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© 2011 National Association of Secondary School Principals - All rights to the intellectual property contained herein, including copyrights, trademarks, and service marks, are reserved by NASSP.
School leadership and its impact on student achievement was one topic of discussion at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing on May 4 to examine how the federal government can support quality teachers and leaders in our nation’s schools. The hearing is one in a series being held as part of a “bipartisan, transparent effort” to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
“Excellent teachers are the key to success in our schools,” said Chairman George Miller (D-CA) in his opening statement. “But we won’t be able to solve the many challenges facing our schools unless we change the way we treat teachers, talk about teachers and think about teachers. To help attract and retain bright teaching talent, we’ll need to make the teaching workplace look more like what other young workers expect: To be treated like professionals, with the respect, recognition, and resources needed to do their jobs.”
Testifying on behalf of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Pamela Salazar, associate professor of practice in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and editor of the NASSP Bulletin, discussed her role in developing the standards and assessment for the National Board Certification for Educational Leaders. “Having standards that define best practices allows for the development of professional education targeted for the continuum of practice,” she said. “As school districts seek to select and develop principals, assistant principals, and teacher leaders that can lead the transformation of schools, the existence of a continuum of standards to assist and identify accomplished practice is hugely beneficial in the selection, training, and development of aspiring and practicing principals, assistant principals, and teacher leaders.”
Salazar also highlighted the need for principals to participate in ongoing, job-embedded professional development and explained how to fairly measure and reward principal performance, outlining many of the recommendations in the NASSP board position statement on Highly Effective Principals. Commenting on the four school turnaround models that would all require the principal’s replacement as a condition for receiving federal funding, she said that, “turning around low-performing schools and significantly improving student achievement requires, among other factors, a principal that has received appropriate training and mentoring to understand what principals and school leaders should know and be able to do to effectively lead a school. Even more, it requires that the principal have access to appropriate data, a well-trained workforce, and the authority and autonomy to place resources where they are needed most. Yes, it is important to be able to remove principals who cannot effective lead, but we should not adopt policies that assume the incompetence of every principal in our lowest-performing schools.”
Other witnesses focused their remarks on teacher preparation, mentoring, and professional development, including Deborah Ball who is dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan and Randi Weingarten from the American Federation of Teachers.
To read all the witness testimony and view an archived webcast of the hearing, go to the committee’s Web site.
On Thursday, April 15, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee held a roundtable hearing to discuss the importance of preparing, recruiting, and maintaining effective teachers and principals as part of a plan to improve academic performance in the nation’s neediest schools. It was the latest in a series of congressional hearings on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the primary federal K-12 education law.
Witnesses and members of the committee spoke about the need to devise ways to improve the quality of teachers and principals in the nations’ poorest performing schools through various methods, including increased opportunities for training and greater emphasis on performance assessment. “The key challenge is to identify strategies for ensuring that the students who need the most help are being educated by our most effective teachers and principals,” said Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA).
Numerous witnesses described the need for teachers and principals to be provided with opportunities to improve their effectiveness, and proposed strategies to meet this need. Layne Parmenter, Principal of Urie Elementary in Lyman, WY, testified about the challenges facing principals and suggested policies to help them be more effective administrators and instructional leaders. These strategies included giving principals of underperforming schools more autonomy up front rather than firing them and granting greater freedoms to their replacements. Mr. Parmenter also spoke to a need for greater professional development opportunities for principals.
During the roundtable discussion at the hearing, a chorus of support for principal professional development and training broke out among witnesses (see the YouTube video above) when Senator Al Franken (D-MN) highlighted legislation he introduced that would provide current and aspiring principals with professional development, and then place these improved and more effective leaders in high-need schools. The School Principal Recruitment and Training Act (H.R. 4354/S. 2896) would accomplish this by creating a federal grant program that would provide selected aspiring principals with a pre-service residency that lasts for at least one year, combined with focused coursework on instructional leadership, organizational management, and the use of data to inform instruction. Grant funds would also be used to provide mentoring and professional development to strengthen current principals’ effectiveness. Camilla Benbow, Dean of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, spoke about the success of a similar principal residency program at Vanderbilt which has been in effect for the past decade.
