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Catherine LhamonAssistant SecretaryOffice for Civil Rights
FY 14-15: Agency Priority Goal
Ensure equitable educational opportunities
Priority Goal
Goal Overview
GOAL OVERVIEW
Through Race to the Top (RTT), the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility, and other federal programs, the Department of Education (ED) is providing significant resources to dramatically improve the nation’s lowest-achieving schools by using intensive turnaround models and identifying the low-achieving schools that are showing strong evidence of successfully turning around. ED is focused on supporting innovation, not just compliance monitoring, and is focused on spurring growth in achievement, not just absolute achievement measures as done in the past.
Increasing the national high school graduation rate and decreasing disparities in the graduation rate is critical to achieving the President’s goal of once again having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. The nation has made significant progress in increasing graduation rates, but gaps between rates for different student groups continue to persist.
KEY BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
ED is working to support states and districts in raising high school graduation rates through a number of initiatives, including ESEA flexibility, SIG, RTT, and the High School Graduation Initiative. One key challenge will be to coordinate these multiple programs and ensure that states and districts implement coordinated efforts to increase graduation rates, rather than working through siloed funding streams. An additional challenge is providing differentiated support to states based on their current status and progress in increasing graduation rates. While all states have room for improvement, some states are farther behind than others in graduation rates, particularly for different subgroups of students. ED has addressed one major barrier, which was the incomparability of graduation rate data across states. All states are now required to use an adjusted cohort graduation rate, and ED is reporting these data at the state, district, and school level. However, differences in how states define a regular high school diploma, and other technical features of their calculations, continue to make comparisons challenging.
Key barriers and challenges include:
- Sustainability of reforms in schools as SIG grants end;
- Capacity challenges at state, district, and school level mean some intervention challenges persist;
- Insufficient focus on comprehensive turnaround efforts at the state and district level beyond only the SIG program;
- Ensuring alignment between SIG, Race to the Top, ESEA flexibility, and other programs and initiatives; and
- Lack of quality and completeness data/knowledge allows others to define success.
EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
ED works closely with stakeholder groups that are focused on increasing graduation rates, including CCSSO, CGCS, the Alliance for Excellent Education, the Education Trust, and Jobs for the Future. ED frequently engages these stakeholders on policy development, such as developing new SIG guidance, ESEA flexibility guidance, and High School Redesign.
Strategies
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
The Department of Education (ED) will use School Improvement Grant (SIG) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility monitoring to track whether states and districts are meeting goals for improving graduation rates and turning around low-performing high schools, and will provide differentiated support and technical assistance based on monitoring findings. ED will coordinate this support across offices, including the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). In Q1 of FY 2015, ED reorganized OESE by creating a new Office of State Support (OSS) that merges the Office of Student Achievement and School Accountability, Office of School Turnaround, and Implementation Support Unit, as well as programs from other OESE offices. Through this reorganization, ED is implementing a new strategy and approach to supporting states, which will better integrate support across grant programs to address key state challenges, including improving graduation rates.
ED will use the ESEA flexibility renewal process to ensure that states are meeting commitments to identify all Title I schools with graduation rates below 60% over a number of years as priority and focus schools, and to use performance against graduation targets for all students and all subgroups to drive incentives and supports in all other Title I schools.
Looking ahead to FY16, ED will seek to secure a nearly 12 percent increase for ESEA programs, including a $1 billion increase in Title I, to focus on improving high schools and raising graduation rates, including among vulnerable and underrepresented student populations.
EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT ED CAN AND CANNOT INFLUENCE
External factors that ED can influence:
•State capacity
•Siloed programs at the state and district level
•Variability in state implementation of the cohort graduation rate
•Some states, districts, and schools are still not implementing rigorous interventions, either because they do not have the will or capacity to follow through.
•Some states and district may not have sufficient flexibility of funds (e.g., Title I and II) to continue/sustain reforms after end of three-year grant.
