Implementation of Federal Education Reform in the Ocean State

On January 8, 2002 President Bush signed into law H.R. 1 – The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This landmark federal legislation includes performance standards that will have an impact on Rhode Island’s education reform agenda. Therefore, this Comments highlights the mandated federal education reforms and discusses their potential impact on Rhode Island’s education performance and accountability agenda. Federal reforms considered in this Comments include assessments, accountability, and data disclosure on results.

A recent RIPEC report, Results – Education in Rhode Island 2001, noted that an essential element of Rhode Island’s school reform agenda is the implementation of a performance-based accountability program. Rhode Island has adopted the frameworks and guidelines that identify the standards upon which districts develop curricula for their schools. The State has content standards that define what students need to know, understand, and be able to do in a specific area such as writing, reading, and mathematics. Finally, performance standards are used to measure how well schools are doing to achieve or exceed the standards.

The Results report found that the State has put in place the resources, the authority and the framework for improving student performance. This has positioned Rhode Island to respond to the new federal education reform agenda. For example, the Board of Regents has adopted:

• Standards of knowledge and performance;
• Appropriate measures of achievement to the standards consistent with national assessments;
• A program categorizing schools on the basis of performance; and
• Public reporting of school and district performances.

Assessments

Annual State Assessments – According to the new federal law, all states must implement annual tests in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8 by 2005-2006. Tests must be aligned to state academic standards. Assessments must measure gains in student achievement, and results must be compared from year to year within the state. By 2007-2008, states must administer science assessments at three grade levels.

To date, Rhode Island administers annual New Standards Reference Examination (NSRE) tests in English language arts and math in grades 4, 8, and 10. To comply with the federal law, Rhode Island needs to administer tests for grades 3, 5, 6, and 7 by 2005. The State must also administer science assessments by 2007-2008, which it does not presently.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – All states are required to participate in the NAEP for reading and math for 4th and 8th graders to verify results of state tests. The test will be administered every two years.

Rhode Island already participates in the NAEP math and reading assessments for 4th and 8th graders. Therefore, this federal requirement is fulfilled.

Accountability

Federal legislation requires all schools and school districts to be held accountable for all major student groups making "adequate yearly progress" toward being "proficient" against state academic standards. Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years will be designated as being in need of improvement. The federal act requires 100 percent of students achieving proficiency within 12 years. All major student groups (racial and ethnic minorities, students from low-income families, limited English proficient, and students with disabilities) must make annual progress for schools and districts to succeed. Persistent failure over the next three years would require additional improvements, progressively greater corrective action, and even complete restructuring. Students in failing schools will get a choice of other public schools and additional services, such as tutoring, after school programs, and summer school. Restructured schools can open as charter schools or with new leadership, new staff, and/or new curriculum.

In the Ocean State, school districts select those content standards they want their students to know and be able to do. Content standards can be drawn from a number of sources, such as national organizations (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics); the Rhode Island State frameworks for English language arts, mathematics, science and health; or the New Standards for English language arts, mathematics, science, and applied learning.

Even though the content standards chosen by each of Rhode Island’s 36 school districts could vary, student performance is measured by the NSRE in math and English language arts, which is taken by all students in grades 4, 8 and 10. Therefore, it is possible to evaluate each school’s performance against all other schools in the State.

Rhode Island has allowed schools and districts to set three-year targets for self-improvement. Working within guidelines established by the Department of Education, schools must set targets in terms of the percentage of students they will move from categories "below achieving the standard" to "achieving the standard" or "achieving the standard with honors." Additionally, they must set targets in terms of the percentage of students they will move out of the lower levels of achievement into higher levels over the three-year period.

The Rhode Island Department of Education, with the approval of the Board of Regents, is presently working on a program to group each school into three categories based on cumulative performance in all tested subject areas and grades over the last three years within the school.