The HELP Committee will continue to consider the needs of teachers and principals and increasing their effectiveness as Congress moves towards the goal of improving federal education policy leading up to reauthorization of ESEA.
By Mike Riddile, NASSP, government relations intern.
The House Education and Labor Committee today approved legislation supported by NASSP that would establish minimum federal standards on the use of seclusion and restraint in schools similar to those currently in place for hospitals and non-medical community-based facilities.
The Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247) would prohibit the use of physical restraint or seclusion unless a student’s behavior poses an imminent danger of physical injury to the student, school personnel, or others. Only those school personnel who have been trained and certified by a state-approved training program could impose physical restraint or seclusion except in “rare and clearly unavoidable emergency circumstances.” Schools would also be required to notify parents after incidents when restraint or seclusion was used.
States would have two years to ensure they are in compliance with the federal standards and could apply for a grant to fund professional development, training, and certification for school personnel to meet the standards. They could also use the funding to develop training programs for implementing systematic approaches to schoolwide positive behavior supports.
“This bill makes clear that there is no place in our schools for abuse and torture,” said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “The egregious abuse of a child should not be considered less criminal because it happens in a classroom—It should be the opposite. I’m proud that this bill has bipartisan support and I hope the full House will vote on it soon.”
“Principals will be supported by passage of the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act as states are required not only to comply with the federal standards but also to provide support and training to educators in this area,” said John Nori, NASSP Director of Program Development. “Currently, many schools across America have no trained staff in this area and few or no resources for professional development, as this is typically one of the first things cut in tough budgets times.”
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has introduced a companion bill (S. 2860) in the Senate, but there has been no committee action to date.
Now that the Department of Education (ED) has released the final notices for the Race to the Top Fund and the School Improvement Grants, senior officials are turning their attention to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
For the past few months, representatives of national education organizations, practitioners, and congressional staff have been attending education stakeholders forums at ED to discuss various topics within ESEA and were requested to submit their formal recommendations by midnight on December 31, 2009. The comments submitted by NASSP build on recommendations developed by the NCLB Task Force in 2005 and take into consideration emerging issues such as the Common Core State Standards Initiative and new developments in school leadership, literacy, and middle level and high school reform.
In his letter to ED, NASSP Executive Director Gerald N. Tirozzi outlined the following recommendations:
National Standards
NASSP is an endorsing partner of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is a state-led effort to develop a common core of state standards in grades K–12 for English/language arts and mathematics. Building on our position statement in support of national standards, we urge the development and implementation of common, high-quality assessments aligned with standards and call upon ED to evaluate the progress being made by states to adopt and implement the standards. We also recommend that the federal government offer incentives for states and districts to develop graduation requirements that allow students to choose from multiple pathways to graduation and ensure that students have access to academic supports that help them stay on track toward graduation.
School Leadership
Reiterating our support for additional funding for principal training and professional development, NASSP encourages Congress to enact the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act (H.R. 4354/S. 2896) and the Instructional Leadership Act (not-yet-introduced) as a part of ESEA reauthorization. The bills would authorize grant programs to prepare principals to lead high-need schools and incorporate standards of instructional leadership into state principal certification or licensure requirements. We also urge the administration to consider our position statements on highly effective principals and professional compensation for principals in developing proposals for principal evaluation and pay-for-performance programs. Finally, we encourage Congress and the administration to support the National Board Certification for Educational Leaders recently launched by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
Literacy
NASSP urges the administration to support the Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation (LEARN) Act (H.R. 4037/S. 2740), which would authorize comprehensive state and local literacy initiatives and build on the best components of the federal Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers programs. The goals of the bill are very much in line with Creating a Culture of Literacy, a guide written for principals to use as they team with staff members to improve their students’ literacy skills by assessing student strengths and weaknesses, identifying professional development needs, employing effective literacy strategies across all content areas, and establishing intervention programs for struggling students.
