DAITs with destiny: Districts get program assistance as they focus on NLCB’s deadline
By:
Carol Brydolf
If you’re curious about the potential benefits of California’s new intervention program for districts subject to federally mandated “Corrective Action” under the No Child Left Behind Act, take a look at Red Bluff Union Elementary School District in Tehama County.
When Superintendent Charles Allen came on board in July 2005—the fourth Red Bluff superintendent to hold the job in six years—the 2,225-student district was suffering. Its four schools—one of which was in Program Improvement under NCLB—operated as semi-autonomous fiefdoms, each with its own report cards and academic calendars.
“Some teachers were inconsistent about their use of district curriculum,” Allen remembers. “I found shrink-wrapped instructional materials sitting on classroom shelves.”
As a district, Red Bluff hadn’t yet reached the Corrective Action stage of PI, which comes after districts fail to make federal benchmarks of adequate yearly progress for five consecutive years, but it was heading there fast. The district’s English learners and economically disadvantaged students were struggling, and teachers at the PI school were balking at what they saw as inflexible, top-down corrective actions handed down from the state.
Allen and Red Bluff’s school board members drew up a districtwide reform plan that stressed, “three easy themes,” the superintendent says: “consistency, teamwork through collaboration and coherence.”
Then the district got the chance to work with a District Assistance and Intervention Team—a DAIT—from the Tehama County Office of Education. Red Bluff joined 14 other districts, all of which were also in the early stages of Program Improvement, as part of a foundation-funded state pilot project designed to develop regional expertise for intervention and assistance teams led by county superintendents.
Among other things, the pilot project, overseen by the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association and the California Department of Education, tested the effectiveness of bringing outside experts into local educational agencies to help governance teams assess and improve seven key aspects of district operations: governance; alignment of curriculum, instruction and assessment to state standards; fiscal operations; human resources; data systems and achievement monitoring; and professional development. Last year, CCSESA received $15 million in foundation funding to continue the work for another two years.
Many of the pilot project reforms—the DAIT approach in particular—became integral components of the plan for the interventions in Corrective Action LEAs that were adopted by the State Board of Education earlier this year.
The DAIT difference
The DAIT strategy has paid off big time for Red Bluff, helping the district expand its earlier reform efforts, raise student achievement and develop a more collaborative relationship with teachers and staff.
“It was difficult and took strong leadership at all levels, but we needed to get everyone on the same page,” Allen says. “Working with a DAIT allowed a small district like ours to add expertise and get some vital support. The team provided some structures that helped us work collaboratively with our teachers to move the school improvement effort forward.”
By continuing to focus on what was best for students, Red Bluff has changed its district culture and improved student performance, Allen says. Now all the schools use district-approved, standards-based curricula, aligned assessments and curricular pacing. Teachers use data to identify student learning needs, and administrators monitor instruction through daily classroom walkthroughs.
“This year we had our first school score 800 [the state target] on the state Academic Progress Index,” he says. “We couldn’t have done this without the support of the board. I give them a lot of credit for keeping the focus on kids.”
The district’s PI schools—there are two now, unfortunately—have been improving steadily, and they just barely missed making their federal AYP targets under NCLB this year.
“It was heartbreaking,” says Red Bluff school board member Steve Meagher, CSBA delegate from Region 4, who sits on the district’s DAIT advisory committee. “But we’ve been consistently moving up. The district has changed dramatically—from one that had a bad atmosphere to one that feels good.”
Readiness is key
Allen says the fact that the district volunteered to work with a DAIT made a big difference.
“It’s been tough to bring people together who are used to doing things their own way,” he says. “Readiness is a huge factor.”
District Assistance and Intervention Teams like the one working with Red Bluff are an integral part of the state’s plan for the first group of districts to fall into Corrective Action under NCLB. In many ways, the art of reforming districts, rather than individual schools, is uncharted territory.
“We’re building the plane while we’re flying it,” says Fred Tempes, supervisor of five DAIT teams and director of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program at the Regional Educational Laboratory West, a facility administered by WestEd, the nonprofit research, development, and service organization. “I’m sure we’ll get better and better as time goes on.”
Districts and county offices have been working on NCLB-mandated school reform for years, but Corrective Action requirements only kick in after the districts and county offices enter year three of Program Improvement for failing to make AYP targets for five years.
The first cohort of 96 Corrective Action districts (and one county office) was identified in 2007; these are the LEAs subject to the Corrective Actions SBE adopted earlier this year. Another 50 LEAs reached their third year of Program Improvement and entered Corrective Action this fall. The SBE is scheduled to release its recommendations for helping these districts improve student performance later this year. It’s likely the Corrective Actions for these districts will closely resemble those adopted last March.
