The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV
This is my fourth post on contents of the Alexander-Murray, Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) scheduled to be presented to the Senate education committee on April 14, 2015.
( See here my first post, my second post, and my third post.)
Alexander and Murray call their 601-page draft, Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.
My third post brought me to page 269 of those 601.
It is from that page that I now resume my writing:
Page 269: Part B of Title II is entitled, “Teacher and School Incentive Program.” This is a merit-pay “competition”:
(a) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this part are—(1) to assist States, local educational agencies, and nonprofit organizations to develop, implement, improve, or expand comprehensive performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, and other school leaders (especially for teachers, principals, and other school leaders in high-need schools) who raise student academic achievement and close the achievement gap between high- and low-performing students; and(2) to study and review performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, and other school leaders to evaluate the effectiveness, fairness, quality, consistency, and reliability of the systems.
Note the language about “closing the achievement gap.” Interesting choice of wording about the “gap” being “between high- and low-performing students. (That’s just funny: By definition, “low performers” do not perform “high.”)
But notice that regarding this “gap,” there is no reference here to race, ethnicity, or economics. Given the undoubted, deliberate choice of words in this document, it seems that the authors are trying to realign the “gap” concept with performance.
Closing the “gap” is now defined as all students performing relatively the same– for better or worse.
Moving on.
The “human capital management system” is defined as “a system by which a local educational agency makes and implements human capital decisions, such as decisions on preparation, recruitment, hiring, placement, retention, dismissal, compensation, professional development, tenure, and promotion; and that includes a performance-based compensation system” (pg. 271).
The “performance-based compensation system” is one that “differentiates levels of compensation based in part on measurable increases in student academic achievement” (pg. 272). Note that the “measurable outcomes” are only “part” of the compensation system and that the language, “increases in student achievement,” leaves room for measures not specifically tied to standardized testing outcomes.
Other factors in determining the levels of compensation include teaching “in high-need schools,” teaching “high-need subjects,” and “taking on additional leadership responsibilities” (pg. 279).
And then comes a typo: “A local educational agency may receive (whether individually or as part of a consortium or partnership) a grant under this part onlytwice once, as of the date of enactment of the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015″ (pg. 273). [Emphasis added.]
Either the local education agency (LEA) is eligible for a grant twice, or once. At any rate, the funded entity cannot depend indefinitely upon the federal government to fund its merit pay system. Receipt of the merit pay grant requires the receiving entity to match federal funds by 50 percent (see page 280).
Page 284: Another competition for the “Teaching of Traditional American History” grant “for the development, implementation, and strengthening of programs to teach traditional American history as a separate academic subject (not as a component of social studies) within elementary school and secondary school curricula….” This grant requires partnership with “an institution of higher education,” “a nonprofit history or humanities organization,” or “a library or museum” (pg. 285). Each of the partner entities could also “compete” for federal funds under the guise of “presidential or congressional academies.” There are also grants available for civic education (see pages 290-92).
Page 292: “Literacy Education for All: Results for the Nation” grants “to improve student academic achievement in reading and writing by providing Federal support to States to develop, revise, or update comprehensive literacy instruction plans that when implemented ensure high-quality instruction and effective strategies in reading and writing from early education through grade 12.”
“Comprehensive literacy instruction” is briefly defined as “instruction that includes developmentally appropriate, contextually explicit, and systematic instruction, and frequent practice, in reading and writing across content areas” and that “links literacy instruction to the challenging State academic standards” (pgs. 293, 95). There is much more to the definition (it is over two pages long). The literacy grants are for The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV | deutsch29: