Wednesday, October 3, 2012

A Blueprint for Reform

A Blueprint for Reform is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was proposed by President Barack Obama in 2010.  The Blueprint comes after No Child Left Behind (NCLB), trying to both build upon and distinguish itself from its controversial predecessor.  On the first page of the Blueprint, President Obama states that “Together, we must achieve a new goal, that by 2020, the United States will once again lead the world in college completion”.  The legislation contains five priorities:  “(1) College- and Career-Ready Students, (2) Great Teachers and Leaders in Every School, (3) Equity and Opportunity for All Students, (4) Raise the Bar and Reward Excellence, and (5) Promote Innovation and Continuous Improvement”. 
In an effort to achieve consistency, funding is being used as an incentive for multi-state collaborations.  School personnel can breathe easier with some of the advancements the Blueprint is striving towards, most notably, these include standards and assessment.  For implementing standards, states can retain their current standards as long as they collaborate with universities to ensure that students would not need remediation.  States would have a second option of collaborating with other states to create and implement a common set of standards.  As of 2015, “formula funds will be available only to states that are implementing assessments based on college- and career-ready standards that are common to a significant number of states” (p.12).  I think a unified assessment is one of the most important proposals in the Blueprint; this would create a unilateral measurement across the country, and would be beneficial to students who complete their education in more than one state. 
The Blueprint, unfortunately, continues to hinder some similarities to NCLB.  The Blueprint does not use educational jargon to state its goals; however, vague verbiage is frequently referenced.  Provided with a finite amount of funding, “priority will be given to” states/districts who adhere to the Blueprint’s outline.  In the current economic state, one has to ask “Where will the funds come from?”, and “How long will it last?” Additionally, the Blueprint calls on states/districts to establish evaluations for teachers and principals.  However, no general criterion is provided, leaving a gap of variation similar to that of NCLB. 
While the Blueprint is now focusing on individual student growth to assess achievement, a main component of that remains in standardized testing.  The Blueprint contends that “States, districts and schools, will look not just at absolute performance and proficiency, but at individual student growth and school progress over time” (p.9).  However, there is no specification of how heavily each part will be considered.  This could take the guesswork out of it for the states, so they could have an explicit set of expectations. 
The Blueprint aims to reward success instead of only focusing on failures.  Equity is stressed so that high- and low-poverty schools can have comparable funding in an attempt to close the achievement gap.  Taking into consideration assessments, student growth, leader effectiveness, and graduation rates, states/districts/schools are ranked by how successful they are.  These areas are referred to as reward and challenge states, respectively.  Reward states are composed of the top five percent of performing schools in each state, which are granted flexibility with their spending of funds.  Challenge states are composed of the bottom 5-10%, and in order to receive funding, must adhere to one of four proposed “turnaround models”.  Each of the models can be considered extreme, in that at the very least the principal will be replaced.  Each model states that it would implement a “research-based instructional program (and) provide extended learning time” (p.12).  However, the Blueprint does not provide a timeframe to determine if the school has successfully “turned around”.  Unfortunately, by focusing on the highest and lowest performers, we ignore the majority in the middle. 

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