•Poor implementation by states and districts
•Ability for ED to actively support implementation work
External factors that ED cannot influence:
•State changes in graduation requirements or diploma options
•Changes in state philosophy about education reform
•Congressional and state legislative action regarding school turnaround efforts
Progress Update
Based on the 2013-14 Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR), the national high school graduation rate is at its highest point in 30 years (82.3% in SY 2013-14) -- an increase of nearly 1% above the 2012-13 ACGR (81.4%). The 82.3% rate is slightly below the Department’s ambitious FY15 national high school graduation goal of 83%.
We also know that, since 2000, the dropout rate has dropped by more than half for Latino young people, and by more than a third for black and low-income young people. Despite this success, graduation rates for students of color continue to lag behind white students, and English Learners and students with disabilities remain the lowest groups on this measure.
Notably, as described further below, in FY15, the Department launched programs and initiatives designed to study and address chronic absenteeism and high school dropouts as well as to promote best practices in raising graduation rates. The Department also stepped up planning efforts to increase socioeconomic diversity (through inter-agency collaboration with HUD and DOT) and to provide greater educational opportunity for disconnected youth. The Department also engaged in robust civil rights enforcement and other targeted efforts to remove barriers to educational opportunity and attainment, such as excessive school discipline and sexual violence, for students.
The Department plans to continue monitoring the national high school graduation rate and the number of persistently low graduation rate high schools as metrics to satisfy this Agency Priority Goal through 2017. In addition, in order to increase the focus on inequity for poor students, beginning in FY16, the Department will begin to monitor and report gaps in graduation rates between students from low-income families and all students.
Specific progress made in FY15:
In the early learning space, the Office of Early Learning at ED and the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched high-quality preschool for 33,000 children from low- to moderate-income families in over 200 communities in the 18 Preschool Development Grants states.
In the K-12 and career technical education space, the Office of the Deputy Secretary, with OCR and OPEPD, began engaging with HUD and DOT to address gaps in graduation between children from low- and high-income families and to explore ways to collaborate to increase socioeconomic and racial integration of schools and communities, through technical assistance, data transparency and sharing, and programmatic funds.
OESE, in response to the President’s call to action to improve the lives of all young people through the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative (MBK), laid the foundation to launch on Oct. 7, 2015, a new Obama Administration initiative, Every Student, Every Day: A National Initiative to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism. Led by the White House, ED, HHS, HUD, and DOJ, the Administration announced new steps to combat chronic absenteeism and called on states and local communities across the country to join in taking immediate action to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism by at least 10 percent each year, beginning in the current school year (2015-16). Every Student, Every Day is focused on the estimated 5 to 7.5 million students who are chronically absent each year. Defined as missing at least 10 percent (approximately 18 days) of school days in a school year, chronic absenteeism puts students at heightened risk of falling behind and dropping out of school.
As part of this initiative, the Administration is partnering with states, local communities, and nonprofit, faith, and philanthropic organizations to support local, cross-sector efforts. As part of this initiative, the Administration also released an ED, HHS, HUD, and DOJ-signed “Dear Colleague” letter to education, housing, health, and justice stakeholders; a toolkit for community action, including new guidance for law enforcement and juvenile justice stakeholders; and are co-hosting a national virtual summit on reducing chronic absenteeism on Nov. 12, 2015. For more information, please visit http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/chronicabsenteeism/index.html.
During Q4 of FY15, the Department continued its emphasis on ensuring educational equity through ESEA Flexibility renewal and the Excellent Educators for All initiative. Through Q4, the Department has approved Flex renewal applications from 40 States, Puerto Rico, and DC, which will ensure that these states continue to work on improving implementation of college and career ready standards and assessments, maintaining support and accountability for priority and focus schools, and implementing robust teacher and principal evaluation and support systems. And through October 2015, as part of its Excellent Educators for All Initiative—designed to ensure that all students have equal access to a high-quality education—the Department announced the approval of the District of Columbia’s and 33 states' plans to ensure equitable access to excellent educators.
OCTAE and OCR are developing joint guidance to assist high schools, community colleges, other CTE providers, and state agencies in meeting their obligations under Federal law to administer and oversee career and technical education (CTE) programs without discriminating on the basis of gender. The guidance is expected to be issued in December 2015.
