Vermont School Boards Association April 2010

Essay on a Tier 1 School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Free Workshop and DVD Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Vt Among Top Performers on National Reading . . .19

ENERGY continued on page 3

The VSBA’s website – www.vtvsba.org – has received a makeover over the last several weeks. The new look is not only cleaner and more modern, it should allow our members to more easily access our expanding array of online services and information. Check it out!

As more and more communications and information services are moving to the web the VSBA is striving to keep pace. We understand that our website will be a key link between local school directors and the Association. In the last several years, we have added streaming professional development videos, updated our model policies, cleaned up our negotiations data for collective bargaining, and added many new resource materials. Please let us know what you think of the site; we are always looking for suggestions to make it more useful and user-friendly.

A special thanks goes out to the VSBA’s offi ce manager, Kerri Lamb, and her ever-expanding tech wizardry that lead to the fresh website redesign.

The combination of reduced construc-tion costs, the availability of zero inter-est money from an ARRA supported loan program, and three new programs from Effi ciency Vermont mean this could be the perfect time to proceed with your long-contemplated project. You have a real opportunity to save the district mon-ey in the long-term, and for many schools there are projects available that will re-sult in immediate savings that exceed the cost of the debt service.

Construction demand is low and you can expect good pricing and signifi cant competition to do your project. By pro-ceeding with a project now, you are also helping the local economy and keeping people at work.

Schools get a double benefi t from these projects by having their per student cost

More about the site on page 15

Fromthe

Website Makeover Act Now to Maximize Energy Efficiency Opportunities

By Norm Etkind, VSA School Energy Management Director

Also in this issue...

ssociation

2

The results of Town Meeting Day clearly show that Vermont voters and taxpayers continue to support their local schools despite the investment required. 94 per-cent of proposed budgets passed (4 bud-gets were reduced on the fl oor). This is heartening news for our students and the future of all Vermonters.

In addition, there were discussions and questions about the possible benefi ts of proposed consolidation, with one dis-trict voting affi rmatively to form a unifi ed union district.

It is now more important than ever for school boards to look at their own dis-tricts and perform short and long range analysis around what is the best struc-ture for local and regional schools that will serve area children with the highest educational opportunities and the public with effi ciency and sustainability.

I do not believe that some of the legislative proposals being considered will serve all schools well. Some parents and taxpay-ers are beginning to see disadvantages as potentially greater than potential “sav-ings.” The public is intrigued and now is our opportunity to engage them.

Some topics to consider and use in dis-cussions:

Will the governance change really cre-ate more opportunity for students? Will it create more limitations?

Will the gover-nance change

really create e ff ic ienc ies?

Will we have more managers

and fewer teach-ers?

Will the gov- ernance change create more circumstances where deci-sion around placement and participation are driven by lotteries or preferential se-lection? (This can apply to both staffi ng and students.)

What will your local school look like now and perhaps 10 to 15 years from now; who will make the decisions that affect your school?

What proportion of vote will your local district have in the newly formed “super districts”?

What voice will you local taxpayers have in determining the tax rates and manage-ment of your local school or supervisory district?

What role will school board members have and what tools and resources will they need to manage larger scale dis-tricts?

What role will the legislature have in managing education?

I urge you to speak with your constitu-ents and representatives to ensure they understand what are the benefi ts and disadvantages in your local district.

Meanwhile – think Spring!

by Kalee Roberts, VSBA President

Wn

reef

Wimo

and ers?

Will the gov- ernanc

3

reduced due to energy savings while the cost of debt service is not included in the calculations for the two-vote or the ex-cess spending penalty provisions of the education funding formula, assuming the project receives Department of Educa-tion approval.

Some schools are now taking advantage of Qualifi ed School Construction Bonds, administered by the Vermont Depart-ment of Education, to obtain zero-interest money for their projects. There appears to be suffi cient allocation for Vermont to fund most if not all projects that will apply. For more information on this complicated program, contact Cathy Hilgendorf at the DOE (828-5402).

Effi ciency Vermont has three new ways to provide incentives for energy projects at schools.

To help bring signifi cantly greater energy savings to lighting retrofi t projects, Effi -ciency Vermont will now offer rebates for projects that utilize lighting designers. Called “ReLight,” this program will help ensure that proper lighting levels are achieved using the least amount of en-ergy. The cost of the lighting expert con-sultation can be covered by the rebates.

In addition, there is a special set of great-ly expanded rebates for many lighting measures. This program, “NewLight,” will present an excellent opportunity for schools to modernize their lighting sys-tems. This program is only expected to last until the end of this calendar year.

For the fi rst time, Effi ciency Vermont is offering rebates for the purchase and in-stallation of qualifi ed energy-effi cient pro-

pane- and oil-fi red boilers and furnaces. Rebates are also now available for an ex-panded list of LED (light-emitting diode) lighting products. Rebate forms can be found at the Business Rebate Center at Effi ciencyVermont.com. For larger proj-ects, you should contact EVT directly at 888-921-5990. The K-12 market coordi-nator, Richard Donnelly, can be reached at extension 1129.

