Race to the Top: General Criteria
Posted on 25. Nov, 2009 by Heather.
The final Race to the Top (R2T) guidelines are out, and we all want to know what Washington’s chances are for scoring a piece of the pie. In a series of posts, you’ll find a detailed run through of the guidelines, as well as some analysis on where Washington stands (previous post on overall picture here, eligibility and requirements here, state success factors here, standards and assessments here, data systems here, teachers and principals here and turning around struggling schools). This post focuses on the last of six selection criteria: general stuff (not the most creative name).
General (55 points)
F1. Making education funding a priority (10 points)
Extent to which:
i) The percentage of total revenues available to the state that were used to support elementary, secondary and public higher education for FY 2009 was greater than or equal to the percentage of the total revenues available for FY 2008
ii) The state’s policies lead to equitable funding between high-need districts and other districts, and within districts between high-poverty schools and other schools
The percentage of total revenues for K-12 and higher education did increase in the 2009-11 biennial budget, as compared to the 2007-09 budget — an increase of one percentage point, largely due to shrinking revenues. Because Washington budgets bienniums rather than individual years, it makes more sense to compare the biennial budgets. Comparisons between FY 2009 and 2008 can be extrapolated from comparisons of the biennial budgets.
| 2007-09 | 2009-11 | |||
| Amount | Percent | Amount | Percent | |
| Total State | $32,597,107 | $31,388,596 | ||
| K-12 | $13,297,765 | 40.8% | $13,311,962 | 42.4% |
| Higher Ed | $3,581,124 | 11.0% | $3,262,624 | 10.4% |
| K-12 + Higher Ed | $16,878,889 | 51.8% | $16,574,586 | 52.8% |
| Note: Dollar amounts in thousands | ||||
Generally speaking, Washington’s funding model is fairly equitable between districts. Those districts with higher percentages of low-income and ELL students typically receive more funding. Because budgeting is done by districts, it is hard to know about the funding equity between schools within districts. And this isn’t to say that every district receives the same amount of funding per student, but compared to other states, our distribution of funding is fairly equitable across districts.
F2. Ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charter schools and other innovative schools (40 points)
Extent to which:
i) The state has a charter school law that does not prohibit or effectively inhibit increasing the number of high-performing charter schools
ii) The state has laws, statutes, regulations or guidelines regarding how charter school authorizers approve, monitor, hold accountable, reauthorize and close charter schools
iii) The state’s charter schools receive equitable funding compared to traditional public schools, and a commensurate share of local, state and federal revenues
iv) The state provides charter schools with funding for facilities, assistance with facilities acquisition, access to public facilities, the ability to share in bonds and mill levies or other supports; and the extent to which the state does not impose any facility-related requirements on charter schools that are stricter than those applied to traditional public schools
v) The state state enables school districts to operate innovative, autonomous public schools other than charter schools
First thing’s first: Washington does not allow charter schools. The criteria for charters was more exhaustive than what is included above, but considering Washington’s lack of charters I saved my fingers some typing. Now, Washington does have what the U.S. Department of Education calls “innovative schools.” I don’t know all of them, so please forgive me if your local school isn’t included, but examples of such schools in Washington include: Delta High School (Tri-Cities), Aviation High School (Highline), Tacoma School of the Arts, The New School (Seattle) and TAF Academy (Federal Way). Washington will probably make the case that these schools fit this criteria of R2T.
F3. Demonstrating other significant reform conditions (5 points)
The extent to which the state has created, through law, regulation or policy, other conditions favorable to education reform or innovation that have increased students achievement or graduation rates, narrowed achievement gaps or resulted in other important outcomes
Well, if a state earns points anywhere else in the R2T application, it seems the state deserves to earn the 5 points here. My guess is these last 5 points may serve more as tie-breaker points than anything else.
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Race to the Top: Turning Around the Lowest-Achieving Schools
Posted on 25. Nov, 2009 by Heather.
