Transparency bli transpar transparency built in. As long as people can move out and go where they want to go and pursue choice, we cant say to low income people youre trapped based upon your zip code to a School System that we wouldnt allow our children to be in for one day. Thats what weve seen for a long time. Thats different from what we see from did evos and the trump administration. Theyre perverting that. Theyre not even investing significantly either. So its like the worst of all worlds. What i emphasize is that kind of tradition is a space where its a part of the Public Education system, not an attempt to disminutdi dismantle it. Its a space where people like al shankert and people on the far right have gotten a lot of things done. We have to leave it this there. Lindsey, you would say its okay for a school to take the voucher to discriminate against a gay child. If i were operating a school i wouldnt operate a school that way but reasonable people can disagree about some of these sensitive issues. I think marriage is a sensitive issue. At the end of the day we have federal civil rights laws in place. We are past our time. I am sorry. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. If you didnt sign in, if you could sign in on the signin sheet, that would be helpful for us. [ applause ] hi, everybody. Thank you for coming. Were going to get started. Running a few minutes late. I think everybody is still trying to find the room. A couple housekeeping things. If you are tweeting, please use ewa17. Everything here is on the record. Remember to use the signin sheet wherever that is, going around. Please sign in. Its right here. I think. I dont know. Should i pass it . Ill pass it down. Yes. Sign the signin sheet. Awesome. We are here today to talk about the every Student Succeeds act and the state. I am a reporter at politico here in d. C. Covering education policy. We are going to talk about this law that passed in 2015 to replace no child left behind and sort of where states are at right now. So we are going to talk about that today. To bring you up to speed, essentially there are two submission windows for states to send in their plans under this new law for Holding Schools accountable for how they plan to intervene in schools, for how they plan to intervene in groups of students who are consistently underperforming. So we have about 16 states in d. C. So far and d. C. So far have submitted for the spring window. Another window is coming up in september. I am sure youre familiar with the effefact that secretary devs tasked with reviewing these plans along with people called peer reviewers. Id love to get started with our experts. To my left chris minnic, the executive director of the council of chief state School Officers and Linda Darling Hammond ceo of the learning policy institute. Mike pa treli, he is the president of the Thomas Fordham institutes. And liz king, the director of education policy at the leadership conference. I would love to sort of get started by jumping into this, making sure we have a lot of time for questions at the end. I would like to ask you, chris, if you can sort of give us a highlevel overview of where states are right now. Obviously ctso is an important partner in this process. Its an honor to be on the panel with these three folks. I dont often get to speak with them, so it is its great to be here. Thank you for inviting me to ewa. I think esa has been a devolution to the states as promised. We have 17 states who have submitted so far. The rest coming in in september. If you are in a state where theyve submitted, you are probably pretty aware of their plan. If you are in a state thats not yet submitted there is a lot of work going on between now and september to define that for that state. I think there are two pieces that i think we are most interested in. One, making sure that, as states set these plans, we dont go back to a time preno child left behind where we were able to ignore groups of kids or ignore power poo poor performance in any way. Before no child left behind, a school could skate by on averages. I think its really important. Thats good in the first 17 plans that we dont see a backing away from student performance as the goal for the states. I think that is a real positive. I think another area where i think we have a lot of work to do is on the inititervention si. If you are in a letter grade state, d or f, or a star state at the low end of the stars, one or two stars, what are we going to do as a state or district to help that school improve. There are new parts of the law that give states more flexibility with those resources, the money. And i think we will largely look back on this law as a success or failure about how we do with the schools that are not getting it done with kids right now. Meaning, the lowest performing in our states, are we able to significantly improve those schools. And i think some of the techniques we have been using in the past have not necessarily worked in the states. Largely, under no child left behind states did a lot of reporting data, and then asking districts and schools to improve themselves either by coming up with a plan or, you know, just saying, you need to improve. And that didnt work as well. And i think we need a structure in place in each state. It has really been left up to the state. One area where i am interested in states improving is to think about how do we intervene in low performing schools. The last thing ill say because i dont want to take all of my time is just, as we have these conversations, its really important that we get into the plans and figure out what states are actually doing. States may have submitted something to the federal government that may not have anything in it that they are going to do in their state. Because of the way the template played out and other things. The federal government is only asking for certain types of information from states. Their process