Meeting of the Board of Regents | December 2009

SUMMARY

Issue for Discussion

What should be the methodology by which the Commissioner identifies schools as persistently lowest-achieving?

Procedural History

At the Regents meetings in June, July, September and November 2009, Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch and Regent Lester W. Young provided updates on activities related to New York State’s Race to the Top application planning and strategy.  One key area of Race to the Top involves how states will identify their persistently lowest-achieving schools and support local educational agencies (LEAs) in turning such schools around.  In November, Department staff will review with the Regents a proposed methodology for identifying these schools as well as a recommendation for how the process for identification of persistently lowest-achieving schools can be used to strengthen the Schools Under Registration Review Process. (SURR).

Background Information

For more than two decades, the Board of Regents has had in place a process by which the Commissioner annually identifies those schools that are farthest from State standards and most in need of improvement and places these schools under registration review. Districts with identified schools are required to develop plans for turning these schools around and are provided support by the State Education Department to implement these plans.  If turnaround does not occur, districts must phase out and close these schools or have the Commissioner recommend to the Board of Regents that it revoke the registration of the schools.  This process has helped to improve academic performance in more than 200 schools while resulting in the closure of more than 60 schools that failed to achieve performance targets established by the Commissioner.

In November 2009, the United States Department of Education announced the priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for the Race to the Top (RTTT) fund.  One of the four key selection criteria is the State’s plan for turning around its persistently lowest achieving schools.  The process by which states are expected to identify the lowest-achieving schools that will be subject to intervention strategies has many parallels to SURR identification. When the Regents first established the SURR process there were no comparable programs at the Federal level and no legislation pertaining to school accountability at the State level.  Now with New York’s approval to operate a differentiated accountability model under No Child Left Behind, the issuance of the Race to the Top and School Improvement Grant applications, and the Regents actions to use the authority provided to them under Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2007 to create an enhanced accountability system, the time is opportune to revise the SURR process to better align it with other accountability programs. New York can use its Race to the Top application as an opportunity to strengthen the SURR process and further the Regents agenda for turning around low performing schools.

Race to the Top’s definition of persistently lowest-achieving schools when applied to New York calls for the identification of the lowest achieving five percent of Title I schools identified for school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring as well as the lowest achieving five secondary schools that are eligible for but do not receive Title I funds. In addition, states are also required to identify high schools that have graduation rates below sixty percent over a number of years.  In determining which schools are “lowest achieving” states must take into account the “all students” group’s performance in terms of proficiency in English language arts and mathematics as well as a school’s lack of progress over a number of years with the “all students” group. Within these parameters, each state must submit as part of its application for Race to the Top the state’s plan for identifying its persistently lowest achieving schools.  In addition, the USED has determined that the Federal School Improvement Grant will use the same definition to determine the schools to which LEAs must give priority in terms of funding. The recently released School Improvement Grant application requires that SEAs allocate $500,000 to each persistently lowest achieving Title I school that an LEA will serve with School Improvement Grant funds. LEAs may, at their choosing, reallocate additional SIG funds to support implementation of an intervention strategy in these schools.  Under the SIG application guidelines,  non-Title I persistently lowest-achieving schools do not generate funding to an LEA, but an LEA may choose to use part of its SIG grant to serve these schools.

Recommendation

              In devising a methodology for identification of persistently lowest-achieving schools that results in resources being focused where they are needed most and can effect the greatest good, the Regents must balance Federal requirements with New York’s unique circumstances. For example, a methodology that simply identified the schools in improvement status with the lowest percentages of students proficient in English language arts and mathematics would yield a list that primarily consisted of schools that are already in the processing of closing; schools serving exclusively high risk populations, such as special act schools and transfer alternative high schools; and new schools that are likely to show dramatic improvement as the school staff gain experience and revise their model to meet the needs of their students.

To achieve this balance, Department staff recommends that the following methodology be used to identify the New York’s persistently lowest-achieving schools:

The USED is in the process of issuing additional guidance as to the degree of flexibility that both state education agencies and local agencies may have to identify subsets of schools that would be provided with RTTT funds to implement a school intervention strategy. Based on clarifications that staff expect to receive shortly from USED, SED may either need to identify for potential participation in RTTT all schools in improvement, corrective action, and restructuring that have graduation rates below 60% for three years or may be able to limit this group to a subset of these schools (see step 6). Similarly, depending on clarification from USED, districts may have flexibility as to the schools they select to implement an intervention strategy.

