Education secretary discusses NCLB / LJWorld.com

Archive for Thursday, February 21, 2008

Spellings leads roundtable on how law could be tweaked

February 21, 2008

Sec. of Education visits Kansas

The U.S. Secretary of Education comes to Kansas to reinforce the No Child Left Behind act. Enlarge video

Chuck France/AP Photo

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings fields a question during a news conference Wednesday in Topeka. Spellings was the guest of Kansas Education Commissioner Alexa Posny and headed a roundtable discussion on educational policies with various business, education and civic leaders in the state.

Topeka — The federal No Child Left Behind Act has helped make strides in American public education since 2001, but how the government administers it might need some tweaking, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Wednesday during a visit to Kansas.

"The conversation is much more sophisticated than it was five to six years ago," Spellings said at the Kansas State Department of Education.

She mentioned moving toward testing individual students over several years - known as the growth model - instead of testing the same grade levels each year. Spellings also touted ideas such as improving high schools by adding career and technical education and helping districts recruit and retain high-quality teachers.

Wednesday marked Spellings' 10th visit to a state to meet with leaders to discuss improving No Child Left Behind. Spellings and Kansas Education Commissioner Alexa Posny conducted a roundtable with legislators, superintendents, business leaders and state board members Carol Rupe and Janet Waugh.

Nearly 60 Kansas school boards, including Lawrence, have adopted resolutions calling on Congress to pass legislation to improve the controversial law, which requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Congress has not reauthorized the law, and the current provisions remain in effect until new legislation takes their place.

Spellings did say several times the law has allowed states to focus on finding students who need the most help improving their proficiency.

One Kansas teacher said that was honorable.

"That's exciting to me because we didn't have the data. We did not talk like that nine to 10 years ago," said Kansas Teacher of the Year Jeri Powers, a De Soto elementary school reading specialist.

These are highlights of issues Spellings and state leaders discussed:

¢ Growth-model testing. Spellings touted granting a waiver to nine states to institute a growth-model system and recently allowed every state to apply for one.

She said Congress passed the law in 2001 requiring states to use assessment tests because very few states had annual tests that allowed the government to make meaningful comparisons.

¢ School safety. Spellings acknowledged that one of the least successful provisions of the law is the one that designates schools as persistently dangerous. Schools can be put on the list based on crime data, but states and law enforcement officials have been reluctant to do so. No Kansas school has the label.

"There has to be a lot of connectedness and communication between law enforcement officials and educators, which is frankly just sort of beginning," she said.

School safety has been a hot topic for years, especially after shootings last April at Virginia Tech and last week at Northern Illinois University.

¢ High school improvement. Most of the success with the current law has come at the third- through eighth-grade levels, Spellings said.

Now she wants to figure out how to help high schools improve. Improving courses such as Advanced Placement and beefing up job training offerings should be a high priority, she said.

¢ Teacher shortages. With school districts nationwide facing a significant number of teacher retirements, Spellings said she is encouraged by Teach for America's success at recruiting on college campuses.

She cited the need to improve the bureaucracy at the state level for qualification and certification. Teacher pay is also an issue.

But the demand from young people who want to teach is there, even though challenges remain, she said.

"It's our job to figure out how we're going to tap into that," Spellings said.

¢ Funding. After she lauded the state's improvements in assessments, especially among special education and low-income students, Spellings announced Kansas has qualified for a $950,000 school improvement grant to help about 30 Title 1 schools on the "needs improvement" list. None of those schools is in Douglas County.

Discussion

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21 February 2008
at 1:30 p.m.

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cato_the_elder (Anonymous) says…

NCLB is outcomes-based education in its most virulent manifestation.
21 February 2008
at 1:52 p.m.

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JJE007 (Anonymous) says…

NCLB may as well by TTTT.
To the top tier?
Nah…
Teaching To The Test…
It is ridiculous…a JOKE!
ttttnclb!
Take time to trounce no child left behind.
21 February 2008
at 2:40 p.m.

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monkeyspunk (Anonymous) says…

For the love of God, what does this agency really do for American children and American education?

It needs to be abolished immediately, and the funds slated for its budget distributed back to the states.

$60,000,000,000 that is its budget.

What does this department do besides dole out loans and pay for studies?

1% is Kansas' share. $600 million. Our state could put that money to better use for our students and those that mishandle the funds would more directly accountable for their actions.

If the Dept of Ed screws up? What say do we have? What can the average Kansan do if the Dept. of Ed throws away money?
21 February 2008
at 9:46 p.m.

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overthemoon (Anonymous) says…

I think no child left behind is a travesty….the Lawrence school district is so incredibly behind the ball when it comes to foreign language and advanced classes that encourage rigorous thinking. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and in depth courses requiring real thinking are the norm at top level private and public high schools. We teach only the standard French, Spanish and German. And Latin because of an outstanding, energetic teacher.

SD 497 rests on twenty year old laurels and allows money to be driveled away on NCLB testing. We should tell the gov't to keep their money and then start teaching to the intelligence all kids have . THAT does not take money, it takes a different perspective on who these kids are these days.

Ask any of the top 20% of last year's graduating class who did not make the cut at their colleges of choice. Our school district is failing miserably on the national level.
21 February 2008
at 11:22 p.m.

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volunteer (Anonymous) says…

Local control of k-12 education is important to me, so I am opposed to the No Child law.

If I have a gripe about curriculum, I don't want to have to fly down to Washington DC to find the Secretary of Education to have one of those sophisticated conversations.

The parents and teachers I speak to are unimpressed with No Child Left Behind.

I agree with all the previous posts here.
22 February 2008
at 9:59 a.m.

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dagopman (Anonymous) says…

Thank goodness Jim Ryun had the wisdom to vote against nclb.