and their plan may be bigger than what they submit to the federal government. I think its important for reporters to ask, what else besides the plan is going on in the state to improve schools. I will stop there. Thank you, chris. I would like to turn to liz and ask about what the change in this Administration Means for these plans. Obviously civil rights advocates have been a little bit concerned about President Trump and education secretary devos and how they will be looking at these plans and what level of scrutiny they will be giving these plans. There is sort of a concern out there that essentially the process will amount to a rubber stamp. We have yet to see how thats going to play out. Liz, i would love to hear from you a little bit about what is the Civil Rights Community looking for when youre going through these plans, and what are the concerns that you might have about how this administration will be scrutinizing them . One thing i would say off the bat, who you all are, a big thank you on behalf of marginalized skun marginalized communities. Investigative reporting right now is so important. There is a great piece in the Atlanta Journalconstitution about the qualifications and bound of Police Officers serving in schools so that the individuals charged with policing children really value that work. Thank you to all of you. Please keep going. On the sort of the esa implementation, our two biggest priorities are that the process itself is inclusive of Diverse Communities and that there are diverse parents and Community Stakeholders at the table when decisions are made and that, at each point in the process, that we drive towards equity. And so, thats what we are looking for. I think we are absolutely concerned about the review process coming from this administration. We keep hearing over and over a deference to states, even at times when states are violating federal law. I think we saw, for example, recently in the appropriations labor hhs House Appropriations hearing secretary devos was not willing to commit to federal dollars would not be used to discriminate against students. I think thats something we should all be concerned about. Using federal dollars to discriminate violates federal law and its the responsibility of the secretary of education to stop that. We have not gotten the assurances that we need that this administration will make sure that these esa plans are consistent with the law and the laws long standing intent to raise achievement for marginalized students. Weve seen some bright signs in plans being returned to states because they are insufficiently complete. Its not just that they are using a sufficient number of words but that the words in the plans are compliant with the law and describe a system of accountability which holds schools accountable not just for the performance of children on average but for the performance of each group of children. The purpose of this law is not just to raise educational quality overall but to address longstanding barriers to success faced by low income students, students of color, students with disabilities and insufficient learners. If thats not what theyve described, their plan should not be improved. We are concerned that we will not be able to count on secretary devos to do that job. Linda, from what youve seen so far by the plans that are out there, do you feel as though the states are delivering on the promise of ensuring equity . Are they being innovative in thinking about accountability differently . What are you seeing . Well, there is a whole gamut of approaches. The earliest filed plans are less ambitious in some ways in innovating, in some cases, than the ones that are still under construction. Partly because, you know, when you have more time you can think harder and do more modeling of different kinds of approaches. Thats not to say there are not some interesting innovations in some of the plans that have been filed, but i think there are more to come in the next batch. There are some places that are really picking up, just to pick up lizs equity theme, which is so important. That are taking up equity in really interesting ways. One of those is taking up the places, the kinds of indicators that typically discriminate between and among subgroups and have strong implications for whether kids will graduate and go on. For example, places like california are taking up an indicator of whether kids are suspended at differential rates and, just having had that in the state accountability system has reduced suspension rates quite a lot. School climate indicators are being looked at. Illinois is really taking that seriously, for one. If you look at that carefully. They can create a lot of information about how kids are being treated in school as well as giving School People information that will allow them to improve. Access to rich curriculum for all kids. A lot of schools are doing college and clear readiness. Course taking is a stronger predictor of success in college and beyond than test scores. Getting access, which has typically been unequally allocated to College Preparatory curriculum to advanced placement. Dualcredit courses to strong career Technical Education programs that meet a quality standard, those kinds of things. Getting to a place where 100 of kids are really prepared to go on in life would be a huge change in where we are as a nation. A lot of other countries have been way ahead of us in thinking about how to ensure that everyone is prepared to go on, and a number of states are looking at those kinds of things. New york is even looking at a diversity indicator which would look at the extent to which within a district students are together in schools and classrooms relative to their proportion in the district by race, by class, by special education and english learner status. So there are a lot of states that are taking up these questions in very interesting ways and looking for the equity nugget