“Those of us who have traveled to [other] countries come away with the same conclusion,” Domenech writes: “Their students are more disciplined and full of rote knowledge that comes in handy when being tested—but they lack the independent thinking and creativity that is a hallmark of our system of education.”

Let me tell you, that’s a crock.

I’ve had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the world, and generally our schools are the envy of other countries.

Conclusions based on international test results compare apples and oranges. Finland is a wonderful country with a great school system—but it’s the size of Montana, with a population of five million. Singapore is even smaller than Finland, and last I heard, Shanghai is a region of China, not a country. Those comparisons are just not valid or productive.

There are, however, many things that we can learn from other countries. When I travel and visit schools in other parts of the world, I am not looking to establish our superiority. I am looking for things they do different or better than us—practices we might learn from and, if applicable, adopt here in the U.S.

Recently I traveled to Russia with a delegation of school superintendents and board members sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators and the People to People Ambassador Programs.

Many of the people in Russia still lament the dissolution of the Soviet Union some 20 years ago. This is particularly the case when it comes to education. They believe that the educational system in Russia has gone downhill and promises to worsen. The current government regards the system as a “bloated bureaucracy” that has to be brought under control and made more cost-effective and efficient. That’s a point of view that is shared by many people here in America relative to our system.

A new law passed by Russia in July threatens to cut funding for education and would pay for just the basic subjects, thus requiring schools to subsidize their programs by charging parents more fees for services—a practice already in place for co-curricular activities. The fear is that by reducing support for the schools, many children will simply get a basic education and not the enriched curriculum that is part and parcel of high-quality instruction. We fear the same here when management groups and private firms run charter schools on public dollars that come out of school district budgets.

By comparison to the United States, Russia’s schools are very traditional—and that, by the way, is true of most schools around the world. What do I mean by traditional? The schools we visited, regarded as among the best in that country, are still defined by classrooms where children sit in rows and the teacher stands in the front of the room lecturing. This is the “sage on the stage” view of the teacher’s role. The children are well disciplined and polite and generally are homogeneous relative to income and ethnic diversity.

In contrast, America’s elementary classrooms feature desks in different configurations to facilitate small group discussions and interaction among a diverse group of students. Our classrooms also feature centers where children can work on computers, read, or do independent work. Our teachers are being trained to function as directors of learning who individualize instruction.

(Next page: Are we unintentionally destroying the very thing that makes U.S. schools the envy of the world?)

Seventy-two percent of the education workforce consists of women. But only 26 percent of high school principals are women, and just 24 percent of superintendents are women.

Learning Leadership column, November/December 2012 edition of eSchool News—Recently, I had the unique opportunity to be one of a handful of males who sat in with a group of 300 women in school leadership when they convened in Newport Beach, Calif., to network, share, and learn from one another.

This was the second year that the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) had collaborated with the Association of California School Administrators to put on the “Women in School Leadership Forum.”

Last year, the event was held in San Diego and drew about 150 participants. Attesting to the success of last year’s event, this year’s attendance doubled. When asked how many would return if the event were held again next year, the majority of women enthusiastically raised their hands and promised to bring a friend, indicating that next year’s attendance might double once more.

Seventy-two percent of the education workforce consists of women, yet the number of women in leadership positions falls far short of that statistic. They fare best in the role of elementary school principals, with 54 percent of these jobs being held by women. But at the secondary school level, only 26 percent of principals are women, and in the head job of superintendent, 24 percent are women.

Thelma Melendez, former assistant secretary of education under Arne Duncan and currently superintendent in Santa Ana, Calif., will tell you that it takes a woman, on the average, 15 years to move into an administrative position—whereas it will take only five years for a man.

The frustration is palpable, and the women come together to look for mentors, to network, to share their experiences, to learn from those who have reached the pinnacle of their profession, and to unravel the mystery behind the gender gap that is a reality in school leadership.

For other recent columns by Dan Domenech, see:

How to achieve true educational transformation

It’s time to blow up the current grade-level structure

U.S. education is still the best in the world—but here’s what we can learn from others

AASA has existed since 1865. We will be celebrating our 150th anniversary in two years. Yet, in that entire period, only three women have been elected to preside over the organization, and a fourth is in line to assume the position next year. Four women in 150 years. Two of the women, Pat Neudecker, superintendent of the Oconomowoc Schools in Wisconsin, and Amy Sichel, superintendent of the Abington, Pa., schools, were in attendance at the forum.

In her remarks, Pat spoke about redwoods, those incredibly tall and majestic trees that grow to be over 300 feet tall and sport a considerable girth. You instinctively assume that the redwood has deep roots to help maintain its balance, but that is not the case. Instead, Pat explains, the redwood’s roots spread out, combining with the roots of the other trees to create a mesh, a network of roots, that gives the trees tremendous strength and durability.

The analogy was clear to the women leaders: Creating and maintaining a network with other women leaders is essential to their success. Pat also would indicate that including men in that network is essential as well. She was our president last year, and she is a highly respected and effective superintendent and education leader.

Amy Sichel is AASA’s president-elect and has been superintendent in Abington for 12 years. She smiles as she tells me how, still today, in a room full of males, no one will assume that she—the only female—is the leader, the superintendent of schools.

“True transformation would be providing each child with a personalized education plan … and recognizing that, thanks to technology, learning can occur anywhere,” Domenech writes.

“Learning Leadership” column, October 2012 edition of eSchool News—With the country approaching national elections, those involved in education wonder how the results might affect the educational landscape. The last four years have deeply affected schools systems, as the economic downturn has caused significant reductions in spending and the Obama administration has used stimulus dollars as the carrot to implement its policy initiatives. Here are some key points that we should bear in mind as we move forward.

In response to the education critics, there is substantial evidence that America’s public schools are the best they have ever been. Our graduation rates are at the highest levels, our dropout rates are at their lowest, NAEP achievement in reading and math is at its highest level, the achievement of minority students is at its highest levels. According to the latest Gallup Poll, parent satisfaction with the school their oldest child attends is at its highest level. The problem is that we are not satisfied with our performance, and we want it to be better.

There is a significant gap in achievement between children of color, children on free or reduced lunch, children who speak English as a second language, and white middle-class children. We have two educational systems: one in wealthy suburban communities that can compete with the rest of the world, and one in the impoverished urban and rural systems that has defined the American public school system as a failure. We want all of our public schools to be the best in the world.

Unfortunately, education is not our No. 1 national priority as it is for many of the countries that outperform us on international tests. Education accounts for barely 4 percent of the federal budget. To be the best, we’ll need transformation—and a much greater federal commitment to level the playing field between the haves and have-nots.

For more news and opinion about school reform, see:

Review: Anti-union movie ‘Won’t Back Down’ is a step backward

Bill Gates: The keys to effective teacher evaluation

Beyond ‘Superman’: Leading Responsible School Reform

To date, reform efforts have merely tweaked the system. They are not transformational. Many reformers are in love with charter schools, but think about it: Charter schools are merely traditional schools that get exemptions from the rules and regulations everybody else has to abide by. If it’s such a good idea, than why not waive the rules and regulations for all schools?

The popular notion to weed out the bad teachers has led to the implementation of evaluation systems that use the same old standardized tests that have been labeled as unreliable and not valid as major criteria in the process. This is an unfortunate development that is proving to be time-consuming and costly and diverts attention from more productive approaches to teacher development. More rules and regulations are being heaped upon the very rules and regulations that stand in the way of transformational change.

True transformation would be providing each child with a personalized education plan; teaching to the standards, not the test; abandoning seat time in favor of performance; doing away with grade levels and the old agrarian calendar; and recognizing that, thanks to today’s technology, learning can occur anywhere.

The sad reality is that the quality of our public schools has always been subject to the tax dollars that can be raised in the neighborhood they serve.

Learning Leadership column, Sept. 2012 edition of eSchool News—Every year at this time, I look forward to the release of the Phi Delta Kappa/ Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Given the apparent dissatisfaction that many Americans have toward public education, the poll results might shed some light on why—and what we as public educators might be able to do about it.

