THE EDUCATION FRONT

The Texas Education Agency announced Wednesday that one school district - the long-troubled Kendleton district near Houston - and three charter schools are losing their state accreditation because of substandard academic or financial ratings. All are expected to close by July, including the Jean Massieu Academy in Arlington. The other charter schools are in San Marcos and Houston - although the TEA noted the Houston school is not presently in operation.

"This is an extremely serious step and it is not one that this agency takes lightly," said state Education Commissioner Robert Scott. "Each of these (charter schools and district) has exhibited years of extremely poor academic performance and/or ongoing financial problems. Children and taxpayers deserve better." Two other school districts and three charter schools were classified as "Accredited-Probation," meaning they could face closure next year if they fail to improve. Among the charter schools are Metro Academy of Math and Science in Arlington and Northwest Preparatory in Fort Worth.

On the other side, nearly 1,200 school districts and charter schools earned full accreditation status, with their academic and financial health meeting minimum state standards in those areas. "An overwhelming majority of our Texas school districts and charters are providing strong academic instruction to students and are appropriately handling public funds," Scott said. That number represents about 97 percent of the school districts and charter schools in the state. This year marks the first time that school districts or campuses have been closed because of poor ratings in the three-year-old accreditation system.

The Dallas Morning News' Diane Rado produced an insightful story Sunday about Dallas' problem with 10 of its high schools being on the lowest rung of the No Child Left Behind ranking system. I won't re-report her details. You can read them here. But I would like to offer some ideas that readers can consider as they think about chronically failing schools, especially if they're trying to figure out how serious a district is in saving kids in those schools.

Admittedly, turning around failing schools is difficult, but there are ways to see if a district is getting after this. Here are a few thoughts:

First, what is a district doing to bring in operators of successful charter schools, like KIPP, to give the students in failing schools an alternative? I don't mean having a nice one-time talk with operators of proven charters, but a serious wooing of them to help.

Second, what are districts doing to help schools who may have a problem with a small group of students but not necessarily the entire school? What are they doing to get them over the hump? For example, what sort of reading intervention strategies are they using? Or who are they following or talking to get the best math expertise? The National Math and Science Initiative is trying to ramp up schools' ability to teach math. Are districts talking to groups like that?

Third, what kind of leader is a superintendent bringing in to fix a problem school? Hopefully, they are moving strong principals into these schools. But they don't always do that.

Now, I admit superintendents are kind of like major league baseball managers. They don't always have the best talent surrounding them. If that's the case, and they don't have enough good principals, who is the superintendent consulting for help? What educational leaders is he or she talking to for counsel?

Fourth, what kind of pressure is a district putting on its middle schools? If it is truly intervening with them so their students are increasingly likely to reach high school ready for those demanding years, maybe that district deserves a little slack in its attempt to turnaround failing high schools. But if the district is only giving lip service to middle school reform, they deserve no slack.

Fifth, where is a district recruiting its teachers? What educational schools does it seek out? Which one of the emerging teacher prep programs, such as The New Teacher Project or Teach for America, is it getting on the phone? Again, I don't mean a call here or there, but a big effort to draw in teachers who've gone through rigorous leadership training.

There is no magic way to turn around schools. But there are ways to determine how serious a district is in pursuing that goal.

President Obama made education news yesterday when he told the National Governors' Association that future federal grants to states for schools that serve largely low-income students will be contingent upon states developing benchmarks for reading and math that show whether a student is ready for college or a livable-wage post-secondary job.

Under the president's plan, states can go after this in one of two ways. They can come up with their own reading and math standards, which their local universities must attest are preparing students for college or a career. Or, states can join with the group of governors that are trying to come up with a core group of common standards in those subjects for all their states.

This proposal sounds good for two reasons, but with a caveat.

State Education Commissioner Robert Scott said Tuesday that the next generation of student tests in Texas will be called STAAR - or the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Scott announced the change from TAKS to STAAR at an annual conference of school administrators in Austin, saying students will first take the new exams in the 2011-12 school year.

The STAAR will include the 12 new end-of-course exams for high school students that will be launched with freshmen entering school in the fall of 2011. Students will take three end-of-course tests in each of four core subject areas - English, math, science and social studies. To get a diploma, students will have to get a passing average in each subject area as well as pass their classes.

