Innovation Districts for School Improvement Act - Directs the Secretary of Education to award competitive grants to 10 urban and 10 non-urban local educational agencies (LEAs) for the creation of innovation districts.
Requires the LEAs to: (1) establish tests and longitudinal data systems to track the academic progress of each elementary and secondary school student and use such performance measures in evaluating and awarding school personnel and programs; (2) work with teacher representatives and other community partners to attain the administrative flexibility to staff more equitably all agency schools with effective personnel; (3) evaluate and award effective teachers on the basis of student progress and observations of teacher performance; (4) provide grants to recent college graduates and mid-career professionals to attend LEA-established Teacher Academies which provide classroom mentoring and concurrent teacher education from partner institutions in exchange for three years of service in hard-to-staff schools; (5) establish career ladders allowing teachers to progress from novice to master with a concomitant increase in compensation and responsibility for the development of fellow teachers; and (6) plan for the recruitment, training, and evaluation of school principals who are to serve as instructional leaders in the schools and hold significant responsiblity for teacher hiring and placement.
Allows the LEAs to support new schools or networks of public schools, serving predominantly disadvantaged students, which are sponsored by universities, education management organizations, or nonprofit organizations.
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2441 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2441
To authorize resources for a grant program for local educational
agencies to create innovation districts.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 16 (legislative day, March 15), 2006
Mr. Obama introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To authorize resources for a grant program for local educational
agencies to create innovation districts.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Innovation Districts for School
Improvement Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Too many students emerge from secondary school
unprepared for success in college or in the workforce. It is
children of color and children of poverty who suffer most from
a failure to provide them effective teachers and adequate
resources.
(2) In urban elementary schools, African-American and
Latino students are several times less likely than their white
peers to be reading at even a basic level, and children living
in poverty are several times less likely than their peers who
are not poor to be proficient in reading or mathematics.
(3) These deficits continue on into higher levels of
education, so that 6,000,000 middle school and secondary school
students are reading with skills significantly below their
grade level. Half of all teenagers are unable to understand
basic mathematics.
(4) In New York City, only 35 percent of African-American
students and 32 percent of Latino students graduate from
secondary school. In Chicago, of every 100 African-American
males, on average, only 38 graduate from secondary school by
age 19, and less than 3 continue their education to earn a
diploma from a 4-year college.
(5) The dropout problem is not limited to cities. Poor
rural communities are also harmed by inadequate resources and
low teacher quality. As a result, in some States, only 60
percent of white students graduate from secondary school; in
others, there is a difference of 40 percentage points in the
graduation rates of whites and students of color.
(6) Too many teachers and school leaders are not prepared
adequately for their jobs, and too few States and local
educational agencies have effective teacher induction or
mentoring programs. Less-qualified teachers are concentrated in
schools attended by African-American and Latino students, and
in high-poverty areas, whether urban or rural.
(7) The effectiveness of teachers has a direct relationship
to student academic achievement. Students who performed equally
well in mathematics in second grade showed a significant
performance gap 3 years later, depending on whether they had
been assigned to the most effective or least effective
teachers.
(8) Despite the numerous indicators that public schools are
not adequately educating students, there are many pockets of
innovation and success, where effective teachers work in
schools where they support their students, with additional
support from community organizations, foundations, and
nonprofits. In high-poverty schools using the reforms of the
Teacher Advancement Program, the most recent data shows that
more that 70 percent of these schools increased the percentage
of students achieving at proficient levels or above on
standardized tests. In rural schools using the Teacher
Advancement Program reforms, nearly two-thirds of schools
increased the percentage of students at or above the proficient
level.
(9) Lessons from the Teacher Advancement Program and other
successes will form the basis for the expansion of successful
efforts, used to positively transform education in school
districts, and, in so doing, generate additional information on
a group of effective practices that can be widely disseminated
and applied.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act, the terms ``Department'', ``elementary school'',
``institution of higher education'', ``local educational agency'',
``secondary school'', and ``Secretary'' have the meanings given such
terms in section 9101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801).
SEC. 4. GRANT PROGRAM.
(a) Authorization.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall establish a program to
award grants, on a competitive basis, to 10 local educational
agencies in urban areas and 10 local educational agencies in
non-urban areas (which shall include a mix of rural and
suburban areas), to enable such agencies to create innovation
districts to implement systemic reforms in areas of teaching,
assessment, school leadership, and administration, including
the following:
(A) Implementation of data systems to evaluate
student progress, identify and share best practices,
and conduct rigorous, data-driven evaluations to
determine the effect of reforms on student academic
achievement.
