Delaware Educational Technology Report Wants Statewide Personalized Learning By 2020

The corporate education reform juggernaut wants personalized learning in every school in America, and Delaware’s latest educational technology report will help to make sure that happens in The First State.  Unless you home school, standardized testing will be impossible to stop in the future.  The plans from this report could also bring data mining into your very own home.

Last year, the Delaware 148th General Assembly created a State Educational Technology Task Force through Senate Concurrent Resolution #22.  The task force released their final report to the General Assembly yesterday.  There are far-reaching and gigantic goals coming out of this report, with huge technological and financial implications for every single student, teacher, school, and citizen in the state.

To be clear from the get-go: I am not against technology in the classroom.  What I am against is technology taking the place of a human teacher.  Technology, in my opinion, should be used as a support for the teacher, and not the other way around.  In today’s society, the majority of us are glued to the internet.  This article would not exist were it not for the internet.  My other chief concern with the digital invasion into every classroom is the data that comes out of it.  I’ve written about this hundreds of times in the past couple years, more so in the past few months.  There is nothing in any law that will prevent aggregate data, formed through algorithms embedded into the various learning modules and standardized tests, from falling into outside companies hands.  In fact, most states seem to want them to have access to this information.  The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) had its guidelines relaxed to such an extent that companies have easy access to student data.  The data is not connected to any personal identifiable information for each student, but it is all sent to these companies with each student identification number assigned to it based on the information they request.

Imagine, if you will, what happens when you go to Amazon.  You’ve been shopping there for years.  Amazon knows what you want to look for.  If you bought the second season of Downton Abbey through their cloud service, bought a paperback of The DaVinci Code a couple months later, and then a Bananarama mp3 a few months later, Amazon will tailor your shopping experience based on everything you have purchased and browsed.  As most of us who have gone through these “suggestive” ideas, there are many times where we don’t want what they are recommending.  But it still shows up.  The same happens with Google.  It remembers what you search for.  How many times have you gone to type something in Google, and they automatically know exactly what you are looking for?  Or Google thinks it knows and goes right to it but it was wrong?  It is all based on algorithms and predictive analysis.

Educational data on your child is crafted the exact same way.  It doesn’t know his name or his social security number, but it knows how old they are, what school they go to, what grade they are in, how long it takes to finish a test, all the behavior issues, any discipline problems, and much, much more.  It is all assigned to that number.  Outside companies get this information for “research” and send it back to the state.  The state is then able to come up with a model for that student based on their own data and what these companies are doing with it.  In time, states will emulate the Amazon and Google predictive analysis methods and will come up with “suggestive” career paths for students (if they aren’t already).  The personalized learning will be tailored towards that career path.  And of course all of this will be based on the Common Core, as students move on based on Competency-Based Education.  They can’t move on until they have gained proficiency in a subject.  Instead of you searching on Google or Amazon, this is the state (already bought by Corporate America) searching on your child and taking those predictive analysis algorithmic conclusions and making decisions on your child.  Whatever happened to the uniqueness and individuality of each child?  There are human factors and emotions that no computer-based model can ever measure.  Corporate Education Inc. wants to take that away from your child.  Permanently.

I also have grave concerns with the goal of every single student in Delaware having a state-owned digital device in home AND school by 2020.  The report shies away from districts and charters having individual contracts with providers of the devices due to cost.  So the technology each student would have would be based on what the state decides to purchase.  We are seeing this already in twenty-four Delaware local education agencies with the Schoology Learning Management System.

For teachers, they will be subject to countless hours of professional learning development geared towards the technology and how to implement the technology towards instruction.  In time, they will be required to show “confidence” in this ability.  Teaching will shift away from teacher to student  interaction to a technology-student-moderator environment.