I am immediately drawn to the section that asks the public to grade the public schools. Over the last 20 years, the results have been very consistent on two levels. First, and very much to my liking, the percentage of respondents who have a child in school and give their school a grade of A or B continues to grow. This past year, the number was at 77 percent, significantly higher than it was 20 years ago when the number was 64 percent. What does that tell us? Our public schools are being pounded as being of low quality and dysfunctional and not as good as they used to be. Yet, for those who are direct consumers of what the schools have to offer, parents with children in the school, satisfaction with the public schools is at an all-time high.

Second, when the public at large is asked to grade the school in their community, whether they have children in attendance or not, the results are also consistent in that there has been a continuous increase in satisfaction over the past 20 years. Currently, 48 percent of the public gives the school in their community a grade of A or B. That’s certainly not as impressive as the 77-percent approval rating by parents, but 20 years ago the percentage was 40 percent and it has been increasing steadily over the years.

Here’s the clinker. When asked to rate the public schools in the nation as a whole, only 19 percent of respondents give the schools an A or B rating. But 20 years ago, it was 18 percent! Not much change. There has been steady and significant improvement in how parents with children in school and how residents view their community schools—but attitudes toward our public schools in general has been low and flat for 20 years.

For more news and opinion about school reform, see:

Charters draw students from private schools, study finds

Expert: Federal school reform plan is wrong

Beyond ‘Superman’: Leading Responsible School Reform

For the last two years, I have been reporting how the performance of our public schools today is the best that it has ever been. Graduation rates are the highest ever, and dropout rates are at an all-time low. Reading and math results on the fourth and eighth grade NAEP (the “Nation’s Report Card”) are the highest ever. Parent appreciation of this performance seems to be reflected in the growing level of satisfaction with their schools, but the general public’s attitude remains negative and unchanged. What, then, is the reason for the disparity between the facts as reported in the PDK/Gallup Poll and the pernicious attacks on our public schools today? Let us return to the poll results.

To know a school is to like it. The further away we get from actual experience with schools, the less we like them. We can speculate that it is media accounts of failing and dysfunctional schools that continue to keep the general public’s attitude toward schools flat for the past 20 years, in spite of steadily improving performance. Movies like Waiting for ‘Superman’ have for years depicted the plight of inner city schools. Are you old enough to remember Blackboard Jungle and Up the Down Staircase back in the ’50s and ’60s?

The sad reality is that the quality of our public schools has always been subject to the tax dollars that can be raised in the neighborhood they serve. Yes, there are outliers that defy the basic formula, but generally, the higher the concentration of poverty, the lower the achievement levels. Consequently, we have always had a substantial achievement gap between the wealthier suburban school districts and our rural and inner-city school systems.

The outside organization’s challenge is gaining the trust of the school.

Learning Leadership column, July/August 2012 edition of eSchool News—The American Association of School Administrators is a strong proponent for the education of the total child.  What we mean by that is, we firmly believe that the schools cannot do it alone.

We fully accept the responsibility to educate America’s children, and we are willing to be held accountable for that—but we also realize there are many factors outside the school that affect a child’s ability to learn. Consequently, our ability to succeed in the classroom can be enhanced by collaborating with community agencies and other governmental entities that provide the services that can make sure our children come to school ready to learn.

Easier said than done.  I spend a considerable amount of time talking to community groups and nonprofits that are trying to climb over the school wall to offer their programs and services. Often, they find administrators unreceptive to their advances and want to know what they can do to establish collaborative alliances.

At the same time, the economic recession has brought about draconian cuts in our schools’ programs and services—and administrators are scrambling for ways to restore them. This seems like a problem and a solution in need of an introduction, so we have put together a list of 10 suggestions that will help agencies and schools come together for the education of the total child.

The outside organization’s challenge is gaining the trust of the school. Educators are, by nature and by law, protective of the children they serve. They will not indiscriminately grant access to their students or give out information about their students until they are working with an outside organization that has been fully vetted and with whom, under the law, information can be shared. How, then, can a collaborative relationship be established by the outside agency?