Testing in grades 3-8 also will be modified as the STAAR is introduced into schools and results from grade to grade will be evaluated against performance standards for the English III and Algebra II exams administered to high school students. Scott said the new tests will be more rigorous than the TAKS exams, which have been around since 2003 and which were used in deciding whether to promote students in grades 3, 5 and 8. In addition, Scott said the new performance rating system for schools - based on STAAR results - will debut in 2013.

About those national standards that Texas proudly refuses to adopt...

Today the Texas Education Agency issued a "See, I told you so" press release with the headline, "State's curriculum standards earn 'A' in national report."

Education Week's annual "Quality Counts" report gave Texas top marks for its standards, testing and accountability system, TEA's release notes. Texas also earned a B for its early childhood education and college readiness programs, the TEA says.

Yet TEA makes no mention of Texas' overall grade — a C+ — or grades in other categories, like the C for K-12 achievement, the C for teaching or that pesky D+ for school finance.

Texas won't compete for up to $750 million in federal education funding, Gov. Rick Perry announced today.

"Texas is on the right path toward improved education, and we would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children's future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington, virtually eliminating parents' participation in their children's education," Perry said in a prepared statement.

The news is hardly a surprise. The U.S. Department of Ed, which is awarding the Race to the Top money, gives preferences to states that agree to adopt national standards (and tests) for what children should know. Texas leaders have already said they won't adopt national standards, which puts them in the same boat with one other state: Alaska.

So, let's open this up for discussion. Are national standards evil? Is Texas is doing the right thing? And does the DC-bashing have anything remotely to do with Perry's primary battle with a certain senator who does most of her business there?

Education Week reports that the Obama administration's Race to the Top program may shape the rewriting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. If that's the case, we could do much worse.

Race to the Top is based on several important principles: creating high standards, turning around failing schools, rewarding states for providing better teachers, offering students alternatives and using data to inform teachers about how to help students progress. There are other parts to this effort, but these are the big ideas.

I like these principles because they build upon the ones captured in No Child Left Behind. In their own ways, Race to the Top and No Child are about ratcheting up school standards, focusing on student progress and giving students the means to get ahead. They are part of the revolution that began in schools a couple of decades ago, when reformers started putting a new focus on school results. To back away from that revolution would shortchange students, in my estimation.

To be sure, there are differences between Race to the Top and No Child. For example, the Obama administration wants to create national standards for schools, while the Bush administration left it up to states to create their standards. While that's a substantial point of divergence, both efforts are still on the same side of the fence when it comes to embracing demanding standards. And that separates them from those in both parties who complain about too much emphasis on meeting benchmarks.

The rewriting of the ESEA will be a big education issue this year, if Congress gets going. I hope the Obama administration pushes for these goals to shape the act. There are plenty of folks on Capitol Hill and in the education world who would like to go in a different direction, so the White House is going to have to stand its ground.

Sen. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound is taking a dim view of school districts that have challenged her truth-in-grading law in court. The law, which took effect this school year, prohibits districts from forcing teachers to assign a minimum grade to failing students regardless of their classwork and test scores - a practice that has been growing in recent years.

"It is my understanding that the Texas education commissioner will be served with a lawsuit by some school districts who do not want to abide by the truth-in-grading bill," Nelson said. "It is very discouraging that instead of working with our students to ensure academic success, some are seeking courtroom permission to give our students grades they did not earn."

The GOP senator noted that the legislation passed the House and Senate unanimously before being signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. The lawsuit was filed this week by school districts in the Houston area. Nelson said school boards that pursue the legal action will be shifting taxpayers dollars from the classroom to the courtroom - something she doesn't think will find much public backing. "This law has very strong support from teachers, parents and the public," she insisted.

State Education Commissioner Robert Scott announced Tuesday that he is partially lifting the current cap on the number of charter school campuses in Texas - but only for high-performing charter school operators. That means charter schools that are rated either "recognized" or "exemplary" may establish additional campuses without state approval.

"This is for the higher performing charter schools, those that have a very good track record and promise to continue that track record," Scott said during a speech to Austin business leaders. "They can continue to expand as long their campuses remain recognized or exemplary."

The commissioner also said he may have authority under an informal opinion from the attorney general to issue more state charters than the current 215 limit set by the Legislature several years ago. But he plans to work with lawmakers in their next session in 2011 before there is any move to lift that cap. A bill to increase the number of charter schools failed during the legislative session earlier this year. Charter school critics say the number should not be increased until recurring problems at many campuses are resolved.

