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COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
3:00 p.m. – 4:04 p.m.
Remote CART Captioning
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) captioning is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
This transcript is being provided in rough-draft format.
> Denise Marshall: Welcome, everybody. We have about two more minutes before we get started.
Okay. It's 3:00so I will go ahead and get started. Welcome, everybody. This is Denise Marshall. I'm the executive director of COPAA, and I'm pleased to welcome you to the overview of Every Student Succeeds Act or the ESSA, which I recently heard somebody call essa, which I had not heard before. But we're very pleased to be able to offer this as a member service and to have as our guest our government relations policy consultant, Laura Kaloi, who is with the Washington Partners.
Laura has been working with COPAA for, I would say, about the past year and a half, close to two years. And she is currently the vicepresident of policy and development at Washington Partners and her policy and advocacy experience really spins a range of age as well as issues. She was a colleague of ours in the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities for many years and has worked on issues for students with disabilities for quite some time.
Laura has helped to shape the reauthorizations of every major education law since 2000 and might have been at least close to that time I'm kidding, I'm expanding a little. But it's been a number of years since we've had a major legislation make it all the way through and become law. So quite an interesting year from that perspective.
But Laura has be ably and expertly helped us expand our voice and have an opportunity to really be involved in many aspects of this law. And while I know Laura would be the first to say and we completely agree that it is of course not a perfect law and there were many things that we would have liked to have different. Our voice was powerful, and we were able to have an impact in quite unique ways which I know Laura will get into.
Again, please join me in welcoming Laura.
And I will turn it over to you at this point.
> Laura Kaloi: Thanks, Denise. I appreciate that introduction and I'm so happy to be working with COPAA. It's just one of the highlights of my career and the work that I do so thank you for the opportunity.
I hope we can have a little bit of a discussion today. I see there are about 15 people with us and many more will join as we go along. I hope we'll open this up in a few minutes and be able to have some discussion around some of the big bright lines of the law and some of the details around students with disabilities.
So Denise and I were able to attend the signing in December. And things are moving quickly. We're going to talk a little bit about what that timing looks like. But just to back up and remind you of some of the major changes, I've provided some slides here that will just go through some of the major changes and dig into the weeds of some of the major provision that is affect students with disabilities and their families.
I think the most important take away here is that the big and I'm sure you have heard by now the new ESSA does reduce significantly reduces the federal role in title Ilaw and we'll talk about what that means and what we think it means (chuckles). Of course, it will all play out. But a little bit about some of the details around that, too.
I will not go through the slide but I wanted you to have it in your packet of information just so you could see side by side what No Child Left Behind looks like in terms of the big titles of the law compared to the law Every Student Succeeds Act. This is, basically, just a lineup of the titles and some of the condensing that was done. And they did move a few things around. That's an outline of the title.
Today we'll focus on title I. I will talk a little bit about title IIbecause that affects teacher development and we will mention a few other cats and dogs but mainly we're going to focus on title I today and some of the definitions that are part of the law.
Okay. So the Every Student Succeeds Act I'm just going to say ESSA. I can't say that too many times today, ESEA at a glance or ESEA because it was the reauthorized law that was put into law at 1965, the new ESSA does maintain the basic architecture of standardsbased reform through No Child Left Behind. So there are still annual requirements to assess students in reading and math annually in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school and assess in science once in three grade bands. So once in grades 3 through 5, once in grades 6 through 8, and once in high school in science.
States must have challenging academic standards. We will talk a little bit about that. They have to make annual accountability determinations for all of their schools, but they do get to, basically, design their own accountability system with some bright lines. They have to intervene in the lowestperforming scores. And I'm going to talk more about this, too.
And they still are required to disaggregate the data on which the accountability decisions will be made by the four student subgroups that were established through No Child Left Behind which are poor students, students with disabilities, minority students, and English learners.
Just a quick overview of some of the major things that were eliminated and things that were added in this new law. There's no Title I portability and no vouchers. I'm sure you paid attention a little bit to the public debate around this. But there was a lot of interest by Republicans to include portability of funds and to allow perhaps vouchers to be used for students to be able to have more school choice. But that was did not end up in the final law.
What was known as AYP, adequate yearly progress, is now gone as are the highly qualified teacher definition and requirements in the law.
New is the provision that COPAA was very interested in and excited about because it's the first major foothold in federal law related to seclusion and restraints. So now state Title I plans have to include how they're going to support districts in reducing bullying, overuse of disciplinary practices such as harassment sorry, bullying, harassment, overuse of disciplinary practices and use of aversives. We were able to secure and worked with Congress.
The conference report that accompanies the bill says that the word "aversive" actually means seclusion and restraint. There is a brandnew provision where Title I plans actually have to address this issue.
New to the law also are charter provisions where they explicitly state that charters have to equitable recruit, enroll, and retain students with disabilities. The disability community worked very hard on a charter law that was passed in both the House and the Senate and was inserted into and replaced the charter provisions in the ESSA.
Something that has been highly controversial and COPAA has opposed this was a pay for success initiative. It's in there in Title I and also in Title IV.
And Title IIfunds don't mean much for those that don't deal with the funding issue. So you are aware at a state level, states have flexibility to decide what for do with those particular pots of money. If they decided, for instance, they wanted to use all of it toward allowable uses for professional development, they could or they could use some of it for safe and healthy schools, grant programs, etcetera. But they really have some flexibility now around two big titles of the law and the money that the states receive for those programs.