1. The agency must clearly identify and describe the services it offers and portray them as supportive of the school’s goals. It helps to do some research here. There are volumes of publicly accessible data that clearly identify a school’s need. For instance, an organization offering mentoring and tutoring can point to how its services could help improve a school that is looking to raise student achievement. A Big Brother, Big Sister program might help the school with an attendance issue.
2. Approach the school not as a critic, but as a partner wanting to help. In case you were not aware, school personnel are not paranoid; they are under attack. Consequently, they regard outsiders with suspicion—and as possibly another group ready to beat up on the staff and offer yet another ready-made solution to the problems confronting our educational system. Define the problem as belonging to the community, not just the school, and offer to work side by side to solve the common concern. The message should be that it is not just a school problem; it’s a community problem.
3. Bring evidence of success. In God we trust; everybody else must bring data. Demonstrate how your program has helped other schools, and bring testimonials from those administrators and teachers if you have them. Encourage the new partner to contact those teachers and administrators and get their take on the program’s effectiveness.
4. Consider starting with an external application. It will be easier to get your foot in the school door if your initial support takes place outside of school, after school hours, possibly on weekends. Why would you need to contact the school at all if your program is to be executed on the outside? Because, by informing the school of what you are about to do and how it will help the school, you begin to establish a relationship that will flourish into the partnership you are seeking.
   ]]> http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/08/01/ten-tips-for-forging-successful-school-community-partnerships/feed/ 0 http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/06/01/its-time-to-blow-up-the-current-grade-level-structure/ http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/06/01/its-time-to-blow-up-the-current-grade-level-structure/#comments Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:45:09 +0000 Dan Domenech http://www.eschoolnews.com/?p=110442

   “Performance levels could be established as benchmarks that would denote passage from early childhood to primary, intermediate, middle, and secondary.”

   Learning Leadership column, June 2012 edition of eSchool News—I want to blow up K-12 education! Not the public school system, just the grade level structure that has regulated how our schools are organized since the 19th century. It served its purpose once upon a time. It compared well with Henry Ford’s assembly line in the early 20th century as a way to conveniently group kids according to age.

   Today, the K-12 structure is an impediment to progress. All reform efforts still bow to the grade levels as if they were sacrosanct. Amazingly, there are a number of states still debating social promotion and holding kids back on grade level. How mid-20th century!

   Think of all of the ills confronting education today, and they can be traced right back to the K-12 grade level structure that all of our schools adhere to.  Some of us have made attempts to get rid of it, but with little success.

   Back in the early ’70s, the Kettering Foundation’s Institute for Development of Educational Activities (IDEA) developed a program called Individually Guided Education (IGE). That was my first exposure to non-gradedness. IGE attempted to organize schools by multi-age groups of students that would comprise a cell that would work with teams of teachers. Within the cell, students would be taught in large groups, small groups and individually. At all times, children would be grouped by ability level relative to the lesson being taught. Ideally, the cell would be made up of students spanning a three-year age range.

   I attempted to implement IGE in several schools on Long Island, New York, specifically in schools that at the time were into individualizing education or the open classroom model of the British Infant School. The concept never advanced, because the grade level structure was impossible to overcome. It is written into our laws, rules, and regulations.

   Not one to give up easily, I introduced non-gradedness to Fairfax County, Virginia. In a program we called “Success by Eight,” a number of our elementary schools went non-graded at the primary level, grades K-2. Classes became multi-aged, and children were grouped for instruction according to ability. It was a beautiful sight to behold. You would walk into a classroom and see five, six, and seven year olds working together side by side and be hard pressed to identify the kindergartner, first, or second grader. In some schools that had the space, teachers teamed up and combined their classes to form IGE-type cells. The only problem was that the parents wanted to know what grade their child was in, as did the state.

   The idea of the program was to move to individualized, competency-based instruction based on a child’s ability rather than on the requirement that at this age, on this grade level, the entire class must learn this lesson.

   This is the fix that grade levels have gotten us into. Instruction is based on age and time rather than ability level and performance. Our gifted children are bored out of their minds in classrooms that do not challenge their abilities. Our children who need more time to learn are left behind and eventually drop out because they cannot keep up with the clock. What is more important, that children learn or that they learn within a specific period of time? Sorry Johnny, you learned to read too late. You were supposed to have done it last year, so now we will leave you behind.