Middle Level and High School Reform
Building on the Breaking Ranks framework for school reform, NASSP has called upon the federal government to provide additional resources for our nation’s middle level and high schools. We support legislative proposals that would create a new funding stream for school improvement at the secondary school level, implement an early warning and intervention system to identify at-risk students, and provide differentiated and evidence-based interventions in eligible schools. Enacting the Success in the Middle Act (H.R. 3006/S. 1362) hand-in-hand with the Graduation Promise Act (H.R. 4181/S. 1698) would strengthen ESEA by providing the support necessary to turn around our nation’s lowest-performing middle and high schools and give our struggling students the help they need from preschool through graduation.
Graduation Rates
NASSP supported the final Title I regulation that requires states to use a uniform and accurate method of calculating graduation rates, but has concerns with defining the graduation rate as the “four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.” Because not all students enter the ninth grade reading and writing at grade level, we have long recommended that the graduation rate be extended to within at least five years of entering high school. State should be required to use, as a supplement to the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, extended adjusted cohort graduation rates that are approved by ED. In addition, identified special-needs students who complete high school with a state-approved exit document should have until age 21, inclusive, to be counted as graduates as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Act.
Growth Models
As stated in the NCLB Task Force recommendations, states should be allowed to measure adequate yearly progress (AYP) for each student subgroup on the basis of state-developed growth formulas that calculate growth in individual student achievement from year to year. NASSP has been very pleased with the expansion of the growth model pilot program, which was first announced in 2006, and we hope that growth models will have a permanent place in a newly reauthorized ESEA.
Multiple Measures of Student Performance
NASSP recommends that states should be allowed to use multiple measures of student performance in determining AYP, including state assessments in subjects beyond reading and language arts, mathematics, and science; portfolios, performance tasks, and other examples of a student’s accomplishments; traditional quizzes and tests; interviews, questionnaires, and conferences; end-of-course exams; comprehensive personal academic or graduation plans; assessments aligned with high school and college entrance requirements; and senior projects.
Research has consistently shown that the quality of school leadership has a significant impact on student learning and teacher retention. Yet all too often principals enter the profession without having developed the instructional leadership skills necessary for success.
In an effort to change this situation, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) introduced the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act (S. 2896/H.R. 4354), which would create a grant program to recruit, support, and prepare principals to improve student academic achievement in high-need schools.
“Like any successful organization, schools need strong leaders to ensure their success,” said Sen. Franken. “I believe that improving principal quality is essential to turning around high-need schools and closing the achievement gap that is leaving so many of our low-income and minority children behind. The bill will provide communities with the resources they need to prepare school leaders to tackle these challenges.”
“It takes a strong leader to turn around a struggling school. An inspirational principal at the helm can make an enormous difference in a school’s direction. We are introducing legislation to recruit and train a new generation of school leaders that have the ability to inspire change,” said Rep. Davis.
Although principals play a vital role in preparing students for the challenges that lie ahead of them, NASSP Executive Director Gerald N. Tirozzi acknowledged that principal training and professional development hasn’t kept pace with the changing role of the principalship. “NASSP is extremely pleased that Sen. Franken and Rep. Davis have chosen to address this issue, which has the potential to positively impact the lives of all students, including those in high-need schools,” Tirozzi said. “NASSP staff worked extensively with Sen. Franken’s office to craft this legislation, and we are proud to support this bill.” Sen. Franken took the lead in drafting this bill.
Specifically, grants would help districts form partnerships with nonprofit organizations or institutions of higher education to recruit, select, train, and support aspiring or current principals with track records of transforming student learning and outcomes. The grants would support sending these principals to schools in which 40% or more of the students are eligible for free and reduced meals and to high schools with a graduation rate of 65% or less and their feeder middle schools.
Participants would sign an agreement to serve for at least four years in a high-need school after they have been qualified and placed in the principalship (if they are not already a practicing principal) and to work toward substantially increasing student academic achievement in the schools they will lead within approximately three to six years of becoming principals.