• High performing schools are defined as schools in which 50 percent or more of the students are at or above standards in all tested grades based on the NSRE in math and English language arts and Rhode Island’s writing over three years of test data.
• Low performing schools are defined as schools in which 33 percent or more of students are in the lowest achievement categories (little evidence of achievement, below the standard, and "no score") across all applicable tests across three years.
• Moderately performing schools are defined as all other public schools, which do not fall into the category of high or low performing schools.

Once schools have been classified as either high performing, moderately or low performing, the Rhode Island Department of Education will then consider whether the schools have been improving their results from 1998 to 2001. A combined cumulative percentage of the first two years (1998-1999 scores) will be compared to a second 2-year cumulative percentage (2000-2001 scores). Improvement will be evaluated in both Mathematics and English Language Arts.

Improving schools are defined as schools which achieved a 3.0 percent or more gain between the 1998-1999 data point and the 2000-2001 data point. They must:

• Increase the percentage of students within the school who meet the state’s standards, and
• Decrease the percentage of students in the two lowest achievement levels plus the "no score" category.
• The percentage has to be increased in two out of three mathematics sub-tests, or in three out of four English language arts sub-tests (Rhode Island writing results may be substituted for one of the two NSRE writing sub-tests), or in both mathematics and English language arts.
• Non-improving schools are defined as schools that did not meet the conditions of improving schools defined above.

Data Disclosure on Results

The federal legislation requires all school districts to disclose, by school, annual student performance data for every major student group in formats easily understood by parents and educators. Each state also has to disclose disaggregated data annually on student achievement by school district.

Rhode Island complies with this federal requirement by publishing Information Works. This report currently includes data on student assessment, performance levels, and demographic profiles, as well as some financial information through its financial reporting system In$ite.

Comments

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 becomes operational with the 2002-2003 school year. It is projected that the U. S. Department of Education will finalize implementation rules by April 2002. By July 2002, states would be required to submit implementation plans to the Secretary of Education.

As discussed above, many Rhode Island educational policies and programs are consistent with the assessment, accountability and data provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. However, implementation of the federal legislation in Rhode Island raises some questions and may require some programmatic changes.

For example, in the next four years, Rhode Island will need to administer reading and math tests for grades 3, 5, 6 and 7, and science assessments by the start of school year 2007-2008. Plans must be made and new state and local resources identified to comply with the new federal mandate.

A major accountability provision of H.R. 1 is the "adequate yearly progress" requirement. Under the federal mandate, schools may set achievement targets, but all students must demonstrate proficiency in mathematics and reading in grades 3-8 within a 12-year period. Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress are designated as being in need of school improvement and are required to take specific corrective steps, such as increased investment in professional development and supplemental services for the lowest achieving students.

Implementation of the federal mandate that schools make adequate yearly progress toward 100 percent student proficiency in twelve years raises a number of questions. For instance,

• Is the federal proficiency requirement realistic? Federal law does not appear to prevent states from having higher expectations of student performance. Is the 12-year period to achieve 100 percent student proficiency the most appropriate public policy for Rhode Island? Is it possible for the Board of Regents to establish a schedule for all Rhode Island students to be 100 percent proficient, e.g., in nine years?
• What happens if we fail to achieve 100 percent proficiency in 12 years?
• Should incremental proficiency benchmarks be established to measure progress over time, e.g., 75 percent of students demonstrate proficiency within five years?
• If schools do not show adequate yearly progress, what strategies will the State of Rhode Island employ to address the needs of failing schools?

The Rhode Island Department of Education currently has in place a policy of "Progressive Support and Intervention" aimed at assisting low-performance schools. However, the department is expected in February 2002 to publish a support action plan for high, low, and moderately performing schools. The department should ensure that these action plans are clearly defined and uniformly applied to all schools, with special attention to low-performing schools. Also, the State should set forth a shared state-local fiscal plan to support the Department’s Progressive Support and Intervention approach to assist all low-performing schools make the grade.

The federal legislation requires school districts to disclose annual student performance data. Rhode Island's Information Works appears to meet this intent of the requirement. However, to enhance Information Works and make it more user-friendly, the Department of Education should consider ways to include a discussion of relative performance for each school and district as part of its public reporting program.