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Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  No Child Left Behind.  Race To The Top. Common Core.  These are all programs and initiatives federal and state governments have used to attempt to regulate the quality of education.  Administrators, teachers, and especially teachers' unions have balked at some or all of these programs that, when tied to school aid and government budgeting as they always are, have direct impact on the way they are allowed to teach.  On December 10th President Barack Obama signed a new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).  Lansing School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso says this is good news for local educators, who may now have more influence on how they teach.

"It's good news, but it doesn't feel good quite yet, until we really know what's happening and how budget is connected to it -- because it always is," Pettograsso told the Lansing Board Of Education last month.  "Lots of good things are happening locally, but I think we're going to have more leeway to do more of that."

Two key elements of the new regulations stand out.  The first is that the new law calls for less onerous testing.  A growth model with a three year overview will reduce annual testing to an every-three-year approach.  Student will be tested in third grade, and again in sixth grade, instead of taking 90 minute tests each year in multiple subjects.    The second element, key for teachers (and their unions), is a recommendation by Governor Andrew Cuomo's Common Core Task Force that will de-link student test performance from teacher evaluations.   

Cuomo politicized education reform by tying teacher evaluation to test scores, and school aid to compliance to state requirements.  At the same time New York withheld promised school aid in the 'Gap Elimination Adjustment' (GEA), which was created to help the state recover from a $10 billion deficit, and has never been restored, despite some legislators' attempts.  The New York State Senate voted January 11th to completely eliminate the GEA in the 2016-2017 state budget.  It will require the Assembly to enact similar legislation, and then got to Cuomo to be signed.  This is not the first time legislators have sought to eliminate the GEA, and the bill's success is far from assured.

All this led to protests by educators and parents, many of whom participated in a movement to opt their children out of what they considered to be unnecessary and overly stressful state mandated testing.  The combination of the new federal law and Cuomo's own task force have led him to back off of the unpopular requirements.

"As this is coming out we're seeing Governor Cuomo shift his beliefs on education and testing and local control," Pettograsso said.            "Governor Cuomo created a Common Core task force.  There was a strong connection to educational reform, the budget and approval of the budget by the Legislature, which Governor Cuomo does not oversee.  The Board of Regents does, so the only way he can have control over that is if he connects it to the budget, which he has full control over."

Pettograsso says that new requirements, approved in an emergency amendment approved by the New York State Board of Regents in mid-December, give local districts more leeway to influence their curriculum and take pressure off of teachers, allowing them to concentrate on teaching, rather than 'teaching to the test'.  That is not to say that teachers are being let off the hook.  The emergency amendment calls for 'no consequences for teachers and principals related to 3 - 8 ELA and mathematics state assessments and no growth score on Regents exams until the start of the 2019 - 2020 school year'.

The new requirements don't mean teacher evaluations are being eliminated.  Pettograsso says that they will continue to use the 'Highly Effective/Effective/Ineffective/Development' (HEDI) method of scoring teachers.

"That's a huge shift that just came about for public education," Pettograsso said.  "It's a really big shift.  The Regents talk a lot about the psychological aim of this entire process.  The key to the implementation of any changes in the next two years we'll see some significant shifts, hopefully taking all the good from the last two years and getting rid of the not so good."

In part, the Regent's amendment reads, "During the transition period, transition scores and HEDI ratings will replace the scores and HEDI ratings for teachers and principals whose HEDI scores are based, in whole or in part, on State assessments in grades 3-8 ELA or mathematics (including where State-provided growth scores are used) or on State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations."

"The recommendations are mostly focused on less testing, shorter testing," Pettograsso said.  "It's focused on improving the level of learning.  Testing for English language learners so they are not double-tested in different areas.  It disconnects test results from (teacher) evaluation, which was a huge push.  It was the whole crux of why we weren't supporting the budget last year."

Pettograsso said that the Regents' actions have yet to be interpreted in terms of how, specifically, they might be implemented as well as what implications they will have on state aid.  She said she is working closely with Director of Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment and Professional Development Lauren Faessler, and that she immediately reached out to her faculty and administrative staff to try to make sense of the new regulations..  She was cautiously optimistic, noting that the new Commissioner of Education wants rigorous standards, but also wants them well implemented.  Pettograsso worried that educators might be so beaten down that they are no longer willing to engage under the new regulations, but said she has faith in her faculty.

"There are lots of opportunities," she said.  "I hope that people are still invested to take them on.  I think our faculty will be."

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