Selected aspiring principals would be provided with a preservice residency that would last for at least one year and be combined with focused coursework on instructional leadership, organizational management, and the use of data to inform instruction. Ongoing support and professional development for at least two years after the aspiring principals complete the residency and commence work as school leaders would also be incorporated in the program.
Prior to the one-year residency, aspiring principals would undergo a skills assessment to determine their strengths and improvement needs. This information would be used to assist in developing and refining a data-based professional development plan that guides each individual’s year-long residency.
Grant funds would also be used to provide mentoring and professional development to strengthen current principals’ capacity to engage in effective instructional leadership practices and use a variety of data for the purposes of instruction, supervision, evaluation, and development of teachers and highly effective school organizations.
Finally, the bill would authorize development of a high-quality evaluation and information clearinghouse to facilitate the sharing of best practices and inform the recruitment, selection, training, and ongoing development of principals for high-need schools, including the development of standards and definitions of principal effectiveness.
Continuing her efforts to raise the profession of school leadership, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) introduced new legislation (S. 3707) in November to develop a new cadre of principals for low-income public schools.
“An effective and capable school leader can make the difference in providing the tools and instructional support needed to foster the type of school environment conducive to student academic success,” said Clinton. “The National Principal Recruitment Act will ensure that our neediest schools have effective leaders, who are well-equipped and supported, to close the achievement gap and prepare our students to compete in a global economy.”
The National Principal Recruitment Act would create a federal grant program for nonprofit organizations working in partnership with research organizations and local school districts to recruit and provide preservice training for individuals who aspire to be principals in high-need schools. Grantees would provide training during a year-long preservice residency that includes coaching from an effective principal, hands-on instructional leadership experience, and a curriculum that covers the following topics:
- Creating and maintaining a data-driven, professional learning community
- Providing a climate conducive to the professional development of teachers
- Using data to effectively evaluate teacher instruction
- Managing resources and school time to improve student academic achievement
- Engaging community members to leverage additional resources to improve student academic achievement
“The National Principal Recruitment Act is a significant investment in improving the educational achievement of every student, said Dick Flanary, NASSP senior director of leadership, products, and services. “This bill will provide much needed resources directed to building the capacity of principals to engage in exemplary instructional practices and achieve accountable outcomes. Successful schools have effective leaders. Research clearly shows that principals make a difference and this legislation sends a clear message that the training and development of principals is critical to school success.”
Because Clinton was recently named Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, NASSP hopes that another member of Congress will reintroduce the National Principal Recruitment Act in 2009. Take action! Visit the Principal’s Legislation Action Center and urge your members of Congress to support this important legislation for enhancing school leadership.
This month 35 seats in the U.S. Senate were up for election, and when the dust had settled, eight new members were elected. The states with new Senate members include: Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia. Following is an in-depth portrait of the new members of Congress. All quotations are taken directly from the officials’ Websites and are not indicators of record or future action. [This article will be updated in the near future with new information on Mark Begich (D), who recently defeated incumbent Senator Ted Stevens (R) from Alaska. Additional information will be provided when the Minnesota race between incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) is decided.]
Colorado
Mark Udall (D)
Elected to the Senate with 53% of the vote, Udall had previously served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. On the issue of education, Udall believes that NCLB has fallen short of its expectations, and needs significant reform.
To this end, in 2007 he introduced the CLASS Act (H.R. 2070), a bill supported by NASSP, and which would have improved the determination of adequate yearly progress (AYP) under NCLB by requiring the use of multiple measures of student achievement, while also improving the assessment of students with disabilities by allowing schools to take a Individual Education Program team decision into account when determining the performance of such students. The bill would have also improved the assessment of English language learners (ELLs) by excluding the test performance of ELLs who had resided in the United States for less than three years.
Idaho
Jim Risch (R)
Elected to the Senate with 58% of the vote, Risch is currently serving his third term as Lieutenant Governor of Idaho. Risch also served as Idaho’s 31st governor, during which time he called a special session of the Idaho Legislature, which was intended to “bring much needed property tax relief to Idaho taxpayers,” and which resulted in the creation of “a strong and protected source of funding for Idaho public schools.”
