U.S. Education Secretary: Troubled schools could lose funding
3.16.10 – Washington — The nation's top education official called Monday for broad changes to accountability in troubled systems like Detroit's public schools, and warned the lowest-performing districts unable to improve would face losing district-level control over Title I funding.
U.S. Education Secretary: Troubled schools could lose funding
Washington — The nation’s top education official called Monday for broad changes to accountability in troubled systems like Detroit’s public schools, and warned the lowest-performing districts unable to improve would face losing district-level control over Title I funding.
“In the past, all of the accountability was at the school level,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.
“This is now a shared responsibility.”
Duncan outlined for reporters Monday the Obama administration’s plans to overhaul the Bush-era “No Child Left Behind” legislation, which requires congressional reauthorization to continue its funding programs.
Duncan said troubled systems that receive Title I funding — which targets districts with disproportionately large numbers of low-income families — would have to show marked improvement in student and teacher performance to retain district-level control of those funds.
“There has to be a sense of urgency,” Duncan said. “The one thing that isn’t going to work is doing nothing.”
Detroit Public Schools receives millions in Title I funding, which is targeted at implementing programs that will improve students’ chances of graduating. Recently, Title I money has been used to pay for new programs including a system-wide summer school program to help city students get caught up on course work.
Messages left seeking comment from DPS officials on Duncan’s announcement weren’t returned.
Duncan said the reforms seek to target three groups of schools in different ways. He wants to see top performing and improving schools rewarded for their efforts. The lowest-performing schools — which include DPS — would be targeted by programs and incentives to make reforms through programs like the Title I funding oversight.
Duncan said he wants schools in the middle to be rewarded for closing achievement gaps between groups of students within the district.
The reforms sought by Duncan and the White House place greater emphasis on teacher accountability and the way they’re held accountable.
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Comments
"…There has to be a sense of urgency, Duncan said…"
Friedman (1962): "Only a crisis—actual or perceived––produces real change"
Democrats, the new is the failed old.
All of this has been tried and already failed. Closing schools failed in Chicago under Duncan himself and now he want to do it nation wide. You could promise to execute every teacher of a "failed school" in the public square with a bullet in the back of the head and it would not move the needle on test scores because it is not the fault of the teachers. Try this. Totally switch the entire staff from the worst school in a state with the best school in the state. According to idiots like Duncan the test results will switch as well. Every person with even a clue about education will know that next year the same school will be first and the same school will be last. Can this be mitigated? Of course it can but without a huge tax increase or another addition of billions onto the deficit, literally billions of dollars must move out of suburban leafy neighborhoods and into the ghetto schools and rural poverty schools. I think we all know how likely that is. If you are not prepared to do one of those things then shut up about "closing the gap". Just like Duncan and Obama, you are all talk. It is time to walk the talk. Testing and charters have Jack diddly to do with improvement. Twenty years of NCLB and the USA is farther behind than ever.