Education Reform

A timeline of modern reform movements include the following actions:

Today’s reform movement in the Special Education environment is focused on creating tools and programs that benefit students with disabilities rather than retrofitting those designed for general education students.

Let’s Go Learn’s system uses diagnostic data with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assign specially designed instruction (SDI) to address each student’s learning gaps. With a few clicks, teachers can assign our built-in formative tests and assessments to individual students at regular intervals. These assessments ensure not only that students have mastered learning objectives, but that Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) compliance is met. This next-generation system then takes the student assessment data and automatically updates the student learning path in real-time.

When the Education of All Handicapped Children’s Act was passed in 1975 (renamed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] in 1990), it required that schools taking federal money provide equal access to education to all children. At its core, this reform required that schools create Individual Education Plans/Programs (IEPs) for each child with disabilities.

The expectation is that each child will have a truly individualized and hand-crafted educational program aligned to their unique deficits and needs.  Although many advocates agreed with the Act’s language and intention, many questioned whether it was truly feasible to individualize the education of millions of students with disabilities nationwide.

Nearly 50 years after IDEA’s initial passage, the jury is still out on whether children with disabilities receive the support, resources, and tools they need. Technology has allowed many advances but does not always improve the status quo and close achievement gaps.  In fact, if not used correctly, technology can cause us to regress.  For example, researchers have found many IEPs labeled with the wrong name. Why is this important? It can mean that practitioners are copying and pasting language from one IEP to the next because they have multiple students, tasks, and requirements to complete. However, this practice violates the premise and principle of individualization. Technology has made it very easy to lift language from one IEP and move it to several others. Ironically, a lack of technology actually forced us to be more individualized.

All this said, however, technology does have the capacity to accelerate special education more than any other single entity or advancement. Let’s Go Learn’s digital system reflects best practices in applying technology to advanced tasks. The system provides highly diagnostic tools with its granular digital diagnostic assessment. Diagnostic reporting is organized to support Individualized Education Program (IEP) requirements: goals, benchmarks, and PLAAFP/present level equivalencies for all subskills. With next-generation tools, teachers can focus on creating the optimal individualized plan rather than on statistical analysis.

Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) and Response to Intervention (RTI) serve students’ academic needs. Today we are seeing that many districts and school leaders are concerned about equity or simply implementing RtI or MTSS with fidelity.  They realize that they need better data with a new generation of diagnostics that actually provide useful information. They ask what type of assessment is best. Unfortunately, many educational assessments on the market today may be adaptive or advertised as being diagnostic but are not at the level required to inform instruction for at-risk students.

Assessments that use summative scores, such as single numbers in major areas, and then make comments like “Students are developmentally ready to learn…” or “Students should be able to…” are doing a disservice to schools and districts by attempting to apply this data to individual student pathways. This is technically a faux-pas and arguably ethically wrong as well.

Another simple step administrators are taking is to adopt classroom assessments that teacher review teams find useful for their classrooms.  Fortunately, diagnostic assessment scores can generally be rolled up to provide summative data.  But the converse is not true.  Summative data (such as readability scores, just a fluency rate, or math strand scores) do not inform individual student gaps and intervention prescriptions.

Because students may not be proficient in grade-level standards, using a test focused on those standards may contribute to a vicious cycle of struggling students continuing to struggle until failure is a guarantee. Standardized assessments do not support equity or inform instruction. Teachers do not know where their neediest students’ gaps may lie when testing focuses only on concepts that are within one year of a student’s actual grade level.  Would it make sense to use a French 3 test to evaluate first-year French students?  No, of course not.  Would it nevertheless allow you to gauge how students, in general, are doing?  Yes, it would. The top students would score as proficient or better.  The students who are performing below grade level would be clustered together with low 0% to 25% scores. But there is a big drawback in using this kind of assessment to guide instruction.

The assumption is that because a test can scale students from weakest to strongest, it is a good test.  Because it can measure growth, schools may only use this type of assessment, which has a very negative impact on students with learning gaps. Because we often have systems in place that fail to address these learning gaps, the impact can last forever, particularly for low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities; these students have traditionally experienced underfunded schools, institutional bias, inadequate assessment and instructional programs, and ineffective teacher preparedness.

Take math, for example; many urban schools have proficiency scores ranging from 20% to 50%.  What does this mean?  Simply put, it means that 15 to 24 students in a 30-student class are below grade-level standards. For middle school, this translates to these students being 1 to 3 years behind grade level. Thus, these students need personalized intervention.

