ESEA, standards on national agenda
Published: April 5, 2010
Three developments in Washington, D.C., last month may shape education policy in California and beyond for years to come:
- March 4—The U.S. Department of Education announced 16 finalists for phase 1 of the Race to the Top Fund; California was not among them.
- March 10—The Common Core State Standards Initiative, a joint project of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, released its draft of proposed K-12 English-language arts and math standards.
- March 15—The Obama administration issued “A Blueprint for Reform—The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”
“A Blueprint for Reform” outlines the administration’s priorities for the nation’s K-12 schools, which have operated for the past eight years under the shadow of the No Child Left Behind Act—the name under which the 45-year-old ESEA was last reauthorized in 2001, but which is absent from the 41-page blueprint.
Beyond the name change, the blueprint reflects the “transformational” education policies the Obama administration has rolled out so far, from Race to the Top to new School Improvement Grant requirements that impose RTTT’s rigorous interventions on funded schools—even in states that didn’t apply for RTTT—to a fiscal year 2011 education budget that proposes a “fundamental rethinking” of the federal role in K-12 education. Administration timelines call for incorporating the blueprint’s lofty rhetoric in legislative language by the end of May, with hopes for congressional votes on ESEA reauthorization by August.
The blueprint also calls for states—“following the lead of the nation’s governors and state education leaders”—to adopt college- and career-ready standards along the lines of those included in the Common Core State Standards Initiative’s 140-page draft standards for K-12, which are now being finalized following the close of a four-week comment period April 2.
“States may either choose to upgrade their existing standards, working with their 4-year public university system to certify that mastery of the standards ensures that a student will not need to take remedial coursework upon admission to a postsecondary institution in the system; or work with other states to create state-developed common standards that build toward college- and career-readiness,” the ESEA blueprint states.
Local, national impacts
Decisions made in Washington can wield tremendous influence at the local level, of course. A case in point arose in Sacramento last month, when the California State Board of Education formally established a list of the 188 “persistently lowest-achieving schools” as required under the state’s RTTT application—a requirement that remains in effect even though California won’t see any funding from RTTT anytime soon. The schools identified can apply for School Improvement Grants, but they will have to adopt one of the transformational “turn-around” or “restart” models established in RTTT in order to receive the funding.
In a democracy, though, influence doesn’t just trickle down—it can also be exerted from the grassroots up. Representatives of some of the schools on the State Board list, for example, are sharply questioning the criteria used in establishing it. More broadly, CSBA’s Federal Issues Council, composed of governance team members from around the state and the association’s leadership, traveled to Washington last month for direct engagement with other education groups and government policymakers on RTTT, ESEA, common standards and other issues. Watch for complete coverage in the May California School News.