This is a good news story about a state commissioner of education who stood up and said, with quiet determination, that the emperor has no clothes.
That state commissioner is Rebecca Holcombe of Vermont. She wrote a clear and eloquent letter to the parents and caregivers of Vermont, explaining the punitive and incoherent nature of federal education policy, which (under NCLB) requires that every single school in Vermont be labeled low-performing, even though many national and international measures show that Vermont is a high-performing state. She explained that Vermont refused to apply for a waiver from NCLB offered by Secretary Duncan because it would have forced the state to evaluate teachers by their students’ test scores, which is unreliable and unfair to teachers and students.
Commissioner Holcombe wrote that Vermont believes that schools have purposes that are no less important (and perhaps more important) than test scores.
For her thoughtfulness, her integrity, her devotion to children, her understanding of the broad aims of education, and her courage in standing firm against ruinous federal policies, Rebecca Holcombe is a hero of American education. Most people go along with the crowd, even when doing so violates their sense of personal and professional ethics. Not Commissioner Holcombe. If our nation had more state commissioners like her, it would save our children from a mindless culture of test and punish that the federal department of education has imposed on them and our nation’s schools.
This is the letter that State Commissioner Holcombe wrote to every parent and caregiver in Vermont:
“Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), as of 2014, if only one child in your school does not score as “proficient” on state tests, then your school must be “identified” as “low performing” under federal law. This year, every school whose students took the NECAP tests last year is now considered a “low performing” school by the US Department of Education. A small group of schools were not affected by this policy this year because they helped pilot the new state assessment and so did not take the NECAPs last year. Because these schools had their federal AYP status frozen at 2013 levels, eight schools are not yet identified as low performing by federal criteria. However, had these school taken the NECAPs as well, it is likely that every single school in the state would have to be classified as “low performing” according to federal guidelines.
“The Vermont Agency of Education does not agree with this federal policy, nor do we agree that all of our schools are low performing.
In 2013, the federal Education Department released a study comparing the performance of US states to the 47 countries that participated in the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, one of the two large international comparative assessments. Vermont ranked 7th in the world in eighth-grade mathematics and 4th in science. Only Massachusetts, which has a comparable child poverty rate, did better.
“On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Vermont consistently ranks at the highest levels. We have the best graduation rate in the nation and are ranked second in child well-being.
“Just this week, a social media company that compares financial products (WalletHub) analyzed twelve different quality metrics and ranked Vermont’s school system third in the nation in terms school performance and outcomes.
“Nevertheless, if we fail to announce that each Vermont school is “low performing,” we jeopardize federal funding for elementary and secondary education. The “low performing” label brings with it a number of mandatory sanctions, which your principal is required to explain to you. This policy does not serve the interest of Vermont schools, nor does it advance our economic or social well-being. Further, it takes our focus away from other measures that give us more meaningful and useful data on school effectiveness.
“It is not realistic to expect every single tested child in every school to score as proficient. Some of our students are very capable, but may have unique learning needs that make it difficult for them to accurately demonstrate their strengths on a standardized test. Some of our children survived traumatic events that preclude good performance on the test when it is administered. Some of our students recently arrived from other countries, and have many valuable talents but may not yet have a good grasp of the academic English used on our assessments. And, some of our students are just kids who for whatever reason are not interested in demonstrating their best work on a standardized test on a given day.
“We know that statewide, our biggest challenge is finding better ways to engage and support the learning of children living in poverty. Our students from families with means and parents with more education, consistently are among the top performing in the country. However, federal NCLB policy has not helped our schools improve learning or narrow the gaps we see in our data between children living in poverty and children from more affluent families. We need a different approach that actually works.”
What are the alternatives? Most other states have received a waiver to get out from under the broken NCLB policy. They did this by agreeing to evaluate their teachers and principals based on the standardized test scores of their students. Vermont is one of only 5 states that do not have a waiver at this time. We chose not to agree to a waiver for a lot of reasons, including that the research we have read on evaluating teachers based on test scores suggests these methods are unreliable in classes with 15 or fewer students, and this represents about 40-50% of our classes. It would be unfair to our students to automatically fire their educators based on technically inadequate tools. Also, there is evidence suggesting that over-relying on test-based evaluation might fail to credit educators for doing things we actually want them to do, such as teach a rich curriculum across all important subject areas, and not just math and English language arts. In fact, nation-wide, we expect more and more states to give up these waivers for many of the reasons we chose not to pursue one in the first place.
