ATTACHMENT
CONCERNS
RELATED TO THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FEDERAL NO CHILD
LEFT BEHIND (NCLB) ACT
Implementation of the NCLB’s
standards for teachers and Title I paraprofes-sionals has followed extensive
consultation with the field, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) and
colleagues in other states.
Technical assistance is provided to the field through the Department’s
website, e-mail lists, a phone help-line, an e-mail help-line and presentations
across the State.
“Highly Qualified”
Teachers
All public school teachers of “core academic subjects” must be “highly
qualified” by June 2006, using State definitions that are consistent with the
NCLB. All such teachers must be
“highly qualified” when hired if they are hired after September 2002 and
“teaching in a program supported with Title I funds.” “Highly qualified” teachers of “core
academic subjects” must: have a bachelor’s or higher degree; be certified for
their teaching assignments; and demonstrate subject matter competency for the
core subjects they teach.
q
Issues related to “highly qualified”
teachers:
Most certified teachers teaching
within the scope of their certificates are or will be “highly qualified” by June
2006 because the NCLB’s teacher quality standards are generally aligned with the
Regents standards. However, the
NCLB’s standards are retroactive and, in some cases, inconsistent with Regents
certification standards. This has
posed the greatest implementation challenge because some certified, veteran
teachers are not “highly qualified” under the NCLB unless they and/or their
employers take additional action.
For example:
·
Elementary classroom teachers certified before
examinations were required in 1984 must pass a locally administered “high
objective uniform State standard of evaluation” in order to be “highly
qualified.”
·
Certified teachers who teach multiple subjects at an
instructional level above grade 6 – including special education teachers
providing direct instruction and teachers in alternative education programs
leading to a regular diploma – must demonstrate their subject matter competency
for each core academic subject they teach using the methods required by the
NCLB. The reauthorization of the
IDEA may give special education teachers some flexibility in meeting the NCLB
standard, but the proposed House and Senate bills have not yet included
provisions that would provide the flexibility desired.
·
Certified teachers of Career and Technical Education
(CTE) classes that students can use for high school credit in a “core academic
subject” must be “highly qualified” for that subject. Certified CTE teachers that do not have
bachelors’ degrees or that have not demonstrated subject matter competency must
use a “collaborative teaching model.”
·
Certified teachers of “core academic subjects” above
grade 6 who teach in middle schools with approved experiments in organizational
change and who are not certified for grades 7 through 12 in the subjects they
teach must demonstrate subject matter competency in each “core academic subject”
they teach.
The NCLB requirements related to
“highly qualified” teachers may inhibit local flexibility in the deployment of
staff without necessarily resulting in improved instruction.
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Recommendation related to “highly qualified”
teachers:
The federal requirements should
recognize the strong standards that states currently have in place to ensure for
a qualified teaching workforce and provide more flexibility, especially in
special education settings.
“Qualified” Title I Paraprofessionals
All Title I
paraprofessionals must be “qualified” by June 8, 2006. Title I paraprofessionals hired after
January 8, 2002 must be “qualified when hired. “Qualified” Title I paraprofessionals
must have a high school diploma or a recognized equivalent and meet one of the
following additional standards: successfully complete at least 48 semester hours
of study at a public or independent college or university; have an associate’s
or higher degree; or pass a State or local assessment to demonstrate knowledge
of, and the ability to assist in, teaching, reading/language arts, writing and
mathematics (or readiness for those subjects).
Most Title I paraprofessionals
should meet the deadline. School
districts are working with BOCES, colleges and universities and unions to
develop local assessments and to provide test preparation and other educational
opportunities. The New York State
Assessment of Teaching Assistant Skills (NYS ATAS) serves as both a State
assessment for NCLB purposes and a required examination for teaching assistant
certificate candidates after February 1, 2004. In addition, existing State-certified
teaching assistants who have earned tenure through an evaluation required in
Education Law are “qualified” under the NCLB local assessment option.
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Issues related to “qualified” Title I
paraprofessionals:
It has been challenging for some
school district officials and school support personnel to understand how the
NCLB’s standards apply to Title I paraprofessionals in the context of the
State’s requirements for all individuals performing the duties of teaching
assistants. This is an
implementation issue that is being resolved.
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Recommendation related to “qualified” Title
paraprofessionals:
The State will monitor school
district efforts to come into compliance with the paraprofessional requirements
between now and 2006, and, if needed, recommend that the federal law be amended
to provide greater flexibility to the State and school districts through an
extension of the deadline by which existing paraprofessionals must be
qualified.
2. STUDENTS WITH
DISABILITIES
The goal of the NCLB is to ensure
that all students reach proficiency on State academic assessments no later than
the 2013-14 school year. Adequate
yearly progress (AYP) under the NCLB is determined not only for the performance
of all students on a particular measure, but also for the disaggregated
subgroups of students, including students with disabilities. Central to the NCLB
legislation is a commitment to raise standards for all students, including those
students who historically have been excluded from accountability systems and
often have been also excluded from high-quality educational programs.
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Issues related to students with
disabilities:
We applaud the overall goal of the
NCLB to improve the educational outcomes for all students and to close the gaps
in academic achievement between various subgroups of students, including those
with disabilities.
