The Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee Should Sunset the State Board of Education

Today, the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee met to discuss their recommendations regarding the State Board of Education.  There were 13 recommendations that the committee voted on, Recommendation #1, “The State Board of Education shall be terminated and applicable sections of the code be amended to remove the State Board of Education.” This recommendation was tabled, the committee wanted to go through the 12 remaining recommendations first before they voted on whether or not to terminate the State Board.  Note: Recommendation 9 was voted on 10 yes and 0 no. The recommendation was to provide more  accessibility to the members of public to the State Board meetings. Recommendation 13 was tabled, the vote to release the State Board or to hold them over.

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no.

The Sunset Committee voted 4 yes and 6 no, the Sunset Committee voted not to move forward with this recommendation.

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no. 

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no, for Option 1.

 

 

 

 

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no.

 

 

 

 

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no. Note they removed the time limit, comment was made that State Board should focus on shortening their agenda.

Sunset wants a list of what the public can and cannot comment on at the State Board meetings and change the word “after” to “before”. The State Board will bring the list back to the Sunset Committee and then the committee will decide on the next step for this recommendation.

The Sunset Committee voted 10 yes and 0 no.

Recommendation 11 the vote was 10 yes and 0 no. Recommendation 12 was tabled.

Peter Greene: ESSA is Now Officially a Big, Hot Mess

Diane Ravitch's blog

At the end of 2015, Congress finally replaced No Child Left Behind–ten years late–with a new law called Every Student Succeeds. The two names actually mean exactly the same thing, and mean nothing at all. Does anyone really believe that a federal law will cause “no child” to be “left behind,” or that “every student” will “succeed”? Washington ships out some money and some mandates, and therefore what? Hyperbole.

No Child Left Behind introduced an unprecedented level of federal control of education, a function traditionally left to the states. The federal contribution of about 10% of overall education funding enabled the government via NCLB to set conditions, specifically to require that every child in grades 3-8 must be tested in reading and math every year. Based on test scores, teachers and principals have been fired, and schools have been closed for not reaching unrealistic targets. NCLB was an intrusive, misguided…

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The Disappointing Results of Vouchers in Louisiana: An Evaluation of the First Two Years

Diane Ravitch's blog

A team of researchers associated with the University of Arkansas studied the first two years of the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Their report was released in late February. For those hoping to see a validation of the transformative power of vouchers, the results were disappointing, to say the least.

“The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a statewide private school voucher program available to moderate- to low-income students in low-performing public schools. The LSP is limited to students with family income at or below 250% of the federal poverty line. Children in these families also have to either be entering kindergarten or be attending a public school that was graded C, D, or F for the prior school year. In the program’s rst year, 9,809 students were eligible applicants, with a majority of them located outside of Orleans parish. This group of students, the 2012-13 LSP applicant cohort, is the focus…

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Trump, St. Andrew’s School in Florida, school choice and state vouchers – the appearance of helping disadvantage students – Fake News!

On February 28, President Trump addressed Congress, speaking briefly about school choice for disadvantaged youth, breaking the cycle of poverty.  He talked about how families should be able to choose the schools that are right for them, whether they be public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home schools.

On Friday, President Trump visited a private school in Florida  – St. Andrew Catholic School – Florida is one of 14 states and DC, which has a state-funded school voucher program to qualifying students.

If you look at St. Andrew’s admission requirements you must provide most recent report card and state assessment, which would be ok since it is a private school. But President Trump though is pushing for school choice and vouchers. There is a $250 registration fee (non-refundable) per child is assessed. There is an admission test for students 2nd through 8th grades.  A parent needs three teacher recommendations.  There is a list of priorities, one being you must attend church on a regular basis and ENVELOPE USE AS DEFINED BY THE PASTOR.  

How are policies like this going to help break the cycle of poverty?  Folks living in poverty cannot afford a $250 non-refundable registration fee, $25 application fee or financially supporting any church every week? How are they going to pay for the balance of the tuition that is owed after using their voucher?

It is very interesting when you look through the qualifying student requirements for school-funded voucher programs, because most states require that a student has an IEP, certain disability or specific income level tied into the federal poverty level.  THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART – In Delaware, most students who have an IEP or disability, and leave a private or charter schools, do so because the school does not provide the necessary special education services or the school tells a family that they cannot provide these services for the child – this school is not a good fit.

We have people creating policy that really have no idea as to what is really going on in our public schools, because if they did, they would understand that they are not helping disadvantage students.