Nebraska
Mike Johanns (R)
Elected to the Senate with 58% of the vote, Johanns does not support NCLB, and believes “the role of the federal government should be to assist and partner with the state and local school districts, not control and administer them.” In like fashion, he “supports standards, but not the federal government dictating the standards for [Nebraska, and] will push back on any attempts to implement more mandates on the states.”
Johanns supports funding special education at the full 40% of the National Average per Pupil Expenditure, as well as increasing funding for Pell Grants.
New Hampshire
Jeanne Shaheen (D)
Elected to the Senate with 52% of the vote, Shaheen believes that AYP “should be reconfigured to take into account whether students and the school at large are making progress between years, not just progress as measured against an externally imposed goal. Schools should [also] be allowed to develop a variety of assessments in order to show academic progress rather than the current single high stakes exam.”
Shaheen also supports providing more opportunities and incentives to teachers to encourage high quality professional development.
On the issue of special education, Shaheen believes that within eight years the federal government should fund the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) at the full 40% of the National Average per Pupil Expenditure.
New Mexico
Thomas Udall (D)
Elected to the Senate with 61% of the vote, Udall was serving his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was active in education policy and was a member of the House Democratic Education Task Force.
During his ten years in Congress, Udall has supported several bills that would enhance education, including the Teacher Tax Credit Act which provides a tax credit for teachers and principals who work in certain low-income schools, as well as the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act, which would increase the amount of student loan forgiveness for teachers in mathematics, science, and special education.
Udall also supports increased federal funding for special education and a number of other programs designed to assist underserved youth, including: 21st Century Learning Centers, TRIO and Upward Bound, and programs funded through the Carl D. Perkins Act.
North Carolina
Kay Hagan (D)
Elected to the Senate with 53% of the vote, Hagan believes that NCLB needs to be significantly reformed and fully funded.
Hagan supports the use of growth models to give schools credit for making gains in student achievement, as well as differentiated consequences for schools not meeting AYP to help them address their individual needs.
Additionally, Hagan supports the use of multiple measures of student achievement in determining AYP, and would “push for NCLB to include incentives for states to align their K-12 standards with the ‘real world standards’ of college and the workplace.”
Oregon
Jeff Merkley (D)
Elected to the Senate with 49% of the vote, Merkley supports several significant investments in education, including fully funding the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, IDEA, NCLB, and increasing the size and number of Pell Grants to help high schoolers and their families cope with rising college tuition costs.
Merkley also believes that a complete overhaul of NCLB is necessary, arguing that “A school’s improvement should be measured not only by test scores, but also by students’ improvement over time, attendance, graduation rates and other standards that states themselves determine.”
Virginia
Mark Warner (D)
Elected to 65% of the vote, Warner has a long record of fighting for education reform. As the Governor of Virginia from 2002 – 2006, he made several investments in education, increasing K – 12 funding in Virginia by over $100 million in 2002 and 2003, and again by almost $1.5 billion in 2004.
During his governorship, Warner has also paid a great deal of attention to high schools and school leaders through his “Education for a Lifetime” initiative, launching Project Graduation and Senior Year Plus, which sought to increase high school graduation rates and increase student preparedness for college and the workforce.
In recognition of the central role that school leaders play in education reform efforts, Warner also launched the Virginia School Turnaround Specialist Program, which is “designed to develop a cadre of principals trained to ‘turn around’ consistently low-performing schools [by using] … tried-and-true business principals of turning around failing businesses.”
Warner has criticized the implementation of NCLB, and has argued that it is underfunded by $70 billion.
Running on a platform of change, Sen. Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Presidency by one of the biggest margins of victory in recent history, and it is change that the incoming Obama administration will likely bring to federal education policy.
Regretfully, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind, did not occur in 2008, and with a flagging economy and two wars, education is not likely to be among the top priorities of the new administration. As a result, it is unclear whether a reauthorization of ESEA will occur in 2009, or if we will have to wait even longer.
Although education might not be a top priority for Obama, he has taken a comprehensive approach to education reform. Thus when the reauthorization does occur, we can expect some fairly major changes to ESEA in the areas of middle level reform and the high school dropout crisis, and improving assessments and accountability under ESEA.
