With eight months remaining until a new administration, Secretary Spellings released a draft of far-reaching NCLB regulations for public comment this week which, as quoted in Education Week, she characterized as “bulldozers to tear down the barriers to reform.” The new regulations deal with significant areas of the law such as how districts report high school graduation rates, School Choice and Tutoring, the so-called ‘N’ Size (the minimum number of students in a subgroup required before a school is held accountable, and changes or “clarifications” to the State Testing requirements.

There will be a sixty (60) day period for public comment including regional one day hearings. The hearing for our region here in New England will be in Boston.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Hilton Boston Back Bay Hotel
40 Dalton Street
Boston, Mass. 02115
Time: 9 a.m. - noon and 2 - 5 p.m. EDT
Meeting Room: Fenway Room

If the Final Regulations were adopted in an additional sixty (60) days they would take effect in late August. Just in time to tip the 2008-2009 school year on its head increasing the burden of reporting and paperwork and further diverting the attention of school personnel from the improvement of instruction and increasing student achievement. The Proposed Regulations are available for download at the departments website.

One clarification in the regulations deserving of “A Keen Observer of the Obvious Award” is the following:

“Assessments, therefore, should include items that measure both higher order skills( e.g. reasoning, synthesis, analysis) as well as knowledge and recall items to assess the depth and breadth of mastery of a particular content domain.”