School Officials: New Federal Education Guidelines Don't Set the Bar High Enough

The New York State Legislature's $1.4 billion cut in state aid to schools has left many school districts scrambling to fill gaps in their budgets.

However, New York is one step closer to securing between $350 and $700 million in federal aid, after the U.S. Department of Education recently named the state as one of the finalists in Race to the Top, a competition started by the Obama administration in an effort to overhaul the nation's education system.

New York earned additional points in the competition when the Board of Regents adopted the Federal Common Core State Standards (CCSS) on July 19, which outline curriculum requirements that schools must meet in order for their states to qualify for federal funding.

But some school administrators in Rye and Rye Brook say that CCSS is inferior to their current standards and will create little meaningful change in their classrooms.

Blind Brook-Rye Union Free District Superintendent William Stark said that while it's difficult to anticipate exactly how CCSS will trickle down to the local level, school districts should really have two sets of standards, those of the state and federal governments, and "the standard it sets above that level."

He noted though that setting high standards is reliant upon having the resources to effectively implement them.

Blind Brook schools have been fortunate to have "a community that supports public education from a financial perspective during very difficult economic times," Stark said. "But it's very hard to do that in districts where you don't have those types of resources."

Steven Cohen, the Rye City School District Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, said that like Blind Brook, the district already holds students to higher expectations than those outlined by the state and in CCSS.

"Our graduation requirements meet and exceed those imposed by the state," Cohen said.

He explained that the district continues to increase standards for students. This fall, for example, eighth graders will be required to take Integrated Algebra, which the state requires only for high school students. While the state requires students to pass only five Regents exams, Rye's students are offered 20 Advanced Placement courses.

For Blind Brook students, Stark said that the district is "in the process of trying to establish an academic performance folder for every student in the district to see how they progress in each subject from elementary to middle school to high school."

He said that such methods help administrators to look at each child's performance holistically, "rather than deal just with cohorts."

"We're really going to focus on the individual child and really be able to monitor performance on an individual basis," Stark explained.

Martin Brooks, Ed.D., Executive Director of the Tri-State Consortium, anticipates that the Race to the Top competition will negatively effect students in states that aren't winners of the funding, but are still in great need of revised curriculums and additional programs.

"At-risk students in 'winning' states will receive federal funding for needed programs and staff, but at-risk students in 'losing' states will not," said Brooks.

The Tri-State Consortium, of which the Blind Brook-Rye Union Free District is a member, is a group of affluent school districts that perform assessments in member schools in order to develop "a rigorous framework for systemic planning, assessment, accreditation and continuous improvement," according to the organization's website.

"What is most offensive is pitting states against one another," said Brooks, who called Race to the Top and the associated incentive to adopt CCSS "perverse," "misguided," and an attempt to "punish children for the actions of adults."

Brooks anticipates that Race to the Top, as an "effort to coerce compliance with the federal agenda," will result in tying teacher evaluations to student test scores, and "greater federal control over education."

However, Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, who supports Race to the Top, said that both it and the Common Core standards will have a positive impact on the education system.

"The Race to the Top reforms include many more elements than the adoption
of core standards. The RTTT competition promotes innovation in education in
all districts," Oppenheimer said. "Reforms adopted by the state also include a new system for evaluating teachers and principals, a new system for assessing and tracking the performance of individual students throughout their years of schooling, and investment in innovative educational techniques and programs to improve educational outcomes for all students."

"All New York students, including those in traditionally high-performing districts, will benefit from these changes," Oppenheimer added.

But school administrators still say that assessments of both teachers and students are best established and guided at the local level.

"The thing that concerns me is this emphasis about running toward assessments," Stark said. "It's important that you don't put roadblocks in the way of people who already start above the bar."

Stark suggested that one way to even the playing field is to establish a mentoring program between high-achieving districts and those that aren't meeting minimum standards.

He said such a program would "reward people not just for meeting minimum standards, but also for exceeding standards."