1. 2012 NATIONAL ELECTION OUTCOMES &
EDUCATION POLICY PROSPECTS
Alternative Accountability Forum
School for Integrated Academics and Technologies
November 15 – 17, 2012
Rick Clark
National Policy and Program Liaison
School for Integrated Academics and Technologies
6012 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22310
RWCclark@aol.com
703-960-8689

2. NATIONAL ELECTION
OUTCOMES &
EDUCATION POLICY
PROSPECTS
NOTE: Focus of remarks on dropout recovery –
substantial application to at-risk youth in general

3. ELECTION OUT COME ASSESSMENT - 5 MILE VIEW
General outlook: On paper its status quo
o
Little to no change in outlook for the House and Senate
o
More polarized than last Congress
o
Function of unprecedented gerrymandering
o
Education among reputed best prospects for cooperation
o
- Mythological opinion, base on imperial evidence

4. House of Representatives Elect
Reps - 234, Dems - 195, 23 member majority differential
Not significant gain by Dems, nor loss by Republicans for shift in House
alignment
Conservative, “Blue Dog” Dems a dying, if not extinct breed

5. Senate - Elect
Dems 55, Reps. 45 – not filibuster proof
Despite Democratic majority, bi-partisanship required
Conservative, “Blue Dog” Dems also a dying, if not extinct
breed
o Need five (or more) Republicans to break filibuster

6. HOUSE AND SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE[S]
STATUS
Election virtually maintained existing alignment of House and Senate Committees
House: Education and the Workforce Committee
- 23 Reps to 17 Dems in 112th - maintenance
- Anticipate minimum of 7 new members
- Won’t slow down Committee since mostly Dems
- No change anticipated in House Committee leadership
- Key players : Chairman John Kline (MN), Subcommittee Chair, Duncan Hunter (CA),
Virginia Foxx (NC), Rep. McKeon (CA)
- Extremely partisan leadership in 112th – unprecedented
- Mark-ups on education and workforce bills were triple P – painful, partisan, polarized

7. HOUSE AND SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE[S]
STATUS
Senate: Health, Education, Pensions, and Labor Committee
- Minimum of 1 or 2 new members
- 12 Dems to 10 Reps in 112th
- Senate leadership and membership expected to undergo some change
- Key players in Senate: Senators Harkin, Enzi, Alexander, and Bingaman [only
Bingaman will be gone – retired]
- New Committee dynamics: Sen Alexander ascending to ranking minority
- did not support bi-partisan Committee bill in 112th
- More respectful, more bi-partisan leadership in the Senate [vs. House]

8. US Department of Education
(Expected to )
o Support and incentivize implementation of common core standards
o Continue implementation and oversight of the waivers already granted to 35 states (including DC)
- as funding tightens, waivers will be a primary way of leveraging reform
- Republicans in House Ed Committee challenged waiver authority
- usurpation of power, circumvention of Congress
- Secretary Duncan on of fairly solid legal grounds
- Senate acquiescence : no moves by Democratic leadership to coalesce with House in taking back
authority [price too high]
o Waivers problematic with challenges of monitoring and enforcing implementation
- 2 year renewal review

9. PARTY LINE POLICY PERSPECTIVES
General Republican goals/strategies (observations):
o To minimize federal role in education
o Return control over education to the states
o Block or undermine administration initiatives, e.g., Race to
the Top, Innovation grants, by defunding or minimizing
funding
o Limit politically sacred formula programs to most needy
schools/students

10. DEMOCRAT PARTY GOALS
o Thwart Republican goals and strategies to neutralize
federal mandates with exceptions
o Respond to the pressures for NCLB reform by Democratic
party constituents
∀ e.g., over dependence on testing, unrealistic proficiency
goals, and onerous sanctions
o Keep critical control over education, especially in areas
like civil rights, special education, education of the poor
/Title 1
o Maintain funding for Administration initiatives
o Acquiescence in Administration’s current
reforms/strategies involving:
- data driven decision making, improved teacher
evaluations, removal of impediments to charter school
development, etc.
o What we don’t know is what dynamics of the process will
be

11. ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT
(NCLB) STATUS
ESEA Reauthorization pending since 2007
Senate and House reported bills in 112 th Congress
Neither achieved floor action
Despite inaction:
- Strong signal of the major metamorphosis, if not
end of the No Child Left Behind Era
 new name for ESEA [ESEA]
 new priorities for education reform
advanced in House and Senate Committee bills
waiver process flexibility

12. OTHER EDUCATION RELATED POLICY ISSUES FOR
LAME DUCK SESSION AND 113th CONGRESS
Sequestration – threat of 8.2 percent cut to federal ed
programs (DOE)
- Formula program grants to the states [key part of state ed
funding]
- Title 1 cuts at 1.3 billion (of 15.7 plus bill)
- Spec Ed cuts at 1 billion (of 12.6 plus bill)
FY 2012 Appropriations – Continuing Resolution thru
March
Pell Grant Funding - $7 billion short-fall
Student loan interest rate increase –– One year extension
at 3.4 %, to double in August to 6.8 %

13. Other education related reauthorization issues
facing past/near future expiration dates
Higher education
Special education - IDEA
Career and technical education
Child care

14. Work Force Investment Act
Special attention
WIA programs like Job Corps and YouthBuild have
academic components including high school diploma
credentialing
Could be a vehicle for model legislation on alternative
accountability
- consistent with Administration call for interagency
cooperation, and program transparency where multiple
agencies involved
- reforms would be limited to WIA programs, but could be
vehicle for important precedents

15. Administration Perspective on ESEA
Unclear what, if any priority Administration will give to ESEA
reauthorization – politically, not rhetorically
Don’t know where incentive for priority action lies if can achieve goals
through waivers, and existing programs
New, and extension of existing initiatives tough sledding due to role
Republicans would need to play in funding them
No money anyway

16. IMPLICATIONS FOR DROPOUT RECOVERY and
ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR RECOVERY
SCHOOLS
112th Congress – provided lay of the land
ESEA Bills reported by both House and Senate Committees
Numerous education issues raised by members of both
Committees
Not a single focused hearing on recovery: subject rarely
mentioned, except rhetorically
∀ Won’t be a focus again unless WE (collectively), make it a focus

17. TRADITIONAL POLITICAL HURDLES TO
RECOVERY AND ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY
(Fiscal) Unattractiveness of tens of thousands of youth back on
education rolls
Lack of policy maker distinction between prevention and recovery
Premium placed on high stakes testing over other ways of measuring
progress
One size fits all policy mentality, e.g., 90 percent graduation rate
[without a distinction for recovery schools]
- Dropout schools have 100 percent concentration of failure of
traditional schools
- Community college success of remedial students at community
0 Non recognition of differences in alternative schools
- Dedicated recovery school serving out-of-school youth, not
same as alternative school for in-school youth

18. Preoccupation – understandably - with solving the in-school
at risk student problem, i.e., prevention
o No excuse for uninformed or non attention to alternative
accountability for reengaged youth serving schools
[sympathetic advocacy groups as guilty as policy
makers…some movement among stakeholder groups]
o Non organized status of dropout recovery stakeholders
compared to other education stakeholder groups:
Special ed
English language learners
Technology in schools advocates
Stem education advocates
School Funding advocates
o Mistaken assumption that reforms being put in place with
respect to accountability, and dropout and graduation rates
are pertinent to all schools serving at-risk students

19. WHAT POLICY MAKERS DON’T GET (OR IGNORE) :
SHORT SIGHTED VISION
3.4 million dropouts, aged 16 -24; “Opportunity Youth” at 6.8
million
Can’t reach dropout crisis goals w/o focus on dropout
prevention and recovery
Policy arena fraught with disincentives to recovery
Billions of dollars of lost revenue (and high social costs)
o
documented in several reports from the Alliance for
Excellent Education, (Commissioned report) White
House Council on Community Solutions – See
ADDENDUM

20. OTHER POLICY ISSUES
/CHALLENGES/CONSIDERATIONS IN MAKING A
NUANCED CASE FOR RECOVERY AND ALTERNATIVE
ACCOUNTABILITY
Ending seat time requirement – may be declining problem
o Open entry open exit hampered by traditional Carnegie units
o Modifications or waivers a priority condition
Mainstreaming of competency based instruction
Growth model considerations: individual student based, consider
individual enrollment date [not just spring to spring]; also, length of
stay
A graduation rate of 40 percent can represent success for open entry,
open exit school
- National graduation rate for reengaged students averages half of
the above figure (?) – 90 percent goal, even current 75 percent
[fantasyland]
- Secretary Duncan makes no distinction in his 90 percent goal
- work to be done on his blanket statements