However, the NCLB fails to
recognize that there is a group of students with disabilities who, by the nature
of their disabilities, may never reach proficiency under the current
accountability requirements of the NCLB and thus prevent the larger subgroup of
students with disabilities from making adequate yearly progress (AYP). This group of students are those who,
while not meeting the current criteria for the New York State Alternate
Assessment (NYSAA) for students with disabilities, are not able to meet
grade/age-level expectation, even with appropriate instructional programs and
supports due to their particular levels of disability. As a result, schools and school
districts are being and will continue to be identified as not making AYP because
these students have not improved in the general education curriculum as measured
on State assessments at the same rate as required for students without
disabilities.
In addition, in approving New York
State’s NCLB implementation plan, the U.S. Department of Education stated that:
“ … the percentage of students held to alternate achievement standards at
district and State levels may not exceed 1.0 percent of students in the grade
assessed.” Under this rule, if the
percentage of elementary and middle-level students in the district who were
counted as proficient in computing the ELA mathematics performance indices,
based on scores on the NYSAA, exceeds 1.0 percent, a sufficient number of
proficient scores must be reduced to not
proficient in order to reduce the percentages of the remaining proficient
scores to 1.0 percent or less. New
York State did not include students eligible for the NYSAA in its school and
district accountability cohorts prior to the 2000 high school cohort. Because these students were not
included, no students in high school were judged against alternate standards in
the 2002-03 school year. Beginning
with the 2000 cohort, these students must be included in the count of
students in the annual high school cohort.
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Recommendation related to students with
disabilities:
The Department is working to
resolve in the reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act the issues regarding AYP and students with significant
disabilities that unfairly affect school districts and schools. In particular, we seek greater
flexibility in testing and accountability standards for students with
significant disabilities who are ineligible for the NYSAA, but because of their
disabilities cannot be expected to demonstrate proficiency on the general
assessments at the same age as non-disabled students.
3.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
The NCLB requires states to
establish English language proficiency standards that relate to the development
and attainment of English language proficiency by students who are English
language learners. The Department developed the New York State English as a
second language (NYS-ESL) learning standards for grades K-12. These standards serve as the foundation
for the ESL curriculum, instruction and assessment for all ELL students in New
York State. The NYS-ESL learning
standards also provided the framework for the development of the New York State
ESL Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) which was administered for the first time in May
2003 to all students who are English language learners (ELL).
The
NYSESLAT, developed jointly by ETS, the Department and practitioners, is the
first rigorous measurement in the nation to assess the English language
proficiency of ELLs in four modalities – listening, speaking, reading and
writing. One of the overarching priorities in developing the NYSESLAT was to
construct a measure that would ensure the academic success of students in
exiting from bilingual/English as a second language (ESL) programs to the
general education English environment.
Due to the inclusiveness of the development process, the test has been
well received and supported by the field.
Since the NYSESLAT is not a
pass/fail assessment, but a measure of the English proficiency level of ELLs,
care was exercised in establishing cut scores which would not exit students
prematurely or, on the other hand, retain students in ESL programs beyond their
need. It took longer than expected
to collect and analyze the test data, determine the cut scores and disseminate
this information to the schools.
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Issues related to English language
learners:
With the first administration of
the NYSESLAT in the 2002-2003 school year, only a small percentage of the
students demonstrated sufficient English proficiency to make them eligible to
exit from programs under CR Part 154, a marked decrease from the previous
year. As a result, the Department
has provided guidance to help school districts and schools improve instruction
to and the achievement of English language learners (ELLs).
q Recommendation related to English
language learners:
Beginning next year, the field
should be better prepared to assist students to meet the proficiency standards
on the NYSESLAT and it is anticipated that the exit rate will increase
significantly. In the interim, the
guidance provided by the Department creates an appropriate transition between
the former and current systems to exiting ELLs.
4. PERSISTENTLY DANGEROUS
SCHOOLS
Before the beginning of the
2003-04 school year, each state, based on its own criteria, was required to
identify schools that were “persistently dangerous.” Under the legislation, parents have the
right to remove their children from schools that have been identified as
persistently dangerous and place them in safer public schools in the school
district.
In New York State, the Commissioner established a
two-tier process to designate schools as persistently dangerous to comply with
federal requirements, under the No Child
Left Behind legislation:
·
A public elementary
or secondary school was initially identified as a school that may be designated as
persistently dangerous for the 2003-04 school year if the school had in each of
two consecutive years a 3 percent or greater ratio of weapons incidents to enrollment. A final designation was made after the
school had been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate that it should not be
designated.
·
As a strategy to
prevent a school from being designated as persistently dangerous, a public
elementary or secondary school that had in each of two consecutive years a 2 percent or greater ratio of weapons
incidents to enrollment was required to develop an Incident Reduction Plan to
reduce the number of weapons incidents during the 2003-04 school year. If the ratio of weapons incidents to
enrollment remains at the 2 percent or greater level after implementation of
this plan, the school was initially identified as a school that may be
designated as persistently dangerous for the 2004-05 school year. (Note: Implementation of this strategy has been
postponed pending additional federal guidance.)