(B) Recruitment and retention of highly-effective
teachers, and allocation of such teachers into the
classrooms of the students who need them most, using
incentives, including differential pay to reward high-
performing teachers, teachers who choose to work in the
most challenging schools within a local educational
agency, and teachers with expertise in needed subject
areas, such as mathematics, science, and special
education, and systems and schedules to support teacher
collaboration and mentoring, and career ladders for
teachers to work as mentor or master teachers.
(C) Support of teacher academies to recruit
talented candidates, develop effective placement
systems, and ensure that trainees receive both
effective pre-service training and effective mentoring
during induction as they enter the classroom.
(D) Placement of an outstanding principal in every
school, including rigorous recruitment, selection, pre-
service and in-service training, and placement of
school leaders, and efforts to hold principals
accountable for student academic achievement while
providing the principals with the authority and
autonomy needed especially regarding hiring and
assigning teachers and staff.
(E) Support for new schools, including charter
schools or contract schools, or for networks of public
schools within the local educational agency, serving
predominantly low-income populations, which are
sponsored by universities, education management
organizations, or other nonprofit entities. Such new
schools shall--
(i) serve as demonstration sites for high-
quality kindergarten through grade 12
schooling;
(ii) be the locus for training and support
of aspiring, new and veteran teachers and
school leaders; and
(iii) be designed to share best practices
with other schools served by the local
educational agency, and other local educational
agencies, State and nationwide.
(2) Fewer grants.--If the amount appropriated for a fiscal
year under subsection (h) is less than the amount authorized to
be appropriated for such fiscal year, the Secretary may award
fewer than 20 grants under this Act.
(b) Application.--
(1) In general.--A local educational agency that desires to
receive a grant under this Act shall submit an application to
the Secretary at such time, in such manner, and accompanied by
such information as the Secretary shall require.
(2) Contents.--An application submitted under paragraph (1)
shall include how the local educational agency will carry out
the activities described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) of
subsection (a)(1) and a description of activities the local
educational agency will undertake to--
(A) recruit and induct new professional employees
into the schools served by the local educational
agency, including establishment of residency-based
teacher or leadership academies;
(B) provide mentoring and support for teachers who
are not meeting standards for teacher effectiveness
described in this Act;
(C) use the financial and human resources of the
agency to meet the needs of students in a performance-
based model focused on student learning;
(D) develop and use data systems and accountability
to establish instructional plans to benefit students in
schools served by the agency, with regular evaluation
of agency-supported programs; and
(E) address how the agency will use funds available
under title II of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6601 et seq.) to
support the goals of this Act, including having
effective teachers equitably placed in every classroom
in every school served by the agency, and effective
principals in every school served by the agency.
(c) Mandatory Uses of Funds.--A local educational agency that
receives a grant under this Act shall use the grant funds to carry out
each of the following:
(1) Accountability.--The local educational shall improve
accountability as follows:
(A) Work to establish longitudinal data systems
that can monitor student progress as the students move
from grade to grade, to determine the value-added and
effectiveness of specific teachers, schools, and
programs within the local educational agency. The data
system may be designed and established in cooperation
with institutions of higher education, regional
educational laboratories (established pursuant to
section 174 of the Education Sciences Reform Act of
2002 (20 U.S.C. 9564)), offices in the Department, or
other entities with expertise in data acquisition and
interpretation. Such a data system shall have the
following attributes:
(i) A unique student identifier to track
the progress of each individual student served
by the local educational agency.
(ii) The ability to track the progress and
assessment results of each individual student
from year to year.
(iii) Enrollment, demographic, and program
participation information for each student.
(iv) A teacher identifier system to match
each student to each teacher within the system.
(v) Student-level graduation and dropout
data.
(vi) Inclusion of data on risk factors for
individual students, including such indicators
as non-promotion mobility, interaction with the
criminal justice system involving the school,
eligibility for a free or reduced price lunch
under the Richard B. Russell National School
Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.), and such
other factors as may be useful in targeting
appropriate services, interventions, and
supports for at-risk students.
(B) Devise or employ assessment tests to monitor
the progress of all students in grade 1 through grade
12 in all the elementary schools and secondary schools
served by the local educational agency.