Few people know that state tests are normative.  The cut score for proficiency has been set below grade level; otherwise, we would see proficiency scores that are politically too low in middle school.  So even students who score at the proficient level may be one or more grade levels behind in middle school.  This means the gaps may be even larger in reality.

In general education classes, using benchmark or standards-based testing only works when the majority of students are at grade level, meaning proficiency levels on state tests of 80% or higher.  But we know this does not apply to the majority of classrooms in urban districts.  Teachers need better data.  The term DRIP is used to describe how useless data can be; it means data rich, information poor.

Innovation and reform often rest on the availability of public funds. Knowing funding sources and requirements is critical to many reform efforts, and Let’s Go Learn’s education experts can help administrators successfully fund reform.

The three major contributors to educational funding are the federal government, state government, and local sources. Schools, in general, receive about 8% from federal dollars (mostly grants); 48% from state dollars (mostly taxes and fees); and 44% from local dollars (mostly property taxes). Charter schools are part of the public school system, but because of state charter law, they often receive less funding; in some states, public charter schools receive 20-60 percent less funding. Private schools, including religious schools, are primarily funded through private school tuition, but while they cannot directly receive federal funding, they can request opt-in services from public schools.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was first passed in 1965 as part of the “War on Poverty.” Its goal was to ensure equity among all US students with grant monies for programs and services that support student learning. In 2015, the Act was renamed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The Act is the largest federal funding source for low-income and vulnerable children. It comes from the federal government through the states and then to school districts. The states distribute the money to districts using a formula that aligns with the number of students living in poverty.

These districts must demonstrate that the funds are being put to good use through evidence-based solutions that provide transparency and accountability verified by student outcomes. Annual testing has become the tool for measuring whether states and school districts are meeting expectations and closing learning gaps to achieve universal equity. Let’s Go Learn’s databases and reporting systems can mean the difference between receiving grant monies and being turned down for lack of accountability.

Response to COVID-19

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 will provide K-12 schools with approximately $130B to help support learning recovery. Most of these monies will go to LEAs. These can use the funds to counter learning loss among traditionally underserved students and learning loss in general; education technology; summer and afterschool programs; mental health services; and facility repair and public health protocols to decrease COVID transmission. Evidence-based interventions must make up 20% of the money. Of the $130B, $2.7B is provided for IDEA, Parts B and C.

Let’s Go Learn’s digital solutions are all evidence-based and can be used in supplemental reading and math accountability systems, specially designed instruction, summer school curricula, afterschool remediation, and homeschooling. Our professional development webinars and training can improve the quality of education through teacher preparation and strategies that develop effective teachers.

Low-Income Students: Title I 

Funds are intended for low-income families and locations in order to increase student performance. To receive these funds, recipients must use research-based solutions. For example, a school could use Let’s Go Learn’s math assessment and instructional program to close learning gaps and promote equity among students. Eligibility depends on a school’s ability to ensure that students make adequate yearly progress (AYP). Parental involvement in school-related activities is also required. Let’s Go Learn’s parent reports offer a superior way to communicate student progress to parents and serve as a vehicle for discussing academics with students, teachers, and parents/caregivers. Schools receiving Title I funds must also provide funds to eligible private schools. 

Title III: English Language Acquisition

Funds are intended for students who are English language learners to help them become proficient in English. English learners (ELs) typically speak languages other than English but need instruction in reading, writing, and/or speaking English proficiently in order to participate fully in content classes such as math and science. Let’s Go Learn offers a Spanish EDELL program that allows teachers to compare students’ Spanish skills to their English language reading skills. This program effectively removes vocabulary biases that often lead to a debilitating misdiagnosis of a student’s comprehension abilities.

Individuals with Disabilities Act

The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) was originally called the Education of Handicapped Children Act, which was passed in 1975. In 1990, its name was changed when people with disabilities challenged many of the social assumptions and social barriers related to citizens with disabilities. In 2015,  an amendment was added to the Act, stating: “Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society.” Let’s Go Learn offers an evidence-based next-generation special education platform with data-driven, personalized Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) in reading and math for K-12 students. The SDI includes granular diagnostics, IEP-aligned data, and teacher and parent reporting.

For the most part, the states are responsible for educational funding. Most states decide the minimum amount that schools should receive based on a per-student dollar amount (pupil spending). Districts have to assess a percent property tax, and the state uses that figure to determine how much each district must pay to meet the per-student dollar amount. The states make up the difference. For more about how this system impacts districts depending on property taxes and how schools are funded by local taxes, read “How do school funding formulas work?” 