President-Elect Obama has been proactive in his efforts to improve middle level education and reduce the high school dropout rate, and in 2007 he introduced the Success in the Middle Act (S. 2227), which NASSP helped draft, and which reflects NASSP’s Policy Recommendations for Middle Level Reform.
“The dropout problem begins well before high school,” said Obama in his education reform plan, available on his Website. “The middle grades are a crucial, but often overlooked, segment of the educational pipeline,” the plan continued.
The Success in the Middle Act received a warm response on Capitol Hill, and NASSP expects several components of the bill to be included in the reauthorization of ESEA.
Among the most controversial aspects of the ESEA have been assessments and the determination of adequate yearly progress (AYP). President-Elect Obama supports the use of “a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, [and] present and defend their ideas. These assessments should provide immediate feedback so that teachers can begin improving student learning right away,” according to responses received to a questionnaire NASSP sent to Obama.
In his efforts to reform how AYP is determined, Obama believes that the accountability system needs to include more than a single student test. Obama would push for the inclusion of multiple measures of student learning within subject areas, and give states the option of including evidence of student achievement in areas beyond reading and math.
NASSP supports the use of multiple measures of student achievement, including end of course exams, student portfolios, senior projects, the ACT, PSAT, and SAT, in addition to performance on standardized tests, including state assessments. For more information on NASSP’s stance on these issues, visit www.principals.org, and click on “Legislative Advocacy.”
In addition, Obama supports the creation and enhancement of state leadership academies and investments in professional development for school principals. Obama also backs the development of multi-tiered credentialing systems that “encourage principals to grow professionally over the course of their careers, and particularly within their first few years on the job, when they are most open to and in need of professional development,” according to his campaign Website.
NASSP strongly supports school leadership academies, many of which are currently funded by the federal School Leadership program. NASSP is also working with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to develop a national certification for principals.
To support these changes, Obama would advocate for an additional $18 billion investment in education. The majority of this investment ($10 billion) would be targeted toward early childhood education.
As the Obama administration gets to work addressing the nation’s problems, efforts are already underway at NASSP to help the new administration navigate the complex field of education, and making clear that school leaders play a central role in student learning, and thus in all school reform efforts.
To learn more about Obama’s education plans and NASSP’s positions on these issues, visit www.nassp.org/obama.
A new report by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) delves into the pervasive impact of the U.S. high school dropout crisis and provides educators and federal policymakers with a plan for how to reduce the nearly 7,000 high school students who drop out every school day.
From No Child Left Behind to Every Child A Graduate notes that “each class of high school dropouts costs the U.S. economy more than $319 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over those students’ lifetimes.” However, if the number of high school dropouts were cut in half, the United States “could reap $45 billion annually in extra tax revenues and reduced costs of public health, crime, justice, and welfare payments.”
The report also indicates that solving the dropout crisis requires a comprehensive approach to school reform. Fortunately, a consensus is beginning to emerge around high school reform; an agreement which is demonstrated by the alignment of the report’s recommendations with many of NASSP’s own Legislative Recommendations for High School Reform.
In response to the report, NASSP executive director Gerald N. Tirozzi said that:
“The close alignment of NASSP’s and AEE’s policy recommendations sends a clear message to federal policymakers that there is a significant degree of agreement within the education policy community about how to stem the dropout crisis and improve middle level and high school education.
“Every day that passes in which Congress and the President do not take meaningful action means that thousands more students will slip through the cracks and embark on a path that leads them away from their true potential. We cannot let this happen. By reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and including reforms such as those outlined in NASSP’s high school recommendations and AEE’s report, Congress and the President can take meaningful steps towards significantly lessening the dropout crisis and improving the quality of education for all students.”
In one example of the agreement between AEE and NASSP, AEE’s report recommends that federal policymakers enact legislation that focuses on aligning rigorous standards, curriculum, and assessments with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in college and the 21st century global workforce. Similarly, NASSP encourages federal policymakers to increase academic rigor for all students by supporting programs such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate that increase the likelihood that students will stay in school and be prepared for postsecondary education.