The final Race to the Top (R2T) guidelines are out, and we all want to know what Washington’s chances are for scoring a piece of the pie. In a series of posts, you’ll find a detailed run through of the guidelines, as well as some analysis on where Washington stands (previous post on overall picture here, eligibility and requirements here, state success factors here, standards and assessments here, data systems here and teachers and principals here). This post focuses on the fifth of six selection criteria: turning around struggling schools.
Turning Around the Lowest-Achieving Schools (50 points)
E1. Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and districts (10 points)
The extent to which the state has legal, statutory or regulatory authority to intervene directly in the state’s persistently lowest-achieving schools and districts that are in improvement or corrective action status.
Washington does not have intervention authority. Current law will need to me changed to grant the state this authority.
E2. Turning around the lowest-achieving schools (40 points)
Extent to which the state has a high-quality plan and ambitious yet achievable annual targets to:
i) Identify the persistently lowest-achieving schools and, at its discretion, any non-Title I eligible secondary schools that would be considered persistently lowest-achieving schools if they were eligible to receive Title I funds (5 points)
ii) Support its districts in turning around these schools by implementing one of four school intervention models: turnaround, restart, school closure or transformation (35 points)
Like the other 49 states, Washington complies with the accountability system established by No Child Left Behind. NCLB places schools and districts that fail to make “adequate yearly progress” in categories based on the number of years AYP has not been made. This is the main system the state uses to identify struggling schools. However, as many have pointed out, AYP doesn’t really give any insight into which schools could be considered persistently low-achieving. This is a large part of the reason behind the State Board of Education’s work on creating a more exhaustive accountability system. The SBE’s proposed accountability system would incorporate federal accountability models and offer more depth in certain areas. If Washington wants to be competitive in this area, the state should adopt the SBE’s proposal.
One more to go: general criteria.
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Race to the Top: Great Teachers & Leaders
Posted on 25. Nov, 2009 by Heather.
The final Race to the Top (R2T) guidelines are out, and we all want to know what Washington’s chances are for scoring a piece of the pie. In a series of posts, you’ll find a detailed run through of the guidelines, as well as some analysis on where Washington stands (previous post on overall picture here, eligibility and requirements here, state success factors here, standards and assessments here, and data systems here). This post focuses on the fourth of six selection criteria: teachers and administrators.
Great Teachers and Leaders (138 points)
D1. Providing high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals (21 points)
i) Legal, statutory or regulatory provisions allowing alternative routes to certification for teachers and principals, including providers other than institutions of higher education
ii) Alternative routes to certification that are in use
iii) Process for monitoring, evaluating and identifying areas of teacher and principal shortage and preparing teachers and principals to fill these shortage areas
Washington has some work to do in this area. While we do offer four alternate route pathways to teaching, there are no routes for principals. And all of our alternate route programs are offered by institutions of higher education or in partnership with them. There is some good news, our routes are currently in use and Washington does have a process of some sort to identify shortage areas. Unfortunately, the number of teachers who enter the profession through alternate routes is low (less than 100 per year). To be competitive in this area, Washington would need to have a plan to open up alternate pathways to prospective principals, allow providers other than colleges/universities to offer programs, enable programs and candidates to have more flexibility and increase the number of candidates completing alternate route programs.