(C) Rate the effectiveness of individual teachers,
administrators, and schools within the local
educational agency, using when feasible, as 1 measure,
a value-added system, a statistical method to measure
the influence of a teacher or school on the rate of
academic progress of students. The local educational
agency shall evaluate 1 year's worth of academic growth
for each student using as the reference standard the
national norm gain for each grade level, or the
statewide or district-wide value-added gain.
(D) Assess the effectiveness of individual
teachers, administrators, and schools, using when
feasible, as 1 measure, the value-added system
described in subparagraph (C), including a measure of
progress toward the goal of every student becoming
proficient in reading, writing, and mathematics, and a
measure of the progress of students through coursework
needed to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for
eventual entrance into a postsecondary degree or
certification program.
(E) Award incentives for effective teaching or
school leadership that may be linked to the results of
the assessments under subparagraph (D), including a
measure of progress toward the goal of every student
becoming proficient in reading, writing, and
mathematics, and a measure of the progress of students
through coursework needed to gain the knowledge and
skills necessary for eventual entrance into a
postsecondary degree or certification program.
(2) Removing obstacles to innovation.--The local
educational agency shall work with local teacher
representatives or unions and other community partners to
achieve the following:
(A) Equitable distribution of effective teachers to
all students within the agency to ensure that poor and
minority students are not disproportionately taught by
teachers who are--
(i) poorly trained in the subject being
taught;
(ii) less likely to have significant
teaching experience; and
(iii) less likely to excel in other
measures of teacher effectiveness.
(B) Equitable distribution of expenditures to
rectify policies and practices that guide teacher pay
and have an adverse impact on disadvantaged students
and schools. This may include the consideration of
teacher salaries and policies of salary averaging in
meeting agency-wide goals based on high expectations
for student academic achievement.
(C) Modification of staffing procedures and
collective bargaining rules to provide greater
flexibility for agency and school leaders to establish
effective school-level staffing, to fairly balance the
distribution of experienced teachers, and to recruit,
place, and retain new teachers within schools served by
the agency, including the completion of staffing
decisions in a timely fashion to provide effective
planning for student academic achievement.
(3) Teachers.--The local educational agency shall evaluate
and reward teacher effectiveness as follows:
(A) Teacher effectiveness.--The local educational
agency shall evaluate teacher effectiveness by working
with unions and other community stakeholders to
establish a metric to determine the effectiveness of
teachers, administrators, and schools served by the
local educational agency. The metric may be used as the
basis for systems of pay, incentives, and placement
within the local educational agency. Such a metric may
include the following items:
(i) Student growth.--Teachers may be rated
for meeting annual objectives that are
monitored by evaluating student improvement in
value-added assessments. These evaluations may
include value-added data averaged for a period
of several years.
(ii) Measuring teams of teachers.--Measures
may be used to track the progress and reward
teams of teachers (such as a particular grade
level or subject area) to encourage teamwork
and sharing of best practices, and draw on
similar effective approaches to financial
rewards in the private sector.
(iii) Professional evaluation.--
(I) In general.--Professional
evaluation shall be based on formal and
informal observations of teacher
effectiveness. The ratings shall be
prepared by the supervisor of each
teacher, based on observations of such
domains of teaching as the following:
(aa) Planning and
preparation, including
demonstrating knowledge of
content, pedagogy, and
assessment, including the use
of formative assessment to
improve student learning.
(bb) Classroom and school
environment, which establishes
a culture for learning, using
when appropriate, schoolwide
positive behavioral
intervention and support.
(cc) Instruction, which
clearly and accurately engages
students in learning.
(dd) Professional
responsibilities, including
appropriate interaction with
families of students, and with
professional colleagues, which
requires a demonstrated ability
to work with mentors and
instructional leaders to
improve the teacher's teaching
and resultant student learning.
(ee) Fair analysis of gains
in student academic achievement
over time.
(II) Improvement plan.--A teacher
who receives an unsatisfactory
professional evaluation under subclause
(I) shall comply with an improvement
plan, developed by the teacher and the
school in which the teacher teaches or
the local educational agency and
provided by such school or agency.
(B) Teaching incentives.--Based on measures of
teacher effectiveness and the needs of the school and
the local educational agency, the local educational
agency shall work with teacher and community
representatives to develop a differentiated pay scale
to provide incentives for effective teaching, teaching
specific subject areas, and teaching in specific
schools, including hard-to-staff schools or schools
with high proportions of students who have been
achieving at levels below the local educational agency
or State average.