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Issues related to
persistently dangerous schools:
As a result of the federal
requirement under the NCLB, only six states, New York, New Jersey, Nevada,
Oregon, Pennsylvania and Texas, identified a total of 50 schools as persistently
dangerous.
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Recommendation
related to persistently dangerous schools:
More consistent federal
criteria are necessary to identify persistently dangerous schools if the
designation is to have any meaning.
There is pending federal
guidance on persistently dangerous schools, including:
·
First year experiences will
be analyzed to determine where changes to procedures and regulations are
required.
·
Definition of terms will be
carefully reviewed and shared with school district staff to ensure that they
report information in a uniform manner.
·
Data collection on other
kinds of violent and disruptive incidents in subsequent years will be considered
to increase the reliability of data and allow for the inclusion of other
incident categories, such as sexual offenses, in the selection
criteria.
5. SUPPLEMENTAL EDUCATIONAL
SERVICES
Supplemental educational services
(SES) are additional educational opportunities for academic instruction in
English language arts/reading and mathematics, designed to increase the academic
performance of students. These
services can include tutoring, remediation and other educational interventions
and must be provided outside the regular school day. Students who are eligible for SES must
be from low-income families and attend Title I schools that are in their second
year of school improvement, corrective action or restructuring. If funds are insufficient to provide
services to each eligible student, priority must be given to providing services
to the lowest-achieving eligible students.
In regard to the provision of SES,
the Department’s responsibilities include: consult with parents, teachers,
school districts and interested members of the public to identify a wide array
of providers, thereby giving parents the widest range of choices; provide annual
notices of the requirement to provide services and the process for obtaining
approval to be a provider; develop and apply objective criteria in the selection
of potential providers; maintain an updated list of approved providers; and
develop, implement and publicly report on standards and techniques for
monitoring service quality and effectiveness of providers. In addition, school districts are
responsible for: notifying parents about the availability of services; helping
parents choose a provider, if such help is requested; determining which students
should receive SES when all cannot be served; entering into an agreement with a
provider selected by eligible parents; assisting the Department in identifying
potential providers within the school district; providing information to the
Department so that the Department can monitor the quality and effectiveness of
the services offered by providers; protecting the privacy rights of students who
receive SES; and providing SES at the beginning of each school year.
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Issues related to supplemental educational
services:
·
School districts must notify parents about
the availability of SES. In
the 2002-03 school year, only thirteen
percent of parents in NYC and seven percent of parents in rest-of-State
requested SES services from their school districts.
·
School districts must provide SES services
at the beginning of the school year. In the 2002-03 school year, all
community school districts in New York City did not begin implementation until
December 2002; and in rest-of-State, six school districts reported no parent
requests, one district reported no providers in the area (did not explore
“distance” providers) and one district did not enter into SES agreements until
May 2003. Also, in some regions,
questions were raised regarding the availability of SES services for students
with disabilities.
q
Recommendations related to supplemental
educational services:
The Department will monitor school
districts for compliance and provide technical assistance to those districts
that need help in implementing required SES services. In addition, the list of approved SES
providers will be expanded in the next few months which may help areas where
providers are not currently available.
6. CHANGES IN THE
ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM FOR HIGH SCHOOLS
In the 2003-04 school year,
English language arts and mathematics accountability for high schools and
districts will be based on students who first entered grade 9 in 2000 and meet
all other criteria for cohort inclusion.
School and district accountability for the graduation rate will be based
on students who first entered grade 9 in 1999 and meet all the other criteria
for inclusion in the graduation-rate cohort.
The NCLB requires that when a test
is given multiple times a student’s score on the first administration of the
test be counted when determining AYP.
This requirement posed a dilemma for New York State because our
accountability assessments are also used to document student proficiency for
graduation. Students are expected
to retake these assessments until they demonstrate sufficient proficiency to
meet the graduation requirement.
The Department negotiated a compromise with the U.S. Department of
Education that allows students to take the English and mathematics
accountability assessments multiple times before grade 12, but limits students
to taking these assessments only once for accountability purposes in grade
12. (It should be noted that
students in grade 12 may retake assessments to meet graduation
requirements.)
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Issues related to the changes in the
accountability for high schools:
·
To comply with the NCLB, the 2000 accountability cohort
for schools and school districts will include student groups not included in
previous cohorts, students who are ELL and students with significant
disabilities who were eligible for the NYSAA.
·
High schools must test 95 percent of all enrolled
students in grade 12 to make AYP and may count only the student’s first
assessment taken in grade 12 in determining AYP.
·
While the four-year graduation requirement for
accountability purposes is not a problem for the majority of students, it does,
however, pose a barrier to certain subgroups, i.e., ELLs who enter the K-12
system later in their academic career and students with significant
disabilities.
q
Recommendation related to the changes in the
accountability of schools:
We will continue to work, along
with other states, to --
·
change the provision of the NCLB regarding limiting
students to taking the English language arts and mathematics assessments only
once for accountability purposes in grade 12; and
·
provide flexibility in the four-year high school
graduation requirement for certain subgroups – late arriving ELLs and students
with significant disabilities.
