BONUS RESOURCES FOR 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, YEAR TWO'

• HQT in Need of Improvement?
  According to a recent report by the Education Trust, In Need of Improvement: Ten Ways the U.S. Department of Education Has Failed To Live Up to Its Teacher Quality Commitments, there is too little focus on the teacher quality provisions in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and widespread confusion about what those provisions mean. As a result, the report finds, NCLB is seen by many as an attempt to arbitrarily punish experienced teachers. (600k PDF file)
• How to Evaluate Your Professional Development Program
  Evaluation has long been the burr under the saddle of professional development. Drawing on her landmark book Assessing Impact, Evaluating Staff Development (2002), Joellen Killion describes eight steps that educators can use to assess and refine their professional learning programs in this Journal of Staff Development article (September 2003). Subscribers to JSD can take advantage of a bonus “Toolkit” that summarizes the eight steps in an easy-to-use two-page outline and includes worksheets that school teams can use to set goals and objectives, develop a plan, and create an evaluation framework.
• What the Public Considers a "Highly Qualified Teacher"
  This article in Educational Leadership (September 2002) summarizes the findings of two recent reports that offer very different perspectives. Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary's Annual Report on Teacher Quality was issued by the U.S. Department of Education in June 2002. Two days later, the Educational Testing Service announced the release of A National Priority: Americans Speak on Teacher Quality, which examined the results of its national survey of the U.S. public's attitudes about the quality of the teaching force.
• Universal Proficiency: The New Education Agenda
  For the last half-century, education policies and practices were focused on providing universal access to public education. The passage of No Child Left Behind marks a major turning point, shifting the policy focus from universal access to universal proficiency. In this roundtable interview (School Administrator, September 2003), five prominent school reform experts consider the implications of this sea change for the work of education leaders.
• What Special Ed Lawyers Are Saying about NCLB
  The WrightsLaw website serves as a resource center for attorneys involved in special education litigation, and for parents and advocates for students with disabilities. The site includes a wealth of material about No Child Left Behind, including the article “NCLB – What Teachers, Principals and School Administrators Need to Know.”
• NCLB Offers Opportunities to Lead
  Ray McNulty, president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) offers two steps school leaders can take to begin addressing the mandates of No Child Left Behind. McNulty, formerly Vermont’s commissioner of education, is the program director for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Education Update, August 2003)
• “How Long Does It Take English Learners to Attain Proficiency?”
  Even in two California districts considered the most successful in teaching English to LEP students, “oral proficiency takes 3 to 5 years to develop, and academic English proficiency can take 4 to 7 years,” says this study by Stanford researchers for the The University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute. “The analysis also revealed a continuing and widening gap between EL students and native English speakers. The gap illustrates the daunting task facing these students, who not only have to acquire oral and academic English, but also have to keep pace with native English speakers, who continue to develop their language skills. It may simply not be possible, within the constraints of the time available in regular formal school hours, to offer efficient instruction that would enable the EL students to catch up with the rest. Alternatives such as special summer and after-school programs may be needed.” (88k PDF file)

WTE JOURNAL RESOURCES FOR 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, YEAR 2'

• The NCLB Database at ECS
  The Education Commission of the States web database offers a "real-time" snapshot of how individual states are doing in meeting goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. For Alabama, you’ll find details of state requirements, state accountabilityand consolidated plans, the state’s current status, and comparisions with other states, as well as background information on the law itself.
• Why Alabama’s Accountability System Is Changing
  The September 2003 issue of Alabama Education News, published by the State Department of Education, offers a brief, clear explanation of the evolving school accountability system and progress to date. The changes, as the article notes, are inflluenced by the federal No Child Left Behind law. (950k PDF file)
• NCLB – The Parent Perspective
  In this special issue of Parent Press, the national group Parents for Public Schools explores the expectations, options and opportunities of No Child Left Behind from a parent involvement point of view. Parent advocates and schools committed to parent partnerships will find this plain-English discussion a useful tool. Principals may also want to use the overview story as an introduction to NCLB for teachers. Includes many resources for additional information. (400k PDF file)
• A Study of Alabama’s HQT Requirements
  Alabama is part of a four-state study of implementation of NCLB’s “highly qualified teacher” provisions. The study, conducted by the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality, is gathering data from schools and districts about teacher qualifications, educators’ capacities to meet ESEA requirements, the use and impact of federal dollars for new policies and programs, and the impact of the HQT requirements on student achievement and staffing. This PDF file includes the Center’s analysis of Alabama’s HQT status (as of 7/31/03).
• Alabama School Accountability Database
  The Alabama Department of Education’s online accountability database is one of the best in the nation – simple to understand and easy to use. At this database homepage, visitors can see results from the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), the Alabama High School Graduation Exam, Alabama Direct Assessment of Writing Exam, and the Alabama Alternate Assessment Exam for the state, a school district or an individual school – by grade and subject – and by subgroup (gender, race, free/reduced lunch, etc.)
• Large Collection of Web-Based NCLB Resources
  This page of NCLB resources, developed by an organization of parents with LD/ADHD students, is exhaustive and of interest to anyone doing NCLB research.
• Talking to the Community about NCLB
  A free NCLB guide for educators is available from the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of 12 major education organizations. “The guide will help all educators speak with one voice and discuss the hows and whys of NCLB in careful, clear, bite-size pieces that will help staff members and parents understand this confusing law.” Read online or download in PDF or MSWord format.
• Staff Development in the NCLB Era
  Backward planning and evidence collecting can hlep staff developers meet NCLB goals, says researcher Thomas R. Guskey (Journal of Staff Development, September 2003). NCLB reshapes the roles of staff development leaders, Guskey reminds us, requiring “scientific, research-based programs” and results through high-stakes accountability. “These two aspects have profound implications for staff development leaders’ responsibilities, especially in the area of evaluation.”
• NCLB: Taking the High Road
  Put yourself in this situation: You are principal of a Title I school. It is early August and you're expecting the teachers back soon. Your school has just been notified that it is "in need of improvement" as defined by the new federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The leaders of two national principal organizations try to put things into perspective.
• The “Highly Qualified Teacher” in Alabama
  Materials related to Alabama’s approach to the “highly qualified teacher” requirements of No Child Left Behind are posted on this page at the Alabama State Department of Education’s website. Among the materials: A checklist for determining the status of HQTs; courses to help teachers meet HQT status; and a list of frequently asked questions.
• Insights from Juli Kendall’s Reading/Writing Workshop
  Since 2001, Juli has kept a weekly online journal documenting her search for literacy strategies that will help her English Language Learners meet her CA school district’s promotion benchmarks. You’ll find her journals and many of the resources and tools she uses at this link.
• The Burr Under the Saddle
  Many educators go through the motions of evaluating staff development, but they have focused more on the delivery than on the results. Hayes Mizell shares his own thoughts about appropriate ways to evaluate professional learning programs in the age of No Child Left Behind. (Journal of Staff Development, September 2003)
• A Culture of Results
  A New Era, the final report report to the President on “Revitalizing Special Education for Children and their Families,” lays out an agenda for the reform of special education programs that urges the transition from a “culture of compliance” to a culture of results. (250k PDF file)

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