SFUSD OVERDUE FOR NEW LEADERSHIP

I changed the title of this post, but not the post itself which was published on 9/11/13 after a couple of people asked about the weird title.


As a parent of two SFUSD students and as a self-styled observer and activist, I've been watching SFUSD for a decade now. A former teacher who turned stay-at-home dad for family reasons, I was involved in education before my first son entered kindergarten in 2004. That did not prepare me for the entity that is SFUSD, though it did give me some insight into the political and financial structure of  the public schools and their unions.   During these ten years I learned that, despite the hype to the contrary, SFUSD only changes when it is forced to do so, that is, when ordered by a court or State and Federal governments. In this district reform is all about talking and little action.  What reform has taken place is confined to a small group of schools in the so-called Superintendent Zones while the other 90% languish, that is  reform for a few at the expense of the rest - and very, very expensive reform to boot without much achievement gains to show for it.

In this district, unlike in San Diego or LA, the forces of reform are kept safely at bay from the Superintendent and by his subservient Board of Education, both of whom  answer to their political compatriots, United Educators of San Francisco. The BOE and the administration constitute a union-driven machine designed to protect the status quo - themselves.  So what else is new?  This Board will never be a democratic forum where the larger issues of education are discussed, debated and dissected for the public's benefit. It is a place where agreement and unanimity are prized above all. It is a place where the alternative voices for student achievement and fiscal responsibility are squashed and where the phrase "all for one and one for all" gives new and ominous meaning to Dumas' jovial entreaty.  This Board is not a  place where the community's elected representatives test and review in the public's interest the appointed czar's programs,  but where that czar and his minions on the Board reject such inquiry and scrutiny. Their idea of debate is disagreement over what salad  dressing to serve at the annual retreat to Marin. When they do take issue with the union it is usually out of hubris - a need to assert their authority and seeming independence. What a sad little game!
 

Having dragged myself to several board meetings over the years, it didn't take long to realize that this BOE treats public comment like dog excrement - something to be picked up with a disposable plastic glove and nimbly discarded in the closest public trash can (for fear of stepping in it). But there's an old saying of admin insiders - "board members are like mushrooms, covered in manure and kept in the dark".  This dyslexic board has forgotten that the Supe works for them, not the other way around. So , for example, when they  jump up and down about what a great success are the Superintendent Zones, despite the  incredibly tepid results to the tune of sixty-plus million dollars  while, simultaneously, achievement stalls in an otherwise  cash-strapped district, these abecedarian leaders resemble cheerleaders more than real leaders.  Our students may be getting short shrift outside the Superintendent Zones, but hey, let's put on a happy face and jump for joyful learning! Now that's entertainment! On with the show!

This is what happens when sell-outs inhabit public office  - profligate spending without due consideration for each dollar's maximum benefit. It's all in a day's work, everyone else's work, that is. These commissioners view  student assignment and the  education of our children as an experiment in social engineering and race relations, rather than a  solemn fiduciary duty to each child in empowering them towards academic achievement.  This is what happens when you have leaders whose main purpose is to keep the union calling the shots, create an appearance of success such that UESF will fund their next campaign for public office. When the new millions from the Governor's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) starts to flow, do you think we'll see any strategic use for it or do you think it will go immediately to an across the board pay raise for teachers and central staff? That's a rhetorical question.

These commissioners  are patsies whose sole purpose is to keep the current machine running without pesky interruption by the public. As one put it to me, "This is my district, not yours!" All the while they speak of how wonderfully well the district is doing and why they should get reelected. So unless you have been invited to speak on their behalf, the Board's main goal is to turn off your mike as soon as it is legally feasible and sometimes before.  As a result I've often found myself speaking into the thin and rarified air of the boardroom, at odds with a district that does not take kindly to dissent. Finally I decided that I don't want to breathe that fetid air. So what's this Board good for? It excels at driving wedges in world that has made wedge-driving a political art form.

 
Has anyone noticed how little dissent there is in this district? It's almost as if we don't live in a democracy given the stranglehold of the union and bureaucratic establishment on public education in San Francisco. What we have are yes men  or women in charge while parents run amok all over town with SFUSD's family-unfriendly style of public education and student assignment. Keeping up on events is more Car and Driver than Education Week.

