patricia Burch, who published those
statistics in her 2009 book, Hidden
Markets: The New Education Privatization.
She said more recent statistics
have not been compiled.
Market Adjustments
Providing SES is one of the
interventions required when
schools consistently fail to make
adequate yearly progress under
NCLB. The mandate is one of the
prime drivers prompting states
to seek the waivers, particularly
since districts received no money
to oversee providers’ out-ofschool
practices.
The services can be delivered by
a tutor, online, or in a blended approach
that combines online and
in-person instruction. A formula
determines the annual amount
a child in a given district can receive.
For example, a student who
is eligible to receive $1,800 worth
of tutoring in a given year will get
three times as many sessions from
a provider charging $30 an hour
than from a provider charging $90.
That difference is significant, because
ongoing federally financed
FROM LEFT: Nancy
Graham teaches at
Berea Middle School in
Greenville, S.C., where
a tutoring provider
started a new program
in response to NCLB
waivers.
Cris Sanchez, third
from left, and Maria
Ventura Morales
(behind him), both 11,
listen to instructions
during the Summer
Transition Camp.
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