If your school is served by Vermont Gas Systems or Burlington Electric Depart-ment, contact these utilities, instead of Effi ciency Vermont, to determine if re-bates are available.

All these factors combine to make ener-gy effi ciency retrofi ts more attractive now than they have been in a long time or are likely to be in future years.

As always, to get advice on potential projects and on how to improve build-ing operations, you can request a free Energy Assessment of your building from the Vermont Superintendents Association’s School Energy Manage-ment Program by calling 229-1017 or e-mailing SEMP@VTVSA.org.

ENERGY continued from page 1

Editor: David Cyprian email: david@vtvsba.orgLayout: Kerri Lamb email: klamb@vtvsba.orgArticles printed represent diverse points of view and may be controversial in nature. It is the belief of the Association that the democratic process functions best through discussions which challenge and stimulate thinking on the part of the reader. Therefore, materials published present the ideas/beliefs of those who write them and are not necessarily the views or policies of the VSBA unless so stated. This newsletter is distributed at no charge to all members of the Association. Contact the Association by calling 802-223-3580.

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Recently, the Vermont Department of Education designated the Johnson El-ementary School as a “Tier I” school, one of the fi ve “persistently lowest achieving” in the state; its area high school, Lamoille Union, was named one of fi ve “Tier II” high schools, which were combined with the Tier I group and tagged as the “ten persistently lowest achieving schools” in Vermont. The problem is that Johnson Elementary is not a “persistently low achieving” school–quite the opposite–and assigning it such a label is unfair, irresponsible and potentially destructive. The same can be said for Lamoille Union and probably every other school on this list. This ranking schema is part of a major new federal “school improvement” initia-tive, and these ten schools–with different names sure to appear on the list in the future–are sacrifi cial lambs in the pursuit of federal dollars that are being doled out with a heavy hand.

From 1998 to 2009, I worked at Johnson Elementary in a job that involved exten-sive analysis of test data. Before that, I served on the JES Board for fi ve years. I’ve lived in Johnson for nearly 30 years. I have one daughter who attended Johnson Elementary and Lamoille Union Middle/High Schools K-to-12 and is about to graduate from Harvard Law School. She is just one of many thousands of shining success stories coming out of Vermont public schools. I appreciated the comment attributed to Education Commissioner Ar-mando Vilaseca in a January article in the Burlington Free Press, in which he pointed out that even the “lowest-performing” Ver-mont schools are far from low-performing by national standards. But I am deeply troubled by the Commissioner’s em-bracing of this new federal initiative. In Johnson, I see circumstances converging to place an up-to-this-point-gem-of-an-elementary school on a fast-track leading

ESSAY ON A TIER I SCHOOLby Judy Schultz

to draconian changes made in the name of improving student achievement, but with the potential to have quite the opposite effect in the long run.

How did this happen? The new rank-ing formulas used 2008 school-wide test scores alone to measure schools’ “profi ciency” and the difference between 2008 and 2005 scores to measure their “progress”. When applied to JES, where school-wide scores fell during these years, the result was a low rank relative to other schools. So, why did JES school-wide scores fall, and why doesn’t this mean that JES is, indeed, a “persistently low achieving school?”

In simplest terms, JES is a Tier I school because an ever-increasing number of students with serious learning disabili-ties inevitably drove down school-wide NECAP scores between 2005 and 2008. If the classes tested during these years had entered school in reverse order and received exactly the same instruction and test scores, JES would not be a “Tier I” school, and everyone would be applaud-ing the gains in achievement over the four years. The reality is that when measured rationally by cohort group (graduating class), Johnson Elementary test results show that academic achievement did not decline during this time period, and further, suggest that JES staff did a fi ne job teach-ing some of the most challenging students ever collected under the school roof at one time. Yet, despite a wide array of data to back up these conclusions, this wonderful little school that has done so well by some of the poorest and most disabled children in the state, while fully meeting the needs of average and above-average students, is now faced off against a new federal

ESSAY continued on page 5

5

school ranking system that does not allow this highly relevant information to even be entered into evidence before declaring a verdict that the school is failing and in need of drastic “reform”. The pragmatic reason to quietly accept this unwarranted guilty verdict is that doing so means ac-cess to a big federal grant, but one that comes with many strings attached. I certainly am not anti-testing. I prefer na-tional tests to Vermont’s insular approach, but the biggest problems with the federal and state accountability system have little to do with the test itself, and much to do with the latitude allowed in the use of “test accommodations”, the often superfi cial and simplistic ways in which scores are presented and interpreted, the constant confusion of correlation with causation, the illogical accountability indexes that are derived from actual test scores, the false premise that all students can be profi cient upon which the federal law is built, and now, the absurd formulas used to rank schools and identify the “persistently low-est achieving” among them.