21. Issues, Challenges, con’t
Dropouts are a special population
o Profile of dropout is very different from in-school youth
o (Examples) Must work, have children, are self-sufficient, don’t
live at home, have limited hours to devote to schooling, don’t
have broadband access where they reside
Dedicated dropout recovery schools [majority to 100 percent] are
unique
- Unique among alternative schools
- often lumped with alternative schools serving in-school
youth
- Serve students already failed by traditional school
- are 100 percent encumbered by reasons for traditional school
failure
O Differentiated, individualized learning essential – not one size fits all
O New graduation rate calculation [NGA, CCSSO] is either not relevant, or
marginally relevant to certain recovery schools
O GED – don’t penalize recovery schools

22. ADDENDUM
ADVOCACY OPTIONS / OPPORTUNITIES:
DROPOUT RECOVERY AND ALTERNATIVE
ACCOUNTABILITY
ACTION OPTIONS: DROPOUT RECOVERY AND ALTERNATIVE
ACCOUNTABILITY
Note: Most of the following suggestions for raising the profile of
dropout recovery and alternative accountability are already in
some greater or lesser degree of implementation. The
objective is to sophisticate, expand, and intensify the
continuation (and /or initiation) of advocacy activities.
Discussion ideas for raising profile of alternative accountability.
O Group Priorities: Follow up to this Policy Forum
- Maintain communication lines among the willing through
formal or informal coalition or working group
participation
- Prepare and Circulate Forum Report
- Crystallize messaging
- Develop plan of action including strategic goals, e.g.,
Congressional hearing on
dropout recovery and/or alternative accountability, staff
briefing, Congressional forum
- Media plan development

23. - Create personal game plan for continued involvement and contribution
National Level Network Contacts, and Activities, and Messaging Targets
o [Highest priority] Identification of inside supporters in Congress, state houses, education
agencies -- including staff
o Alliance formation and agenda setting with:
- Policy groups in Congress, e.g. Progressive Caucus, Black and Hispanic Caucuses,
Friends of Job Corp
- Executive Branch groups: National Office of Rural Affairs, White House Council on
Community Solutions
- Key, national advocacy groups: Alliance for Excellent Education, America’s Promise
Alliance/Grad Nation, Opportunity Nation, National Youth Employment Coalition, Jobs
for the Future, National Job Corps Association, YouthBuild, American Youth Policy
Forum, Center for Law and Social Policy
- National associations of government officials and policymakers, e.g., National
Governors Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, Council of Chief
State School Officers
o Media Representative outreach: Editorial writers, education writers
o Hearing promotion and participation
o * Identification and liaison with prospective insider advocates [highest priority]

24. State Level Network Contacts, Activities, and Messaging
Targets
* State Education Agencies
* Legislative Education Committees
* Waiver Implementation process involvement
* Policymaker association networking: National Governors
Association, National Conference of State Legislatures
* State education advocacy groups and associations
* America’s Promise Alliance affiliates

25. DROPOUT PREVENTION AND RECOVERY
DOCUMENTS
National Governors Association: “Graduation for All – A Governors Guide to Dropout
Prevention and Recovery” (2009)
National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) : “ A Path to Graduation for Every
Child: State Legislative Roles and Responsibilities” (2011)
NCSL: “Going to Scale: Working with State Legislators to Prevent and Reengage
Dropouts” (2010)
America’s Promise Alliance: “Building a GRAD Nation – Progress and Challenge in
Ending the High School Dropout Dilemma – 2012 Update”
White House Council on Community Solutions (and Civic Enterprises): “The
Economic Value of Opportunity Youth” (2012)
White House Council on Community Solutions: “Opportunity Road” (2012)
Alliance for Excellent Education: Education and the Economy: “Boosting State and
National Economies by Improving High School Graduation Rates” (2011)
Alliance for Excellent Education: “Boosting the Metro Area Economies by Improving
High School Graduation Rates – Metro Area Profiles” (2011)