Like other Vermont educators, I am deeply committed to continuously improving our schools and the professional skill of our teachers. I have heard from principals and teachers across the state who are deeply committed to developing better ways of teaching and working with parents and other organizations to ensure that every child’s basic needs are met. If basic needs are not met, children cannot take advantage of opportunities that we provide in school. However, the federal law narrows our vision of schools and what we should be about. Ironically, the only way a school could pass the NCLB criteria would be to leave some children behind – to exclude some of the students who come to our doors. That is something public schools in Vermont will not do.
Matching Our Measures to Our Purpose
Certainly, we know tests are an important part of our tool kit, but they do not capture everything that is important for our children to learn. With this in mind, our State Board of Education clearly outlined five additional education priorities in our new Education Quality Standards, including scientific inquiry, citizenship, physical health and wellness, artistic expression and 21st century transferable skills.
As parents and caregivers, we embrace a broader vision for our children than that defined in federal policy. Thus, we encourage you to look at your own child’s individual growth and learning, along with evidence your school has provided related to your child’s progress. Below are some questions to consider:
• What evidence does your school provide of your child’s growing proficiency?
• Is your child developing the skills and understanding she needs to thrive in school and
the community?
• Are graduates of your school system prepared to succeed in college and/or careers?
• Is your child happy to go to school and engaged in learning?
• Can your child explain what he is learning and why? Can your child give examples of
skills he has mastered?
• Is your child developing good work habits? Does she understand that practice leads to
better performance?
• Does your child feel his work in school is related to his college and career goals?
• Does your child have one adult at the school whom she trusts and who is committed to
her success?
• If you have concerns, have you reached out to your child’s teacher to share your
perspective?
Be engaged with your school, look at evidence of your own child’s learning, and work with your local educators to ensure that every child is challenged and supported, learning and thriving. Schools prosper when parents are involved as the first teachers of their children.
The State’s Obligation to Our Children
Working with the Governor, the State Board, the General Assembly and other agencies, and most importantly, with educators across the state, the Agency of Education will invite schools across the state to come together to innovate and improve our schools. We hope your school will volunteer to help develop and use a variety of other measures that will give parents, citizens and educators better information on student learning and what we can do to personalize and make it better. These measures include:
• collaborative school visits by teams of peers, to support research, professional learning and sharing of innovative ideas,
• personalization of learning through projects and performance assessments of proficiency,
• gathering and sharing of feedback from teachers, parents and students related to school climate and culture, student engagement and opportunities for self-directed learning,
• providing teachers and administrators standards-based feedback on the effectiveness of their instruction,
• developing personalized learning plans that involve students in defining how they will demonstrate they are ready to graduate, and basing graduation on these personalized assessments of proficiency rather than “seat-time”,
• analyzing growth and improvement at the Supervisory level as well as the school level, to identify systems that seem to be fostering greater growth in students, as a way of identifying and sharing promising practices across schools.
Vermont has a proud and distinguished educational history, but we know we can always do better. We are committed to supporting our schools as they find more effective and more engaging ways to improve the skills and knowledge of our children. As we have done before, we intend to draw on the tremendous professional capability of teachers across the state as we work to continuously improve our schools. Our strength has always been our ingenuity and persistence. In spite of federal policies that poorly fit the unique nature of Vermont, let’s continue to work together to build great schools that prepare our children to be productive citizens and contributors to our society
Brava.
I wish NC had this story.
I wish June would do this too!
Commissioner Holcombe is a role model for aspiring school leaders, displaying the courage, integrity, and wisdom that should be at the heart of leadership. I will share her letter with my graduate students.
I think the most interesting of these proposed changes is the personalization of graduation requirements. With the right set of requirements I would imagine a student might be able to graduate from high school at a very young age, perhaps even after only a year or two in high school as Vermont moves away from using “seat time ” as the criteria for graduation.
In many places students do graduate early, or take college classes early. Even in “ancient times” I was able to take college classes at 16 years old. In NC students can take college classes while in high school during their junior and senior year. We have discussed this before TE 🙂
Janna,
Indeed that is true, but in my state at least graduation requires four units of English and attending college requires families pay tuition for the classes.
I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it opens the door to having more students graduate from high school at much younger ages, perhaps as young as 13 and 14. What to do with those students will be interesting. Second, the customization of graduation requirements will devalue high school graduation as a signal of academic achievement to potential employers and downstream educators, though perhaps it has already lost much of its meaning.
Depends on the meaning of a diploma. Are you saying it is merely the certification of pre-employment tests? Diplomas mean different things to students, parents, colleges, employers, and military. I have no trouble with graduation requirements being customized per student. It might force stakeholders to look beyond diplomas as a simple measure and actually look AT the student as an individual.