There is something insidious about this new designation of “persistently lowest achieving” schools. Armed with a smat-tering of macro-level data points loosely derived from actual test scores, the federal government is making a defi nitive diagno-sis that the school is gravely ill and drastic treatment is needed: close the school, fi re the principal and half the teachers, or fi re the principal and otherwise make comprehensive changes in how children are taught. The insidious part is the “incen-tive”: We’re so sure that these scores are a symptom of “persistent” system-wide failure that we’ll pay you hundreds of thou-sands of dollars to embrace our diagnosis and undergo radical treatment.

And exactly what are the data upon which this dire diagnosis is based? They mea-sure “profi ciency” using a single year of

data, violating the Golden Rule of Testing: “Thou shalt not draw conclusions based on one year of scores.” They measure “progress” on a school-wide basis only (versus by individual student or cohort group), thus assuming that the constantly changing students who comprise the test group each year are always equally ca-pable, and that whatever “learning differ-ences” may exist among students tested from one year to the next, good teaching should always be able to produce test scores at least equal to the prior year; when the number of students tested is very large, that might be a reasonable assumption, but with a test group of about 155 students, as is the case at JES—and even fewer at many Vermont schools--it is totally unreasonable.

Outside of a few schools with the highest poverty and largest non-English speaking populations in Vermont, the scores from lowest to highest ranked schools rise very gradually, with an enormous overlap in the “confi dence bands” around the scores, meaning that there are only nominal dif-ferences (and often none statistically) in the scores of schools with very different ranks, and that only the weakest of cases can be made that the schools ranked 10th and below have scores that are sig-nifi cantly lower than much higher ranked schools. Moreover, because of the heavy weighting of just one year of data in the ranking process, the ten “persistently” lowest achieving schools are likely to vary substantially from year to year.

In announcing this new federal program, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan made this statement: “We must address the needs of children who have long been ignored and marginalized in chronically low-achieving schools…” Herein lies the crux of the problem: Arne Duncan’s words simply do not apply to Vermont schools – not fi ve, not ten, not any. Every school in

ESSAY continued from page 4

ESSAY continued on page 6

6

Outdoor Air Supply• Is the building ventilation system

turned on?• Are all vents free of obstruction?• Is air fl owing into outdoor intake?

Air Handling Unit• Is the system turned on?• Is air fl owing from vents?• Are fi lters clean and properly in-

stalled?• Are dampers operating properly?• Is the drain pan clean and properly

draining?

Managing the Physical Environment in a SchoolIndoor Air Quality: Can You Answer Yes?

• Are the unit coils clean?

Air Temperature & Humidity• Is thermostat properly set?• Are humidity levels comfortable (be-

tween 30% – 60% relative humidity)?• Does air seem clean and fresh?

Housekeeping Sources• Are housekeeping products used ac-

cording to directions?• Are products stored in sealed con-

tainers or in vented rooms?

our Supervisory Union engages in continu-ous self-evaluation tied back to test scores and works diligently to improve instruction in ways that will enhance the progress of all students, but with a heavy emphasis on those children who struggle most and have major obstacles to overcome on their personal “path to profi ciency,” rang-ing from serious learning disabilities and behavior disorders to the physical and emotional abuse and neglect and arrested intellectual development that are so often the by-products of living in abject poverty. I can’t imagine a single Vermont school that does not share this same commitment to incremental, ongoing improvement. It is foolish for the federal government to presume that the lowest scoring schools in every state are equally defi cient—or even “defi cient” at all. A big part of this is just the politics of federal funding: this presumption gives every state access to federal funds under this program. If the federal government were truly interested in spending these funds on the “persis-tently lowest achieving fi ve percent of schools” in the nation, Vermont most likely would not get a penny.

Federal guidance documents for this new

program describe the goal of the ranking process to be for each state to identify those schools that have “persistently failed to provide a quality education for their students” and are in “tremendous need of the whole-school reform contemplated in the four school intervention models.” In pursuing these federal funds, Vermont is attempting to comply with grant objectives that do not match the needs of Vermont schools and with grant requirements that amount to unprecedented federal intrusion into the operation of local schools; this is an effort that is, at best, like trying to fi t the proverbial round peg into a square hole, and at worst, like selling your soul. It is chilling to think that something with as little validity as this new ranking system could drive sudden and rapid movement toward large-scale “reforms” that previously were never even contemplated. In the end, this is a voluntary grant program, not a manda-tory part of the school accountability sys-tem, and it is up to the Tier I and II school boards to decide if it is truly in the best interest of these schools to sign on.

Editor’s note: This article was excerpted from a more detailed piece including data analysis of persistently underperforming schools.

ESSAY continued from page 5

7

Knopf

For the last five months, a team of approximately 20 individuals from the Department of Education (DOE) and 20 members of stakeholder groups have been working on the Vermont Race to the Top competi-

tive grant application. Using Vermont’s existing educational goals - to develop the next generation in education leadership, provide varied and relevant learning op-portunities for our young people, prepare all Vermonters for college and careers of interest, and increase learning outcomes for our most disadvantaged children – the DOE is spear-heading the development of a proposal that will position us to implement innovative strategies that work in low population rural states.