A huge number of school districts and campuses are appealing their state ratings. And as Tawnell Hobbs reported Sunday, it's mostly tied to new state rules that classify more kids as dropouts. Schools want a break, saying they were slapped with a lower rating because they had a few too many dropouts.

Tawnell described how schools pound the pavement to find these kids:

At Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas ISD, principal Edward Conger and his staff located four students who affected their school's rating - one was in prison, another had transferred to a different school district, and two were in other schools.

Conger refers to his roster of missing students as "the V.I.P. list" because of the importance of locating them.

If Thomas Jefferson is typical, you've got to wonder who really benefits: the kids or the grownups? Those four kids are likely getting no more or less an education after being located. Surely in some cases, schools do get kids back in class. But how often is this just a big accounting exercise?

It reminds me of a scene from "The Wire" when ex-con Cutty applies for a custodial job at a middle school but it's really a truancy officer job:

Out on his truancy rounds, Cutty learns what his job is really about. The school is only interested in having the kids show up for one day a month in September and October - the minimum attendance that assures each school will be funded for the fullest enrollment. Cutty is incredulous. "Naw, naw man. School is school," he says to deaf ears. "Which one of y'all still needs your September day?" his round-up partner asks the kids in an abandoned lot.

In the last few weeks, we've seen informative, but worrisome stories about how many Texas students require remedial classes at college and how few Dallas students actually master their subjects. At the same time, there have been reports about Texas showing sustained improvement in getting kids ready for college.

Conflicting data like this can be quite bewildering. But think of it this way:

Imagine you are taking off on an airplane flight. Your plane is going up, but you are hitting some air pockets along the way. You're glad to be going in the right direction, but things are choppy.

Let's deal with the climbing part first.

Matthew Haag, who covers Plano schools, asked the district for a copy of Superintendent Doug Otto's remarks at a public meeting attended by 7,000 employees. Specifically, Matthew wanted Otto's list of the "Top 10 signs you know your superintendent is losing it."

Read here to find out the district's response.

Open-records advocates might argue a list of the "Top 10 signs your district's public information office is losing it" is also in order.

Aug. 21 UPDATE: Plano coughed up the list Friday. And one commenter on the Plano blog notes that the district has since posted a video of Otto's speech.

I'm working on a story about commended rates on the TAKS. That's right, I said commended, not passing. So much focus goes on the latter — school and district ratings depend almost entirely on how many kids pass the TAKS. Commended rates don't matter, even though they show actual mastery of a subject.

So, here's what I'm wondering. Do Texas parents, teachers and policymakers pay enough attention to the commended rates? What can — and can't — they tell us? It seems like emphasizing pass rates just encourages schools to concentrate on the "bubble" kids and not those at higher achievement levels.

Just an example of passing vs. commended: Pretty much every school district rocked the eighth-grade reading TAKS this year, with pass rates in the 90s and even some 100 percents. Commended is another story — it ranged from 33 percent in Lancaster up to 84 percent in Highland Park.

On a very related note to Bill's last post...

I've been up to my eyeballs in state school ratings. The buzz this year is all about the "Texas Projection Measure," which is, depending upon whom you ask, either a great leveler of academic playing fields or a statistical trick to make schools look better than they really are.

(TPM 101: This year, schools can get credit for students who failed the TAKS but are predicted to pass in a future year. Thanks to TPM, about twice as many schools this year earned the top "exemplary" rating.)

About a month ago when I talked with Texas Education Agency officials, they said they wanted parents, teachers and others to understand the distinction.

"We're trying to develop a whole series of support materials to make sure it's very clear the difference between a student meeting the standard and a student not meeting the standard but being projected to pass in a subsequent grade," an associate commissioner told me.

So, I'm curious. Have you looked at reports for individual schools or students, and if so, is it easy to understand TPM and how it may have helped? Any ideas for improvement?

Holly Hacker, Tawnell Hobbs, Terry Stutz and our education team reported last week how the state is using a new standard for counting dropouts. For example, students who enroll in GED classes but who don't have a GED degree now count as dropouts. Before, they were not included in dropout data.

Texas' tougher definition of dropouts stems in part from the nation's governors deciding a few years ago to create a common definition of a dropout. Then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings put her weight behind the effort and it led to a more reliable way of seeing how many students actually exit without a degree.

The National Governors Association reported last week that most states are on the path to using this standard by 2011. That's good. We won't be using funny numbers any more.