Bibliography for Funding

• Public School Revenue Sources: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cma.asp
• An Overview of the Funding of Public Schools: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/an-overview-of-the-funding-of-public-schools
• School Funding: https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/topics/school-funding-and-resources/school-funding/
• Private School Funding: https://factsmgt.com/blog/5-private-school-federal-aid-myths-debunked/
• Charter School Funding: https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/charter-schools-in-the-states-charter-school-fina.aspx

The U.S. Department of Education offers resources for family, community, and media on its Family and Community Engagement page. Through this page, schools and parents can find information about the Family and Community Engagement Team, designed to “expand efforts to help schools, districts and states better engage families in education.” A recent innovation is a very active ParentCamp, which has been designed to “build a connected school ecosystem of caring and supportive adults surrounding our kids.”

Another source of family engagement activities is the page for the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement. The page offers information on State Family Engagement Frameworks, Effective State Practices, Statewide Family Engagement Centers, State Leaders Networks, and State Policy on Family Engagement: ESSA State Plans. It also provides access to a new report, State of the States: Family, School, and Community Engagement within State Educator Licensure Requirements.

An international organization for family engagement is FAST: Families & Schools Together. On its webpage, schools can search its databases for federal, state, and local funding opportunities.

“Professional learning communities are nearly always an intentional school-improvement strategy designed to reduce professional isolation, foster greater faculty collaboration, and spread the expertise and insights of individual teachers throughout a school.”

The quality of PLC implementation varies greatly depending on how formal or informal the initiative is. In the best of circumstances, PLCs can be great agents of change as teachers buy in and work together.  They give teachers a voice and a means of formally collaborating with colleagues towards clear goals. In the loosest of circumstances, they serve as a district initiative in name only. Let’s Go Learn can provide support for PLCs that are effective and collaborative through online or face-to-face professional development that is customized to district or school needs.

While the term gamification didn’t appear in mainstream vocabulary until the 21st century, video games became a powerful learning tool in the 1980s and 1990s with games such as “Math Blaster” by Davidson & Associates and “The Oregon Trail” by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. In fact, they became a mainstay as educators and parents witnessed their power to motivate, engage, and build critical and creative thinking or automaticity.

To keep students engaged with content, Let’s Go Learn’s instructional learning activities provide interactive, age-appropriate instructional support, including songs, graphics, videos, and gamified concept reviews. Every lesson adopts deliberate research-based pedagogical practices to create intrinsic motivation and reward students frequently via real-time positive reinforcement and feedback.

Reform efforts often fail because educators don’t analyze the big picture before they zero in on particular initiatives to implement. Sometimes a general overarching model is lacking, and the educational plan is a series of outcomes without a pedagogy.  If goals such as “reading by third grade” or “improved family engagement” are not operationalized for administrators, principals, teachers, and students, then success may never be achieved. The educational plan cannot be just a set of high hurdles wherein departments buy or license programs and solutions in a piecemeal fashion.  

The solution for successful reform is to commit to one or two broad goals and then let departments operationalize the actions that are meaningful for them.  Goals then turn into targets or outcomes that move the needle for student achievement and college and career readiness.  

For example, let’s say a district school board’s goals are:

1. to expand and improve personalized learning
2. to use data effectively to improve student achievement

Then, departmentally, this could happen:

• Assessment departments adopt a better diagnostic test and inform everyone that it is available.  Goals #1 and #2.
• Math departments add a 7th personalized learning period in middle schools; mandatory flexible Fridays added to all K-5 classrooms.  Goal #1.
• Special education integrates the new test into their IEP process, and they research and find a better progress-monitoring tool. Goal #2.
• ELA plans small-group instructional training using the new assessment; they commit to sharing the summary reading reports with parents and students because the new assessment has an easy-to-understand report.  Goals #1 and #2.
• ELD department adopts a new EL vocabulary program but requires all schools to pre-post this new program, as well as any other program being used, for a common way of measuring growth.  Goal #2

By keeping it simple at the top, districts can avoid initiative overload.  In general, districts have way too many initiatives going on, and thus few get achieved.  By reducing the number of goals and making them broader, the chances of making progress on these goals increase.  Additionally, each department has the opportunity to set specific actions that improve consensus and ultimately buy-in.