OCR and FSA continue to support the President’s Sexual Assault Task Force to improve coordination, transparency and effectiveness in responding to sexual violence in and around school campuses nationwide. The Task Force is developing plans for the coming months to focus on technical assistance, regional convenings, research initiatives, and training/prevention at the K-12 level.
OCR processed nearly 10,400 civil rights complaints in FY15, opened more than 2,500 investigations, and resolved more than 9,200 complaints involving pre-K-12 and postsecondary schools nationwide.
OGC worked with the Department of Justice (DOJ), in coordination with OCR and OSERS, on amicus (friend of the court) briefs or statements of interests ((SOIs) in private litigation to set forth or clarify for courts the Department’s interpretation of the civil rights laws OCR enforces, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the legal protections for all students.
OS and the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education led efforts across the Administration to execute “Gen I”, a broad initiative to support Native youth. This is a multi-faceted initiative arising from the President’s visit to Indian Country last year, including: 1) a new competitive grant, the Native Youth Community Projects (NYCP), supporting partnerships among tribes, schools, and organizations to tackle the largest barrier to college and career readiness as identified by a community; 2) increased technical assistance and support; 3) technical assistance to BIE to implement its blueprint for reform; and 4) increased engagement and support for Native youth.
OELA worked on two NIAs to be published in early FY16 to address the improvement of quality instruction to support Native American students and the National Professional Development program for IHEs to increase teacher capacity to serve English learners. Additionally, OELA has partnered with WHIEEAA to launch a set of fact sheets on Black English Learners to develop awareness for targeted actions to ensure that group of student receive appropriate attention and support. A series of community forums will be conducted in the Virginia, Maryland and DC region to address the needs of the largest and most diverse Black immigrant communities.
OSERS, OCR, OESE and ODS collaborated with the White House Domestic Policy Council to host a convening around supportive school discipline at the White House on July 22. We were joined by 40 district teams (superintendent plus two others) and experts in the field. Each team committed to taking concrete steps toward supportive school discipline after the convening. In addition, we released heat maps showing discipline disparities by race, gender, and disability as well as a new publication for local superintendents and their leadership teams, “Rethink School Discipline: Resource Guide for Superintendent Action,” that aims to support local efforts to reform school discipline policies and reduce disproportionate suspensions and expulsions from school. All of the Department’s discipline materials have been consolidated at www.ed.gov/rethinkdiscipline.
OCTAE continued to coordinate the implementation of the Performance Partnership Pilots (P3) initiative, a unique cross-agency initiative that gives state, local, and tribal governments greater flexibility in using their discretionary funds to test innovative strategies for improving results for disconnected youth. In September 2015, ED and its partner agencies selected nine pilots that will serve more than 10,000 disconnected youth over the next three years. ED also awarded a contract to provide technical assistance to the pilots that embeds the technical assistance within ED’s larger, place-based technical assistance strategy. For the next round of P3, OCTAE submitted a Notice of Proposed Priorities (NPP) to the Office of Management and Budget for Administration and agency clearance. The NPP includes proposed priorities for: disconnected youth who are unemployed and not enrolled in education; English learners; individuals with disabilities; homeless; in foster care; involved with the justice system; or immigrants or refugees. The agencies may choose to use one or more of these additional priorities in future competitions if they decide to encourage or require pilots that are designed to serve a particular high-need subpopulation.
OCTAE executed several actions to improve the educational attainment of individuals who have been incarcerated. In September 2015, OCTAE awarded more than $8 million to support nine Improved Reentry Education (IRE) demonstration projects in prisoner reentry education. IRE seeks to demonstrate that integrated and well-implemented educational and related services provided in institutional and community settings are critical in improving the educational attainment and reentry success for adults who have been incarcerated.
In August 2015, OCTAE published a notice inviting applications for a new demonstration program, Juvenile Justice Reentry Education Program: Opening Doors to College and Careers through Career and Technical Education. These demonstration grants build on the joint ED-DOL guidance on correctional education that was issued in 2014 and provide resources to states and communities to implement the guidance through CTE programs, as well as to evaluate the results.
OCTAE awarded a contract for the Advancing Equity in Career and Technical Education (CTE) project that will develop a web-based toolkit to promote practices that will help reduce inequities in CTE access, participation, completion, and post-program outcomes for females, individuals with disabilities, and individuals who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups.