Of course, this tougher standard will cost schools. As Hacker and others reported, Texas saw the number of lower-performing high schools increase.

The low-performing ranking will deflate spirits in some schools and districts, but I'd rather have that than a rosy scenario, any day.

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott decided that he had had enough.

This week he ordered Pearce Middle School in Austin "closed." Now, mind you - this does not mean that the building will actually be closed or shuttered up. It means rather that it will be repurposed - new plan, new people, new mission, turned around, transformed into really a new school.

Scott made this decision under state law because Pearce had been academically unacceptable for 5 years in a row, 8 out of the last 10! Sheesh, that's enough to have been bad not just for the entire stay of one child in a family but up to, say, all 3 or 4 siblings!

Only 39% of the kiddos passed the minimum bar on the science test this year, and almost none of those passing were commended. The school hasn't been above the minimum bar in all subjects since 2003.

So, why's Austin a'moanin' again?

The State of Texas has gotten approval from the US Department of Education to use a growth model for school accountability purposes. Under this system, schools that get a certain amount of growth in achievement for a student who may not pass the test get the same credit as if the student actually passed the test. These new rules were discussed in a DMN news story earlier this week.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/070509dnmettaks.40d721e.html

Are these new measures fairer and more appropriate ways to judge schools and educators for the "value add" they accomplish during the year, or are they yet another way to fudge or dumb down standards and expectations?

I applaud the Secretary for being sober, serious, and direct about needed reforms in his speech this week to the NEA, the nation's largest teachers' union. http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/07/07022009.html

While he offered up a fair share of platitudes and attaboys, which are understandable, especially in today's political environment, he showed some courage and conviction in his remarks.

Here are some of his messages I thought were particularly worthy.

When then Gov. George Bush was candidate for the Republican Party nomination I received a phone call from his campaign. He had just been handed his head in New Hampshire and was looking at South Carolina and Ohio. Joe Allbaugh was asking if I would join the gov campaigning in those two states. I told him I was concerned about the policy I had been hearing in his speeches. Education had always been a local issue, a state issue, and his description was a national bureaucracy in the making. I told Joe I was concerned that we would move to national standards and I didn't want "Strom Thurmand and Ted Kennedy telling us what are children should be taught and how our children should learn. Inevitably, that will occur, it is the nature of government. In years to come the decisions will be made in Washington about our children, far away from the parents and local educators." Of course, being the big mouth I am I went further, "if the Gov. would allow me to have input in policy I would come but if all he wanted was a token Democrat to smile and look pretty - forget it." Joe was very polite and said perhaps the Gov. needed to speak to me about the role etc. personally. The call back never came, I assume someone else agreed to go. My concern today is the same. I read last week that Texas was one of only a few states that had decided not to implement federal standards. I am afraid my fear is coming true - but some of you may find my concern misplaced. It began with No Child Left Behind requiring every state to implement "some standards", now, we have a move to national standards and then it will be a national accountability system. But maybe you are ok with US Senators and Congressman sitting in Washington deciding what your child should know and when they should know it - cause in my opinion that is exactly where we are headed and it all started with a republican candidate preaching small government and minimal govt. interference.
If you don't like Texas accountability today wait until you get Washington accountability in the future. Who will you go to then, when your child is held back or is subjected to layers of exams? This singular Bush policy was a major departure in the history of education and I believe most citizens don't see where it ends up.
Some will argue the globalization of our economy leads inevitably to the need for uniform standards in the states, some just like data and like comparing one state to the next, but just prior to running for President during the rewrite of the Education Code in Texas, the Governor, Senator Ratliff, and myself had one overriding philosophy. The best place for decisions to be made that impact our children's education was at the local level, where the educators know the children and the parents can be involved and have a meaningful voice. But make no mistake about it, we are headed down a path now, that goes in the opposite direction.

I wish those in our fair state who think we're at risk of putting too much pressure on kids, especially poor kids, to get ready for college could have been with me yesterday. Ditto for those who think the premium of a college education is way overblown.

I wish they could have heard Monica Washington, a Texarkana high school teacher. Or Ron Rossingh, an Odessa Permian 10th grader. Along with students from Richardson and the Valley who addressed a gathering of teachers and students yesterday in Dallas, these were some of the most determined people I have ever seen. They not only are dreaming big, they have the determination to realize their dreams.