   ]]> http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/06/01/its-time-to-blow-up-the-current-grade-level-structure/feed/ 0 http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/05/01/senate-bill-on-the-use-of-restraint-would-tie-school-leaders-hands-2/ http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/05/01/senate-bill-on-the-use-of-restraint-would-tie-school-leaders-hands-2/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 19:21:38 +0000 Dan Domenech http://www.eschoolnews.com/?p=110430

   The bill proposes that restraints can be used in emergency situations by trained personnel, but only when the student is at risk of imposing “serious bodily injury” to himself or others.

   Learning Leadership column, May 2012 edition of eSchool News—In the 1990s I was the superintendent for an intermediate school agency that provided the special-education services for its component school districts. We operated facilities that housed students that were not being mainstreamed with the local population. The push for mainstreaming was well under way, and many parents would petition the local schools to have their children educated there. In the case of some of the students with severe emotional and behavior issues, the local schools did not have the trained staff, equipment, or facilities to ensure that the students would be kept from harming themselves or others. Consequently, they became our students.

   Twenty years later, every effort is made to educate all special-education students within the mainstream population. Both special-education and mainstream staff are trained to effectively deal with students whose behavior might result in injury to themselves or others. Administrators in those schools must ensure the safety of all students and staff in the building.

   Recently the U.S. Senate introduced a bill, the “Keeping All Students Safe Act,” that would prohibit the use of seclusion and restraint, the very practice that has enabled many students with serious emotional or behavioral conditions to be educated in the least restrictive and safest environment possible. Supporting the bill is an advocacy community that is rightfully concerned with incidents where the use of seclusion and restraint has resulted in injury and, in some cases, the death of students. The education community again finds itself caught in the middle between providing all children with the opportunity to be educated in the least restrictive environment and at the same time protecting those very children from harming themselves or staff and other children in the immediate vicinity who might be injured during the course of a violent behavior episode.

   To assess the situation in the field and to provide our legislators with some guidance, the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) conducted a survey of school administrators throughout the country to get an idea of how often seclusion and restraint was used and how often school personnel were injured as a result of working with students who had to be secluded or restrained. The full report can be found at http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Resources/Tool_Kits/AASA-Keeping-Schools-Safe.pdf.

   Ten percent of the respondents indicated that, over the course of the school year, seclusion and restraint was necessary and unavoidable more than five percent of the time. In that same period of time, 25 percent of the respondents indicated more than 20 incidents of a staff member being physically threatened or attacked by a student. Over a five-year period, 30 percent of administrators reported at least five incidents requiring medical attention for staff. Seclusion and restraint is used, and it does lead to injuries. What is not known is how many more injuries to children and staff would occur without the use of seclusion and restraint. It is conceivable that the prohibition of these techniques will lead to a greater number of students being moved back into residential placement or private special-education facilities.

   The Senate bill proposes that restraints can be used in emergency situations by trained personnel, but only when the student is at risk of imposing “serious bodily injury” to himself or others. We are concerned that this provision will cause staff to hesitate to act on a timely basis as they try to anticipate whether the student’s behavior will result in serious bodily injury to someone or not. If a student pushes another student, it might only result in the student simply stumbling backwards. But what if the pushed student falls backwards and smashes his head on a hard floor, resulting in a serious head injury? Was the staff member supposed to predict the result of the push? If the staff person did not act, will he or she then be subjected to disciplinary action and a probable lawsuit? This is a no-win situation. As it stands now, the technique is used to prevent injuries, not to determine the extent of possible injury in the aftermath of an incident.

   ]]> http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/05/01/senate-bill-on-the-use-of-restraint-would-tie-school-leaders-hands-2/feed/ 0 http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/04/01/these-core-beliefs-are-critical-to-the-success-of-u-s-public-schools/ http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/04/01/these-core-beliefs-are-critical-to-the-success-of-u-s-public-schools/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:38:18 +0000 Dan Domenech http://www.eschoolnews.com/?p=97218
   

   ‘Perhaps the solution is not the proliferation of charters, but rather the elimination of the rules and regulations that allow charters exempt from them to thrive.’

   “Learning Leadership” column, April 2012 edition of eSchool News—The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) is one of the oldest education associations in the country. Founded in 1865, its mission is to advocate for the highest quality public education for all students and to develop and support school system leaders.

   Our members are the educational leaders in every community in America. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that our job is to represent the interests of local school systems in our nation’s capital. We often find ourselves at odds with a federal government that pushes to become more and more involved in local affairs and with state governments that often will highjack federal funding before it trickles down to the local level.