In SFUSD there are no organized voices of opposition. Thus one is relegated to play a lonely game of revolt. During this time I've been involved in several major initiatives which included  getting rid of ineffective principals,  challenging SFUSD at the state level to make SFUSD site plans more transparent and putting a neighborhood school ballot measure to the voters, to name a few.  I've had my successes and my failures, but there's nothing new under the sun. All the phony talk about education reform coming from this district only highlights the grim reality that SFUSD continues on little changed from before and in some ways worse.

 
And this is my point. In the last ten years I can't think of a single change from the district that has had an appreciable impact on the classroom if  it hasn't been to increase class sizes and decrease funding, if you exclude the $45M  Federally funded school improvement grant that helped drive the Superintendent Zone project in 9 schools.  After all the hype from SFUSD about being the highest performing school district (it isn't), there's been virtually no major changes of consequence to the students sitting in the majority of classes at this moment. We still have some of the  highest and lowest performing schools, the largest achievement gap,  an entrenched union that offers up nothing except demands for more pay, an employment paradigm that encourages laziness, a system that virtually ignores the community and its parent voices, as well as the same kind of diversity-first assignment system that is singularly responsible for driving out tens of  thousands of middle class families from the public schools over the years, much  to San Francisco's detriment and disgrace as a good place to live.

Instead what we have is the same old-fashioned, industrial and insular education model driven by union protectionism rather than educational achievement, a system unchanged in perpetuity amidst a nation otherwise engaged in massive educational revolt and reform. Like horses with blinders or student's with desk caddies, we fail to look outwards. But we also fail to look inwards and discover that the politically correct course of equity and access first does nothing to drive student performance and indeed hinders it by depriving students funding that could be used for classrooms not bureaucracy.

 
Thus, we are never going to have honest leadership until people rise up against this Board and elect a majority of new members who are serious-minded, results-oriented reformers - new members who will not treat every board meeting as though it were their annual Marin County retreat for some mutual back-patting and  glad-handing - fishbowls followed by lightly tossed $15 a pound endive and radicchio salads over even lighter banal banter.  What I crave is a hearty mixed salad,  with sliced rare  beef and mozzarella balls,  skip the dressing. Well, maybe just a little vinegar.

SFUSD MANIPULATING ASSIGNMENT DATA

Thoughts and insight on:

SFUSD  2012-13 Annual Report on Student Assignment 

I recommend to anyone who wants to comment on this thread to first read the report or to skim it if time doesn't permit.

 

 http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/enroll/files/2013-14/2nd_annual_report_april_17_2013.pdf


This post focuses on the race-related data in isolated schools and how this data is reported and analyzed by SFUSD. I believe the statistics are used to mislead rather than inform upon the issue of racial isolation. That said, I think SFUSD is on the wrong track by focusing its attentions on diversity rather than student achievement given the paucity of data that links more diversity with significantly greater student achievement. Not to imply that diversity is not in and of itself a good thing, but the purpose of a school district is not, as the United States Supreme Court has ruled, to alter the racial demographics of schools, but to teach students a curriculum that will further their abilities to be productive members of society. Be that as it may, is SFUSD's diversity goal being met? (jump to "isolated schools" for the answer)

 

 

THOUGHTS ON THIS ASSIGNMENT SYSTEM  PROCESS
 

Reading the above report was a trying experience. It brings tears to the eyes imagining the cost in the millions of dollars required to develop, implement and maintain all the complex pieces of this new student assignment system (P5101) - piles of money that could have gone directly to classrooms that are so much in need of extra funding, money that's being spent for a purpose with limited value and less chance of success. To understand the folly of this new system is to understand the ethnocentric predilection of SFUSD leadership, to understand how race politics is paramount in the minds of the leaders and to understand that student achievement is little more than an afterthought to them.


At the time of this writing, two weeks after the start of the school year, there are still hundreds of people who are hoping to get a call from EPC to receive news of their children's assignments because of this complicated, slow  and laborious assignment system. Frustrated parents across the city are wringing their hands and hoping against hope to get that call with good news. Many have spent every day at the district placement office hoping to be able to advocate for their children's best school placement. In the meantime, classrooms are in flux, students are coming and going and all this is a major disruption to the teachers and their students.