Race to the Top is a com-petitive funding opportunity being issued in two rounds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Vermont is applying in Round 2, with the potential to receive up to $75 million over four years to support school and state efforts to realize the goals above. This is expected to be a highly competitive venture with probably only 10 states being funded by the end of the competition in September 2010.

Update on Vermont’s Race to the Top

Applicationfrom Rae Ann Knopf, Deputy Commissioner for

Transformation and Innovation, VT DOE

Most of the Race to the Top requirements are geared toward high population urban centers with graduation rates between 25-60 percent. With an average gradua-tion rate of over 85%, Vermont will take a different approach, demonstrating that the strength of our educational outcomes lie in the breadth of school choice options for Vermonters and a long history of high standards for teaching and learning.

That being said, we know from recent New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) testing results that many of our children do not enjoy those outcomes. Many of our children continue to be highly disadvantaged economically and educationally. Our proposal will focus on increasing opportunities, supports,

and expectations for those children. With a state goal of 100% graduation, it will take all Vermont educators providing high levels of in-struction to help all of our young people to succeed.

The fi nal push for completion of this competitive applica-tion will require hundreds

more hours on the part of department staff to complete. Even then, winning the award is dependent on statewide sup-port from superintendents, school boards and unions. We look forward to the pos-sibility of bringing additional funds to the state based on an innovative approach grounded in the reality of rural education communities.

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Regardless of their grade span, middle schools carry the responsibility of both receiving and sending early adolescents during the most tumultuous time in their lives. For this group, caught up in navigat-ing the rocky waters of academic, physi-cal, emotional, social, and psychological change, nothing is more critical to their ability to fi nd success in middle school than that of the transition process.

What must educators consider about the ‘move’ from fi fth to sixth grade or the ‘move’ from eighth to ninth grade? Re-search has made clear that in both cases an academic decline can be expected regardless of the increase in course dif-fi culty factor. Heightened anxiety over the prospect of peer acceptance or re-jection, especially if there are multiple feeder schools, is seen by students to be their primary area of concern. Changes in homework load, campus size, and teacher expectations also weigh heavy on the minds of students. If the transition is to be an effective conduit in the journey from elementary to middle and middle to high, then it cannot be regarded as an event. Through calculated plan-ning between the two levels, it must be viewed as a collaboration of efforts over time to assist students in the internalization process of the academic expectations at the next level.

Transition programs for the move from elementary to middle must balance the student’s need to remain a child with that of the desire to become a ‘teenager’. Some schools convene a committee of

Transition: Thoughtful Planning for Adolescents in Change

By Kathleen Hill and Robert C. Spear Ed.D5th and 6th grade teachers to orchestrate the moving process. ‘Step Up’ Days are proven to give incoming students time with a mentor 6th grader, a chance to see 6th grade classes in action, to meet prospective teachers, and to get a tour of the school. Something as simple as eat-ing lunch in the cafeteria with their men-tor can allay anxiety and dispel fears on the fi rst day of school.

Fifth graders don’t worry about the big picture as teachers are trained to do. They stress over fi nding their locker, be-ing able to manage a combination lock, changing for gym class and where the bathrooms are located. Providing the visual for them and giving them a forum where they can get answers to these pressing issues often is what they are looking for more than anything else.

Before the end of the transition year, thoughtful schools reach out to the par-ent/guardians of incoming students. They too, have as many questions and anxieties (especially if it is their fi rst ex-perience with middle school). Orientation

programs ought to provide parents with an overview of the academic program, an explanation of

extra-curricular and intramural offerings typically not found in elementary school, a reassurance that early adolescence is a time for parents to remain connected to their children, and some school/parent literature that spells out ways for parents to help their child navigate the middle school years.

TRANSITION continued on page 9

“Heightened anxiety over ... peer acceptance. [is their] primary area of concern.”

9

Beyond the Meet & Greet, schools would do well to have mentors send a small note to their mentee before the end of the school year or better yet, to mail the letter during the summer as a remind-er that there is a friendly face awaiting their return to school. When the baton is passed in September, transition must concentrate on the child’s adjustment to the new environment. Activities may in-clude assigning a mentor teacher to ev-ery student, especially if no Advisory pro-gram is evident. A focus on team building activities serves to enhance the feeling of belonging. An on-going emphasis on time management skills and the use of a day planner will set the academic piece in motion. Finally, a small scale social opportunity such as an ice cream social or an after school games event with a DJ while the administration meets in another area of the school with interested parents for coffee and questions can put the new year on good footing.

The middle to high transition is equally as important, yet, the landscape is much dif-ferent. The social pressure to belong; to interact with young adults who are dating adds to the increased academic load, the opportunity for interscholastic play and a host of extracurricular offerings beg the need for a structured ninth grade experi-ence. Advisory programs, long the hall-mark of strong middle schools are now fi nding favor with NASSP and NEASC as a vehicle by which freshman enter into a mentor/mentee relationship during their fi rst year of high school.

