TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 (copyright 2009 Texas AFT)   AFT Strongly Reinforces Our Message on Federal School-Improvement Regulations: The Regulations Themselves Need Much Improvement   The American Federation of Teachers on Friday strongly reinforced the message of Texas AFT's comments on proposed U.S. Education Department rules for the allocation of $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grants. The AFT statement spells out serious problems with the proposed rules, and we think AFT's critique represents well the grass-roots response to the Education Department's excessively top-down approach to school reform. Here's an AFT summary of that critique (and you can see the full, 15-page AFT statement on the draft rules at http://leadernet.aft.org/documents_supporting/AFT%20SIG%20Comments%20FINAL.pdf):   "The U.S. Education Department must take decisive steps to set rules for Title I School Improvement Grants (SIG) in ways that help struggling schools move beyond the No Child Left Behind Act's failed mandates, and encourage the adoption of locally tailored reforms with a track record of success in the classroom, the AFT told Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Sept. 25.   "In a letter to Duncan that accompanied the union's comments on the SIG regulations, AFT president Randi Weingarten commended the department for its emphasis on embedded professional development, expanded learning time and other 'positive, effective tools' reflected in the draft. She also lauded the department's 'clear commitment to focus its resources to turn around our lowest-performing schools' through the $3.5 billion SIG program. However, the department's draft regulations are weakened by 'other components that are neither research-based nor likely to increase student achievement,' Weingarten warned.   "'They are inconsistent with the department's often-stated goals and display a degree of overreaching that is inconsistent with the department's commitment to collaboration.'   "The AFT president highlighted several areas in the draft where warmed-over NCLB policy and arbitrary rule-making threaten to undermine SIG effectiveness, jeopardizing the grant program's ability to support and turn around struggling Title I schools. Among the areas of concern:   "Many of the department's proposed regulations are driven by NCLB's accountability system, a system that the Obama administration has repeatedly, openly and validly criticized. For example, the department is proposing a 'turnaround model' for struggling schools receiving SIG funds that would include replacing the principal and at least 50 percent of the staff. The results of NCLB-required tests in math and English language arts would be used to identify both the schools labeled 'lowest-performing' and staff members who will be among the 50 percent replaced, Weingarten pointed out. 'That is how these high-stakes decisions will be made under the department's proposed regulations--on the basis of a single measure in two subjects.'   "The Education Department has shown a 'clear and laudable' commitment to community schools, a concept that the AFT also supports. Yet some SIG options contained in the department's draft regulations would simply close low-performing buildings. This undermines efforts to build community schools, Weingarten warned. 'By definition, these models disrupt and potentially displace students from their neighborhood schools and scatter them to schools throughout the district?and when school buildings close, they create blight in a community.'   "When a district or local education agency (LEA) has at least nine Title I schools judged to be severely underperforming, that agency would be barred under the department's proposed regulations from using the same intervention in more than 50 percent of those schools. This requirement 'defies logic,' Weingarten said. 'Capping intervention in this manner would prevent systemic reform by not allowing districts to scale up successful, research-based interventions.'   "Although the Obama administration has made clear its support of workers' rights to bargain collectively, and Congress has mandated that NCLB cannot compromise school district employees' rights under law or under the terms of collective bargaining and other agreements, those views are not reflected in the department's draft. This troubling omission would effectively insert the Education Department between employer and employee 'in a manner that is unprecedented and, arguably, unsustainable,' Weingarten cautioned. 'It illustrates, too, the problems that are inherent in doing by regulatory fiat what Congress should address through legislation.'   'The AFT's comments emphasize that turnaround models included in the department's draft regulations are too 'narrow, rigid and preclude the very reforms that have proven to be effective.' Weingarten urged the department to support a strategic mix of research-backed turnaround strategies, targeted to the needs of students in each building.   "The AFT recognizes that 'no single factor causes a school to struggle; rather, it is a combination of factors,' Weingarten pointed out. 'Likewise, schools will not be successfully turned around by a single intervention. Their needs are more dynamic and consequently require multiple interventions, including well-prepared and supported teachers, focused academic instruction, real and reliable shared accountability, the use of proven and research-based programs and strategies, strong and collaborative leadership, and a commitment to working with the community whose children attend the schools.'"