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Major Education Associations Call for Rigorous and Fair School Accountability Systems

07/29/2010

WASHINGTON – Today, the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 16 national education associations representing over ten million parents, educators and policymakers, released the following statement:

The Learning First Alliance supports the goal of rigorous and fair accountability systems for schools and districts. These accountability systems should accurately measure student and school performance and support continuous improvement of schools. Therefore, we recommend that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act promote improved accountability systems that:

  • Include measures of student growth.
  • Require the use of multiple sources of evidence of student achievement (such as writing samples, portfolios and capstone projects) and school performance that more fully determine student and school progress than do standardized assessments alone.
  • Reward progress and provide intensive support to struggling schools rather than automatically and systematically punishing shortcomings.
  • Promote interventions that are based on the best available research or evidence, including locally designed interventions that are research based.
  • Distinguish between school performance categories. The most comprehensive interventions should be directed to the schools most in need of improvement. More targeted interventions should be available for the lowest performing students or subgroups in a school or district. These interventions should be positive supports developed locally and based on the specific improvement needs and capacity of the school and community in question.
  • Focus on building capacity for immediate and sustained improvement.
  • Target interventions to the precise problems of a particular school, barring sanctions that apply all-or-nothing measures such as the arbitrary replacement or reassignment of staff and forced alternative governance, unless a review of specific improvement needs warrants such steps and local capacity supports them.
  • Acknowledge shared accountability for student success. Teachers, administrators, other school and district staff, parents, policy makers, community members, lawmakers, states and the federal government all share responsibility for ensuring that all children have excellent, equitable educational opportunities.

Major Education Associations Urge Swift Action to Pass Education Jobs Fund
07/15/2010

Today, the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 17 national education associations representing over ten million parents, educators and policymakers, released the following statement:

“The Learning First Alliance strongly supports efforts to provide $10 billion in federal aid to prevent imminent layoffs of teachers, principals and other school staff. The importance of these funds at this critical time cannot be overstated. Massive layoffs of school and district staff could have grave long-term consequences for our nation’s children, who are already facing growing class sizes, shrinking curricula and the loss of essential services.

Job cuts in our public schools and school districts threaten our long-term economic future, which depends on our ability to prepare all students for college and careers. The prospect of job losses running into the hundreds of thousands also poses a serious and immediate threat to our fragile economic recovery.

We call on the Senate to work quickly to address this crisis facing our nation’s classrooms. Because some have concerns with the education offsets in the House-passed Supplemental, we urge the Senate to work with the House and the Administration to craft a package that can garner the needed votes for swift passage of a Supplemental Appropriations Bill that includes the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund.”

Major Education Associations Reaffirm Importance of Stable and Reliable Title I Funding
07/09/2010

Today, the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 17 national education associations representing over ten million parents, educators and policymakers, released the following statement:

"Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is a critical tool in the nation’s efforts to promote equity in education. It remains the only national mechanism for addressing the widespread state and local funding inequities that put low-income children at a severe disadvantage and call into question our nation’s commitment to equal opportunity.

While it does not fully fill these funding gaps, stable and reliable formula-driven Title I funds are a vital resource for school districts working to improve the lives of their most vulnerable students. Those funds are becoming all the more critical as states and districts face their worst budget shortfalls in decades. Competitive federal funds to support reform and innovation are critical, but they should always remain entirely separate from Title I funds.

The federal government should make an unyielding commitment to the fundamental goals of Title I. No district, school or student should ever have to worry about the reliability of Title I support."

Partnership of Major Education Associations Calls for Better Assessment Systems
06/29/2010

Today, the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 17 national education associations representing over ten million parents, educators and policymakers, released the following statement:

“The Learning First Alliance calls for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to promote improved assessment systems that better capture whether students are gaining the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the 21st century. We believe reauthorization should support assessment systems that are designed to improve instruction and that:

  • Use multiple sources to show evidence of student learning. These sources should reflect both progress towards and mastery of the skills and knowledge students need to be successful in the 21st century. In addition to test scores, measures can include writing samples, performance assessments, portfolios and capstone projects.
  • Promote a broad curriculum that exposes students at all levels not only to reading and math but also to history, civics, science, the arts, world language, career and technical education and other important content areas.
  • Use universal design principles to ensure that all students, including English language learners and students with disabilities, are fully and appropriately included in the assessment system.
  • Include a formative assessment component and provide feedback on all assessments in a timely manner so educators may use results to inform instruction, guide and evaluate investments in professional development, and respond to students’ academic needs.
  • Ensure that educators have access to professional development that supports their understanding and use of data.”