ISOLATED SCHOOLS

 

Anyone who has followed this process knows as it clearly states  in the Board resolution as well as in the subsequent literature that the purpose of the assignment system is, first and foremost, to decrease racial isolation (increase diversity). The text is replete with race language despite numerous studies in case after case showing more diversity having very limited efficacy on student achievement .  The resolution  also says that school choice is only a tactic in the larger context of decreasing isolation, not the purpose of the resolution which is diversity - an outdated reform by modern standards that focus on achievement.

 

So is the new assignment system decreasing isolation and increasing diversity given that these are the stated goals? They say a trend won't reveal itself for several more years. I doubt that's true and I'll tell you why. On p.14 of the report it says:
 

 "Our current student assignment system has been in place for two years, which means it has been used to assign students to six out of 13 grades (kindergarten, 1st grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 9th grade, and 10th grade). Over these two years, there has not been a shift in the number of schools with an enrollment of more than 60% of a single race/ethnicity".
 

The devil is in the details. Having looked at the data for the 26 schools that had more than 60% of one race and have an API rank of 1, 2 or 3 (racially isolated), 15 of them increased in isolation while only 8 decreased and three were neutral between the years 2009 and 2012. Is this subterfuge on the part of the District and the way they report the numbers? I think so. Please see for yourself starting on p.11 of the report.
 

There's a distinct increase in isolation when one looks at actual percentages rather than deciles that cover up the true numbers. SFUSD states in the report that the results appear relatively flat so far. Not true. Currently isolated schools are moving towards greater isolation overall.  They say that it will take years to determine a trend.  But two years into the policy we already have double the number of schools getting more rather than less isolated.

APPLICANT POOLS
 

Moving on to the next point, the Board says a diverse applicant pool is essential to a diverse school. True. Below they also say  the assignment system is only one factor in determining applicant pool diversity, betting an entire assignment system's success on altering those pools:
 

"Student assignment has a role to play in reversing the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in schools; however student assignment alone cannot overcome the complex elements that contribute to the current state. For example, the demographics of the city, parent request patterns, and language pathways all have an impact on the demographics of our schools."
 

The SFUSD strategic plan says that demographics is the biggest predictor of student achievement and it's widely accepted that schools can only exert so much influence over social factors  which can enhance or impede achievement. But when it comes to student assignment the leadership overlooks the predictive power of demographics and indulges itself in the notion that it can change many of the same social factors that drive school choice decision-making - that it can increase diversity of the applicant pools despite the social factors that inhibit diversity.  SFUSD's free ticket called CTIP1 is based upon a contrivance that a  family will travel cross town twice every day to exercise a preferential seat at a school further from home. How many people will travel across town even once to see a movie that doesn't interest them just because they get a free ticket? How about twice a day 180 times a year? The CTIP preference hasn't worked so far because it is extremely difficult to change people's ideas about where they want to attend school and especially those people for whom travel poses a particularly difficult challenge, and, as such, it is unwise to predicate an entire assignment system  on believing it will change attitudes without any data to back up such a supposition. You cannot force people in a free country to do things that they don't want to do when given a choice otherwise. Districts across the country have failed for decades to convince people to voluntarily swap out their neighborhood schools for distant schools that pose much greater challenges in time, money, convenience and comfort.

 
With a stated 20% reserve for CTIP1 applicants at high schools, the Superintendent has had to let many of those spots go to non CTIP1 applicants because of this lack of demand by those students who simply don't want to attend schools far from home, particularly as school bus service has decreased. At elementary schools the CTIP1 preference has been largely unused by those that attend the racially isolated and underserved schools which remain even more isolated because, as SFUSD would have you believe, the families don't know any better for lack of outreach. But the fact is that those target applicants will and are choosing the schools that serve their communities, not the distant ones, and rather than coming to terms with the idea sooner than later that the CTIP1 golden tickets are not the carrot they were attended to be, the District is telling us that the trend has not yet been revealed and that it will take several more years. Unless we see a sea change in attitudes this lack of interest in utilizing CTIP is likely to persist. In the meantime many families of means have been able to get trophy placements using their own CTIP addresses. The transportation and convenience issues are far less important to them. QED

BEHIND THE CURVE

 

 

Lastly, I don't know why the Board would only classify as racially isolated those schools that have both 60% of one race AND an API decile rank of 1,2 or 3 when there are many other racially isolated schools in the district. If  diversity is the general goal, why only label underperforming schools as racially isolated when other schools are equally isolated?


