Education Forum Focuses on NCLB, Ballot Initiative

Parents and educators digested the intricacies of the often-discussed No Child Left Behind Act and heard a push for a ballot initiative designed to bring money to schools during the Second Annual Community Forum on Public Education on Saturday.

The PTA-sponsored morning forum included support from the council PTAs of several local communities, such as La Canada-Flintridge, South Pasadena and Glendale. Many within the dozens of attendees were looking for answers to questions regarding the No Child Left Behind Act, an accountability system which requires that elementary and high school students be 100 percent proficient in math and reading by the year 2014.

"I want to see how the federal government is going to encourage schools, and support schools to do better instead of constantly just punishing them, which is what they do now," said Karen Gibson, an Altadena resident who teaches in Burbank. "There are very few carrots and lots of sticks."

NCLB

Enter Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of K-12 policy and leadership at USC's Rossier School of Education who studied NCLB from its inception to its design to its implementation, as well as how it melds with state education standards. He was one of the event's featured speakers, and started his talk by saying that "everything is in flux" when it comes to the act, even now. He also spent time discussing its origins.

"It's important to recognize that NCLB didn't come from nowhere," he said. "It's the evolution of about four-and-a-half decades of federal policy in education."

Polikoff broke down various accountability systems regarding the evaluation of schools, students and teachers, showing graphs detailing the differences in measures such as Academic Performance Index (API) as well as Adequate Yearly Progress, an area where he said most schools are falling short because of increasing year-by-year proficiency goals. 

"Last year, about 73 percent of California's schools that received Title I funds failed to make AYP," he said. "Which is a lot … about 4400 schools, I think." 

If that sounds bad, he said, it gets worse. Polikoff then brought up alternative methods for schools to be seen as "passing" AYP. One is known as 'safe harbor' which asks that a school close the gap between its current proficiency level and its federally mandated target by 10 percent.

"It turns out more and more schools in California are using these methods to pass AYP, so if you look at the schools that are actually exceeding the proficiency target … you'll see only about 3.8 percent of schools (in 2011) are exceeding their proficiency targets."

Polikoff went on to discuss NCLB's effects, which include small gains in math, little to no progress on narrowing achievement gaps, more schools failing AYP (Florida, he said, is at about 90 percent) and an increase in test preparation work. He also detailed the concept of common core state standard, which are seen as a response to the state-to-state difference in accountability. He said about 45 states have signed on to adopt these standards, which are designed for college career readiness. Race to the Top grants were also a talking point for Polikoff, who said many school were enacting "serious policy changes for not a lot of money."

He also brought up the concept of waivers from NCLB mandates, such as the proficiency targets, sanctions for low-performing schools and the requirements for Title I funding. California has not applied for a waiver, but 37 other states have. The sticking point for the state, Polikoff said, is that Gov. Jerry Brown and State Superintendent Tom Torlakson are opposed to the use of achievement test data in teacher evaluations.

Polikoff wrapped up his presentation with breakdown of the House and Senate re-authorization proposals for NCLB, neither of which will pass in current form, he said. He threw in his support for common core standards and changes to the way teachers are evaluated.

"In most evaluation systems, 99 percent of are rated as satisfactory," he said. "And I don't know that 99 percent of our teachers are really satisfactory. When I talk with teachers in my programs, they all know teachers in their own school who are not really effective. If teachers can't improve after a number of chances, then we need to get ineffective teachers out of the classroom."

Deb McCurdy of the South Pasadena Council PTA said Polikoff's presentation gave her a sense of unease about NCLB and called it "criminal" that the act was supposed to be re-authorized in 2007, but that still hadn't happened yet.

"We have sort of this perfect storm now of budget cuts and confusion, and our kids are losing. They are losing out," she said.

Our Children, Our Future

Patty Scripter, director of legislation for the California State PTA, was the forum's second speaker  and talked about the PTA's "Our Children, Our Future" initiative that the group is trying to put on the November ballot.  

The measure, according to Scripter, is designed to raise $10 to $11 billion for school every year via a "sliding scale" income tax increase that would adjust to how much taxpayers can actually pay. The money would be placed in a trust fund that's off-limits to the Governor and State Legislature. The money would be allocated on a per-pupil basis, and it gets allocated straight to the school site.

"The money goes to local schools," she said. "It won't make any stops in Sacramento." 

She also mentioned that the measure doesn't just seek to obtain money, but would also open the door for schools to resurrect curriculum casualties of the ravaged budget, such as the arts, physical education, or perhaps more counselors. The reduction of class sizes could also be an option for schools, should they see fit. About $300 million of the money raised would go toward healing the cuts made in early childhood education. 

The measure was principally crafted by Molly Munger of the Advancement Project, which focuses on the rights of underserved populations, and is also the first time where the PTA participated in a measure's creation.  

"We took a historic step for us," Scripter said. "In this instance, we helped write it, we took an early vote of support for it, and we are working diligently to get it on the ballot." 

The measure also calls for schools to be transparent about how they plan to spend the money, and asks them to tie the spending to results.