Leadership for Family and Community Engagement: A Qualitative Policy Analysis of State Principal Evaluation Processes

Purpose: The primary purpose of this policy analysis is to examine how states changed their principal performance evaluation systems since the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. In particular, we focus on whether states have capitalized on the flexible policy landscape to make space for meaningful family and community engagement (FCE) in assessing principals’ effectiveness. Research Methods: This study uses document analysis to review the structure of principal evaluation systems in all 50 states and selects 17 revised systems for a deeper review of their approach to leadership for partnering with families and communities. Findings: A plurality of states have not substantively revised their evaluation systems. Several of the revised systems narrowly focused on instructional leadership and student achievement measures and were thus unsupportive of meaningful FCE and federal policy aims for schools to work in partnership with family and community stakeholders. The principal evaluation systems most supportive of authentic family and community engagement allowed for flexible goal setting and explicitly encouraged the use of stakeholder feedback as evidence of principals’ effectiveness. Implications for Research and Policy: The authors discuss the implications of the results in terms of 1.) expanding definitions of educational leadership to include tenets of authentic FCE, 2.) creating coherent yet compendious systems for school improvement, and 3.) planning for and implementing a developmental approach to the evaluation of school leaders.

Agile Scrum Pedagogy: Leveraging Collaborative Corporate Practices to Enhance Engagement

Accountability legislation such as No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act ushered in an era of right-answer based reforms. Teachers, students, parents as well as community and corporate leaders lament the legislation’s negative impact on critical and creative thinking skills. Recent educational reform proposals focus on reversing the accountability trends. The change is propelling instructors at all levels to consider making contextually relevant pedagogical modifications. Business entities increasing resolve to adopt Agile Scrum principles offers educators an intriguing, authentic teamwork learning strategy. This article presents a business professor’s journey from content-driven to Agile Scrum’s context-embracing classroom instruction. Results from this action research affirm Agile Scrum principles that suggest engagement increases when instructors provide students flexibility, fast-paced opportunities to absorb content.

Funding Structures and State Capacity for School Improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act: Case Studies of Five States

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal government allocates 7% of Title I funds, about $1 billion per year, for school improvement. States have substantial autonomy in allocating these funds, including which schools are identified for federal school improvement, what improvement strategies are used, and whether external intermediaries are involved. A growing area of research explores the private, often for-profit school improvement industry, but few studies track the finance and policy structures that funnel public funds to external K–12 intermediaries. In this study, we draw on document analysis and interview data to explore school improvement practices and finance policies in five case study states. We find that states use varied methods for identifying schools for improvement, and also vary in the extent to which they provide local autonomy to school districts. Some states, such as Texas and Tennessee, incentivize schools to adopt particular strategies or encourage partnering with an external intermediary. Texas provides a list of vetted external intermediaries they expect districts to work with (and support financially). Other states, such as California and New York, provide more state-led school improvement strategies through regional offices and give districts greater local autonomy. Findings point to possible benefits of local autonomy, while highlighting potential challenges associated with unregulated market-based reforms in education.

Putting Policy Into Practice: Impact of the Every Student Succeeds Act on Speech-Language Pathologists and Students With Disabilities

Purpose Public policies can influence how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) provide services to students with disabilities. Specifically, this article is intended to provide background information and critical analysis regarding the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as it relates to speech-language pathology practice and provision of services to students with disabilities within the schools. Method The authors reviewed legislation text, publications from national education and speech and language organizations, and critical educational policy and research articles to examine the role that SLPs can play in the implementation of ESSA for students with disabilities. Results SLPs and other education professionals utilize ESSA to improve access to a well-rounded, college- and career-focused education for all students. ESSA state plans may not fully maximize equal opportunities for students with disabilities. There are additional ways that SLPs can capitalize on ESSA to expand and improve their service provision to students with disabilities, including SLPs broadening their understanding of the role ESSA plays in facilitating positive practices for students with and without disabilities. Conclusions SLPs, teachers, and other stakeholders can improve the impact of ESSA on students with disabilities by helping to improve accountability systems for the educational outcomes of students with disabilities, supporting funding allocation for students with disabilities and struggling learners in the general education setting, and assisting local education agencies to better align ESSA with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Toward better ways of measuring school climate

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That’s not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study suggests that by making a couple of modest changes to their data collection and analysis, states can significantly improve their measurement of school climate. Doing so is more than worth the effort, they add, as it will create strong incentives for schools to improve their learning environment.

Seek Consultation

Seeking consultation commences with the recognition that seeking consultation is itself an ethical duty to the client. The chapter recommends three types of consultation, including ethical consultation, clinical consultation, and legal consultation. Ethical consultation occurs best when it is regularly scheduled, part of an ongoing relationship, and nurtures the professional’s own ethical growth. Clinical consultation can be used for ongoing supervision, understanding the connection between emotional and academic problems, staying current with clinical theory and interventions, recognizing the need for self-care, and managing clinical concerns. Legal consultation can assist with understanding constitutional rights of due process and equal protection, federal statutes such as the Every Student Succeeds Act or Individuals with Disabilities Act, state statutes, administrative regulations, and case law, such as the Tarasoff duty to protect and Jaffee v. Redmond. It ends with a discussion of the relationship between law and ethics and provides guidance regarding civil disobedience.

Principal Evaluation under Elementary and Secondary Every Student Succeeds Act: A Comprehensive Policy Review

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals’ effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat. Federal policies such as Race to the Top (RTTT) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers emphasized principal quality and prompted many states to overhaul principal evaluation as a means to develop principals’ leadership practices and hold them accountable for the performance of their schools. The development and dissemination of principal evaluation policies has proceeded rapidly, however, it is unclear whether focusing on principal evaluation has targeted the most impactful policy lever. In this policy brief, we describe where policy makers have placed their bets in post-RTTT principal evaluation systems and comment on the wisdom of these wagers. We describe the degree to which principal evaluation components, processes, and consequences vary across the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and review evidence on which aspects of principal evaluation policies are most likely to improve principals’ practice and hold them accountable.

Authority and Control: The Tension at the Heart of Standards-Based Accountability

In this essay, Jack Schneider and Andrew Saultz offer a new perspective on state and federal power through their analysis of authority and control. Due to limitations inherent to centralized governance, state and federal offices of education exercised little control over schools across much of the twentieth century, even as they acquired considerable authority. By the 1980s, however, such loose coupling had become politically untenable and led to the standards and accountability movement. Yet, greater exertion of control only produced a new legitimacy challenge: the charge of ineffectiveness. State and federal offices, then, are trapped in an impossible bind, in which they are unable to relinquish control without abdicating authority. Schneider and Saultz examine how state and federal offices have managed this dilemma through ceremonial reform, looking at two high-profile examples: the transition from No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds Act, and states’ reaction to public criticism of the Common Core State Standards.