EIA - Education Industry Association

It appears that the window has closed for any re-write of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Committee staff in both the House and Senate continue to meet on the key issues but fundamental differences remain on school improvement interventions, setting proficiency standards and time-lines, quality  measures for teachers, SES, and balancing local flexibility with federal mandates.

Tutoring for Children Act

Late in Sept., 2011, Senator John McCain introduced S. 1570, to provide for high-quality academic tutoring for low-income students, and for other purposes. A similar bill has been introduced in the House by Congressman "Buck" McKeon, with Democratic co-sponsor Rob Andrews (D-NJ) along with subcommittee chair Duncan Hunter (R-CA). This bill addresses many of the criticisms of SES and is supported by advocates of after-school tutoring including EIA.  It provides an important marker in the eventual ESEA reauthorization process. And States, as they prepare their waiver applications (see below) , are encouraged to include provisions of the Bill. Read a summary of the McCain Bill here. 

ESEA Waivers:

With Congressional action stalled, the U.S. Department of Education announced in September, 2011 an unprecedented, sweeping set of administrative changes to NCLB that mirror the Obama Administration’s ESEA Blue Print first proposed in March, 2010. The Department indicated it proposed these changes in the absence of Congressional action on ESEA reauthorization and pressure from some States and local superintendents for relief from NCLB requirements, especially requirements pertaining to school accountability measures and improvement strategies.

On February 9, 2012, the USDE announced that 10 States were granted waivers. Read the details at:  http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility. The second round of waiver applications are due Feb. 21st from as many 21 States. So far, CA, TX, and PA  have indicated that they will not seek waivers from the USDE.

Read EIA's Feb. 9, 2012 Statement on USDE Decision on 10 of the First 11 Applications.

To support EIA's direct advocacy with States on their waiver applications, please join the SES Coalition. Read the SES Coalition Agreement here.

 USDOE Flexibility Documents:

To track all USDE developments on waivers, go to:http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility

11 states have applied for waivers by the Nov. 14th deadline. See below to read these applications.

Only Colorado specifically calls for the continuation of SES as a required intervention for the students in Focus Schools (10% lowest performing schools, after the bottom 5% schools). Several applications call for extended learning time or more instructional time including Oklahoma, which mentions tutoring in the attached menu of research-based interventions.  Georgia has a similar reference to using additional learning time for Focus schools. For students in Focus schools in Florida, they are slated to each receive 300 hours of additional assistance, 40% of those hours for tutoring. None of the applications provide any details on how the tutoring or additional learning time will be organized or delivered.

Colorado [PDF, 65MB], Florida [PDF, 81MB], Georgia [PDF, 36MB], Indiana [PDF, 50MB], Kentucky [PDF, 25MB], Massachusetts [PDF, 18MB], Minnesota [PDF, 812KB], New Jersey [PDF, 63MB], New Mexico [PDF, 63MB], Oklahoma [PDF, 46MB] and Tennessee [PDF, 52MB] each submitted a request for ESEA Flexibility on November 14, 2011.

EIA Actions on Waivers:

We are communicating with State chiefs on waiver language, modeled on the Tutoring for our Children Act reference above, with the goal of incorporating program elements in the waiver application that may preserve a tutoring option for Title I students.

These are sweeping proposals and EIA's analysis of the USDE waiver plan is summarized here.

Read EIA's Draft Recommendations to States to Improve Tutoring

Read EIA's 10-1-11 Media Statement on Flexibility here

EIA's presentation at the October 25, 2011 Webinar on Waivers with osSES

Follow-up Q-A from Oct. 25th webinar

Listen to the Oct. 25th webinar here: http://thetutorreport.com/esea-waivers-and-tutor-business-systems

Reauthorization:

To prepare for the reauthorization of ESEA, EIA adopted general legislative principles for the Administration and Congress. The industry’s comments span after-school tutoring interventions, charter school management, alternative and special education and school turn- interventions.Read EIA ESEA Legislative Principles here.

 The USDE’s Blueprint for Re-authorization was released March, 2010 .

• BCSA Recommendations for ESEA
• 2010 EIA Reauthorization Comments to Congress
• 2010 EIA-SES Evaluation Report