The report also touches on what is known as the K-12 Open Educational Resources Collaborative.  This group is comprised of eleven states, including Delaware and the following: California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.  But they aren’t the only members.  There are companies and “associations” that signed on as well: the Council of Chief State School Officers, Achieve Inc., The Learning Accelerator, Lumen Learning (most likely an offshoot of The Lumina Foundation.  Their CEO was a speaker at Delaware’s Pathways To Prosperity conference in February), Creative Commons, State Education Technology Directors Association, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, State Instructional Materials Reviews Association, Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics, and the International Association for K-12 Online Learning.  And just to put the frosting on this corporate education reform entity, guess what they support? A member of their advisory team named Joe Wolf, who is also the Chair of The Learning Accelerator, is into “Social Action Bonds”.  But who are we kidding?  You can call them whatever you want, they are all Social Impact Bonds.  Every day there is some new education company coming out of the woodwork that I never knew existed before!

What concerns me about Delaware’s Educational Technology report is the questions that were not asked.  If the goal is to have every single student’s home wi-fi compatible, who pays for the actual internet service provider (i.e. Comcast or Verizon)?  How would it connect to the education personalized management systems?  If the home becomes a new “learning environment”, would anything on the internet in each person’s home then become “data” available for “education agencies” to request from the state (fully allowable under FERPA)?  Since most homes tend to get bundle packages, including cable and phone, does that mean that data could now be fodder for the state?  Imagine every single phone call you make on your landline or every television show you watch being a part of data collection.  By not answering these types of questions, or even asking them, it is very bold of this task force to suggest these kinds of recommendations.  There is a Student Data Privacy Task Force now in session (they meet again on Monday, April 4th from 3:00 to 4:30 pm on the 7th level of the Carvel State Office Building at 820 N. French St. in Wilmington and it is open to the public).  But this task force was created from Senate Bill 79 in Delaware which had so much lobbying from Microsoft and Google that the original intent of the legislation was shredded due to their interference and still allows this open flow of student data at an aggregate level (based on each student’s identification number).

This potential future is happening right before our very eyes.  There is so much more to this, and a few of us in the education blogging landscape suspect a future where the majority of the population become little drones and worker bees as a result of all of this.  We will exist only to serve the hive, aka, the corporate government.  Your job will be created for you based on your digital education.  Meanwhile, those in power will control it all.

It is time for a revolution.

Preemptive pledging of a delegate vote will result in voter disenfranchisement

DelawareFirstState

Nothing is more threatening to a representative democracy than discouraging voters or disenfranchising them. The newest incarnation of voter suppression and denial of access to the ballot box has surfaced in one of the most unlikely places. It is created within the Democratic Party by party rules and under the guise of the privileged “super-delegate” appointment. Clearly a creation of homage to a bygone era of aristocratic recognition within the party powerful it allowed those at the top of the pyramid of power, often beholden to the status quo of party politics, to be given access to the party convention and front row seats from which to preen. This mimicking of the English style of a “House of Lords” and a “House of Commons” would seem harmless enough until the “super-delegates” presumed that their appointment precluded any vote of the party faithful yet to come.

Although legally placed as a…

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New Hampshire’s Senate Bill 503 Would Allow “Pay For Success” Social Impact Bonds In Pre-Schools

New Hampshire has a current bill which would allow investors to finance pre-schools in an effort to prevent special education remediation.  This “pay for success” program is actually Social Impact Bonds.  This latest craze by investors in education is extremely dangerous and should not even be a consideration anywhere in a child’s education.  It is a system that has the potential to be widely abused in order for outside corporations to make money off student outcomes.

New Hampshire’s Senate Bill 503 has already gone through their Senate and will be heard in their House Education Committee on Tuesday, April 5th at 10am in the New Hampshire General Court.

I have to wonder what state legislators across the country are even thinking anymore.  They are selling out public education to corporations and investors.  New Hampshire couldn’t even give this an accurate fiscal note because it is, when you break it down, a bet.  A bet that had disastrous consequences in Utah and Chicago Public Schools according to education blogger Fred Klonsky.  I wrote about how the legislative apparatus for Social Impact Bonds already happened in Delaware and just today, the Delaware Republican Senate caucus revealed a Poverty Agenda Plan that includes Social Impact Bonds as one of their steps to eliminate poverty.  While it is not known if this plan would include educational “pay for success” programs, I know not all of the GOP Senators in Delaware would even want this kind of program in education.