In August 2015, the Department announced grant awards totaling nearly $8 million under the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) that will help increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.
The Department will continue to address Equity as an APG goal in the FY 16-17 cycle through programs across the agency.
Next Steps
No Data Available
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Performance Indicators
Decrease the number of persistently low-graduation rate high schools.
Increase the national high school graduation rate as measured by the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate
Contributing Programs & Other Factors
Major Discretionary Programs Supporting Goal 4 (http://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2015plan/2013-2015-apr-app-plan-...):
- College and career ready students (Title I, Part A)
- School Improvement Grants
- Special education grants to States
- English Language Acquisition
For additional programs see Appendix C of the Department’s FY2013 Annual Performance Report and FY2015 Annual Performance Plan (http://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2015plan/2013-2015-apr-app-plan-...).
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Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal:
Equity
Statement:
Increase educational opportunities for and reduce discrimination against underserved students so that all students are well-positioned to succeed.
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Increase all students’ access to educational opportunities with a focus on closing achievement gaps, and remove barriers that students face based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin; sex; sexual orientation; gender identity or expression; disability; English language ability; religion; socioeconomic status; or geographical location.
Description:
Statement:
Ensure educational institutions’ awareness of and compliance with federal civil rights obligations and enhance the public’s knowledge of their civil rights.
Description:
Agency Priority Goals
Statement:
By Sept. 30, 2015, the number of high schools with persistently low graduation rates[1] will decrease by 5 percent annually. The national high school graduation rate will increase to 83 percent, as measured by the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate, and disparities in the national high school graduation rate among minority students, students with disabilities, English learners, and students in poverty will decrease.
[1] Consistent with the ESEA Flexibility definition, persistently low graduation rate is defined as a less than 60 percent graduation rate. Persistently low graduation rate high schools are defined as regular and vocational high schools with an average minimum cohort size of 65 or more, and an average ACGR of 60 percent or less over two years.
Description:
GOAL OVERVIEW
Through Race to the Top (RTT), the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility, and other federal programs, the Department of Education (ED) is providing significant resources to dramatically improve the nation’s lowest-achieving schools by using intensive turnaround models and identifying the low-achieving schools that are showing strong evidence of successfully turning around. ED is focused on supporting innovation, not just compliance monitoring, and is focused on spurring growth in achievement, not just absolute achievement measures as done in the past.
Increasing the national high school graduation rate and decreasing disparities in the graduation rate is critical to achieving the President’s goal of once again having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. The nation has made significant progress in increasing graduation rates, but gaps between rates for different student groups continue to persist.
KEY BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
ED is working to support states and districts in raising high school graduation rates through a number of initiatives, including ESEA flexibility, SIG, RTT, and the High School Graduation Initiative. One key challenge will be to coordinate these multiple programs and ensure that states and districts implement coordinated efforts to increase graduation rates, rather than working through siloed funding streams. An additional challenge is providing differentiated support to states based on their current status and progress in increasing graduation rates. While all states have room for improvement, some states are farther behind than others in graduation rates, particularly for different subgroups of students. ED has addressed one major barrier, which was the incomparability of graduation rate data across states. All states are now required to use an adjusted cohort graduation rate, and ED is reporting these data at the state, district, and school level. However, differences in how states define a regular high school diploma, and other technical features of their calculations, continue to make comparisons challenging.
Key barriers and challenges include:
- Sustainability of reforms in schools as SIG grants end;
- Capacity challenges at state, district, and school level mean some intervention challenges persist;
- Insufficient focus on comprehensive turnaround efforts at the state and district level beyond only the SIG program;
- Ensuring alignment between SIG, Race to the Top, ESEA flexibility, and other programs and initiatives; and
- Lack of quality and completeness data/knowledge allows others to define success.
EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
ED works closely with stakeholder groups that are focused on increasing graduation rates, including CCSSO, CGCS, the Alliance for Excellent Education, the Education Trust, and Jobs for the Future. ED frequently engages these stakeholders on policy development, such as developing new SIG guidance, ESEA flexibility guidance, and High School Redesign.