The new literacy program is another place that the disability community has worked with Senator Murray. She has been the leader on what's called the LEARN act. This is an act where states can focus for literacy on any population of students who are struggling to read. This is their way to infuse money into their reading programs. There's a new comprehensive center that's required to be funded. This is a center for students not achieving full literacy due to disability including dyslexia. If you remember, the Senator from Louisiana was very active on this issue. And this was in the final bill.
There's a new early ed program. And I just made a note here, the law does significantly decrease secretarial authority.
This is it. Just quickly I wanted to make one note on this slide. There's no longer this focus on college and career readiness. Although there is language in the law that says that states must have standards that are aligned to the entrance requirements for their higher education, that does not require remediation. The terms "college and career ready" do not show up in the law. And so there was this big push, you know, different terminology became words that used to be in are now out. "College and career ready" are now out if you care about that. (chuckles).
There is an expansion this is the secondtolast bullet to support early learning. School climate and safety is a big focus in this law. Understanding disciplinary practices the climate of the school has a lot to do with the success of the students. So the law has a focus on that.
And then just one note here, the bottom bullet, this is where the big change is related to federal oversight. There's no longer a requirement for specific turnaround models or specific interventions that are required by the federal government. States get to decide what to do to intervene when students aren't doing well.
Okay. I'm not going to focus on this, but I wanted you to have some information about what the dates are in the law about transition and what's supposed to happen next. The most important thing here is if you are likely living in a state that has a waiver under No Child Left Behind it's called an ESEA waiver those are void in August. States will be given a year to transition into the new law and then the new law becomes effective in the 20172018 school year. So those are the big takeaways. If you want more detail, you can always email me. But those are the broadbrush strokes.
Again, more on the dates here around funding and when other things take place because of the way the funds flow from the federal government to the states.
Okay. Let's start here with standards. I mentioned that states still must have standards. They're supposed to adopt challenging standards in reading and math. And these the requirements that are given by the federal government. Again, the federal government does not approve state standards. And so essentially they just have to show that they are able to accomplish this, but secretaries does not approve state plans and approve one standard over another. States really have full authority over their standards.
The standards must apply to all public schools and to all children. They must align, like I said, with the higher ed entrance requirements. They must align with the relevant state career and tech ed standards. You have to adopt language proficiency standards for your English learners. And you have to allow for alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.
And so really there's nothing new here except for some terminology. And the newest thing is that they did make it explicit that you have to have relevant career that your standards need to align to career and tech ed. That's new and career tech ed is a new focus in this law as well, aligned with what's called the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. It was passed a year ago for employment training. There's an effort in this law to have those laws be in alignment with states being able to think through the transition from high school into career and postsecondary education.
Okay. On assessment, this is where COPAA did a ton of work. And as you know, states are required to assess all students. They actually have to assess no less than 95% of students. That's the actual number they are meant to assess. They have the ability to provide a general assessment and an alternate assessment on alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.
And the new change here and this is where we worked really hard with the disability community and also in concert with the business and civil rights community to shift the 1% regulation, which is the regulation that impacts the alternate assessment and the use of the scores of those students taking that assessment. The new law now caps and uses a 1% cap on the actual number of students that participate in that assessment in both reading and math.
This is a big shift away from current policy. States most states haven't been exceeding 1%, but they certainly didn't want to be held to a specific number. There is a (inaudible) at the district level. If the district needs to make a case to the state about why they need to exceed 1% of all students making this cement remember, that 1% actually works out to be about 10% of the student population of students with disabilities. So the district can make the case to the state, but the state has to stay within that 1% number of all students assessed they are allowed to seek waivers which current law is also allowed. And we are asking on regulation that it be made very clear what a waiver would look like. I expect for us to have a little bit of a discussion around this. But those are kind of the broad issues there.
And computer adaptive assessment is another new piece of the law. If you live in a state with smarter balance assessment, it's a computer adaptive assessment, so the items can shift above and below grade level. That's what a computer adaptive assessment is. And this law allows states to give those adaptive assessments. One of the things we did is try to make sure that those out of level items and when you're testing students to kind of see where they are, that for accountability purposes, we still need to know how the student is testing on grade level and that you wouldn't be able to use a (inaudible) for accountability purposes for a student.
Big issue this year were these optout laws that states have adopted. COPAA tried to stay out of the discussion around whether states should have optout laws because that is, of course, a parent community and a states' right to determine if they want the optout laws. So this law does, basically, say to a state, you can have optout laws, that's fine, but you're still required to test at no less than 95% of your students and 95% of each of your subgroups.
And there was a strong push from the civil rights community to maintain this which COPAA supported because of the importance to have and understand at the school and district level in particular how student groups are doing and if large numbers of them are opted out or there's an incentive to allow students to be kept home, for instance, which is what used to happen before No Child Left Behind. Students with disabilities were just invited to stay home on test day. We don't have a true picture of what's happening at the school level and at the district level for groups of students that we care about.
I've gone through most of this slide already. I think the most important there are two other important things to point out here toward the bottom of the slide. We worked really hard to put some new language in the law in addition to this 1% cap which is so important. There's some really important language now that you need to know about related to involving students and having a requirement in the law that says that students are involved in making progress in the general curriculum, that assessments are developed using the principles of UDL, universal design learning. And it specifically states if you choose and parents are informed and understand the decision around their student taking the alternate assessment, that this decision does not preclude the student from attempting to complete a regular high school diploma. We view this as a big (inaudible) in we know many students get trapped into the alternate assessment and when parents understand that perhaps this moves them out of the general classroom, they are in a contained setting, they no longer have access to the credits and classes that will give them credit to a regular diploma, that the general assessment becomes difficult or the school just says no.