Most of the Social Impact Bond activities in education would seem to be a violation of federal IDEA special education law.  Corporations and special education are like oil and water.  The former has no reason to be involved at all while the latter is a necessary step towards success for students with disabilities.  Response to Intervention is not a replacement for special education, but far too many states seem to think it is.  And now big business wants to bet that it is.  Response to Intervention (RTI) is based on reading skills and ignores the whole gamut of other areas a disability could come into play.  The only reason states want kids reading by 3rd grade is so they can take the state assessment and let the data gravy train speed up.  Both RTI and Social Impact Bonds are anti-special education measures.  By denying child find, as dictated by IDEA, it is setting up a child with disabilities to fail at an early age.  Both RTI and “Pay for Success” programs in education should be abolished immediately.  The fact the US Government is promoting these kinds of programs is even more troubling.

States with passed Social Impact Bond legislation or have “Pay For Success” programs already in place are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio (Cuyahoga County), Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C. and Wisconsin.  The United States government has several “Pay for Success” and “Social Innovation Funds” projects going on, including a part written into the Every Student Succeeds Act. (source: PayForSuccess.org)

Earlier this month, a second attempt for “Pay For Success” legislation died in Florida.  Other states that explored them but never implemented them are Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey (a bill was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie), Rhode Island, and Vermont.

If I were a parent of a toddler or pre-schooler in New Hampshire, I would voice my concerns with their House Education Committee immediately!  This is absolutely the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of in education and makes all that came before pale in comparison.

New Mexico ACLU Complaint Could Have Huge Impact For Teachers Nationwide

The New Mexico American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint yesterday with the First Judicial District Court of Santa Fe County.  The plaintiffs, five public school teachers and a parent, allege that the New Mexico Public Education Department is violating their First Amendment rights by forbidding them to talk negatively about standardized assessments.

The concerns are serious, touching on one of the most basic functions of government, public education.  They include criticisms that government officials have prioritized profit and politics over public education; have fundamentally changed education, as teachers must now devote significant hours to teaching to the tests, not their students’ actual education needs; and have ignored that the tests are often developmentally inappropriate and traumatic for some students with disabilities.

The teachers and the parent work or live in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque Public School districts.  Both districts give parents the right to opt their children out of standardized tests, but state law forbids teachers from “disparaging” standardized tests.  The teachers and the parent this robs educators of the ability to advocate for students when they have first-hand knowledge of what high-stakes tests do to students.  They also allege these tests give school districts false labels in accountability measures.

I could easily see this case, if not won at a state level, advancing even higher.  It was only a matter of time before this country saw a case like this.  This could have far-reaching implications for opt out across the country.  If the plaintiff wins, it could be used as precedent in other cases across America.  If they lose, I would certainly hope they would appeal.  I truly wouldn’t mind if a case like this wound up in the United States Supreme Court so the decision on parental rights is made once and for all by the highest court in the country.

New Mexico uses the PARCC as their state assessment.

I salute these five teachers and parent for bringing this case forward as well as the ACLU for taking the case.  It is about time people stood up for their own rights, student rights, and parent rights.  I will be following this case closely going forward!  To read the full complaint, please see below:

Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn Talks About School Fights, Bullying, and Senate Bill 207

It must be Matt Denn day here at Exceptional Delaware!  In any event, Delaware Attorney General appeared on Comcast Newsmakers with Jill Horner on March 21st to talk about Senate Bill 207.  This legislation would make it so schools do not have to call the police every time there is a fight in a Delaware public school.  The schools still could, but they would have discretion based on the circumstances and the potential of serious injury.  As well, SB207 would mandate schools disclose the contact information for the Ombudsman at the DOJ who deals with school bullying issues to parents.

A Message From Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn About IEPs And DOE Surveys

Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn wants all parents of students with disabilities with an IEP to read this message!  As part of the IEP Task Force recommendations back in 2014 which became part of Senate Bill 33 last year, the Delaware DOE is required to send surveys out to a representative number of families where a child has an IEP.  The goal of the survey is to see how our schools are doing with the IEP process and implementation.  I strongly urge all parents in Delaware who  have a child with an IEP to take this survey.  Thank you.

