Superintendents of school districts in Borderland say they are optimistic about school improvement following announcement of the approval of Minnesota’s request to be exempt from the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The announcement in Washington came late last week from Pres. Barack Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The NCLB law, which caused controversy across the nations as a flawed way to label schools and districts as “passing” or “failing,” has also been waived in nine other states in this first round of waivers.
Details from the Minnesota Department of Education on what will replace the NCLB system in evaluating student, school and district progress will be announced today through a web-based seminar across the state.
According to MDE, the waiver has freed all state public schools from meeting controversial Adequate Yearly Progress marks, which many felt unfairly labeled schools and placed federal consequences on districts “not meeting AYP.”
Superintendent Jerry Struss of the South Koochiching-Rainy River School District, home to the Indus and Northome schools, called the step “positive from the public school standpoint.”
“It will be good to have a growth model for testing, as opposed to a cohort model that was setting an arbitrary point of where students need to be at the end of the year, without taking into consideration where some students are when they start the school year,” Struss said. “Some students show remarkable growth, but with NCLB if one subgroup did not show progress, the entire school gets penalized for that. We’re looking forward to a more fair assessment and a better way to evaluate students that will be better for everyone.”
In 2011, Littlefork-Big Falls School District was the only area public school district categorized federally as “making AYP” according to student scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, the MCA-II and MCA-III standardized tests in reading and math.
South Koochiching-Rainy River School District did not make AYP for the first time ever, and the International Falls School District did not meet AYP for the second year in a row, putting the district under the federal status of “needs improvement.”
Under the NCLB law, each consecutive year a district does not make AYP, the law mandates corrective action.
“The difficult thing with No Child Left Behind is we were attempting to create a system where we want everyone to be above average. For example, they wanted all fourth graders to be at this point by the end of the school year, and if they’re not, the district will be categorized as not meeting AYP,” Struss explained. “Under NCLB, they wanted 100 percent of students in the country to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, regardless of whether they are in special education or have a disability, or other factors. In life, it’s impossible to expect everyone to meet that; it’s like expecting everyone to be above average. It’s impossible. Eventually, by 2014, all schools in the country would be categorized as not making AYP, because the cards are simply stacked against them.”
Last year, nearly half of all Minnesota schools did not meet AYP standards. Under the federal law, the school and district scoring system was figured by taking subgroups of students (according to race/ethnicity, economic status, English proficiency status and special education status) along with a test subject (reading or math) to tell whether each subgroup met the standards (an example of a subgroup could be the group of special education students on the math test). If one subgroup failed to meet the standards, the entire school would be classified as “not making AYP.”
According to makers of the law, this helps identify achievement gaps and requires schools and districts to make sure students from all backgrounds are sufficiently educated.
Fred Seybert, superintendent of L-BF schools, said school districts such as L-BF who have made AYP in successive years will “not really be affected by the waiver.”
“The state as a whole will have a better opportunity to transition to an accountability system made for students in Minnesota; schools will be given the opportunity to improve, rather than be labeled as not making AYP, indicating the need for corrective action,” Seybert said. “Schools in the state will meet principles such as college-and-career-ready academic standards, and, importantly, focus on a state-developed system of differentiated recognition, accountability and support.”
Seybert is hopeful that the Minnesota Department of Education “will be able to identify the highest-performing schools across the state in order to learn from them.”
Falls High School Principal Tim Everson told The Journal that as part of the district improvement plan, he wanted the state’s help in finding similar schools and learn what they have tried. He added he hopes this is part of MDE’s plan to replace NCLB — linking schools to open communication about what works and what doesn’t
“It’s important for schools to share best practices, rather than constantly reinventing the wheel,” Everson said. “When we learn from each other, we are more successful. In education, it’s important to identify weaknesses, and I do agree that we all need to be accountable. If there are achievement gaps, we need to address them and get all our students to achieve. But obviously what would work in Chanhassen or even Hibbing or Virginia, might not work here. There may be pieces that work, though. It would be nice to have the state’s help in linking us to other schools that sit in the same boat as we do — similar size and demographics — even if we’re across the state.”
International Falls Superintendent Jeff Peura said he’s optimistic to see the education evaluation systems come back to local and state control.
“In Minnesota, we’ve always done a great job in educating students — I don’t think the federal government needed to get involved,” Peura said. “Bringing it back to local control provides an evaluation system better fitting for our students. We’re different than urban and suburban school districts — we know locally, the best things for our students. For the federal government to be involved did a disservice to students.”
Congressional support
Although local superintendents are still learning whether the MDE will still use MCA tests for evaluation, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken say this is what the state needs.
“This waiver will give Minnesota the flexibility it needs to implement its own plan for raising student achievement that focuses on our state’s specific needs,” said Klobuchar, who worked closely with the MDE and the U.S. Department of Education to secure the waiver.
Franken also responded to the announcement, calling it “progress.”
“No Child Left Behind simply isn’t working, and it’s clear we need to completely reform the legislation,” Franken said. “Until reform legislation is approved by Congress, this waiver will eliminate some of the most arbitrary measures of the current law that have burdened schools throughout Minnesota. Far too many schools all over our state have been unfairly sanctioned under the current one-size-fits-all model.”
About the waiver, Gov. Mark Dayton said, “Today’s announcement is important to our students, parents and teachers. Under ‘No Child Left Behind,’ teachers have been forced to teach to tests, which do not accurately measure either individual student or school progress. Students spend too many hours preparing for, practicing and taking the tests.”