(4) Teacher academies.--
(A) In general.--The local educational agency shall
establish a Teacher Academy, based upon models of
successful residency-based teacher training and
induction programs, as a mechanism to train teachers
for success in such local educational agency. Each
Teacher Academy shall be headed by a director who shall
award grants to eligible individuals to attend such
Teacher Academy.
(B) Eligible individuals.--An individual may be
eligible for a grant to attend a Teacher Academy if the
individual is a recent college graduate or mid-career
professional from outside the field of education,
possessing strong content knowledge or a record of
achievement, or other such individual at the discretion
of the Secretary.
(C) Application.--An individual who is eligible
under subparagraph (B) and who desires a grant under
this paragraph shall submit an application to the
Teacher Academy.
(D) Selection criteria.--The director of the
Teacher Academy shall establish criteria for selection
of individuals to receive grants under this paragraph,
based on such domains of teaching as the following
characteristics shared by highly-effective teachers:
(i) Comprehensive subject knowledge or
record of accomplishment in an area outside of
education.
(ii) Strong verbal and written
communication skills.
(iii) Other attributes linked to effective
teaching.
(E) Receipt of grant.--An individual who receives a
grant under this paragraph shall enroll in the program
of the Teacher Academy, which shall include the
following:
(i) A 1-year residency-based program of
teaching in a school served by the local
educational agency, under the supervision of a
mentor teacher who will instruct the resident
in planning and preparation, instruction of
students, management of the classroom
environment, and other professional
responsibilities. Alternatively, the first year
of full-time teaching may be substituted for
such residency-based program if all of the
other requirements of this section are
satisfied and if the full-time teaching is
supported by a school, university, or nonprofit
organization with a strong track record of
helping new teachers get strong academic
achievement results for students.
(ii) A living stipend or salary for the
period of residency.
(iii) Concurrent instruction from a partner
college, State-approved organization, or school
of education at an institution of higher
education in pedagogy classes necessary for
certification as a teacher.
(iv) Ongoing mentoring and coaching during
the first 2 years of induction into classroom
teaching.
(F) Placement in hard-to-staff school.--
(i) In general.--An eligible individual who
receives a grant under this paragraph shall
teach in a hard-to-staff school served by the
local educational agency for a period of 3
years.
(ii) Repayment.--If an eligible individual
does not complete the teaching requirement
described in clause (i), such individual shall
repay to the local educational agency a pro
rata portion of the grant amount for the amount
of teaching time the individual did not
complete.
(5) Teacher careers.--
(A) In general.--The local educational agency shall
establish a career ladder for teachers in schools
served by the local educational agency.
(B) Progression.--
(i) In general.--In order to progress to
higher rungs on the career ladder, a teacher or
school leader shall prove effective at the
teacher or school leader's current level under
a set of criteria established by the local
educational agency.
(ii) Increase in role and compensation.--In
progressing to higher rungs on the career
ladder, a teacher or school leader shall--
(I) accept an increasing role in
assessing and helping to improve the
teaching effectiveness of other
teachers in the school; and
(II) be offered increased
compensation.
(iii) Collective bargaining agreement.--The
base salary and career ladder increments of
increased compensation may be established in a
collective bargaining agreement between the
local educational agency and representatives of
teachers.
(iv) Steps.--A career ladder may include
the following steps:
(I) Novice teachers.--Novice
teachers are teachers in their first
years in the profession. This shall be
the career entry stage and include
professional employees with initial
teaching certificates. Novice teachers
shall receive induction and mentoring
as described in subclause (III) until
the novice teachers progress to become
career teachers. Such induction and
mentoring shall focus on improving the
instructional and professional skills
of the novice teachers. Novice teachers
shall receive periodic performance
reviews as a result of regular
observations, using the criteria of
teacher effectiveness set forth in
paragraph (3)(A).
(II) Career teachers.--Career
teachers are teachers who have served
several years as novice teachers and
have received an advanced teaching
certification or master's degree, as
determined by State certification
requirements. Novice teachers may
progress to this stage of the career
ladder after receiving satisfactory
reviews of teacher effectiveness as
outlined in paragraph (3)(A) and
receiving an advanced teaching
certification or master's degree.
(III) Mentor teachers.--Mentor
teachers are teachers selected by local
school administrators under clear
criteria established at the local
educational agency level, including
superior assessment of their teaching
effectiveness as described in paragraph
(3)(A). Mentor teachers shall have
extra responsibilities as teacher
leaders and teacher coaches, including
roles in induction and mentoring of
novice teachers.