The case for national school standards has received a boost in the last few days. You may recall that we talked here last week about what will go into the next phase of the standards movement, and evidently some feel like they can make national standards the lead piece.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave a speech Sunday in which he urged states to come together in forming a unified set of standards. In fact, he just didn't talk about it. He promised federal money to entice states to participate in the project.

A few weeks before his speech, a Big Think group involving the Gates Foundation and others got in on the national standards debate. The panel thought it should be the top goal for education stimulus spending. The members proposed that organizations like the National Governors Association come together to create a model set of national standards.

National standards are a bit like Obama's push for a government-run health plan. I can see the case, but I don't know how we get there.

Education Front readers will recognize Sandy Kress as a regular commenter on our blog. The former Dallas school board president also is involved in a national discussion about the role of standards in improving schools.

He and former Bush 41 education adviser Diane Ravitch have traded online essays at Education Week's website, where Ravitch questions whether the standards movement, whose values are well captured in the No Child Left Behind Act, has made any difference. She cites data to back her claim.

Kress fired back this week arguing against the data she uses to denounce No Child. His point, which I share, is that students have shown real progress since the standards movement started about 20 years ago. In some cases, they have shown a whole year's gain in subjects.

Who says all the uproar during the legislative session about the proposal to end social promotions was overblown? Look at these results:

Texas third, fifth and eighth graders are showing a clear uptick in scores. Now, maybe not all of the progress is due to students worrying about getting held back if they don't buckle down and learn their material in grades 3,5 and 8, where Texas students must pass the state achievement exam to move to the next grade. But I have a hard time seeing how this is more than a coincidence, just as I have a hard time seeing how the improvement in Central Texas eighth grade test scores that I blogged about last week doesn't have something to do with the ban on kids being socially promoted to ninth grade.

The early drafts of the Legislature's school accountability bill would have done away with the state ban on social promotions. The governor and others fought back. I'm glad they did. They forced lawmakers to at least keep the ban on moving kids out of fifth and eighth grades if they don't know their material.

The biggest winner in the passage of SB 3, the school accountability bill, appears to be the education commissioner. The office gained several new powers under the bill, and that's a good thing.

Reason number one is that Texas needs to go to a Cabinet-form of government, and this gets us closer to that point. When we elect a governor, that person should be able to appoint a cabinet, not these zillion commissions we have today. And we voters should hold the governor accountable for how well the Cabinet works.

The powers in this bill don't get us to a Cabinet-style government, but the education buck increasingly will stop with the commissioner -- and the governor who appoints him or her.

Reason number two is I much rather have the commissioner make more education decisions than the elected State Board of Education. The board is too caught up with cultural issues, like debates over evolution. And it gets caught up in rancorous fights about reading standards.

Some good members serve on the board, like Pat Hardy. But it has become dysfunctional. I couldn't imagine giving it the power to, say, set the passing rate for high school exit exams. Fortunately, SB 3 gave the commissioner that authority.

Here are a few other areas SB 3 gives the commissioner important authority:

1. Define what it means for a child to be ready for college, stretching all the way back to grade school.

2. Adjust the college ready standards if they are no longer apply.

3. Review schools, particularly at the third grade level, to see if they are "socially promoting" too many students.

4. Define what "accelerated instruction" should mean for students in fifth and eighth grades who are required to extra help after passing the TAKS test.

By the way, determining what it means to be college ready is really important. The state hasn't done that before, so the commissioner will have a big chore. If he doesn't get it right, kids could fall behind.

The commissioner's new authority to determine the passing standard for end-of-course high school exams also is a big deal. If he sets the average too low, kids will waltz out of high school into a meat- grinder. If he sets it right, kids will have a pretty good shot of making it past high school.

Robert Scott is the education commissioner today. His job just got a lot more interesting.

The school accountability bill that the Texas Legislature passed Sunday by a unanimous vote was anything but unanimous a few days ago. And SB 3 was anything but unanimous over the last few months.

This bill and its several compromises are the result of a lot of hard work by GOP Sen. Florence Shapiro and GOP Rep. Rob Eissler, the respective heads of the House and Senate education committees. They put in a ton of hours going back and forth on this bill.

The legislation also was the subject of dramatic behind-the-scene politicking between the two factions within Texas' education debate: The anti-testing crowd that rails about too much pressure being put on schools and the reformers who believe schools and students should be held accountable through testing and rigorous standards.