SUMMING UP


In any case, it seems that only in San Francisco school leaders still believe in the debunked theory that diversity increases academic performance. If they don't believe in that hackneyed theory to explain this assignment system, they would be abdicating their primary responsibility to educate our children and instead would be engaging in a social engineering experiment with no proven educational benefit, likely perpetrated upon the school public to espouse a politically correct diversity agenda despite its actual value in increasing diversity. That is to say, in politics appearances and good intentions are is often more important that real results, which can be fudged, as in the case here. While consent decree orders have expired here and elsewhere with a whimper, school districts across the country have retrenched and rethought their assignment policies and have moved on to other academic and achievement-related reforms.  Expensive diversity-first agendas have been a colossal failure and this sixty year old American experiment has driven new thinking about the way students learn and what is the proper role of school districts. But not the SFUSD.

Do we desire diversity and want to promote it? Yes. One of my children attends a very diversified middle school, but the school lacks sufficient funding. With all the costs and resources spent attempting to achieve greater diversity through this and  former assignment systems, all the while failing to achieve it, we are taking our eyes off the prize  of student achievement.  This year SFUSD has turned flat in math and negative in English on the STAR tests, and in the meantime we are putting our children's education in peril by throwing precious education dollars down the drain for an unproven  and questionable purpose for a school district.  Strangely enough,  if SFUSD really wants to generate more school diversity, it need only take advantage of the inherent diversity of our city's neighborhoods and assign students geographically.
 

 

 

SFUSD DROPS NCLB - ARE SUSPENSION AND EXPULSION RATES THE NEW MEASURE OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT?

On August 6th SFUSD was granted a federal waiver from NCLB School Improvement penalties for the upcoming school year. New student achievement criteria that replace the  high stakes testing model leave some serious questions as to how districts will measure academic achievement.  With reduced reliance on testing, students will be evaluated on more than just state tests on basic core curriculum. Other factors such as music, art and foreign language will be included in overall performance as well will be attendance, suspension and expulsion rates. Expanding the scope and quality of achievement measures sounds reasonable after years of overreliance on questionable testing methods, but who really believes that attendance and citizenship are valid replacement measures of academic performance any more than showing up for work is a measure of job performance? Just showing up for school doesn't tell us much about the quality of a student's work? 

The new loosely defined evaluation parameters as described by the waiver consortium entitled, the Office to Reform Education or CORE,  leave a void as to what standards will be used during a school year that has already begun.   In the meantime a loosening of standards comes at a convenient time with SFUSD's  STAR test results slowing in math and turning negative in English. So it is easy to see why SFUSD would prefer to see a less stringent  measure of student achievement, even if its arrival now is just coincidental. Without anything firm in place  it is anyone's guess what will replace the current achievement measures.

While teachers ought to welcome the end of NCLB's punitive aspects, the fly in the ointment for their unions is this: beginning in the 2014-15 school year extension of the waiver will be contingent on districts instituting  teacher evaluations  that take  student performance into account - something teacher unions as well as the State of California have vehemently opposed. This is the reason why the State as a whole did not get a waiver and why the waivers where granted on a district-by-district basis instead, a first for the nation that already has 41 states waived. It is telling that neither UESF nor any of the  unions representing the other seven waiver districts sided with the NCLB opt-out.  Virtually all teacher unions are on record for opposing NCLB's narrow view of education, yet none have supported doing away with NCLB if it means having members take partial responsibility for student achievement.  It seems that  union leadership would rather have members work within what it knows to be a failed education model  than  be party to shared responsibility. There are legitimate concerns about fair teacher performance evaluations, but strengthening the profession demands that teachers by held to high standards of behavior and performance. Creating an evaluation system which measures a teacher's influence on performance should be the mutual goal of labor and management. Instead, the unions are against any kind of linkage between student and teacher performance.  Does anyone  really believe that teachers can succeed if their students fail? 

