States are revving up to carry out the No Child Left Behind Act. At the leadership level, dozens of them are eager and energized. And several sources of help have lately become available. The Business Roundtable has chosen seven states to assist with policy and communications. (Many jurisdictions must revise their own testing-and-accountability laws to conform to NCLB's terms.) Secretary Paige and his colleagues are barnstorming the country with words of encouragement and advice. And the Education Leaders Council has just selected six states to take part in its "Following the Leaders" (FTL) project. (If appropriations permit, more states will join later.)
Because we at Fordham have a small role in the FTL project, we had the opportunity last weekend to take part in interviews with a dozen state teams that were raring to move forward, not just with the formal requirements of NCLB but with hands-on efforts to assist schools to improve. A stunning 28 states had sought (on very short notice) to join this project. (You can learn more about it at http://www.followingtheleaders.org/.) Most of the teams that came to make their case included district superintendents who also radiated enthusiasm.
"The stage is set," commented governor Bob Wise, "for West Virginia to become a national example for assessment, accountability and education policymaking." "It is critical that we move forward now," explained Pennsylvania education secretary Charles Zogby, "rather than waiting for federal rules and regulations so that we develop programs, rather than comply with rules."
This is seriously encouraging, signaling as it does that NCLB is not just a heap of dreams and mandates, that a lot of states and local school systems want to make it work.
But the mandates and rules are also showering down. One must wonder whether they'll chill the ardor and quash the innovation in some places even as they press others to act.
Last week, the Education Department unveiled 245 pages of proposed regulations spelling out how the new Title I provisions will be carried out and what states and districts must do to comply with them. These draft regs - they're open for comment until September 5, after which they'll be finalized - deal with some of the new law's stickier wickets, such as the measurement of "adequate yearly progress" (AYP), the meaning of "highly qualified" teachers, and who is responsible for fixing broken schools. (You can find them on the web at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SASA/nprmtitleifinal.pdf.)
Secretary Paige has also dispatched a companion letter assuring state officials that the Education Department will deal "flexibly" with their implementation plans (which must be submitted by January 2003, though several states have already filed them and a number of NCLB provisions are already in force). He seems to be inviting states to propose their own approaches. Let us hope. For the new regulations betray few signs of flexibility. Indeed, I'm struck by how prescriptive they are and how much they expect from states and school systems.
This is not because the bureaucracy ran amuck or because Education Department lawyers yearn to run U.S. schools from Washington. The regulations appear to be a faithful rendering of the law. But NCLB is the most prescriptive federal education statute ever. And so, therefore, are the regs. For example, a two-page section addressing the AYP requirements uses the word "must" thirteen times. A page explaining how school systems will identify Title I schools for improvement employs that word seven times.
How many states, districts and schools have the capacity - the intellect, zeal, imagination and leadership - to do the many things that NCLB demands of them? How deep into the public-education infrastructure is vein of reform ardor that we observed in those eager state teams last weekend? Particularly when it comes to schools not making decent academic progress, recall that many are veterans of that situation. (It's because almost 9000 such schools have been on their states' lists of weak performers for at least two years that their students are already supposed to qualify for public school choice - a requirement that is not going at all well as the new school year begins, as we noted in last week's Gadfly.) Since most educators try to do right by children, we can fairly assume that few schools have lingered on this hit list because they want to. If they knew how to turn themselves around, they probably would have. They're in trouble today because they lack the capacity to get out of it. But NCLB says they must change. Where's all that added inspiration and ability to come from? Is there enough to go around?
Like its predecessors, NCLB assumes that each level of the education system is responsible for holding the level below it to account and fixing it when necessary. Districts are supposed to intervene in broken schools and states are to repair broken districts. Congress assumed that each level has what it takes to succeed at this.
Hence the immense challenge ahead. Many faltering Title I schools are located in troubled districts that can barely get the textbooks delivered and the bus routes organized. Indeed, many such districts contain dozens, sometimes hundreds, of failing schools. I recently asked the leaders of one urban system how many of their schools were on the Education Department's mandatory-public-school-choice list. They replied that just a few were not.
Yet look what NCLB, as refracted through the new draft regs, expects from such unsuccessful districts and schools. Here's a passage from Section 200.39:
"[I]f an LEA [local education agency, aka school district] identifies a school for improvement, the LEA must provide all students enrolled in [it] with the option to transfer to schools served by the LEA that have not been identified for improvement. The LEA also must ensure that the school receives technical assistance in identifying and addressing the problems that led to the identification for improvement. The school must develop and implement a school improvement plan...[that] incorporates scientifically based strategies for strengthening instruction....The LEA must...approve the plan within 45 days...."
And if that doesn't work? Then (Section 200.42) the troubled school moves from "improvement" status into "corrective action." Whereupon its "LEA must...take at least one of the corrective actions specified in the statute. These...include replacing the school staff, implementing a new curriculum, decreasing management authority at the school, appointing an outside expert to advise the school, extending the school day or year, and reorganizing the school internally."
What if the LEA itself isn't up to that challenge? Indeed, what happens when an entire system fails to make adequate progress? Then (Section 200.52) the state must turn it around: "[I]f an SEA [state education agency] identifies an LEA for improvement, the LEA must develop...an...improvement plan that incorporates scientifically based strategies to strengthen instruction..., addresses the professional development needs of the LEA's instructional staff..., and includes specific measurable goals and targets....The improvement plan also must incorporate extended learning time strategies...and promote effective parental involvement....[T]he SEA must provide... technical or other assistance in developing and implementing the improvement plan...."
And so forth. If the LEA's voluntary improvement plan doesn't do the job, the state must intervene. Here the options range from installing a new curriculum to removing schools from district control, from replacing district staff to abolishing the LEA itself.
On paper, this is a swell design for making each level of the system deliver satisfactory progress, repair itself or submit to an involuntary overhaul by the next level up. Terrific, so long as the capacity is there. But I keep thinking of those 9000 schools that are already in trouble, those districts where many schools have been in trouble for years, and those thinly staffed state education departments that have seldom shown the will or know-how to run schools or turn around failed school systems. Just how realistic are the law's - and the regs' - assumptions about who is going to fix what? How much help can the various technical assistance projects supply? Where will the rest come from? Who will pay for it? Who will lead it?
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A press release announcing the states that have been selected to participate in the first phase of the Following the Leaders Project can be found at http://www.followingtheleaders