(IV) Master teachers.--Master
teachers are mentor teachers who have
received superior reviews of their
mentoring and supervisory role and
assume additional responsibilities and
teacher mentoring and leadership roles.
(C) Learning community.--The role of mentor and
master teachers shall include establishing, within each
school, a learning community in which all individuals
are expected to continually improve their capacity to
advance student learning, using a shared set of
instructional principles or teaching strategies. The
learning community shall require, in each school,
continuing professional development, based on student
academic achievement and behavioral outcomes, embedding
in each school system for on-site coaching, mentoring,
and study groups in which teachers work together to
improve the instructional program for students.
(6) School leadership.--The local educational agency shall
include a specific plan to improve the school leadership in
schools served by the agency, with the eventual goal of an
effective principal in every school. The plan should include
provisions to address the following topics:
(A) Responsibility and role of principals.--A plan
to support the primary role of the principal as the
instructional leader in the school responsible for
ensuring teaching effectiveness and student academic
achievement schoolwide. Such plan shall include
involving principals in planning systems and strategies
for curricular, classroom, and schoolwide student
behavioral interventions and supports, and for
establishing mechanisms for using student academic
achievement data to drive instructional decisions. The
plan shall also address ways to give principals
significant responsibility for decisions regarding
teacher hiring and placement decisions.
(B) Creating the pipeline of future principals.--A
plan for strategies and criteria for rigorous
recruitment, selection, and pre-service training and
induction for new principals who can effectively take
on the responsibilities described in subparagraph (A).
As with training teachers, the agency may establish a
program for principal training, including a residency
or internship with an exemplary principal in the
agency. The program shall have explicit expectations
and performance-based indicators of outcomes to ensure
that each resident is competent in assuming
instructional leadership responsibilities. In the case
of an agency in which several principals are training
as a cohort, the agency shall promote the use of cohort
participant groups to discuss best practices and
maintain focus on outcome assessments.
(C) Systematically transforming the principalship
districtwide.--An assessment of how the agency
currently handles each major policy and practice
affecting the expectations set for the principalship
and a plan for how the agency will align the
principalship to the goals of this Act, including
recruitment, selection, training, evaluation,
compensation, management, and job design of the
principalship and other school leadership roles.
(D) Evaluation.--A plan for an external evaluation
to examine the impact of principals on driving
measurable gains in student academic achievement.
(d) Flexibility for Small Rural Districts.--The Secretary may give
a local educational agency that is a small, rural local educational
agency (as determined by the Secretary) that receives a grant under
this Act flexibility in carrying out the activities required under
subsection (c), including a waiver of the requirement to establish a
Teacher Academy under subsection (c)(4).
(e) Permissible Use of Funds.--The local educational agency may
include a plan to support new schools, including charter schools or
contract schools, or for networks of public schools within the local
educational agency, serving predominantly low-income populations, which
are sponsored by universities, education management organizations, or
other nonprofit entities, using--
(1) funds appropriated to carry out this Act, in
coordination with the charter school programs under subpart 1
of part B of title V of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7221 et seq.); or
(2) funds from State, local, or private sources.
(f) Reports.--A local educational agency that receives a grant
under this Act shall submit to the Secretary a report on the progress
of such agency toward completion of the goals of the agency. Such
report shall be available for public view on the website of the
Department. Based on such reports, the Secretary may terminate grant
funding to an agency for unsatisfactory performance.
(g) Peer Review Panel.--
(1) In general.--There shall be established in accordance
with paragraph (2), a peer review panel to--
(A) review applications submitted under subsection
(b);
(B) submit to the Secretary evaluations of the
applications reviewed under subparagraph (A); and
(C) evaluate reports described in subsection (f).
(2) Selection of members.--
(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B),
members of the peer review panel shall be selected by
the Secretary, in collaboration with the Majority
Leader of the Senate, the Minority Leader of the
Senate, the Majority Leader of the House of
Representatives, and the Minority Leader of the House
of Representatives and shall include representatives
from foundations, universities, and other entities with
a record of involvement in local educational agency
reform efforts.
(B) National governors association.--Two members of
the peer review panel shall be selected by the National
Governors Association.
(h) Authorization of Appropriations.--
(1) In general.--There are authorized to be appropriated to
carry out this Act $1,500,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2007
through 2011.
(2) Redirect funds.--The Secretary shall redirect amounts
appropriated to carry out programs under title II of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6601
et seq.) that the Secretary determines are ineffective, to
carry out this Act.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S2334-2335)
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
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