Ironically, the very standards the unions oppose, if implemented, could turn out to be a win for the membership, if by win it means keeping underperforming teachers on the job. Pressure to reform teacher evaluations has been mounting and with looser guidelines for students performance and more students scoring higher, unions may be able to mollify their critics and maintain  underperforming teachers on-the-job,  a distinct and dire possibility. We can only hope that new standards will be more child-friendly and less of the one-size-fits-all model that has so enraged critics and been a bane to students and teachers alike.

After 15 years of NCLB many contemporary critics of  its style of public education would welcome a more holistic approach to learning and evaluating instead of  the factory-style model which has had a  narrow focus on math and English.  While recognizing there's an important role for  well thought-out standardized testing, I believe that NCLB's model has made public education less creative and elevated the rote style of learning that was discarded  by the 70's. Its single-minded focus on the test has taken the creativity out of education and much of the fun along with it, a fact to which many teachers will willingly attest. But that does not refute the fact that suspension and expulsion rates are not a legitimate  replacement as a measure of student progress. Showing up and staying in school are crucial, but statistics of this sort tells us little about academic achievement. They tell us more about the politics of truancy and the  financial pressures to increase attendance for Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funding from the state government.

Getting rid of the one-size-fits-all model that is NCLB is a step in the right direction as long as standardized testing of many core  subjects plays an important part in the overall measurement of student progress. However, watering down the measurements of student performance is not the solution to decreased American educational competitiveness or a legitimate education reform nor is the notion by some NCLB detractors that no testing at all is preferable. And I agree that some linkage between teacher performance and student performance is reasonable as long as the evaluation itself is reasonable. But we shouldn't have these policies dictated by a federal government that only contributes a tiny portion of the total expenditures on education by the individual states. It is an overreach of federal power and it creates a paradox in which we are simultaneously moving toward more local control with the newly adopted Local Control Funding Formula and more federal control over education in California.



Below I have copied three articles for further reading on this subject. Please scroll all the way down to comment.

U.S. Department of Education Grants California Districts' CORE Waiver

UPDATED

The U.S. Department of Education granted an unprecedented waiver Tuesday under the No Child Left Behind Act to eight California districts that together educate 1 million students, upending a long tradition of state-based school accountability.

The first-of-its-kind waiver, good for one year, essentially allows the eight districts to set up their own accountability system outside of the state of California's—and largely police themselves through their own board of directors. The districts known as CORE, for California Office to Reform Education, will operate under a new "school quality improvement index" that will be based 60 percent on academic factors such as test scores and graduation rates, 20 percent on social-emotional factors such as the absentee rate, and 20 percent on culture and climate factors such as student and parent surveys. The CORE districts are Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa Ana.

The districts did create a new, separate oversight board, which will include a cross-section of stakeholders from the education community that will meet biennially, that will serve as "an unbiased external compliance review of each district's progress." For more from the district angle, see my colleague Lesli Maxwell's post over at District Dossier.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in announcing the decision in a call with reporters today, said, "Frankly, working with districts wasn't an easy decision." He said his department isn't doing it because it's "simple" but because it's the "right thing to do."

According to the approval letter written by federal officials, the CORE waiver can be renewed next year only if the districts fully implement their school-rating system and teacher-evaluation plans. The department must then approve both systems.

The final deal came together with lightning speed—just last Thursday, Duncan said in an interview that he hadn't seen anything from his team on the CORE waiver. But the clock was ticking for school districts as they planned for the fast-approaching 2013-14 school year. Under the existing NCLB law, for example, districts needed to start signing contracts with tutoring providers. (Before today's announcement, there were nine CORE districts, but Clovis has dropped out.)

For districts, the most important flexibility this waiver brings is financial. A waiver will free up about $150 million in federal funds a year among the districts—money that's now locked up in providing interventions such as tutoring and school choice in schools that do not meet annual academic targets.

Duncan, in the call, said one of the most important components of this waiver application is that no longer will thousands of students be "invisible" as they are under NCLB. The "n" size in California—which is how big a subgroup of students needs to be for its test scores to count for school accountability purposes—is 100. For CORE, it's been lowered to 20.