Meaningful technical assistance
NCLB requires states to intervene when districts reach the Corrective Action stage. The law lists a number of actions that states can take—including taking control of districts or county offices and replacing staff or governing boards; but NCLB also permits states to design their own technical assistance programs to help these districts. That’s exactly what California did.
California’s technical assistance plan to help PI districts implement Corrective Action was put together by the SBE and CDE. It was based on interventions included in a 2004 state law that was itself developed in consultation with members of the education community, including the California School Boards Association.
“We were part of the negotiations that created the DAITs because we thought many of the NCLB sanctions were draconian,” says Holly Jacobson, CSBA’s assistant executive director for Policy Analysis.
CSBA pushed for a system of differentiated consequences and support that recognized that LEAs in Corrective Action need varying levels of intervention. A high-achieving district that falls into PI because students were absent on test day, for example, doesn’t require the same level of support as a district with significant percentages of students who are failing to meet grade-level standards.
“Not every district needs a DAIT makeover,” Jacobson says. “Besides,” she adds, “there aren’t enough qualified team members to staff the number of DAITs that would eventually be needed to work with every district that’s heading for Corrective Action.”
CSBA also expressed concerns that existing DAIT teams lack expertise in governance—a key to effective district reform. To that end, the association has been working with the county superintendents association to strengthen support for PI district governance teams (see related story on page 37).
The plan for Corrective Action districts recommended by CDE and adopted by the SBE reflects many priorities emphasized by CSBA and other members of the education community. It includes, for example, what one observer called a “triage” system to focus the most money and the highest levels of interventions on LEAs with the most significant achievement problems.
However, CSBA and other observers were dismayed when the SBE eliminated a provision that would have made a district’s obligation to perform the Corrective Action work contingent on actually receiving funding to pay for it.
Jacobson was among those unhappy with the decision. “Given all the constraints on district budgets, it’s unreasonable to impose another mandate at a time when districts are struggling to pay their bills,” she says.
As it turned out this year, there was federal money available. This year’s state budget allocates $102 million in federal Title I set-aside funds to 92 Corrective Action districts based on the severity of their problems and the number of PI schools they oversee. Districts with extensive and severe performance problems will receive $150,000 for each PI school in their district; those with moderate problems get $100,000 per PI school, and LEAs with minor or isolated problems receive $50,000 per PI school. (Some of the federal money had been at risk because the state Legislature failed to allocate it before a deadline for its use had passed. However, at press time CDE officials were confident the U.S Department of Education would waive the requirement.)
Under the state’s new LEA Corrective Action and Technical Assistance Plan, the SBE assigned DAITs to the seven districts deemed to be in need of the most intensive support. Another 37 LEAs were allowed to choose their intervention teams from a list of state-approved DAITs. County offices of education dominate the list of authorized DAIT providers, but a number of private and nonprofit teams also offer their services.
One of these, Oxnard Elementary School District, has so far refused to contract with a DAIT. Oxnard Superintendent Rick Miller says district leaders believe that the State Board’s plan as it’s currently written raises serious governance issues.
“We have nothing against DAITs or the State Board sanctions,” Miller says. “We believe in the process the State Board has set up. In fact, we’ve worked with DAITs in a high percentage of our schools.”
“But we object to the provision that says we must do whatever the DAIT tells us to do,” he adds. “Does this mean the DAIT will take responsibility if it doesn’t work? What if the recommendation costs a lot? If the state is going to take over, we need to know that.”
Miller says the district is investigating the possibility of legal action. He has modified the district’s DAIT contract to eliminate the provision that requires the district to adopt all DAIT recommendations and added language to give the district governance team the latitude to make the changes it believes will be effective.
“We hope CSBA will stand with us on this,” he says. “This is the proverbial slippery slope.”
CSBA’s Jacobson says the association shares Miller’s concern. “The Legislature did not include these requirements in the law,” she says. “We absolutely agree that the State Board’s plan raises significant governance issues.”
Bellwether state
All eyes are on California. The Golden State is holding LEAs (and schools) accountable for meeting some of the nation’s highest academic standards and has established a correspondingly exacting definition of what’s considered “proficient” for purposes of meeting NCLB targets.
California has more students than any other state, and these students are the most varied and diverse in the country. A recent survey of California’s PI districts by WestEd found that those that serve significant percentages of English learners, students of color and those from economically disadvantaged families are most likely to be in Program Improvement. Given all that, it’s not surprising that this state has more students, schools and districts impacted by Program Improvement than any other.
In 2007-08, California had 187 districts serving more than 2.9 million students in Program Improvement, according to a forthcoming analysis by WestEd’s Regional Educational Laboratory West.
California’s increasing focus on districtwide reform coincides with a growing consensus that that’s the wave of the future, and the most effective way to improve student achievement.
