The U.S. Department of Education announced its decision yesterday to terminate the waiver that exempted Washington state from key provisions of No Child Left Behind. Yesterday’s action by the USDOE was both predictable and preventable.
In 2010, we overhauled our antiquated two-tiered evaluation system to provide more meaningful, relevant feedback to teachers and principals. The new system is significantly better than what we had, and much work has gone into implementing it well, and fairly. Student growth is now one of the multiple measures by which teachers and principals are reviewed.
That said, the use of student growth scores from common, statewide student assessments in the revised system is not mandated, and because of this Washington’s evaluation system does not adhere to the requirements of our NCLB waiver. After being put on notice by the USDOE to remedy this issue, we still have not amended the law to require the use of the data from statewide assessments (that students already take) in evaluations.
The NCLB waiver gave our school districts flexibility by allowing them to spend certain Title 1 funds (to the tune of $40 million statewide) to better serve their students.
Policy makers were made aware of the potential consequences of losing our waiver from all the onerous provisions of NCLB. Governor Inslee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn strongly urged lawmakers to amend our law. The superintendents of Seattle and Tacoma urged legislators to make the required change so that their students would not become collateral damage in what was clearly an adult power struggle.
Governor Jay Inslee (D) and Superintendent Dorn introduced joint request legislation that would have allowed us to keep our NCLB waiver, but in our democratically controlled House, the bill did not move out of committee. Why? The Washington Education Association (WEA), one of the largest contributors to political campaigns in Washington state, vigorously opposed the change.
The WEA’s fleet of lobbyists delivered the message early and often to legislators that any changes to the evaluation system were unacceptable. Period. Waiver be damned. And, as a result, no changes were made and our waiver was revoked.
We see a sad irony in the fact that the group who tries to make a lot of hay about students being over-tested, and rightly demands better funding for our schools is actually resisting changes that would result in fewer, fairer tests for our students, and pushing away money that is needed to help schools most in need.
Resisting common state assessments leaves districts with the burden of inventing their own measures of student growth and we end up with multiple local tests, the onerous costs of which are borne by school districts and local taxpayers.
We’re seeing a lot of finger pointing at “the feds” but the bottom line is simple. To get a waiver, our state made a commitment. Many districts negotiated contracts and implemented systems that comply with that commitment. Then, under pressure from special interests, our state reneged on that commitment. And we don’t see any winners here.
For more info, check out Ann Hyslop’s piece in Real Clear Education.
Lisa Macfarlane is the Washington State Director for Democrats for Education Reform, a co-founder of the League of Education Voters, a past President of Schools First (Seattle’s levy and bond committee), the sponsor of two statewide education funding initiatives, and a PCO in the 46th District. Read Lisa’s full bio here.