Pending this clarification, SED is anticipating that the number of schools that would be identified as persistently lowest achieving would be approximately 45 to 50, with the majority being high schools.

The intention of the Department is to collaborate with districts to implement an intervention strategy in schools that SED has identified as having the highest priority (i.e. schools among the lowest achieving five percent and schools in restructuring that have had graduation rates below 60 percent for three years) and to provide incentives to school districts through the Secondary School Innovation fund and other mechanisms, including the School Improvement Grants, to implement these intervention strategies in other secondary schools that have low graduation rates.

Department staff recommend that the list of persistently lowest achieving schools be updated each year to include newly identified schools. .

Using the Persistently Lowest Achieving Identification Process to Strengthen Registration Review.

The process for identification of schools for registration review shares much in common with the process for identification of schools as persistently lowest achieving:

• Both processes focus on schools that are in improvement, corrective action or restructuring. Neither process identifies schools that are in Good Standing.
• Both processes focus on those schools whose all students group is among the lowest achieving in the state in English language arts and mathematics.
• Both processes take into consideration a school’s lack of progress in ELA and math in determining whether a school should be identified.

The key differences between the processes are as follows:

• Graduation rate is used as an accountability indicator in determining which schools are persistently lowest-achieving but not for identification of schools as SURRs.
• Non-Title I elementary schools and secondary schools that are eligible for Title I funds are not subject to identification as persistently lowest-achieving but are subject to identification as SURRs.
• The SURR process provides for alternate means to evaluate transfer alternative high schools, special act schools and other schools that have special circumstances.  The persistently lowest-achieving schools identification process does not explicitly address such situations.
•  Once schools are identified as persistently lowest achieving, the schools must implement one of four intensive intervention strategies as a consequence of identification. In the SURR process, these strategies are not usually implemented until the school has had a number of years to implement a restructuring plan.

Staff recommends the following steps to align the SURR process and the identification process for lowest-achieving schools. The two programs will be coordinated, and the Regents will retain the ability to close and direct the development of the plan to replace any school that does not successfully implement a school intervention strategy.

Staff recommend that:

• The definition of a SURR school be modified so that potential SURR schools will be those that are persistently lowest-achieving rather than those that are farthest from State standards.
• The SURR definition of persistently lowest achieving be made to parallel the Federal definition of the term.
• Non-Title I elementary schools and Non-Title I eligible secondary schools that perform at levels that would make them persistently lowest-achieving be considered potential SURR schools.
• New schools that are created as a result of implementation of the Turnaround or Restart model be given an accountability status of Good Standing and not be identified as SURR.
• Existing schools that implement a Turnaround or Transformation model remain SURR until academic performance improves or the schools are closed and restarted or replaced.   
• The Commissioner identify alternative high schools, special act schools, and schools in Community School District 75 for registration review based on a review of supplementary data.  If such schools are Title I schools or Title I eligible secondary schools, they would also be considered persistently low-achieving for Federal program purposes.
• Support for SURR schools be integrated with support provided to schools that are persistently lowest-achieving and any duplication in planning requirements and technical assistance and monitoring be eliminated.
•  The Regents retain the right to revoke the registration of a school that fails to successfully implement a school intervention strategy.

With the concurrence of the Regents, staff will incorporate these concepts into New York’s RTTT application and develop regulations for submission to the Regents later this school year to implement these recommendations beginning with the 2010-2011 school year.

Special Act schools are currently held accountable for making AYP in the same way as other school in New York and are identified for improvement, corrective action or restructuring in the same way as other schools. For purposes of SURR identification, special act school districts are participating in a pilot program under which their schools are being held accountable for pre- and post-test scores of their students in Reading and math.  The base year for the pilot was 2008-2009 and SED has agreed that no special acts schools will be identified as SURR until the after 2009-10 results become available. So long as Special Act schools do not receive Title I funds, the Board of Regents can choose to create a different set of consequences for these schools when they fail to make AYP.  We suggest this issue be discussed at a future Regents meeting.