   Our positions come directly from our membership, and we take advantage of today’s technology to survey our members frequently and get real-time responses to what is affecting students in their schools and communities. Indeed, our members often feel that they have direct input into the policy making here in Washington, D.C. Our surveys on the impact of the economy on our schools have become as popular here inside the Beltway as the polls on presidential contenders. We actually think that our surveys better serve the public.

   Our legislative agenda and our positions on proposed policy directives are guided by the input we receive from the field. Our beliefs and positions are reviewed annually so as to keep them up to date. Most recently, our Governing Board convened at our National Conference on Education in Houston to approve the latest draft of AASA’s Beliefs and Position Statements in February.

   We believe that public education is the cornerstone of democracy and a civil right. As such, AASA aggressively will defend against all actions that undermine public education, such as vouchers, tax credits, and charters that are not publicly accountable.

   We are concerned by the inclusion of vouchers and charters in both the House and Senate versions of the bills that would reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and by a number of bills at the state level that would grant tax credits to private charters. This will further erode the financial structure of public schools at a time when our school systems are already reeling from the reductions to the property and sales tax revenue that is their primary source of support.

   More columns from AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech:

   What public school administrators want from policy makers

   U.S. education is still the best in the world—but here’s what we can learn from others

   Scarce resources, insufficient talent threaten to sink public education

   AASA does support public school choice and charter schools that operate under the governance of local public school boards. There should be a level playing field for the non-discriminatory and unconditional enrollment of all children, including those in need of special services. The same rules and regulations should apply to everyone, and all schools receiving public funding must be held accountable to the same standards. Non-public charters have become the “exception to the rules,” leaving us to ponder that perhaps the solution is not the proliferation of charters but rather the elimination of the rules and regulations that allow charters exempt from them to thrive.

   We are also well aware of the relationship between funding and equity. The method by which public education is funded in America is partially responsible for the broad disparity in quality that exists across school systems. We joke about the ability to determine a school district’s achievement profile by its ZIP code, but that is not far from the truth.

   Poverty is not an excuse, but it is a reality. The correlation between National Assessment of Educational Progress scores and the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches in a school is conclusive evidence that even the performance of children not in the federal lunch program is affected if they attend a school with a high concentration of poverty. 

   ]]> http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/04/01/these-core-beliefs-are-critical-to-the-success-of-u-s-public-schools/feed/ 0 http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/02/28/what-public-school-administrators-want-from-policy-makers/ http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/02/28/what-public-school-administrators-want-from-policy-makers/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:28:44 +0000 Dan Domenech http://www.eschoolnews.com/?p=96240
   

   School systems should not be required to spend local and state funds to implement federal mandates.

   Learning Leadership column, March 2012 edition of eSchool News—Last month, the American Association of School Administrators’ Executive Committee and Governing Board came together at our national conference in Houston to approve our legislative agenda. The year ahead looms as a politically charged period, leading up to the presidential and congressional elections. Much of what ordinarily might happen on Capitol Hill won’t happen because of political posturing. Consequently, we have little hope that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will be reauthorized prior to the elections. And that’s a shame, because there is substantial agreement between the two parties on key points.

   Our governing body numbers more than 150 superintendents from around the country. They represent large and small districts, rural and suburban, wealthy and poor. They are, in fact, representative of every school district in America. You can be certain that the positions emerging from that group represent what our public school districts want in legislation coming out of Washington.

   First and foremost, we want regulatory relief from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The waiver process that the Obama administration has implemented is a replacement for the stimulus dollars that became the carrot originally used to get states and school districts to adhere to the administration’s policy directives. If you want regulatory relief, then you must exchange the old regulations for these new ones. Those states and districts that go along and win approval will get regulatory relief. But the vast majority of children in our schools still will be subject to regulations that both the president and the education secretary have admitted are inadequate and in need of revision.

   Schools will be forced to use much-needed dollars to offer supplementary educational services and choice, two NCLB strategies that are recognized as failures. In addition, thousands of schools will continue to be identified as not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress and subject to the resulting penalties.

