Below is the letter that was sent to Senator Alexander, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. I thought it was interesting to see a few Delaware State Senators signed onto the letter.
The next Secretary of Education has been named and again it is not an educator. Why does our Presidents and state leaders think it is ok to appoint someone as Secretary of Education who has never taught? Our Surgeon General is a doctor, the US Attorney General is a lawyer – so why is the Secretary of Education, one of the most important jobs, not required to be an educator? Every four or eight years a new federal education plan is introduced and the students are the experiment. We have no stability when it comes to our educational system here in the US. Things will never change when we keep appointing the wrong people. Things will never change when we have billionaires who do not normally send their children to public schools and who are making decisions about how to best serve our kids.
Click here to read Betsy DeVos Bio.
The federal government is proposing a change to a Title 1 regulation – Supplement-not-Supplant under Title 1 of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Click on the link to read more about the proposed regulation. Below is one part of the regulation that is concerning people:
In other words, districts could be forced to move staff from one building to another because of salary levels in buildings.
If you are interested in sending a comment to US DOE, click here. The comment period closes on November 7, 2016 at 11:59 pm.
CCSSO Executive Director Chris Minnich said, “It’s clear that the Department has listened and tried to incorporate feedback in this proposed rule. However, we are disappointed with the language we have seen in the proposed regulation. Schools would be forced to move resources around at the last minute each year to try to meet a federal mandate, rather than doing what is in the best interest of students. The Every Student Succeeds Act gives states more flexibility so we can create opportunities for all kids, and this proposed rule is not consistent with the law. Unfortunately, in the Department’s effort to ensure resources go to the students who need it the most, they have created a situation where the reverse is likely to occur in many places. We look forward to helping get this right before the rule becomes final.”
The first Governor’s ESSA Advisory Committee met last night. The first draft will be released to the committee in October and the second draft will be released in December. The final submission is due to US DOE in March 2017. Delaware has chosen to submit their plan in the first round which is in March, Delaware could have selected a July date but decided against it. Delaware selected the March date for a number of reasons – one being there is a 120 day window from when states submit their plan and US DOE responds back. Delaware thought it would be better to submit early so they could make any corrections or updates before the beginning of the next school year 2017-2018. If we waited until July to submit the plan, the response from US DOE would not be until November, the school year has already begun. The incoming president could delay the implementation of the states’ plan.
One interesting note: The advisory group will not be voting on the plan – just advising.
I was on the State Board of Education website today and found the State Board of Education Procedures Manual. On page 8 of this manual, it goes over how the State Board will be evaluated. They have no evaluation process, they apparently monitor themselves.
Evaluation The Board will monitor its own process and performance to ensure continuity of Board improvements, integrity of Board actions and progress toward Board goals. The Board will be accountable to the public for competent, conscientious, and effective accomplishment of its obligations as a Board. The Board may seek the input from others regarding the effectiveness or impact of Board initiatives as part of the evaluation process, and may utilize the services of an independent consultant in doing so.
I am a parent of two DE public school children, I am a former DE PTA president, a former Red Clay school board member, I am currently a DE State Representative and Vice Chair of the House Education Committee. I found this article to be quite interesting. The writers of this piece truly do not understand what is going on here in Delaware regarding the current state assessment and the ignored and meaningless data that is produced from it.
The Washington Post article states that opting out “undermines the collection of the needed data.” I find that sentence just fascinating! I wonder if the authors of this piece understand that the needed data comes after the student has moved on to the next grade level. The needed data arrived in the mail addressed to the parent after their child moved on to the next grade or moved up to another school. If the parent had questions about the needed data, who should the parent talk to -the student’s new teacher who just started teaching the student or last year’s teacher who is teaching new students? Do the writers understand that this test which produces the needed data does not measure growth?
In the article Governor Markell states, “Assessments are an important tool for teachers and families to have.” I would agree, if these assessments were a useful tool. If the assessment gave meaningful data to a teacher immediately on individually students, I would agree. My question to the writers, how is this a useful tool if the test comes seven months later, after the student has been promoted to the next grade? What are we learning from this needed data? Is the state developing educational programs from this needed data or are we just going to continue to label schools with this needed data? Are we going to continue to tell communities that your school is failing with this needed data? Are we going to tell these communities that we are going to continue to collect the needed data for another 20 years ignoring what we already know that we do not properly fund what the needed data has been telling us for years -that there is no funding for ELL students, we do not fund Basic Special Education Kindergarten through 3rd grade, and that we have been ignoring poverty since the needed data has been collected? So why would anyone continue to support this state assessment when the needed data has been screaming at us for years what our state needs? These are the questions these folks from The Washington Post should have asked the Governor instead of telling Delaware parents it is not ok to opt out!
Delaware should not make it okay for parents to opt their kids out of testing
The SAT will replace the Smarter Assessment as the state test for high school juniors beginning this spring.
NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures) sent a summary of the Every Student Succeeds Act and I thought I would share it with all of you. It breaks down the ESSA highlighting important parts of the legislation.
The House of Representatives passed a compromise bill – the Every Student Succeeds Act – by a bipartisan vote of 359-64. The Senate will vote on this next week and they will most likely pass this bill. This has been a long time coming. No Child Left Behind left us with labeling our schools, over testing our students, setting goals of obtaining 100% proficiency by certain dates and evaluating our teachers using test scores. No Child Left Behind did the opposite of what was the original intent of the bill; NCLB left many students behind. While teachers were teaching to an unrealistic test, teachers could not focus on the individual child, they lost control of their classrooms and the feds and the state dictated what teachers needed to do in order to be successful in their classrooms instead of letting teachers do what they already knew, how to teach our students!
I am happy that this bill has passed the House and we will have more local control, my question is how will our state use their new control? We already know what is needed here in Delaware and what is lacking in our classrooms; additional resources to address poverty, more resources in special education, especially kindergarten through 3rd grades, and funding for our ELL students. We know how important it is for our children to be able to read proficiency by third grade. We know how important it is for our children to have excellent early learning opportunities. I am hopeful our state will provide these things.
I read the Delaware Online article this morning about “Rare consensus in Delaware over federal education reform,” click here to read. In the article the Governor’s Office provided a statement. In the statement it states the following:
“The Every Student Succeeds Act preserves some of the most important elements of our existing system, including annual testing requirements in 3rd-8th grade and in high school, which ensure that every student counts,” the statement said. “We would have liked to see stronger requirements for timely intervention in schools where students are struggling, but overall, the Every Student Succeeds Act is an important step forward that will give states more flexibility to meet their students’ needs.”
The last sentence where the Governor’s Office noted they would have liked to have seen stronger requirements for timely intervention in schools where students are struggling. Honesty, we do not need the Feds placing requirements on us. We, as a state, can provide timely intervention by providing the necessary resources that we need -ELL funding, Basic Special Education funding for our students kindergarten through 3rd grades where the students need to be developing their reading skills to become proficient readers and finally addressing our students of poverty. This is what needs to be done. I will be listening closely to the Governor’s State of the State and I am hopeful these very important funding items will be mentioned and funded in the Governor’s proposed budget.
I am hopeful Delaware will take this opportunity to do what is needed and has been needed for many years provide the necessary resources needed to make sure all our students are successful.
DelawareFirstState 