I see no reason secondary teachers cannot also offer college credit within the high schools other than current arbitrary restrictions. Post-secondary struggles with pedagogy and tends to simply adopt a “sink or swim” approach. There are many secondary teachers who, even with the lack of a Masters or PhD, could do a better job than some of the tenured professors teaching the student and not the subject. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some great professors and adjuncts. But learning involves social aspects as well. As a freshman, I was placed in senior high school math. Not a good idea.
MathVale,
I agree that diplomas mean different things to different people, but my post was more about how diplomas would mean different things to the same person. Graduates from school X might well have wide ranging abilities in arithmetic or reading comprehension, so that even a basic understanding what a student can do will require a much more detailed accounting than simply graduating from high school.
If a school offers AP classes, high school teachers currently teach classes that can carry college credit, so there is nothing new there. These classes though are usually limited to lower division (freshman/sophomore) classes.
Students have to be in school until age 16 by law. Personalization may mean some flexibility for students, especially the non-college bound who may want to apprentice to learn a trade, instead of taking calculus or Advanced Lit. Could also mean distance-learning via online classes. or taking some college courses while still in late high school, “…..a broader vision for our children than that defined in federal policy”.
Remember, VT. already has the highest graduation rate in the nation as well as the highest per pupil expenditure in the nation ($19,750) VT is smart, and this is good, responsive thinking on the part of their state ed people in response to meeting the needs of every student and to making education relevant to every student.
I think that the requirement that students must be “in school” until a certain age (The age differs from state to state, between 16 and 18, but I assume that there is a waiver for those who graduate from high school earlier) is another version of “seat time” and might well have to change if this vision is to be implemented.
I think it is likely that more distance learning classes and college courses while in high school, but at this point those classes do not count towards
I salute Commissioner Holcombe. I also compare her to the shameful lickspittle we have here in Florida, the woman who made the outrageous claim that the mother of a dead child who sought to end cruel testing of sick children of being a political operative. The woman who defends Jeb Bush’s idiocy and testing above all things including the needs of children and parents.
Would that we could have sane and decent people like Holcombe in every state!
It is great.
I love “we do not agree that all our schools are low-performing”
It’s clear how idiotic this measure is when it’s stated simply like that.
Meanwhile further south, NC comes up with an innovative way to cut funding for public schools:
“A little-noticed addition to the state budget may have far-reaching consequences for education spending.
As future budgets are constructed, the state will no longer automatically pay for growth in public school enrollment.
It’s a major policy change that was added to the compromise budget that was passed in the waning days of the session without debate. Two leading House Republicans said they learned of the provision after they voted for the budget.
Removing the enrollment estimate, called average daily membership, or ADM, from the baseline budget is a way for budget writers to ignore those formulas that determine class size, Democrats contend.”
There’s only one lawmaker who admits knowing it was in there when the budget passed.
Never a good sign, when they deny reading the budget! 🙂
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/08/06/4055278/future-nc-budgets-wont-automatically.html#storylink=cpy
Bravo commissioner!
I need to move to Vermont: this letter says it ALL.
But right now I am in Texas, with a commissioner who asked my superintendent to volunteer my district from a VAM based evaluation pilot program, so that I can be judged even more harshly than my other fellow Texas teachers, so that my superintendent can climb the corporate ladder.
And our commissioner goes against the school boards recommendations and gives permission to a religious charter school that is underperforming to set up shop in the town next door.
My sup and my commissioner are so dishonorable.
Texas has a rich and lengthy tradition of hiring for vacant science teacher positions those who can coach a money sport and who have degrees in history.
Dormand,
Would someone from TFA who had majored in Physics at Cal Tech be a better choice for the students than the history major who is really a football coach?
teachingeconomist,
Speaking as that hypothetical Caltech graduate (who actually went to teaching school) I’d rather have a colleague who knew science and had to be taught good teaching than someone who neither knows the subject nor how to teach (but is a good coach). At least the physics major will know all the traditional labs and demos to do and will have the confidence to know the history of her subject, can answer questions, etc. I dislike TFA as an organization, but the one area where I think they can still do good is funneling well-educated graduates in science and math into hard-to-staff subject areas. (Wasn’t that one of their original purposes?) Heck, I work at one of those hard to staff schools and we have a vacant bio position and one week to fill it, for the second year in a row. You know what would be awesome? Having someone there who knew biology so we wouldn’t have a string of short-term subs.
I love this letter, and the fact that Vermont had the courage to just say “No” to federal/corporate control of its public schools. Very inspiring! I hope more states will do the same.
