Education Week - December 11, 2013 - 23

potential reluctance of many states
to be "the first to slam into the wall"
of significant consequences based on
common-core test results.
Mr. Welner argued that Chiefs for
Change remains concerned primarily
with its political muscle, not the ultimate
impact of its policies.
"By focusing on making sure it's a
politically welcoming environment for
these changes, they don't have to worry
about the evidence," he said.
The Next Version
Not so, said Mr. Smarick of Bellwether
Education Partners. He argued that
Chiefs for Change is in fact entering
"version 2.0" of its existence, in which
the group will move from largely focusing
on advocacy to ensuring its policies
work in states.
Subsequently, he said, "I think version
3.0 is going to be much more along the
lines of success stories that are coming
out of what they've done."
In the end, it may not matter how
many members of Chiefs for Change
there are, both Mr. Welner and Mr.
Smarick said. What's more important,
they said, is if many state chiefs ultimately
agree with the group's message
in key areas.
They highlighted chiefs John B.
King of New York, Tom Luna of Idaho,
and Stefan Pryor of Connecticut as examples
of such chiefs.
While some chiefs may follow significantly
different paths as policies move
from adoption to implementation, Ms.
Skandera said, different states are in
different "generations" of education
policy evolution.
"The change to me is, yes, choosing
high standards," she said. "But the real
change is implementing them, not just
checking the box on another good idea
that didn't really deliver for our kids."
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Nevada, Mississippi Get Extensions
On Teacher-Evaluation Rollouts
| POLITICS K-12_News | Two states-Nevada and Mississippi-
will get extra time to implement the teacher-evaluation
portion of their waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act,
the U.S. Department of Education announced Dec. 4. These
are the first two states approved for the so-called "waiver
waiver," which allowed states to get an additional year to
fully implement systems that gauge teacher performance
using student outcomes.
So far, teacher evaluation has been the trickiest piece
of the waivers, which have been granted to more than 40
states and the District of Columbia. States were originally
supposed to have those systems fully in place by 2015-16,
although each state set a slightly different target date in
their waiver request. But in July, the department announced
that states could ask to extend that deadline to the 2016-17.
For instance, Mississippi was originally supposed to have
its teacher evaluation ready to go by the 2014-15 school year,
and will now be able to hold off until 2016-17. And Nevada's
educator-evaluation system was supposed to be completely
up and running by 2015-16. Now the state also has until
2016-17.
Thirty-four waiver states were allowed to apply for the flex-
ibility, and 12 said they were interested. Expect the Education
Department to announce more "waiver waiver" decisions in
coming weeks.
-ALYSON KLEIN
Arizona Waiver on 'High-Risk' Status,
Though State Chief Still Optimistic
| POLITICS K-12_News | The U.S. Department of Education
has put Arizona on notice that it might revoke the state's No
Child Left Behind Act waiver over problems having to do with
Arizona's teacher-evaluation system.
And, making matters worse, the state is still in hot water
over plans to make graduation rates count for 15 percent of a
high school's rating, versus 20 percent (what federal officials
want). To be clear, the state is on "high risk" status-which
is more of an official steppingstone toward losing a waiver-
because of those problems.
In a letter sent Nov. 25, federal officials specifically took issue
from state lawmakers about how to
deal with any court-ordered funding
increase, Dale Dennis, a deputy commissioner
of the Kansas education
department, said, "The only questions
we have are, how much would it cost
and what would it cost if we phased it
in over a three-year period."
Mr. Dennis added that the department
has no position on the suit.
Last month, Gov. Sam Brownback, a
Republican, hosted a meeting that included
education officials to discuss the
situation and seek common ground, the
Lawrence Journal-World reported, but
no clear solution emerged.
Complicating the matter is that 2014
is a major election year in Kansas. Gov.
Brownback and members of the House of
Representatives are up for election and
could be reluctant to reverse recent tax
cuts to pay for any new court-imposed
K-12 spending requirements. And voters
will be able to determine whether to
"retain" two supreme court justices, who
initially are appointed by the governor.
And if legislators ultimately are re-
quired to significantly increase K-12
funding, Mr. Tallman pointed out, they
could be inclined to pair higher state
aid with increasing charter school options
and other education governance
changes.
"I don't think anyone thinks the controversy
would be limited to just the
amount of school funding," he said.
with Arizona's lack of an approved definition of student growth
in terms of how student test-score changes will be incorporated
into teacher evaluations. However, the department is still
granting Arizona another year of flexibility, through the current
2013-14 school year. (So until now, apparently, the state had been
running things on an expired waiver.)