Studies indicate that the freshman year is a marker for how well a student will fare during the high school years and statis-tics about success in the 9th grade are now tied to a high school’s drop out rate. This data is a compelling argument for deliberate middle to high transition plan-

ning. The wheel need not be re-invented. Reaching out to eighth grade students at the beginning of their second semester to introduce course offerings and an ex-planation of graduation requirements is necessary.

This is the fi rst of many opportunities to stress the importance of long term plan-ning. Hearing this message from high school staff puts a face on the people who will be integral part of their school life. A ‘curriculum fair’ staged at the high school gives 8th graders a chance to see fi rst hand what course materials, actual projects, and curricular expectations look like. Typical to the 8-9 transition is an event where parents get the same op-portunity to taste the high school expe-rience. Using a high school leadership club such as the National Honor Society or the Student Council or National Beta Club gives successful high school stu-dents an opportunity to mentor a new comer and explain the terrain on terms that a ninth grader can understand.

What matters most about transition is that it becomes an embedded compo-nent in a middle school program. In three short years, young people, at the most turbulent time in their development, must endure two signifi cant change events. Considerable thought must go into mak-ing these months of change as smooth as possible and at the same time insure that the middle school learner benefi ts from the opportunity to grow, to learn, and to succeed in a structured and nur-turing environment.

Kathleen Hill is the Principal at Birchland Park Middle School in East Longmeadow,

Massachusetts and is a NELMS Board Mem-ber for western part of the state.

Robert C. Spear Ed.D. is the Acting Execu-tive Director of the New England League of Middle Schools, Topsfi eld, Massachusetts.

TRANSITION continued from page 8

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At NO CHARGE the VSBA staff will customize a joint board development session for ALL of the boards in the supervisory union together. Mix and match topics from the list on the Choose Your Topics page or request spe-cifi c content for this event.

As a bonus for those who schedule a supervisory union-wide work session, the VSBA staff will hand-deliver, at no charge, a comprehensive DVD lending library to you. The library in-cludes all of the current VSBA board development DVDs. New DVDs will automatically be sent to add to your library as they are released. The library is designed for superintendents to dispense DVDs to board members who express interest in learning more about a particular topic.

Contact Winton Goodrich at the VSBA to schedule your event today.

11

Using Email Without Violating Open • Meeting Law

Connecting with Parents and Commu-• nity in the Era of Electronic Media

Managing Diffi cult Public Meetings•

Conducting Two-Hour Board Meetings•

Adopting a School Board Code of • Conduct

Act 68 School Funding•

Dealing with Diffi cult Behaviors•

Collective Bargaining•

School Governance Study and • Effi ciency Analysis

School Leader Roles, Responsibilities, • and Relationships

Roles and Goals•

Helping Parents Become Part of the • Solution

Strategic Planning•

Policy Governance•

Developing Board Chair Skills•

The Board’s Role in Superintendent • Evaluation

Managing an Eff ective Superintendent • or Principal Search Process

School Policies•

The Board’s Role in Curriculum and • Assessment

Special Education•

Decision Making Between Local • Boards and the Supervisory Union

Responding to Complaints within the • Chain of Command

School Crisis Policies and Procedures•

Scrutinize Monthly Budget Reports, • Analyze Assessment Data, and Review Research and Best Practices

12

by Winton GoodrichVSBA Associate Director

G o v e r n a n c e Studies David Ford and George Cormier, VSBA search consul-tants delivered a phase I gov-ernance study

report to the Chittenden East

SU executive com-mittee.

Ray Proulx, VSBA search consultant, presented a phase I governance study report to the Addison Central Supervi-sory Union Board; he continues to gather data for a two-district governance study in Middlesex and Worcester.

Laura Soares facilitated a Roxbury forum to help inform the board and residents about future governance options.

The Addison Northwest SU voted to cre-ate a unifi ed union district at town meet-ing. This means all local districts will be dissolved by June, 2011 and a single uni-fi ed union board will be created to pro-vide governance oversight to all elemen-tary districts and Vergennes Union High School.

I presented information about the VSBA governance study options to the Caledo-nia North SU Board.

John Nelson and I have met twice with experienced school leaders in an effort to expand the cadre of skilled consul-tants who will facilitate governance stud-ies for SUs interested in merging school districts. The VSBA is developing a gov-ernance study template and expanded analysis systems which will be incorpo-rated within future studies.

Policy GovernanceThere are 19 school districts that are at

various stages of Policy Governance implementation. Currently, Winooski, Essex Town, and South Burlington are implementing the Policy Governance system.

Laura Soares continues to support the Hartford and South Burlington districts with Policy Governance facilitation.

Val Gardner is providing ongoing support to Essex Town and Winooski as they im-plement the Policy Governance system.Laura Soares presented a Policy Gover-nance overview to the Springfi eld, Chit-tenden East, Woodbury, and Wolcott boards.