“Dear Friends,

I am writing to ask for your assistance in ensuring that our schools are complying with their legal responsibilities to provide appropriate services to students with disabilities. One of the recommendations of the IEP Improvement Task Force that I chaired was to survey families specifically about their experience with the IEP process, so the state could determine if particular schools or districts were failing to comply with their legal responsibilities to children with disabilities. The General Assembly enacted legislation last year requiring the Department of Education to conduct this survey. The Department of Education, through the Center for Disabilities Studies at the University of Delaware, is mailing such a survey out to the homes of a randomized group of approximately 5,000 students with IEPs. In addition to these mailed surveys, we have also created an online version which will allow families who do not receive the mailed survey to share their experience. While we request permission to contact the responding families if there are concerns about their responses, they may choose to participate anonymously.

I ask you to share the web address for this online survey with the families of children you serve and encourage their participation, so we can try to ensure that all children with disabilities in our state receive the support to which they are entitled.”

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2T789KW

Sincerely,

Matt Denn

JP Morgan Chase Teams Up With CCSSO For Corporate Race To The Top

JP Morgan Chase will be giving away $75 million in grants over the next five years to different states in their “New Skills For Youth” program.  The goal is to implement career readiness programs in order to have more students ready to enter the workforce.  This is all part of the original design, detailed in a letter to Hillary Clinton 24 years ago.

What is interesting is who is on the advisory committee JP Morgan Chase used for this initiative.  We have the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, and the Education Strategy Group.  The CCSSO was instrumental in launching Common Core on unsuspecting states.  But the last of these groups is very interesting given one of their recent hires this year.

Remember Ryan Reyna?  This former Delaware Department of Education employee was the Director of the Accountability unit under Penny Schwinn.  Schwinn and Reyna were the dynamic duo in charge of creating Delaware’s new accountability system.  You know, the one with the participation rate penalty that would punish schools for opt outs over 5% of the school or any sub-group.

From their bio for Ryan Reyna:

Ryan joined ESG in 2016 to support ESG’s overall college and career readiness strategy.  He leads the organization’s efforts to help states bring stronger, more impactful career-focused indicators into their K-12 accountability systems to ensure that those systems measure and value students’ readiness for the 21st century world of work.

What I didn’t know about Reyna was that before he came to the Delaware DOE, he worked at the National Governor’s Association in their Center for Best Practices.  And take a wild guess what he did there?

At the NGA Center, Ryan led the division’s support of governors’ offices on numerous issues, including college and career ready standards, assessment, accountability, and transitions into postsecondary education and training. He also previously held Senior Policy Analyst and Policy Analyst positions at the NGA Center and worked as a Research Associate at the Data Quality Campaign.

Even Education Strategy Group’s Founder and President has some deep ties to corporate education reform.  Matt Gandal worked as a Senior Advisor to former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and prior to that he was an executive vice-president at Achieve Inc.  Gandal was one of the key players in the American Diploma Project which led to the creation of the Common Core State Standards.  From his bio with Education Strategy Group:

He helped found the organization and was responsible for overseeing its major initiatives, including the American Diploma Project which helped 35 states advance college and career readiness policies; the Common Core State Standards Initiative which resulted in 45 states adopting rigorous academic standards; and National Education Summits that brought together governors, CEOs and education leaders from across the country to commit to ambitious reforms.

Both he and Delaware Governor Jack Markell took part in a “Colloquim” run by the Hope Street Group in January, 2013.  One of the main goals of this gathering of corporate education reformers was, you guessed it, career pathways.  If you aren’t familiar with the Hope Street Group, former Delaware Deputy Secretary of Education Dan Cruce is an executive Vice-President there.  He served under Lillian Lowery when she held the role for a few years when Jack Markell became Governor of Delaware.

For the states who submitted applications for this grant from JP Morgan Chase, the selection committee included the following: IBM, Southern Regional Education Board, CLASP, James Irvine Foundation, Jobs For The Future, New America, National Governor’s Association, US Chamber and Chamber Foundation, National Skills Coalition, the Aspen Foundation, a high school principal, and a former Kentucky Commissioner of Education.  Look at their bios.  Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from one corporate education reform company to the next.

