Education Week - June 12, 2013 - 1

EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 32, NO. 35 • JUNE 12, 2013
AMERICAN EDUCATION’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD • © 2013 Editorial Projects in Education • $4
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
Obama Plan
Champions
E-Rate Fixes
By Sean Cavanagh
President Barack Obama is calling
for an ambitious overhaul of the
federal E-rate program, a step that
many education and technology
advocates have been urging for
years to improve what they see as
schools’ badly out-of-date technological
capabilities.
The administration intends to ask
the Federal Communications Commission
to consider rechanneling
and increasing funding through the
program, which is derived from telecommunications
fees, with the goal
of giving 99 percent of the nation’s
schools access to high-speed broadband
and wireless Internet within
five years.
Mr. Obama’s plan, dubbed “Con-
nectED,” also calls for the U.S. Department
of Education to lead an effort,
using existing federal funding, to boost
teachers’ skills in using classroom
technology, widely regarded as a shortcoming
for many of today’s educators.
Senior administration officials, in a
briefing with reporters, did not offer a
firm estimate of the price tag for the
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States Seek
Flexibility
On Testing
Transition to Standards Looms
By Michele McNeil
& Catherine Gewertz
With the debut of common assessments
less than two years away, states and districts
are worried about the accountability
systems that hinge on those tests. A growing
chorus of policy groups is urging more
flexibility in how states evaluate teachers,
label schools, and enforce other high-stakes
consequences during what’s likely to be a
messy transition.
Position papers from a range of organizations
seek to stake out turf on the
delicate question of how to postpone or
temporarily ease some rules without
abandoning accountability, at a time
when the new, tougher assessments are
projected to send test scores—at least at
first—into a nose dive.
Whether those moves are coming too
late is an open question.
“I see this discussion at 30,000 feet about
whether the common core is good or not
good. But what I don’t see is the kind of
work that makes for good transitional
policy,” said Sandy Kress, an Austin, Texas,
lawyer and former education aide to President
George W. Bush who helped write the
federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Mr. Kress, who has worked on accountPAGE
35>
FOCUS ON: SCHOOL LEADERS
Chicago Initiative
Aims to Upgrade
Principal Pipeline
By Lesli A. Maxwell
Even with nearly 50 schools shutting
down at the end of this month, Chicago
education officials have been barreling
ahead with plans to groom a large crop
of high-performing principals that they
say represents the most ambitious effort
the city has undertaken to upgrade
its school leadership ranks.
The goal, said Chicago schools CEO
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, is to install
some 300 leaders in the system’s
600-plus schools by the start of the
2014-15 academic year who meet
more-rigorous eligibility criteria and
demonstrate the skills that district
leaders believe are essential to turning
around chronically underperforming
schools.
The initiative also involves a new
principal-evaluation system, bonus
pay for principals who meet district
performance goals, and the use of outside
coaches to help promising current
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COMMON CORE: A STEEP CLIMB
THIRD OF FOUR PARTS
Year-End Exams Add Urgency to Teaching
By Catherine Gewertz
Washington
Returning from spring vacation, Dowan
McNair-Lee’s students find their desks in
neat rows, facing forward. For the previous
seven months, the 8th graders had sat in clusters,
facing one another, to facilitate discussion.
But janitors used the break to ready the
classroom for the year-end tests that are only
two weeks away.
The new arrangement is the backdrop for a
changed tone in the classroom as well. All year
long, Ms. McNair-Lee, an English/language
arts teacher at Stuart-Hobson Middle School
here, has been doing what millions of teachers
across the country are doing: trying to help
her students master the common standards,
which all but four states have adopted.
The District of Columbia school system has
chosen an aggressive and comprehensive approach
to implementing the standards, making
major investments in resources and professional
development. But like most districts, it
faces many challenges as it tries to turn its vision
into changed practice in the classroom.
Now, with her calendar and her clock as constant
reminders, Ms. McNair-Lee takes her
students on a final, headlong dive into a review
unit to bolster their skills. On this sunny April
day, connotation and denotation are the focus
of the lesson.
Ms. McNair-Lee displays the words “home,”
“house,” “residence,” and “dwelling” on the
big board up front. From the class, she’s tryPAGE
26>
UNDER PRESSURE: Keith Look, the principal of the Academy @ Shawnee, slaps hands with
a student at the end of the school day. Intensive efforts to turn around the Louisville, Ky.,
high school have not yet yielded the needed results. PAGE 12
Questions Arise
About Algebra 2
For All Students
By Erik W. Robelen
Should all students take Algebra 2?
Florida seemed to say “no” this spring
with the passage of a law striking it from
graduation requirements. Texas lawmakers
said much the same in a bill awaiting
action by the governor that also backs
away from Algebra 2 for all.
Those steps come as the Common Core
State Standards for math set the expectation
that all students should meet learning
objectives at what’s generally considered
the Algebra 2 level.
The new standards would represent a
big shift. About one-quarter of high school
students never take the course (or its
equivalent), based on recent federal data.
Also, some math educators say their Algebra
2 courses are about to get tougher as
they align with the common core.
Success in Algebra 2 is often touted as
a critical gateway to college and career
readiness, but some question that view.
During Florida’s legislative debate, state
Sen. Aaron Bean said some students, if
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Education Week - June 12, 2013

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