Laura Soares and I have organized and fi lmed a panel of experts for a web stream and DVD on Policy Governance ends. The intent is to identify for school leaders the skills and attributes that high school graduates will need to be suc-cessful in post-secondary education, the global workplace, and as citizens. Superintendent Searches Superintendent searches are underway/completed in the following supervisory unions/districts:• Rutland South - Hired Dana Cole-

Levesque, current Otter Valley princi-pal

• Orange East - Hired Don Johnson, for-mer Littleton, NH superintendent

• Montpelier - Hired Mark Mason, former Scituate, MA superintendent

• Washington Northeast - Hired Nancy Thomas, current associate superinten-dent in Washington Central SU

• Essex Town - Hired Mark Andrews, current superintendent in Orleans Southwest

• Chittenden East - Appointed John Al-berghini, current co-superintendent there

• River Valley Tech Center - Hired Judy Pullinen, current Rutland Windsor SU superintendent

VSBA continued on page 13

13

• Windsor Southeast - Donna Moyer, current interim superintendent, agreed to continue in the role next year

• Windham Southwest - Beginning the interview process

• Windsor Northwest - A principal is fi ll-ing the role of superintendent for the duration of the year; the SU board has not decided the next steps yet.

• Orleans Southwest - VSBA provided a customized Search Guide and recruit-ment support

• Rutland Windsor - Met with the VSBA staff to consider three search options

Board Development WorkI worked with the Wolcott Board to iden-tify options related to secondary school designation. When the board polled community members in the audience, roughly two-thirds of those at the meet-ing expressed interest in Wolcott con-tinuing to offer full high school choice. This is consistent with informal anecdotal feedback received in Georgia, Pittsfi eld, Waits River and Elmore.

I met with all local board chairs and the superintendent in Chittenden South SU to provide resources and expand skills

113131313131313131333

for managing board meetings and guid-ing board operations.

I delivered a roles and responsibilities workshop for the Lothrop Elementary Board in Pittsford and board members from the Orange Windsor SU.

OtherI met with superintendents in all fi ve re-gional meetings to discuss board devel-opment activities for individual supervi-sory unions. The VSBA is prepared to deliver custom-designed board develop-ment sessions in all supervisory unions/districts. Once a SU/SD board develop-ment session is scheduled, the VSBA will provide a DVD lending library to each su-perintendent for distribution of DVDs to individual board members.

I met with a delegation of Armenian school leaders to exchange ideas about education. A second international group, this time from Georgia, is scheduled to meet with the 2 Prospect Street staff in April.

I also met with 14 aspiring school admin-istrators from the Woodruff Institute lo-cated at Castleton State College to help them better understand school leader-ship dynamics and appropriate roles.

VSBA continued from page 12

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Groups representing grassroots educa-tors and state lawmakers are criticizing the Obama administration’s proposal to make federal funding for disadvantaged students contingent on states’ adop-tion of reading and math standards that prepare students for college or a career, says Education Week. The proposal, which would be rolled into the adminis-tration’s still-emerging plan for reauthori-zation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, would for the fi rst time link the law’s fl agship Title I program to a push for higher academic standards that has gained new national momentum. It would require states to either join with their counterparts in developing rigorous, college- and career-ready standards, or work with institutions of higher educa-tion to set standards that would ensure high school graduates are ready to enter postsecondary study or the workforce. The National School Boards Associa-tion (NSBA) released a statement saying that, although it supports voluntary, state-led efforts to craft more uniform, rigorous standards, the administration’s proposal “amounts to an unnecessary overreach by the federal government to coerce states to adopt a particular approach or be shut out of future funding for key pro-grams.” The National Association of Sec-ondary School Principals warned that the proposal could result in a loss of federal funding for students in poverty if states opt not to revamp their standards.

Under the Obama administration’s pro-posal, states would not be compelled to join the Common Core State Standards Initiative, spearheaded by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Offi cers (CCSSO), to get their Title I aid. States would be allowed to work with the col-leges and universities within their states to craft their own higher standards. Still being worked out are which institutions would be part of the mix. That could

prove a signifi cant political safety valve at a time when some state legislators have voiced concern about federal encroach-ment on states’ education policy author-ity—and when 37 governorships will be on the ballots in the fall elections. But the NSBA, which represents local school boards, also has concerns about what sort of standards might arise if states work with postsecondary education sys-tems. “Higher education is not monolithic in any state,” said Anne L. Bryant, NS-BA’s executive director. She explained that most such systems include a mix of research universities, community colleg-es, technical schools, and other types of institutions. “If you leave [standards] up to a nebulous higher education authority, you don’t know what you’d get,” she said. “It’s not a sure bet.”