The letter outlines requirements Arizona must meet if it
wants to keep its waiver for the 2014-15 school year, including
submitting a plan for fixing teacher-evaluation problems
within 60 days.
In an interview, state schools chief John Huppenthal said he
isn't going to fight his new high-risk status, but also thinks he
can meet federal officials' requirements without giving in. He
said many school districts in the state already have sophisticated
teacher-evaluation systems that provide regular feedback to
teachers on their "value added."
The challenge for Mr. Huppenthal is to find a way to
assuage federal officials without making new work for
educators in his state. "In order to get the waiver we want to
avoid any new regulatory burden, and we think we can get
there," he said.
Also on Nov. 25, the department rejected requests by Oregon
and Kansas to have their high-risk labels removed. Those two
states, plus Washington state, were already in trouble over
teacher-evaluation implementation.
Districts Receive Two-Year Delay
On New Civil Rights Data Reporting
| POLITICS K-12_News | In response to a slew of complaints
from schools and districts, the U.S. Department of Education
is planning to delay for two years a significant expansion of
its civil-rights data collection that asked more questions about
student discipline and bullying.
The Education Department had wanted to dig deeper into
school discipline and other issues starting in the 2013-14 school
year. But now, that information won't be required until the 201516
school year, according to new documents posted on the office
for civil rights' website.
Data points that will be delayed include: the number
of incidents of violent and serious crimes, number of
school days missed by students who received out-of-school
suspensions, and number of allegations of harassment or
bullying on the basis of sexual orientation or religion.
Reporting that data will be optional. And the department
says in its Dec. 4 Federal Register response that it will use
the extra time to "provide intensive technical assistance
to schools and school districts so they will be prepared
to provide accurate data when required for the 2015-16
collection."
The Education Department, which received nearly 300
comments on the proposed new questions, said "many of the
commenters who raised concerns about the proposed data
collection focused on the need for more notice and lead time
to provide comprehensive and accurate data."
In a statement today, the department said: "The proposed
additions and changes to the 2013-14 and 2015-16 [data
collection] reflect the need for a deeper understanding of and
accurate data about the educational opportunities and school
context for our nation's students."
Indeed, the accuracy of the civil rights' data has been a
problem. The data collection became public last year for the
first time, and reports school-level data that often can't be
found anywhere else, on everything from coursetaking to
grade-level retention.
Federal officials, however, are keeping a few new
questions for the 2013-14 year, including ones about chronic
absenteeism, distance education, and the cost to parents of
preschool and kindergarten programs. (Schools and districts
will answer the survey questions in the fall of 2014, which
will reflect data from the 2013-14 academic year.)
Final approval of this new data collection, which must come
from the federal Office of Management and Budget, is expected
in early 2014.
Smarter Balanced Consortium's Test
Best Option, Michigan Ed. Dept. Says
| STATE EDWATCH_News | A study by the Michigan education
department reports that a test aligned to the common core being
developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
remains the best option available to the state.
Roughly a month ago, the Michigan legislature voted
to "unfreeze" state spending on the Common Core State
Standards, following a funding freeze that kicked in Oct.
1 while lawmakers reviewed the pros and cons of the
standards. One of the conditions of letting state funds flow to
the standards again was that the department had to conduct
a study of the various assessments available to the state
that could in theory be used. It was a way for lawmakers to
clarify that even though the state was a member of Smarter
Balanced and has close ties to it-Joseph Martineau, the
department's chief of accountability and assessment, is cochair
of Smarter Balanced's executive committee-Michigan
was not absolutely committed to the tests.
That study, released Dec. 1, found that "[Smarter Balanced]
remains the only viable option that can satisfy all of the
multiple needs for test security, student data privacy, a
Michigan governance role, Michigan educator involvement,
minimizing local burdens, cost effectiveness, Michigan access to
all data to allow for verification, and so on."
The study looked at a variety of assessments, including
-MICHELE McNEIL
the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers, or PARCC, the other state-led consortium working
on common-core assessments, ACT Aspire, and CTB/McGrawHill's
tests. Overall, 12 different assessment options were
considered and rated in a variety of categories, including
alignment to the common core, cost, test security, and
technical requirements. Smarter Balanced was consistently
the top performer across these categories.
The report also mentions that while Michigan has the
potential to create its own assessment for the standards, it has
not done so up to this point. The "economies of scale provided
by working with a consortium have allowed Michigan to avoid
those substantial new funding needs," the report said. That's a
reference to Smarter Balanced.
-M.M.
-ANDREW UJIFUSA
EDUCATION WEEK | December 11, 2013 | www.edweek.org | 23
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Education Week - December 11, 2013

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