It was only a matter of time before financial institutions got involved in these “pathways to prosperity”.  In a letter to the editor that appeared in USA Today back in January, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski stated:

Awarding grants to U.S. states will encourage them to implement career and technical education programs that correspond to the needs of area employers. High-quality, rigorous career technical programs would arm students with the skills to work as aviation mechanics, nursing technicians or IT specialists. The result is great jobs.

And so begins the Corporate Race To The Top.  But I doubt JP Morgan Chase will be the only company doing this.  Yesterday, Bank of America’s lead for corporate communications, none other than Tony Allen himself, had a very interesting tweet:

Happening now … Reentry to financial stability @NULpolicy @BofA_News @KerryHSullivan #StateofBlackAmerica pic.twitter.com/WqSonur7uu

— Tony Allen (@BelieveLiveLove) March 29, 2016

So I’m sure we can expect more of this from Bank of America and other big banking corporations out there.  It seems like many states are jumping on this Career-Technical Education bandwagon.

Read the “Dear Hillary” letter if you haven’t already.  This was planned a quarter of a century ago.  This isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing.  It is a Corporate thing.  Designed for the vast majority of society to be given a pre-determined career path based on standardized test scores.  To keep the bulk of the population in low-paying jobs while the top 1-5% keep the control.  Think about it, if students are “guided” toward certain career trajectories, they will most likely serve that job for the rest of their life.  Everyone will have their designated role in life while the fat cats reap the profits. 

We hear big companies talking all the time about the cost of training employees.  By getting rid of that and having public education do all the training, guess who pays for it?  The taxpayers.  While the big companies score even more profit.  Do you really think they are doing this to help disadvantaged students?  These are some of the same companies that caused the housing collapse and the worst recession this country has ever seen.  That wasn’t even ten years ago folks!  Heck, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if it was one day revealed these companies wanted that to happen so they could implement all of this.  Where did all the funding for Common Core and Race To The Top come from?  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

The major players in the corporate education reform movement have been at this for a long time, well before Common Core became a headache for parents helping their kids with math homework.  We have Bill & Melinda Gates, Marc Tucker, and Matt Gandal as some of the key figureheads in everything that has come to pass since 1992.  Their policies and agendas have become embedded in nearly every single state’s educational and workforce landscape.  It is the complete restructuring and redesigning of American society.  Delaware Governor Jack Markell is actually a big piece of this puzzle, and has been for a long time.

These plans, long in scope and design, include corporate leaders, members of Congress, a couple Presidents, non-profit companies, state legislators, and every single education think tank and organization that has been paid one cent or more since 2009.  If they received money from Race To The Top, they are in on it.  And now, with personalized learning becoming the “next big thing”, we see companies like Schoology benefitting immensely from this charade we call corporate education reform.  You can read about this grand design in a blog from one of the pilot states for the personalized learning and Competency-Based Education guinea pigs.

Teachers as we know them now will be a thing of the past in just a few short years.  They will become moderators of the personalized learning and competency-based education platforms.  The teacher’s unions will disappear.  Student data will flow freely from the states to even more companies because they will now be considered “education agencies” based on initiatives like today’s announcement by JP Morgan Chase.  Our children are mere cattle for investors.  They will hedge bets on student outcomes and they will profit off these as well.  And for every single standardized test your child takes, no longer a once a year cram but a series of small high-stakes tests, your child’s uniqueness and individuality will disappear into the abyss as they become another drone of Corporate America’s Workforce.  They won’t have the ability or capability of being able to have independent thought.  They will be programmed and conditioned for their career pathway and you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

This is why the opposition against opt out is so huge among the education-workforce players.  Opt out kills their plans.  As former Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Murphy said at a Senate meeting on opt out, “The data is important to us.”  You bet it is!  Without it, these plans are dead in the water.  Opt out now.  Seriously.  What more do you need to know to convince you?  If you are thinking “it won’t happen to my child”, think again.  It already is.  What can you do?  Stand tall and offer resistance.