The CORE districts started pursuing their own waiver in earnest in January, after federal officials rejected the state's application in part because it didn't meet the requirements for implementing a new teacher-evaluation system. CORE officials came to Washington just last month for a final, in-person pitch.

Until now, states have 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, states get out from under 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, these eight California districts, which include Los Angeles, Fresno, and Long Beach, will have that same flexibility.

"We are trying to hold ourselves to an even greater accountability system," said Christopher Steinhauser, superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District, in the call.

The Education Department previously has granted districts narrowly tailored waivers under NCLB, such as to serve as their own tutoring providers. But this waiver is unprecedented for its scope, and for how it changes the dynamic between districts, the state, and the federal government.

"I'm shocked," said Andy Smarick, a partner for Bellwether Education Partners in Washington. "For the secretary to unilaterally dispense with 30-plus years of state-led accountability is incredible."

Others disagree.

"The Council of the Great City Schools is in complete agreement with Secretary Duncan in his approval of the district waiver application submitted by CORE. The approval is within his authority and does not undermine state authority in any meaningful way," said the council's executive director, Michael Casserly.

Granting such a waiver is a risky move for a federal department that is already trying to manage an enormous portfolio of grants and programs—from billions of dollars in Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants to a hodgepodge of new accountability systems that are emerging in the 39 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have waivers.

What's more, this waiver could open the door for other districts that want their own tailor-made waiver. At a minimum, the department might have to deal with the administrative burden of fielding inquiries and even applications from other districts. Right now, however, Duncan said he doesn't foresee any other districts applying.

There also are political implications. Duncan's decision will at least mildly annoy—or even infuriate—some state schools chiefs who have warned that district waivers would "undermine" state authority. (California state officials only gave a tepid endorsement of the CORE plan.)

"The U.S. Department of Education's decision to approve the California district CORE Waiver marks an unprecedented shift in the federal role in education—clearly usurping state leadership," said CCSSO Executive Director Chris Minnich in response to today's announcement.

The list of critics is longer than just state chiefs. Civil rights groups, including the Education Trust and Democrats for Education Reform opposed the CORE waiver, warning that different expectations for students across the same state can often lead to "lowered" expectations. They argue that the key to improving student performance is a strong state accountability system. (California DFER is supportive of the CORE waiver, however.)

The local teachers' unions in California also opposed the application, calling the new accountability system a "shadow system of education."

Many in Congress, particularly Republicans, aren't thrilled with Duncan's overall direction on waivers, either. On district waivers specifically, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has been most critical. He said today this turns the Education Department into a "national school board" with districts lining up playing the old playground game "Mother May I?".

And U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the House education committee chairman, isn't happy about this either. He said today, in a statement, "As if state waivers weren't convoluted enough, the administration has now decided to move forward with district-level waivers. One can only imagine the confusion this creates for families, teachers, and state and local education leaders."

On the flip side, however, Rep. George Miller, D-California, the top Democrat on the House education committee, is very supportive. He said today, in a statement, "The approval of the CORE waiver application will provide the opportunity for more than a million students in California to break away from the most rigid requirements of NCLB that do little to ensure that all children are learning. I applaud CORE's leadership in providing a student-centered vision for education in their districts, and I believe this action will provide the whole state an exciting opportunity to pilot new reforms and learn from some of the leading districts in California and the nation."

And Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate education committee, called the CORE waiver "necessary" but not "ideal."

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Six Questions About California CORE Districts' Waiver

By Michele McNeil on August 9, 2013 7:26 AM

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan provoked a lot of strong opinions when he granted a precedent-setting waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act to eight California districts last week. These "CORE" (for California Office to Reform Education) districts now have sweeping flexibility to implement their own accountability systems, separate from the state of California's, and the ability to largely police themselves with help from a new independent oversight panel.