I would love to see Rebecca Holcombe replace Arne Duncan. Imagine, a real educator who actually knows something about educating children, making common sense decisions for schools across the country.
Bravo to Rebecca Holcombe for her courage and integrity.
Yes! Rebecca Holcombe decisions were based on what is best for her students and teachers.
Yes, but the only way that could happen is if Rebecca Holcombe essentially became Arne Duncan. Duncan isn’t really the problem – he’s just doing the job his boss hired him to do.
While the population of Vermont may not be comparable to the general student population, I would like to see scientific studies of how well Vermont student do on college testing of preparedness to see if they are adequately educated to be able to take regular college courses.
In my opinion, we have spent tens of billions on an absolute farce in using the high stakes standardized testing as a measure of adequacy of learning.
Those memorized segments picked up from the destructive teaching to the test are quickly forgotten.
Until we have education which is based upon evaluation of the current environment, then
making critical assessments, analyzing the key results areas and then clearly communicating the results, we are wasting students’ time.
I suggest that it is not worthwhile to continue our current unsustainable path.
Washington state should issue the same letter after the denial of their waiver.
Half of the classes in the state have 15 students or fewer? Wow! That would be amazing. I know it’s partly because of the rural nature of the state, but I think it also speaks to the level of support Vermont has for education. In Utah’s small towns, the kids are often bused an hour or more away to a more consolidated school which has, you guessed it, large class sizes. My sister lives in a small town and her boys have to ride 45 minutes on a bus one way to get to a school three towns over, even though the school district owns land in her town, and has for years, that would allow most kids in that town to walk to school.
As I was tweeting this story around, I realized that HoPE is the acronym for Hero of Public Education. Vermont is modeling for us a step towards hope for our own states; we need heroes to spit back our waivers and RttT prizes.
We need a hero legislator here in Massachusetts to introduce a bill to repeal of the Education Reform Act of January, 2010.
Here’s hoping that we can continue providing an excellent education for Vermont children! Too many political leaders are looking for ways to cut “run away” school spending, insisting that our per pupil cost is too high. We must continue to fight to get the federal government and their corporate cronies OUT of the classroom.
With respect to Teaching Economist, your candidate from CalTech with TFA credentials might not be as good for the football team, which anticipates having a promising season.
Those six hour lab sessions he endured throughout undergraduate are not quite as important to our superintendent as the guy who can coach with the history degree showed up wearing a polo shirt from the superintendent’s alma mater.
Your candidate will probably be the runner-up, though, if that makes you feel better. We do have our standards to maintain, as it is Texas, remember, home of Rick Perry.
While some states rely upon elite cadres of professors who teach the subject to select the textbooks used by teachers and students, we find that to be a bit irrational.
Until recently, every single one of our public school textbooks mandated by the State of Texas was selected by our very own bureaucrats, each of whom ran for office to insure that his/her personal bias is represented throughout the state in the textbooks.
Yes, our high school diploma holders do get to learn the meaning of the obscure term
“developmental course” when they get to college.
OOPS!!!
Dormand,
I am, of course, concerned with the students in the class, less so with the fate of the football team. The officials of the public school might have different opinions. Perhaps the students that are more concerned with science than winning the league could find an alternative class or school.
But our Superintendent and our School Board are blessed with the vision of myopia.
Look at all those pages of ads of jobs for football players, who might have been led astray had they taken an interest in science. Are there many jobs in that area?
The mantra in Texas is local control of our schools. We want to build the biggest, the baddest football stadiums in the country.
So what if virtually all of our students get shunted into development classes when they proudly present their ornately engraved high school diplomas at colleges.
We have local control of education. And the biggest, baddest football stadiums in the country. Some are showing a few cracks, however.
Folding clothes at the mall is not that bad. It is in out of the weather. Our schools focus on really preparing the students to shine at their jobs at the mall, but that is only after they earn their college degrees.
Rick Perry invented the $10,000 college degree and it is being perfected here in Texas.
Dormand,
Local control is also the mantra on this blog. Perhaps many who post here are high school sports fans.
My heartfelt congratulations on the brightest Vermont State Commissioner of Education, Dr. Holcombe, a Hero of American Public Education. Please keep fighting for the unfortunates, and set the excellent model as an example to other States of America.
All rich and/or famous business people should not be awarded the title in doctorate degree. However, all educators who have made better lives to many pupils for inspiring the pure joy of learning, teaching, and cultivating in humanity, are entitled to be addressed as Dr. in my idea. God has answered to many desperate educators in America. May from Canada.
Thank you for mentioning Rebecca Holcombe and Vermont. I think we should be a model for other states to emulate or at least study.