Likewise, in the area of student support, AEE argues that students need access to support services to help meet their diverse academic and nonacademic needs. AEE believes that federal policy should support data-driven decision-making that identifies areas in which individual students are struggling, as well as professional development that equips educators with effective strategies for assisting low-performing students.
Similarly, NASSP encourages federal support for the creation of personalized learning environments through programs such as smaller learning communities. NASSP also believes that federal policy should support the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of students through increased investment in elementary and secondary school counseling programs. And in recognition of the diverse learning styles and speeds of students, NASSP encourages the enactment of federal policy that emphasizes subject mastery over seat time and allows students to demonstrate their knowledge through multiple assessments.
Significantly, both AEE and NASSP recognize the vital role that adolescent literacy plays in student achievement. Both groups strongly urge federal policymakers to support schoolwide literacy initiatives and targeted early interventions for struggling readers, as well as ongoing professional development for principals and teachers that helps them implement effective strategies.
The Appropriate Federal Role in Solving the Crisis
Key to the reports’ recommendations is the role of the federal government, which AEE believes “must reflect the complex nature of the federal-state-local structure that comprises that nation’s education system. The roles and responsibilities of all three levels of government must be defined to capitalize on their individual strengths.” Both AEE and NASSP believe one of the strengths and responsibilities of the federal government is ensuring equitable access to resources and opportunities for economically disadvantages students and schools.
Notably, since the law was enacted, the federal government has underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) by over $56 billion. Moreover, while federal funding for grades pre-K–6 totaled nearly $17.8 billion in FY 2008, funding for grades 7–12 totaled only about $5.1 billion, according to the report.
Yet the report argues—and NASSP agrees—that the solution to this funding inequity is not to take money away from elementary schools, but to invest additional federal funds at the secondary level. In this regard, both NASSP and AEE have consistently urged federal policymakers to increase overall funding levels for education, as well as for specific programs such as Title I and IDEA.
The Importance of Leadership
AEE is quick to point out the importance of school leadership to solving the dropout crisis, explaining that next to teachers, instructional leaders have the greatest impact on student achievement. NASSP could not agree more, and research has shown that when it comes to making adequate yearly progress under NCLB, high-quality leadership is the single greatest predictor of school success.
It is here too that the federal government has a role. AEE’s report argues that “Federal policy should … expand the federal investment in school leadership to offer grants to states, districts, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations that have a track record of success in producing highly effective principals.”
In like manner, NASSP has been actively calling on federal policymakers to create a dedicated funding stream for principal professional development, and in November 2007, NASSP’s Board of Directors approved a new position statement on highly effective principals that offers guidance for federal, state, and local policymakers.
The final message of the report is that while the dropout crisis is a complex problem with far-reaching consequences, touching the life of every U.S. citizen, it cannot be solved and meaningful education reform cannot be enacted without the political leadership and will to act. However, before Congress and the president make education a priority, the American public must make education a priority and demand change from their elected officials.
To view NASSP’s Legislative Recommendations for High School Reform, visit www.nassp.org/highschoolreform. To access AEE’s report in full, go to www.all4ed.org.
Final Results
What’s your biggest resolution for the new school year?
63% To spend more time observing teachers
10% To make more time for my own professional growth
21% To spend more time with beginning teachers
4% To attend more school activities
3% Other (please comment)
Total Votes: 126
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The new school year is here, and everyone–including the principal–benefits from the atmosphere of renewal. You get a do-over, after all. All those things you wanted to try at the beginning of the last school year cn drop right into place now, and you resolve that this will be the year X happens. I resolve to spend more time on what’s important, not urgent. To spend more time in classrooms. To attend more school activities. To mentor beginning teachers. To network more actively with principals of feeder schools. And on. And on.
If you haven’t taken this week’s Principal’s Poll at www.nassp.org, please take a moment to do so and let us know which resolution is at the top of your list. If you don’t see your resolution listed, please include it as a comment below.