There are many questions this waiver is sparking. Here are just a few of mine:

1. Will these districts secure collective bargaining agreements to implement new educator evaluations tied to student growth? This was a central reason the state of California could not secure a waiver—because they would not commit to new evaluations as the federal waivers require. In the case of the CORE districts, the local teachers' unions were not supportive whatsoever of this waiver application, charging it would create a "shadow" system of education. But according to the federal Education Department, the districts have committed to developing consortium-wide guidelines for teacher and principal evaluation still this month and adopting these guidelines by Dec. 1. What's more, the districts are supposed to pilot the new evaluation systems in the 2014-15 school year and implement them the following year.

In an email to staff after the CORE waiver was announced, Sacramento superintendent Jonathan P. Raymond wrote, "Finally, let me be clear that there is no component of this waiver that supersedes our collective bargaining agreements. The waiver calls for districts to begin discussions about creating new principal and teacher evaluation tools, discussions that must be had in collaboration with our labor partners." So given the union opposition, how likely is it there will be serious discussions? Some of the CORE districts have better relationships with their local unions than others, so this may likely boil down to local politics.

2. Will these districts immediately pull the plug on SES/choice? The most coveted flexibility in CORE's entire waiver involves about $150 million the districts were required to spend on tutoring and transportation for school choice—two "sanctions" under NCLB. These districts are no longer required to do that (nor are states that also got the state-level waivers). Sacramento has already decided to cut ties to SES providers, according to the superintendent's email to staff. But in Fresno, the superintendent indicated he would keep a few providers on board who are doing a particularly good job. After all, these districts still have to intervene on behalf of students in low-performing schools. It seems these districts are making the decision on a case-by-case basis.

3. What will be the effect of a school-grading system that puts nonacademic factors as worth 40 percent of a school's grade? The CORE waiver's weighting of nonacademic factors, at 40 percent, is significant. Certainly, many waiver states introduced multiple measures to gauge school effectiveness, such as ACT scores or participation in Advanced Placement. But the CORE waiver seems to give the most weight to nonacademic factors—an intentional move to approach accountability in a more holistic manner. Some of the nonacademic factors the CORE districts are including are easy to measure, such as discipline rates and chronic absenteeism. But how will the CORE districts go about measuring "noncongitive skills" such as student grit and tenacity? And will this grading system correctly identify the highest- and lowest-performing schools?

4. Will the new "oversight panel" provide enough oversight? My colleague Lesli Maxwell goes into great detail about how this new oversight panel will work. It was created to answer critics who charged these CORE districts would be in charge of policing themselves. But will this panel provide real, meaningful oversight—as a state would provide in the traditional accountability relationship? Furthermore, the oversight panel's authority (such as it is) is derived from a really squishy place. This new panel's power is not rooted in law, or state board regulations, but in a waiver agreement between the feds and these districts.

5. Will other districts apply? The CORE districts got a very special deal. They got out from under some of the most onerous restrictions of NCLB and got to design their own accountability system, outside of the state's, for federal purposes. Will other districts in nonwaiver states also want a similar sweet deal? Now that Duncan has opened the door, he'll have to figure out how to deal with and fairly judge other requests if they come in. Right now, he says none are in the pipeline. And, Council of the Great City Schools executive director Michael Casserly told me that districts in other nonwaiver states are waiting to see if their state ends up with a waiver before proceeding. If NCLB still isn't rewritten by Congress by the time the next president takes office (a likely scenario), then a new education secretary (perhaps a Republican) will have precedent to start doling out his or her own district waivers that could be based on very different policy leanings.

6. Will Duncan's decision have any effect, whatsoever, on Congress' efforts to rewrite NCLB? Back in February, a Senate aide said if Duncan goes ahead with district waivers, it will "make it that much more difficult to get any Republican to work with the department in good faith." It's not as if Duncan is pushing hard at all for reauthorization anyway. But this could give Congress even more incentive to rewrite the law and rein in the secretary.

 

 

 

6 California cities get No Child Left Behind delay

Jill Tucker

Published 10:52 pm, Tuesday, August 6, 2013

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School districts in San Francisco, Oakland and six other California cities were granted at least a one-year reprieve from the stringent requirements and severe sanctions of the federal No Child Left Behind law Tuesday, a waiver otherwise given only to states.

The waiver, granted by the Obama administration, means the districts will no longer be required to label low-performing schools as failures and require that they make staffing or other changes in hopes of boosting test scores.

