Federal waiver allows state to leave NCLB behind

MAT-SU — When the consequences of failing to meet the rigid federal mandates in No Child Left Behind come due in 2014, the Mat-Su Borough School District can relax. The Alaska State School Board accepted a three-part federal waiver June 6 that returns education reform to the state level beginning this fall.

Alaska is the 37th state in the union to apply for and receive a federal waiver. The waiver permits Alaska to identify what is important for them and structure an assessment that more accurately reflects school success and ways to improve, said Susan McCauley, state director of Teaching and Learning Support.

McCauley said it isn’t that schools will no longer be held accountable; the change is more about who cracks the whip. In this case, now Alaskans — not people in Washington, D.C. — will crack the whip.

“The ESEA (Elementary Secondary Education Act) waiver gives Alaska the opportunity to develop an accountability system that is more appropriate for Alaska schools rather than a one size fits all metric found with the NCLB provision,” McCauley said.

The waiver offers Alaska the flexibility to design its own accountability system, as long as it meets three distinct criteria, McCauley said.

The first step for the waiver was to write and adopt career- and college-ready academic standards. Alaska was one of five states that did not to adopt the Common Core State Standards. Instead, the Department of Education worked for two years and with more than 200 educators, university officials and business professionals from around the state to write the new Alaska State Standards. Though very similar to the Common Core, they are not the same.

“While it is very important that our students are competitive, it is also important to realize that we own our own standards so we are not bound by the Common Core,” McCauley said.

She said Alaska’s previous standards, written in 2006, could be likened to first-generation standards. The new standards better prepare students to be career and college ready, rather than previous standards, which were an inch deep and a mile wide. Plus, they cover grades kindergarten through 12, while the earlier standards stopped at grade 10.

Mat-Su introduced the new standards to staff in January. In addition to professional development in schools, curriculum revision work began to align the standards to curriculum. One way to visualize the difference between standards and curriculum is that standards are the rules to the game, and curriculum is the game board. Each district can design its own game board, but everyone has to play by the same rules.

“The implementation plan is a three-year model for the ELA (English language arts) and math. We started with K-12 math this past school year and ELS will begin work in the fall,” said Becky Murphy, Mat-Su curriculum coordinator. “The biggest hiccup is the rigorous standards at lower grade levels. They are a paradigm shift. But the teachers are very supportive because [the new standards] are clearer and deeper.”

The waiver did not eliminate statewide testing. The district has two years to transition to the new standards before a new state test takes place. The test results will be used in part to qualify for the second part of the waiver: a state system for holding schools accountable for students’ academic success.

Under the original NCLB regulation, schools had to reach 31 measures of proficiency in order to make annual yearly progress, or AYP. It was an all-or-nothing formula. Now, with the waiver, the state will use a 100-point scale called the Alaska State Performance Index, or ASPI.

“The ASPI formula takes into account that education is more complex than simple metrics. This is a step in the right direction. The accountability should be able to be locally informed and enforced. This is Alaska’s,” McCauley said.

ASPI scores will designate one to five stars to each school, with five stars being the highest. Instead of the one point data marks used earlier for AYP, the ASPI also takes academic growth into account. Points are earned in weighted percentages for student achievement, the results of state testing and progress in reading, writing and mathematics, the academic growth within the year. Year-long attendance rates, high school graduation rates and student performance on work-ready and college entrance exams finish out the new criteria.

The subgroups for ASPI are more focused than before, too. Nine underperforming subgroups were identified within the original NCLB regulation. With ASPI, four groups are identified: Alaska Native and Native American, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and limited English proficient students. Limiting the number of subgroups allows more focus and support for the most needy of children, McCauley said.

In addition to fewer subgroups, it takes only five students enrolled to count as a subgroup. Previously, a subgroup needed 25 students to qualify. This change works to leave NCLB because it reduces the chance of unintentionally masking performance.

The new ASPI system awards 40 percent of the total score given for sustained growth over time. McCauley likened the difference to measuring improvement with each try rather measuring only if a student jumped over the high bar once.

Another change with the ASPI is that schools must work toward reducing the percent of students below proficient by 50 percent during a six-year period. NCLB includes no provisions for growth or mandated school improvement.

The lowest performing schools in the state — those that earn one or two stars — will be identified as either “Priority,” or “Focus,” schools. These schools are required to have improvement plans filed with the state. In addition, any school with an achievement gap among any student subgroup also needs to act on a school improvement plan.

Star ratings will be issued for the coming year using baseline data from 2012. Star and Priority ratings will be made public by early August.

Federal funding also has shifted with the waiver. The district now has more control in how federal Title I (anti-poverty funds) money is distributed.

“The biggest thing about the NCLB waiver is that before we had to set aside 20 percent of all Title I money to pay for supplemental education services [Sylvan and Turning Tree tutoring] and transportation for parent school options,” said Laurine Domke, Mat-Su director of federal programs. “Not having the set aside has allowed us to have more Title I schools with Title I support.

“It doesn’t take away accountability for schools, and our district still wants to make all of our schools successful and all of our students successful,” Domke said. “We want to provide as much choice as possible for our community.”

The final criteria include a new teacher and principal evaluation tool based in part on student achievement and growth. Within NCLB, teachers needed to be “highly qualified,” now the definition includes “highly effective.” Under the waiver, teachers and principals are held responsible for student performance.

The State School Board of Education adopted new teacher and principal evaluation regulation in December 2012. The Mat-Su teacher evaluation team led by Mat-Su Program Administrator Shawn Arnold is working on developing a tool and process right for the Mat Su.

“Next year we complete the data measurement and evaluation tool. We then hope to pilot it in a number of schools to work out the bugs before it is fully implemented in 2015 with the rollout of the new state assessments,” Arnold said.

The three parts to the NCLB waiver come together during the 2015-16 school year. It is the hope of the state and the Mat-Su with the new standards, ASPI accountability system and effective teaching evaluation tools, that in addition to leaving no child behind, all students will graduate career and college ready.

Emily Forstner is the Frontiersman’s Schools page coordinator and a Language Arts teacher at Wasilla Middle School.