Ask Arne - New flexibility on career and college ready standards and assessments

Hi, I'm Dan Brown a Teaching Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education, that means I am a teacher on release from my school for a year to bring teacher perspective to federal policy makers including Secretary Duncan. Arne, I know some states have asked for a particular kind of flexibility regarding new assessments. There's new assessments rolling out over the next few years for most students in the country, these are connected to new standards and the new tests, the new assessments are supposed to be better in a lot of ways but states are asking for this flexibility. Could you explain what is being requested and what is the department doing with that request? Well there is lots of moving parts and huge amount of change, I think all of it in the right direction but change is really hard. So, first of all many many states have voluntarily adopted higher standards so teachers are teaching to a higher standard, students are challenged to work to a higher standard. This is fantastic, it's a lot of hard work. There is a next generation of assessments coming as you talked about -- two consortia 44 states working on that. So what states are looking for, in terms of some flexibility, is actually tying student's achievement to teacher evaluation. And recognizing there is a huge amount of change, what we have decided to do, is what we always try to do, is to provide some flexibility. Where states would like an additional year before they start to tie teacher evaluation to student performance, student achievement, moving into the 2016-2017 year we are open to hearing those requests from states. Some states will want it, some states won't, some states are doing a great job already. But I think it is very important that we listen to what folks are asking for and this is our attempt to do that. You've spoken frequently about the urgency for reform, how the status quo just isn't working for enough students but does this policy shift mean slowing down reform and backing off of accountability in any way in your opinion? I think this is trying to be as thoughtful as we can about making sure we maintain the momentum for reform, getting it right and being in it for the long haul. And again, the kinds of changes we're looking for education in this country aren't short-term changes; these are changes that I think are going to have a huge impact literally for decades to come, but for us to get to the right spot we have to get there the right way. We think being thoughtful, providing some flexibility to states for the short-term for an additional year we think is absolutely the right thing to do to make sure as a country we are moving to this new place of much higher standards, much more thoughtful assessments and truly valuing the great work that teachers and principals do every single day in classrooms and schools around the country. So this is a shift though that you are announcing, this openness to new flexibility. Could you describe how you came to that decision? Well, we've had thousands and thousands of conversations with great teachers all over the country. You and the other Teacher Ambassador Fellows have done an amazing job, we've had staff out all over the country. And it is trying to respond to really thoughtful committed teachers. And I say all the time and it is absolutely true, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of conversations that I've had personally I've never yet met a teacher who was scared of accountability, they just want it to be fair, they want it to make sense, I think this is our attempt to do that. So with the new tests, there is field testing and there is also the current state exams so there's lots of talk about the possibility of double testing. Could you talk about what the Department in terms of thinking about double testing? Sure. Any time states adopt new assessments, and this happens on a fairly regular basis if we look back historically, when they are preparing for the new assessments they generally give the old test and then, as you said, they field test the new items on the new test to make sure they are valid and reliable. And because we have so many states engaged in this next generation of assessments we are concerned about double testing, about students taking the old test and the field test for the new assessments. It would be a one-year phenomenon but I worry about over testing generally. So again, we have gone to states, will go to states and say if you want flexibility to not double test, to give one assessment to students either the field test or your current system of accountability we are open to that as well and again, what states decide on a case-by-case basis. Field tests by definition aren't ready for accountability purposes, so for states that would take that option and to do the field test what would happen to school accountability designations? This one is actually really simple, just for this one year of transition we would basically keep accountability based upon the previous years results and so you would have a one-year freeze there, the same type of intervention supports that are going on and then move on to the new system of accountability as we move forward. So, again with a lot of change in a short amount of time, having one year to get this right we thought made a lot of sense. Do you see this as like a major shift for the Department? It's not a major shift at all, it is just trying again to be thoughtful, to listen to what's going, to listen to the hard work that teachers are doing, to listen to students. I have two young children taking annual assessments. Not having kids be double tested when it can be avoided we just think that is common sense. Lastly, this is just a comment not a question but for the record I'm one of twelve Teaching Ambassador Fellows on this team, 6 of us full-time 6 part-time, and we have been traveling the country talking to teachers in 34 states in person this year. This policy shift does really reflect a consensus view of what we heard about, what teachers need, that flexibility to really make sure implementation gets right, gets done correctly. Thank you for including teachers at the table, the Teaching Ambassador Fellows were there while being hashed out and I think this decision really reflects a responsiveness to the field so that teachers can take a breath and say this raising of standards is really the professional challenge of a lifetime but it's doable and we want to get it right for kids and this flexibility is a real step towards putting professional development teacher capacity at the center of that conversation which I think can only help so thank you. I want to thank you and the team for just the amazing amount of hard work and for being road warriors. I really want to thank the teachers around the country who have consistently been thoughtful, who have candid, who have given us great feedback. And the only way we make good policy decisions is if we are actually listening and paying attention to the people who are doing the real hard work every single day which are our amazing classroom teachers across the country. So thank you and your team for the hard work but most importantly thanks to teachers for giving us honest, candid feedback and hopefully the policies you see coming from Washington aren't ones that we come up in a vacuum with here in isolation but really come from what we are hearing from great educators across the country.