America's Competitiveness Through High School Reform (House Committee on Education and Labor)
Context: Education Secretary Duncan this week announced a White House goal of turning around 5,000 of the nation's lowest-performing schools within the next five years. Duncan's announcement builds on President Obama's recently released Fiscal Year 2010 budget request, which seeks $50 million for a new high school graduation initiative, along with up to $750 million in school improvement funding dedicated to activities in middle and high schools. Building on – and in coordination with - the Administration's announcements, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on May 13th designed to identify new strategies for reforming struggling high schools.
Testimony Summary: The committee invited four Members of Congress (Mike Castle- DE, Phil Roe-TN, Raul Grijalva-AZ, and Chaka Fattah-PA) - who have a record of engagement on high school reform issues – to set the stage for the hearing by identifying key areas of concern. The member panelists focused on the need to establish uniform graduation rate measures (i.e. codifying the recent Title I regulations), targeting new supports for hispanic and other minority children who are disproportionately impacted by dropout factories, establishing new dropout recovery strategies, and the high social costs (increased crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse etc…) correlated with high dropout rates. The witnesses included Dr. Vicki Phillips of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Wise of the Alliance for Excellent Eduation, Marguerite Kondracke of America's Promise Alliance, Scott Gordon of Mastery Charter Schools (Phildadelpia), Michael Wooterson of the Campaign for High School Equity, and Dr. Richard Belfanz from the Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Balfanz testified urged the committee to focus on accountability (e.g. using graduation measures in AYP determinations), target resources to secondary schools most in need, use federal requirements and investments to drive evidence based reform strategies, and invest in building school, district and state capacity.
Marguerite Kondracke urged the committee to push comprehensive, data driven reforms, support expanded reseach and accountability, and increase investments in school improvement targeted toward the nation's lowest performing high schools. She also urged Congress to position schools as the "hub" of their communities, where a variety of social services can be delivered to at risk students and their families.
Bob Wise urged the committee to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with a greater focus on high schools, support the state led common standards initiative, target resources to dropout factories and support efforts to expand data capabilities for teaching and learning.
Scott Gordon urged the committee to demand high standards and strong accountability, while providing resources to scale up the strategies used in successful"turn around" schools. Gordon also emphasized the importance of investing in teachers and principals, including providing rewards over time.
Dr. Phillips urged the committee to focus on teacher effectiveness and empowerment, supporting standards that are fewer, clearer and higher, and investing in breakthrough innovations and school models that dramatically accellerate performance.
Discussion Focus: Although a number of issues arose during the hearing, the committee focused on three main areas following the witnesses' testimony:
- identifying effective strategies for teacher recruitment and retention (e.g. does professional development work?, how to attract/keep effective teachers in high need schools/subjects);
- identifying comprehensive dropout prevention and recovery strategies; and
- effectively using longitudinal data systems.
The witnesses identified high quality teachers (focusing on quality not credentials), along with strong management/leadership as a critical element for successfully turning around low performing high schools. The witnesses focused on the need to embed high quality professional development in schools, properly incent (using monetary and non-monetary benefits) teachers/principals/administrators (using student achievement data and setting benchmarks for success), while also promoting flexibilty (while maintaining accountability) and autonomy and ensuring access to resources in the schools that need the most help. In addition to urging the commmitee to consider strategies for improving the recruitment and retention of effective teachers, the witnesses urged the committee to support efforts to better measure teacher effectiveness and better prepare teachers before they enter the classroom.
Several committee members asked the panelists to help Congress identify effective dropout and recovery strategies. The witnesses urged the committee to take a comprehensive, integrated, approach to dropout prevention, with a focus on early detection and remediation and offering greater resources for reforming the nation's dropout factories.
The committee questioning also focused on how schools/districts can better leverage data systems. The witnesss discussed the use of early warning systems, formative assessments, and providing "real time" classroom data to improve/tailor teaching and learning, truancy prevention, and tracking dropouts into the workforce and other social services.
Analysis: The Administration's 5,000 school turn-around campaign, including using the FY10 budget to channel additional resources to secondary schools (e.g. through new investments, such as the President's graduation rates initiative, and existing programs, such as Title I), coupled with the Recovery Act's reform assurances (i.e. college and work ready standards, teacher effectiveness/distribution, data systems, and enhanced assessments) and possible growing congressional interest in high schools (as evidenced by member's engagement at the hearing) could provide a window of opportunity for securing greater federal support (financial and programmatic) for high school reforms. The apparent broad bi-partisan interest in addressing this challenge could result in a signifiantly stronger emphasis on secondary schools when Congress reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (e.g. integating the Graduation Promises Act and other pending high school focused legislation) and may result in greater investments before ESEA reauthorization is complete (expected in 2010/2011).