D2. Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance (58 points)
Extent to which the state, in collaboration with participating school districts, has a high-quality plan and ambitious yet achievable annual targets to ensure local districts:
i) Establish clear approaches to measuring student growth and measure it for each individual student (5 points)
ii) Design and implement rigorous, transparent and fair evaluation systems for teachers and principals that differentiate effectiveness using multiple rating categories, take student growth into account and are designed and developed with teachers and principals (15 points)
iii) Conduct annual evaluations of teachers and principals with data on student growth for their students, classes and schools (10 points)
iv) Use these evaluations, at a minimum, to inform decisions regarding: (28 points)
a) Developing teachers and principals (e.g. coaching, induction, professional development)
b) Compensating, promoting and retaining teachers and principals, including opportunities for highly effective teachers and principals to obtain additional compensation and responsibilities
c) Whether to grant tenure and/or full certification to teachers and principals using rigorous standards and streamlined, transparent and fair procedures
d) Removing ineffective tenured and nontenured teachers and principals after they have had ample opportunities to improve, and ensuring that such decisions are made using rigorous standards and streamlined, transparent and fair procedures
Current Washington law does require annual observations for teachers and administrators, but does not lay out a uniform rating system or explicitly require student data to be a part of the evaluation. Instead the law says that, for teachers, criteria will be developed in these categories:
- instructional skill;
- classroom management;
- professional preparation and scholarship;
- effort toward improvement when needed;
- the handling of student discipline and attendant problems; and
- interest in teaching pupils and knowledge of subject matter.
There are districts in Washington that use multiple rating categories for their evaluations, and include student data in the evaluation process. All evaluation systems used by districts should be transparent and designed with teachers/principals as they are bargained and included in the union contract. Incorporating student growth data would be hard for many districts as there is no uniform, statewide mechanism to do this — the WASL is not a growth assessment. Some districts do use diagnostic and/or interim assessments that can provide student growth data.
Current law also does allow for the use of evaluations in determining whether or not to renew an employee’s contract. However language around other functions outlined in (D)(2)(iv) of R2T guidelines are less clear and vary between districts. Most districts probably use evaluations to help teachers and principals develop professionally one way or another. But not all districts are able to offer induction, mentoring and/or coaching programs. The Beginning Educator Support Team grant program started this fall in 10 or so districts, as pilot induction programs for beginning teachers. If these programs are found to be effective, it would be worth it for the state to expand access to all new teachers in all districts. Washington will probably try to make the case in its application that highly effective teachers do receive additional compensation, holding up bonuses to National Board certified teachers. Certainly this is one example of rewarding effective teachers, but it may not be uniform enough for the U.S. Department of Education — not all highly effective teachers are National Board certified.
D3. Ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals (25 points)
Extent to which the state, in collaboration with participating school districts, has a high-quality plan and ambitious yet achievable annual targets to:
i) Ensure the equitable distribution of teachers and principals by developing a plan, informed by reviews of prior action and data, to ensure that students in high-poverty and/or high-minority schools have equitable access to highly effective teachers and principals and are not served by ineffective teachers and principals at higher rates than other students
ii) Increase the number and percentage of effective teachers teaching hard-to-staff subjects and specialty areas
Washington has no current mechanism to meet this sub-criterion. This will need to be developed as part of the state’s agreement/plan with participating local school districts.
D4. Improving the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs (14 points)
Extent to which the state has a high-quality plan and ambitious yet achievable annual targets to:
i) Link student achievement and student growth data to the students’ teachers and principals, link this information to the in-state preparation programs where those teachers and principals earned their credentials, and publicly report the data for each preparation program
ii) Expand preparation and credentialing options and programs that are successful at producing effective teachers and principals
Washington intends for its data system to be able to produce this kind of linked information. Prior to the passage of ESHB 2261, the state had a plan to link student and educator data. ESHB 2261 explicitly calls out this intent, and requires teacher preparation programs to release information about the effectiveness of their graduates by July 2011.
D5. Providing effective support to teachers and principals (20 points)
Extent to which the state, in collaboration with participating school districts, has a high-quality plan for participating local districts to:
i) Provide effective, data-informed professional development, coaching, induction and common planning and collaboration time to teachers and principals
ii) Measure, evaluate and continuously improve the effectiveness of those supports in order to improve student achievement
Professional development and support varies by district. Washington will need to partner with districts that currently offer robust support programs for educators and/or are willing to adopt more robust programs.
Next up: turning around struggling schools.