“We want to move away from site-by-site reform,” says Laura Wagner, an administrator in CDE’s Accountability and Improvement Division. In fact, the division is undertaking a comprehensive reorganization specifically designed to help CDE provide better services to Program Improvement districts.
And although it’s too early to say how well it will work, California also has done more than most states to set up a comprehensive system of resources, interventions and support for districtwide reform.
”California has a formalized DAIT process and has put together resource materials and focused interventions that give the process a high degree of specificity that most other states haven’t developed,” says Eric Crane, the lead author of a detailed study of PI districts for REL West.
Many unknowns
The brave new world of district accountability—NCLB style—is a new frontier with many unknowns, and American schools and LEAs are climbing toward a dauntingly high goal. That’s because NCLB proficiency and achievement requirements ramp up dramatically each year, culminating in the 2014 deadline for all American public schoolchildren to test proficient in reading and math.
That’s a deadline that virtually no one expects schools or districts to meet. Most members of the education community say it’s simply not possible to bring every American student, including those who don’t speak English or who have disabilities, to the level of proficiency as defined by NCLB. Absent significant changes in the federal law, which is up for reauthorization, all schools and all districts will eventually be labeled as failing, observers say. As CSBA’s Jacobson puts it, “Program Improvement is like the ‘roach motel. Districts can move in, but they’ll never move out.”
WestEd’s Tempes is also among those who say that bar is too high.
“Clearly, the idea that everyone will be proficient in 2014 is crazy,” he says. “It won’t happen. Expecting 100 percent [proficiency] for students with disabilities and ELs is just wishful thinking.
“However,” he adds, “the idea that you can get 40 percent of your students proficient—which is next year’s goal—I think is not crazy. Districtwide change is worth pursuing, because it represents the only way to really improve student performance.”
Adding to the uncertainty over the future is Congress’s failure this year to reauthorize NCLB as scheduled. There’s no doubt the law will be reauthorized, but that will occur under a new presidential administration no matter whom was elected Nov. 4, and so it’s probable that the new iteration will contain significant changes. But Tempes says districts would be ill-advised to stall their reform plans in hopes that some of the most onerous aspects of the law will somehow disappear. Besides, he adds, districtwide improvement is good for kids.
Nancy Brownell, who directs CCSESA’s district and county office capacity efforts, says California is doing the right thing to focus on reforming schools at the district level rather than at school sites, regardless of what happens with the federal legislation.
“It’s true that NCLB requires districts to make progress at a rate that’s almost impossible,” Brownell says. “But it’s also true that we are not reaching significant numbers of students. Even if NCLB goes away, we still need strong district leadership on the ground. School-by-school reform takes too long. It’s never a waste to work toward improving opportunities for all students. Doing what’s needed for struggling students can improve education for all students.”
Too early to predict
The new state interventions for LEAs have just gotten under way, and it’s too early to tell what impact they will have. But participants in the pilot project and other district representatives who have worked on school restructuring say they have already learned some things that could be instructive.
The pilot, with its private funding and cadre of volunteer LEAs, is, of course, different from the state program, which is financed by federal and state funds and imposed on districts that may resent having to deal with yet another mandate. During the initial months of the Corrective Action process, for example, district administrators and DAITs must evaluate districts’ readiness to implement reform, examine and assess current district work and examine detailed student achievement data.
CDE’s Wagner says she is has heard from both district administrators and DAIT pilot providers about these issues. She acknowledges that there are a lot of unknowns in this first year of full implementation.
"It's not clear how stringently the State Board will hold to their requirement for work with a DAIT or implementation of the corrective actions,” she says. “However, it is critical that districts undertake the systematic evaluation of their programs and modify or restructure them to improve student achievement. Some of these districts have been in academic difficulty for quite awhile. That's why serious attention to the recommendations of a DAIT now, whether in the fiscal, personnel or academic arenas, is critical to help the district build the capacity to provide a better education for their children. "
It’s also important that intervention team members have real-world experience running schools and districts, says veteran educator and Sacramento County Office of Education DAIT leader Sue Stickel.
Stickel, a former state deputy superintendent and longtime administrator with Elk Grove Unified School District, has been working with Washington Unified School District in West Sacramento as part of the DAIT pilot. She’s found that the job also requires good people skills.
“It’s hard work,” she says, “You need good collaboration and listening skills, as well as a good breadth of knowledge about district operations.”
CSBA’s Jacobson says DAIT providers must recognize that many PI districts often face crises brought on by external factors over which they have no control—difficult contract negotiations, say, or the continuing state budget melodrama, or the catastrophic meltdown of the national economy.
“It’s not enough to say that the DAIT work is more important and must come first,” says Jacobson. “DAITs need to help districts work through these crises and also complete their DAIT work.”
Carol Brydolf (cbrydolf@csba.org) is a staff writer for California Schools.
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