San Francisco and Oakland applied for the waiver as part of a consortium that also includes Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Ana and Sanger (Fresno County). Together they represent nearly 1 million students, an enrollment that surpasses that of many individual states.

In return for the waiver, the districts promised to evaluate schools, teachers and principals using a wide range of measures including test scores, suspension rates, attendance and graduation rates. Those measures would then be used to identify needy schools and improve them rather than punish them.

The waiver gives districts more flexibility over how to spend federal funds, especially those to help low-income children. Under No Child Left Behind, failing schools are forced to provide tutoring to students, and parents can choose from a list of public or private tutoring services.

With the waiver, the districts can spend the money on any kind of service for low-income students.

Instead of state and federal oversight, the eight districts will now police themselves and each other, holding the entire system accountable for student learning and success. They will evaluate schools based on improvements in test scores, dropout rates and graduation rates, along with suspension and expulsion totals, among other criteria.

In San Francisco, the waiver will free up at least $700,000 that had to be spent on tutors or letters to parents about their "failing" school, said Superintendent Richard Carranza. In addition, teachers will no longer have to focus on what's tested each spring, Carranza said.

No Child Left Behind "meant you were a failure or not based on your English and math scores," he said. "So guess what? Welcome to science, welcome to social studies, music and art.

"It all counts now."

Most states have waivers from No Child Left Behind. California, however, declined to apply for a waiver because teachers unions opposed a federal stipulation that a teacher's job performance be judged using student test scores. The eight districts will have to guarantee that they will do that by 2014 to extend the waiver beyond this coming school year, said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

That might be an uphill battle.

"Not one of the local teachers associations in the eight school districts was included in the discussion or signed the waiver application," said Dean Vogel, California Teachers Association president.

What's more, he said, the waiver "sets up a new bureaucratic system to oversee the eight districts and creates a new accountability system for schools and students in these districts. This will create confusion for educators, students and parents."

SFUSD: ONLY CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT WITHOUT NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

San Francisco stands alone among the 25 largest as the only major school district that does not assign on the basis of neighborhood residency. What makes us so unfortunate? We are much like most of the major school districts with  ethnically diverse  populations  and  some wealthier and some poorer neighborhoods. All these districts operate under the same state education code and other laws of the state and federal governments. So what gives? Why is it that only here in San Francisco where you live does not guarantee a spot in your nearby school?

It's SF's extremist political character. So what do we have to show for it?

The largest achievement gap in the state. 

Note that the ascending number in the far right column is  the cumulative percentage of students as each district is added on to the ones above them. The top 25 districts have 30% of the public school population.

 

1	Los Angeles Unified	662,140	662,140	10.64%
2	San Diego Unified	131,016	793,156	12.75%
3	Long Beach Unified	83,691	876,847	14.10%
4	Fresno Unified	74,235	951,082	15.29%
5	Elk Grove Unified	62,123	1,013,205	16.29%
6	Santa Ana Unified	57,250	1,070,455	17.21%
7	San Francisco Unified	56,222	1,126,677	18.11%
8	San Bernardino City Unified	54,378	1,181,055	18.99%
9	Corona-Norco Unified	53,467	1,234,522	19.84%
10	Capistrano Unified	53,170	1,287,692	20.70%
11	Garden Grove Unified	47,999	1,335,691	21.47%
12	Sacramento City Unified	47,939	1,383,630	22.24%
13	San Juan Unified	47,245	1,430,875	23.00%
14	Oakland Unified	46,472	1,477,347	23.75%
15	Riverside Unified	42,403	1,519,750	24.43%
16	Sweetwater Union High	40,619	1,560,369	25.08%
17	Fontana Unified	40,592	1,600,961	25.74%
18	Clovis Unified	39,040	1,640,001	26.36%
19	Stockton Unified	38,810	1,678,811	26.99%
20	Kern Union High	37,505	1,716,316	27.59%
21	Moreno Valley Unified	35,690	1,752,006	28.16%
22	Poway Unified	34,569	1,786,575	28.72%
23	Mt. Diablo Unified	33,987	1,820,562	29.26%
24	San Jose Unified	33,306	1,853,868	29.80%
25	Fremont Unified