From the Delaware DOE’s press announcement on the JP Morgan Chase “Corporate Race To The Top” initiative:

Delaware wins grant to develop plan to improve career preparation systems

The Delaware Department of Education has secured a $100,000 grant to develop a detailed career readiness action plan, which is an essential step to expanding economic opportunity for young people across the First State.

“Delaware has made tremendous progress in aligning our education and workforce development systems through Governor Jack Markell’s Delaware Pathways initiative,” Secretary of Education Steven Godowsky said. “We are thrilled that these funds will further create opportunities for students to earn industry-recognized credentials and early college credits to accelerate their career goals.”

Delaware is among 24 states and the District of Columbia that secured grants for this work through phase one of New Skills for Youth grant opportunity. The grants are one piece of a $75 million, five-year initiative developed by JPMorgan Chase, in partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Advance CTE, aimed at increasing economic opportunity for young people by strengthening career-focused education, starting in high school and ending with postsecondary degrees or credentials aligned with business needs.

Today, too few young people are receiving the education or training in high school and beyond that would put them on a track to qualify for these careers. By the age of 25, only about half of young Americans have a meaningful postsecondary credential that enables them to compete for good jobs, and the U.S. youth unemployment rate is more than double the national rate.

In Delaware, the 2014 youth (age 20-24) unemployment rate for men was 15.8 percent. For women, it was 8.8 percent. This is compared to 5.8 percent for all other age demographics. For men and women of color, the youth unemployment rate was even higher at 18 percent for African American and 11.1 percent for Hispanic youth.

Through phase one of New Skills for Youth, Delaware and other selected states will each receive a $100,000 six-month grant, in addition to expert technical assistance and peer support from other grantees, to perform a diagnostic assessment of their career preparation system and prepare for implementation of a new action plan.

Through Governor Markell’s Delaware Pathways initiative, Delaware has revamped career and technical education (CTE) to ensure youth have the opportunity to earn industry-recognized credentials and early college credit to accelerate their career goals. And, these opportunities are expanding quickly. By the 2016-17 school year, more than 5,000 students in 29 of 44 public high schools will be enrolled in state-model pathway programs aligned to areas of high demand in Delaware’s economy. These programs include: finance, allied health, culinary and hospitality management, CISCO networking, computer science, manufacturing logistics and production, manufacturing/engineering technology, biomedical science, and engineering.

This work is further accelerated through the Delaware Pathways Strategic Plan, which was unveiled in February 2016 to more than 300 educators and employers.

“This grant is a testament to Delaware’s focus on preparing our students to leave high school college and career ready and well positioned to compete for the in-demand jobs driven by today’s global economy,” Governor Markell said.  “We’ll put it to good use to help ensure that we meet our commitment to the Delaware Promise that we announced last year, that by 2025, the percentage of Delawareans with a college degree or professional certificate will match the percentage of our jobs that will require one – 65 percent.”

States across the country are adjusting their career readiness programs to ensure they adequately prepare students for their next step after graduation, said Chris Minnich, executive director of CCSSO. “States have seized this grant opportunity to pursue bold plans for pathways that will put kids on a course for success after high school and beyond.”

Chauncy Lennon, head of Workforce Initiatives, JPMorgan Chase, said, “We must address the youth career crisis, and it starts in our schools. These grants kick start an effort to ensure career and technical education systems are better aligned with the needs of business and leaders throughout states are committed to tackling youth employment.”

An independent advisory committee recommended phase one grant recipients after a rigorous review process that considered states’ proposed plans, cross-sector partnerships, and demonstrated commitment and capacity to transform their systems of career preparation according to the grant guidelines.  In the judgment of the advisory committee, the selected states showed promise in their career readiness plans and indicated strongly that this work is a priority for them.

Delaware, and the other phase one planning grant states, will be eligible to apply for the phase two grant opportunity, which will require states to demonstrate the commitment and capacity to execute the action plans developed in phase one.

This grant opportunity builds on CCSSO’s Career Readiness Initiative, launched in 2015 to help close the skills gap in this country. The goal is to ensure that students are not only college-ready, but that all children also graduate from high school prepared for careers.

CCSSO’s work has been guided by the recommendations made in Opportunities and Options, a report of CCSSO’s Career Readiness Task Force.