Offi cials of the Obama administration took issue with the NSBA’s contention that the proposal amounts to federal coercion. States would still be “in the driver’s seat,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education. “We think every child deserves to graduate from high school college- and career-ready. Under our proposal, states can achieve that goal on their own, or join with the consortium of 48 states to adopt common-core standards.” Gerald N. Tirozzi, the executive director of the sec-ondary school principals’ group, said that he shares the administration’s view that states should prepare students for col-lege or a career. But he’s not sure that Title I grants to districts are the right ve-hicle. “If you look at the history of Title I, it’s always been intended for the poorest kids and the kids with the greatest need,” he said. “We strongly encourage [the Education Department] to play the car-rot and not the stick role,” in pushing for higher standards.

This article was excerpted from the NSBA’s Legal Clips service.

Title 1 Opposition for Obama

15

On March 10, a team of state education leaders assembled by the nation’s gov-ernors and state school superintendents proposed standards for what students in the nation’s public schools would learn from kindergarten to high school.

The group hopes that the new set of standards would replace the diverse set that each individual state currently uses to guide the education of their students.

According to the New York Times, the proposed standards, for example, would require fi fth-grade students to learn “the difference between drama and prose ... Seventh-graders would study, among other math concepts, propositional rela-tionships, operations with rational num-bers and solutions for linear equations.”

Education Leaders Propose Unified State Standards

“I’d say this is one of the most impor-tant events of the last several years in American education,” Chester E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of edu-cation, told the New York Times. “Now we have the possibility that for the fi rst time, states could come together around new standards and high school gradua-tion requirements that are ambitious and coherent.”

However, not everyone was happy with the proposed standards.

“We’re not at all satisfi ed,” said Jim Ster-gios, executive director of the Pioneer In-stitute, a Boston nonprofi t group. “Ours in Massachusetts are much higher, so why should we adopt these?”

www.vtvsba.org

Keep an eye on the new site! The homepage will continually keep you up to date on current issues from governance studies to legislative issues.

If you haven’t visited in a while, grab a cup of coffee and spend a few minutes looking around. You will fi nd negotiation data, vid-eos (over 600 viewed last month), policies, etc.

Convenient, helpful mate-rials at your fi ngertips.

www.vtvsba.org

16

The Obama administration is propos-ing a major overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), says the New York Times. The proposal calls for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, and the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic profi -ciency. Those with whom administration offi cials have shared their proposal say it would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, princi-pals’ associations, school boards and other groups have found most objection-able. The administration, however, is not planning to abandon the law’s commit-ments to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and to encouraging teacher quality. The proposal would also change federal fi -nancing formulas so that a portion of the money is awarded based on academic progress, rather than by formulas that apportion money to districts according to their numbers of students, especially poor students.

Educators have complained loudly in the eight years since the law was signed that it was branding tens of thousands of schools as failing but not forcing them to change. Instead of the current system which issues the equivalent of a pass-fail

report card for every school each year, an evaluation that administration offi cials say fails to differentiate among chaotic schools in chronic failure, schools that are helping low-scoring students improve and high-performing suburban schools that nonetheless appear to be neglecting some low-scoring students, the admin-istration proposes a new accountability system that would divide schools into more categories, offering recognition to those that are succeeding and providing large new amounts of money to help im-prove or close failing schools. A new goal would be for all students to leave high school “college or career ready.”

The administration hopes to apply similar conditions to those in Race to the Top to the distribution of the billions of dollars that ED hands out to states and districts as part of its annual budget. “They want to recast the law so that it is as close to Race to the Top as they can get it, making the money conditional on districts’ taking action to improve schools,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Ed-ucation Policy. The last serious attempt to rewrite the NCLB law was in 2007. That effort collapsed, partly because teachers’ unions and other educator groups op-posed an effort to incorporate merit pay provisions into a rewritten law.

Obama Administration Seeks Sweeping Overhaul of NCLB

17

Editor’s Note: Thanks to the diligent record-keeping of VSBA’s founding executive director, Charlie Nichols, the Association has possession of a full collection of member newslet-ters starting in 1961. It takes only a few minutes of perusing these volumes to observe that many of the contemporary policy issues in public education stretch back at least two generations. What follows is an excerpted newsletter article from 40 years ago regarding school district reorganization, a topics that has been seriously contemplated in 2010. We hope you enjoy this perspective and reading about how much has and has not changed since its original publication.

Old Views on New News

DISTRICT ORGANIZATION Martin S. Harris Jr., Brandon Educational Consulting Services

First printed in the VSBA newsletter January, 1970. Originally excerpted from the Rutland Regional Planning Report.

There should be a clear understand-ing of the position occupied by “district organization” in the policy planning of the State Board of Education. The pri-mary objectives should be excellence of educational quality and equality of educational opportunity; the means of achieving these objectives should include, but not be limited to, district organization improvements.