   We also continue to object to the use of ESEA dollars for competitive grants. The intent of ESEA is to level the playing field relative to poverty, and the allocation of funds should be via formulas based on the percentage of students living in poverty, not the ability of a school district to have outstanding grant writers. Since the beginning of the current recession, school systems have seen dramatic increases in the number of children eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. All eligible children should benefit from all available funds, not just those in “winner” states and districts.

   We are also concerned about the growing intrusion of the federal government into state and local education issues. Whatever happened to the rules and regulations applying only to those schools that received federal funds? Today, every public school in the land is subject to the rules and regulations, whether they receive federal funds or not. The role of the federal government should be to supplement, not dictate, local policies. Accordingly, any reduction in federal funds should be accompanied by a similar reduction in federal mandates. School systems should not be required to spend local and state funds to implement federal mandates.

   We support the Common Core and state-developed standards. In a globally competitive world, we cannot go against countries that have a set of national standards while we have 50 sets of standards. It is also difficult to assess our progress as a nation with 50 sets of tests whose results do not align well with the closest instrument we have to a national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

   We continue to suggest that we separate assessment for accountability purposes from assessment for the purpose of informing instruction. A random sampling of the nation’s students from the NAEP results would suffice for accountability purposes, with reduced costs and less intrusion on instruction and the number of children and subjects tested. We certainly support accountability and the continued disaggregation of data for subgroups of students. This is one of the few positive contributions of NCLB.

   ]]> http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/02/28/what-public-school-administrators-want-from-policy-makers/feed/ 0 http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/01/30/column-its-time-to-strengthen-the-p-16-continuum/ http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/01/30/column-its-time-to-strengthen-the-p-16-continuum/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:07:29 +0000 Dan Domenech http://www.eschoolnews.com/?p=94497
   

   “If we are to realize President Obama’s goal of leading the world in college graduates, we’ll need to break down the barriers that currently exist at both ends of the K-12 system,” Domenech writes.

   Learning Leadership column, February 2012 issue of eSchool News—A major impediment to education reform is the silos that exist in the pre-kindergarten through college continuum. If we are to realize President Obama’s goal of leading the world in the percentage of citizens who are college graduates, we will need to break down the barriers that currently exist at both ends of the K-12 system: preschool programs and institutions of higher education.

   There have been attempts at articulation, but the way these systems are structured, there are legal and operational barriers that are difficult—if not impossible—to overcome.

   Child care and preschool programs are operated primarily by private and nonprofit institutions that have no formal relationships with the public school system. Yet, there is ample evidence to suggest that early childhood programs for children who are at risk offer the best return on the public dollar investment. We often write about the education of the total child and how critical it is to coordinate all the community services that come to bear on the needs of children. Child care and preschool programs fall in that category, along with programs that provide for the health and nutritional needs of our youth.

   At the American Association of School Administrators, we pride ourselves in providing programs that help our members deal with the total needs of the children they serve. Thanks to a grant we recently received from the Wal-Mart Foundation, we are working with four major school systems to provide breakfast programs. In Riverside, Calif.; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Syracuse and Brentwood in New York, children will not be arriving at school hungry and unable to focus on their lessons. With the federal funding available for such programs and the foundation dollars to help organize them, children in these communities will be fed a nutritional breakfast.

   For more from Dan Domenech, see:

   U.S. education is still the best in the world—but here’s what we can learn from others

   Improving public education isn’t a mystery

   New teacher evaluation framework promises to serve students, and educators, fairly

   There are also thousands of children who, although eligible for health insurance coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program, are not receiving the medical coverage they are entitled to. In collaboration with the Children’s Defense Fund and under a grant from the Centers for Disease Control, AASA is working with a number of school systems throughout the country to provide health coverage for 50,000 students that currently do not have it.

   AASA also has been active in the development of programs that foster nutrition and battle obesity. In this instance, we have collaborated with two sister organizations, the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents and the National Alliance of Black School Educators. We’ve also worked closely with First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative, and last year we co-sponsored an event with the National Broadcasters Association that featured film and recording star Beyoncé in a “flash mob” dance involving thousands of middle school students throughout the nation.

   But most of these programs have taken place within the K-12 realm, making them much easier to control and coordinate. With preschool youngsters, there is the issue of legal responsibility.

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