Last fall, when the U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines for states planning to request waivers from No Child Left Behind, I penned an item only half in jest suggesting that navigating the guidelines was probably harder than actually closing the achievement gap.

I wrote:

"Its 22 pages (PDF) are equal parts prescriptive and vague, strewn with acronyms, fonts and letters and numbers delineating sections and subsections followed by numbers with letters delineating still more. I'd compare it to the Rosetta Stone, but that we eventually decoded.

"Under '2.B, Option A, iii,' this is what you find:

" 'If the SEA set AMOs that differ by LEA, school, or subgroup, do the AMOs require LEAs, schools, and subgroups that are further behind to make greater rates of annual progress?'

"And then there's '2.G, b.':

" 'Is the SEA's process for ensuring sufficient support for implementation in priority schools of meaningful interventions aligned with the turnaround principles (including through leveraging funds the LEA was previously required to reserve under ESEA section 1116(b) (10), SIG funds, and other Federal funds, as permitted, along with State and local resources) likely to result in successful implementation of such interventions and improved student achievement?' "

MinnPost/James Nord

Brenda Cassellius

Preliminary feedback
During the holiday break, news broke via Minnesota Public Radio that the feds sent state Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius a letter containing preliminary feedback from the folks evaluating Minnesota's application to substitute its own accountability systems for compliance with the mostly reviled NCLB.

It's every bit as impenetrable — this time the numbers and letters are joined by circles both hollow and filled-in — so I'll bottom-line it for you: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his team think Minnesota's proposal is a good one and would like to award a waiver, but we — I am not making this up — checked the wrong box in one of the aforementioned subsections.

Plus, they would like a little more clarity.

Ah, yes, clarity. In search of some myself, I called the department's brand-new assistant director of communications, Keith Hovis, who let out a sort of warbling moan before asking for a couple of moments to get some clarity for me.

Two minutes later, Cassellius called back.

"I understand it," she volunteered cheerfully. "They're just saying, 'Show us an educationally sound reason why this is good for kids.' "

Many have more revisions to make
All 11 states that asked for waivers got letters, and many have a lot more revisions to make than Minnesota, she said.

The biggest question needing amplification concerns Minnesota's proposed new testing regime, which would substitute tests that measure how much individual kids learn in a year. It seems the feds didn't understand that the data these tests would yield also would show whether kids are performing at grade level.

About which Cassellius has plenty more to say. In the past, with baseline proficiency the only measure on the table, Minnesota has appeared to be doing relatively well when in fact we have one of the nation's largest racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

Large numbers of kids do well on our math and reading tests, which can be passed with a middle-of-the-road performance. A shameful number don't pass, but we don't know where they started out and whether subpar performance means they're learning but have more catching up to do, or whether they are stagnating or falling behind.

Going forward, we will use one set of "growth-model" data to measure kids, teachers and schools. It will still tell us how many are scoring at grade level, but it will also identify how much learning high-performing students, worth about zero survival points to harried educators under the current system, are doing, and whether individual groups of kids are growing faster or slower than their peers. 

The highest-performing "Rewards Schools," as revealed by the data, will be audited in an effort to identify tactics struggling ones can copy.

Evaluation models still under development
The gist of the feds' second substantive concern: We asserted that our teacher and principal evaluation system would meet Duncan's parameters. The state's fallback evaluation models are still under development but will comply with the law passed by the legislature in July, which ticks every item on the feds' wish list.

Accordingly, under "Principle 3," the reviewers would like the state to uncheck "Option B" and instead check "Option A," "applicable to a state that has not already adopted guidelines."

Does this feedback strike you as at all, um, schoolmarmy? Cassellius is far too politic to say so. "It's really exciting to be able to have this kind of responsibility and to not have it prescribed to us what to do," is what she said yesterday.

But if she is sincere in her stated desire to have great solutions to problems NCLB failed to solve trickle up from Minnesota's schools and districts, then it's a real public service that her office is cheerfully and quietly readying to resubmit the application within the next week.