District reorganization has been strik-ingly successful in facilitating im-provement in public education - as benefi cial as it has been, however, we should continue to regard it as a means, not as an end. Mandating district organization arrangements is not the same as requiring that lo-cal public education exceed carefully selected minimum qualitative stan-dards? While district reorganization is frequently conducive to qualitative improvements, it is not a guarantee. There can be no guarantee that such improvements will automatically be generated by re-arrangement of pu-pil numbers and grade groups. There have been some instances in which reorganization has not produced the anticipated benefi ts. It would seem highly desirable, therefore, that the

State Board’s policy standards be primarily concerned with the objec-tives of quality and equality, and then secondarily concerned with devices, such as district organization, which may be means of achieving these ends.

A policy based on this philosophy would relieve the State Board of the need to pass judgment on the valid-ity of proposed district realignments using the conventional indicators of geography, pupil members, building capacities, and so on. Instead, pe-titioning districts would simply have to show that the proposed union (or facility or both) is clearly capable of providing the breadth of program and services which will produce gradu-ates with educational levels sur-passing State minimum standards of intellectual, physical, and social competence.

The same policy, applied to opera-tional districts, could be used to re-quire improvements from those not “doing the job.” (Present district orga-nization criteria give the State Board no such opportunity to insist on a giv-

DISTRICT continued on page 18

18

Each year, the respected national magazine Educa-tion Week publishes Qual-ity Counts, a comparative report on the status of pub-lic education that scores all 50 states and Washington D.C. against each other on topics such as test scores, teacher readiness, and equity in fi -nance. In recent years, Vermont has been rated highly in learning and read-iness-to-learn categories. This year, Quality Counts produced a quantita-tive analysis of student achievement in math and improvement in math achievement. Vermont was ranked 6th in the nation on this index. Vermont also ranked 7th in the “chance for suc-cess” index, and 6th in school fi nance.

VT Students Strong in Math; Chance for Success

By David Cyprian, Boardroom editor

en quality of educational output; in fact, the State Board presently exerts little, if any, infl uence over qualitative matters, but fi nds itself obliged to approach this top-priority concern indirectly via physi-cal standards of various types.)

Using qualitative standards as the basis of policy will not entirely relieve the state Board of district organization concerns. While the Board may no longer be at-tempting to judge the quality-of-educa-tion potential inherent in re-districting proposals placed before it, the Board will still have to exercise leadership in assur-ing that pupils from every district, small and large, have access to the full range of educational programs and services.

The state did not score as well in measures of sys-temic standards account-ability and the teaching profession; Vermont was pegged as middle-of-the-pack on both indices. The state was docked for its teaching accountability be-

cause it does not link student performance to teacher evaluations, nor does it require annual teacher evaluations, both hot topics in nation-al education policy debates. Vermont also does not require teachers to have “substantial formal coursework in the subject area(s) taught” according to Education Week.

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The tradition of “local control” of facili-ties and organization is respected: at the same time, compliance with the rules by local districts assures the State Board that quality and equality standards are being met. State Board policy is phrased in qualitative terms, rather than in physi-cal terms conductive to (but not guaran-teeing) desired quality standards. Most important, proper emphasis is placed on the education provided for children, with district organization being viewed through correct perspective as a means to an end, not as an end itself. Local dis-tricts are free to use any means - wheth-er unionization, local effort, tuition con-tract, to educate their pupils. The means selected should not concern the State Board as long as desired educational op-portunity is being offered.

DISTRICT continued from page 17

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19

Reading scores for Vermont students on the National Assessment of Educa-tional Progress (NAEP) indicated that only Massachusetts outperformed Ver-mont on the fourth-grade test, while no other state outperformed Vermont at the eighth-grade level.

Vermont students were also among the highest achievers in the country when the NAEP mathematics results were released in October 2009. Only Massa-chusetts and New Hampshire had signifi -cantly higher math scores at the fourth-grade level and only Massachusetts had signifi cantly higher math scores at the eighth-grade level. Nationally, about two-thirds (67 percent) of U.S. fourth-graders scored at or above the NAEP basic level both years. At the eighth-grade level, the percentage of stu-dents scoring at or above the basic level increased one percentage point, from 74 percent in 2007 to 75 percent in 2009.

In Vermont, the percentage of Vermont fourth-graders who scored at or above the basic level on the NAEP Reading As-sessment was 75 percent, as compared

to 74 percent in 2007. At the eighth grade level, 84 percent of Vermont students scored at or above the basic level in 2007 and 2009.

“It’s always great to see Vermont stu-dents leading the country,” said Com-missioner Armando Vilaseca. “But I am concerned about the lack of progress from two years ago, particularly for our students from low-income families.”

Poverty-based achievement gaps have been a persistent concern in Vermont, and the current NAEP results show no signs that the gaps in reading are clos-ing. In grade four, 62 percent of students eligible for free or reduced lunch (FRL) scored at or above the basic level on the 2009 NAEP Reading assessment, com-pared to 82 percent of students not eli-gible for FRL. In grade eight, 73 percent of students eligible for FRL scored at or above the basic level, compared to 88 percent of their non-eligible peers. These results are not signifi cantly different from the gaps noted on the 2007 test.

This article was adapted from a Department of Education press release.

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