in the law, which we identified in a publication called equity in esa. There are ways by which you can highlight the School Funding differentials across districts, encourage weighted student formulas. They get more money to kids who need them the most. 50 districts are able to engage in pilots. Look at assignment practices to encourage integration. All of those things are baked in the law and are lurking there for states to pick them up and pursue them. Not all of the states are doing that, but some of them really are pursuing those strategies. Mike, i know that you have a few thoughts about how you feel states are doing in this respect. I have seen you write about how you feel they could be doing better when it comes to highachieving students. Where do you think there is room for improvement with what you are seeing, and is there a state that you think is being particularly innovative. Thank you, kcaitlin. If i knew cspan was coming i would have worn my flashy jacket. I look forward to the ewa. You love twitter. I love twitter. You love giving quotes, i love getting quotes. You are my favorite peeps. I hope somebody will ask linda about her son, who is the american Ninja Warrior superstar, who is a big name in our house. Competing june 19th in the National Thank you. In las vegas, which becomes my vacation. Especially when it comes to ratings, a few things i hope you ask when you look at your own states plan, first is whether or not it does a good job helping parents and taxpayers, regular man and woman on the street, understand if a given school is a good school or not. This law does provide more flexibility. It does not in the end say absolutely you have to provide one final rating. There are a few states, including california, most famously, that are going to provide a ton of data. And thats good. That data is a form of transparency. You all are going to be able to get access to that data and probably do some really cool stories with those data. And those data can be very helpful when schools, teachers, parents, administrators, sit down and try to understand how they can improve what theyre doing. But it doesnt provide a clear answer to the public or taxpayers, hey, is this school a good school or not. The f ratings or fivestar ratings are the most clear way to do that. If you have a rating in your state where its some kind of language and the rating is Something Like, you know, this school got a sufficient improvement rating. I hope you go after the state for suff like thtuff like that. Is it a good thing or a bad thing. Thats number one. By the way, if there is not a clear rating, this is something your newspapers could do something about. You could take the data youre getting from the states and build your own rating. In california, hey, california report. If the state of california is not willing to do this, you could construct your own ratings using state data. Come out and say, based on all this information are the schools doing a good job or not. The second thing i would look at is whether or not the ratings are differentiating between really good High Poverty Schools and really bad High Poverty Schools. In the no child left behind era we had a problem that every High Poverty School was labeled as a Failing School because so many indicators were strongly correlated with demographics and prior achievement because we looked at proficiency rates, Graduation Rates. If you are a high poverty high school and most of the kids come in three grade levels ahead, youre going to have low proficiency rates and the Graduation Rate may not be great either. If thats all the state is looking at, youre going to get a low rating. When you see the ratings come out, if not a single High Poverty School in your state gets a good rating, something has gone very wrong. You can model some of this right now and ask tough questions to the states. If you are a High Poverty School, you do a great job, and kids make progress under your care, is it possible to get an a . Is it possible to get five stars . If not, something is wrong with that system. Finally, what are the signals states are sending to the schools in terms of who matters. We have heard from liz and rightfully so, that we want to make sure the signal is that all kids matter, that we dont go back to the old days as chris said that you can do well on average and sweep others under the rug. We want to make sure kids across the achievement spectrum matter. Not just kids who need to catch up but also kids at the middle and the top. We want to send the message to all schools, its your job to help everybody in your school make as much progress as possible. We had a big problem under no child left behind that kids at the middle and at the top were not a priority. Because the standards were so low and all of the incentives were about getting kids to that proficient level. As a result schools learned, kids who are going to pass the test in september they were ready by the fall to pass the spring test you could ignore them and you would still do fine. And schools that were especially at risk of hitting these interventions had a particularly strong incentive. That meant, in High Poverty Schools, low income High Achievers were not a priority. We see that in the data. There has not been as much progress for those kids as there should be. Now states have a chance by moving especially to growth models, by looking at progress over time. By looking at progress for all kids they can send a message that the schools. Everybody matters. Ask those questions. What signals are they sending. Who matters . Do all kids matter . Are they prioritizing some over others . Who are the winners and losers in that system. We know that schools do tend to Pay Attention to those signals, we should take them seriously. We like colorados plan, at least on the ratings, quite a lot. Theyve gone out of their way to make sure the way they measure academic achievement sends the message tha