The report encourages states to make high school programs more responsive to the labor market by enlisting the employer community as a lead partner; significantly raise the threshold for quality career pathways in secondary schools; and make career preparation matter to schools and students, in part by expanding accountability systems to emphasize career readiness.

Go back and click on all the links in the Delaware DOE press release.  Find out if your state is a part of this budding enterprise.  Research, write it down, and expose.  If you don’t have an avenue to do so, reach out to me.  There are plenty of ways to get information out there.

One final thought.  If you go to this JP Morgan Chase document, go all the way to the bottom of the last page on the right.  Look at the footnotes, #12.  A report from the Center for American Progress, the creator of the bogus “Testing Bill of Rights” released last week (not to be confused with the valid Parent Bill of Rights for Education that I created last week in response, for which you can sign a petition on at Change.org).  Notice the name of the author of that report in the footnotes: Sarah Ayres.  Who JP Morgan Chase discloses is now an employee of JP Morgan Chase.  This is how it is in corporate education reform.  People jumping from one position to the next.  Working for state Departments of Education at one point.  Thousands of players, involved in any potential place where education policy is discussed.

Read through that link very carefully.  Look at what states will be required to do to receive this Corporate Race To The Top seed money.  The changes they will need to make.  And then go look at the Every Student Succeeds Act.  Read through it very carefully, absorbing every single word.  While doing so, keep this article in mind and what the new federal education law is really about.  How it was rushed out in its final wording and how many organizations blindly accepted it.  Once again, they were either fooled or they already knew about all of this.

Other recipients of JP Morgan Chase’s “Corporate Race To The Top” career-readiness agenda are Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, and Montana.  At press time, these were the only states I could find press releases on in this first phase of the New Skills For Youth plan.

 

 

Delaware GOP Poverty Plan Would Bring Social Impact Bonds & Glorified Vouchers To Delaware

Matt Albright with the Delaware News Journal unveiled the Delaware Republican Senate’s Poverty Plan before it was even presented to Delaware lawmakers.  Included in these 11 potential ideas are two items that are highly disdained by advocates for public education: Social Impact Bonds and school vouchers.

As if we haven’t learned enough from the problems with corporations dipping into education waters, the Delaware GOP wants Social Impact Bonds, or “Pay For Success” programs in Delaware.  I wrote about how Delaware opened the door for Social Impact Bonds last month.  This is extremely dangerous for any public education system.  Having corporations get the ability to earn a profit from student measures is a potential minefield.  If a goal, for example, is to have 95% of students in a pre-school not get special education in the elementary school system based on early interventions in reading, how do we know the results won’t be pushed towards that goal regardless of what a student actually needs?  As well, for some students, a disability may not manifest until a later age.  We have seen how Goldman Sachs attempted this in another state with very controversial results.  Social Impact Bonds have no place in K-12 education.  Students should not be fodder for corporate investment.

Also included in the poverty plan is a form of school vouchers called “Scholarship Tax Credits”.  This latest round of tax credits in Delaware would give additional tax credit to those who donate to non-profits for the purpose of scholarships to low-income students to attend private schools.  This is just another way of getting a school voucher system going.  If this point were brought into legislation, it would recognize school vouchers as an additional education funding mechanism in Delaware.  This is something Governor Markell opposes on any level.  This is one of those rare areas where the two of us are in agreement.  Vouchers would further deplete traditional school districts of funding when they are already losing a great deal of local and state funding to charter schools and other choice schools.

There are some other Easter eggs in this plan that concern me.  The plan calls for removing some restrictions from federal grants aimed at fighting poverty.  Instead of allocations to certain areas, the Delaware GOP wants those restrictions lifted.  This could result in the Delaware Department of Education wanting funds to go towards more “focus” or “priority” schools.  While most can agree schools with high concentrations of poverty certainly need more money, once the Delaware DOE gets involved, there is no guarantee those funds would make it into the classroom.  We saw that happen with Race To The Top funds where the DOE got half of the $119 million the state won.  Instead of actually making a difference with that money, most of it went to outside vendors whose reports made Delaware schools look bad and our State Longitudinal Data System, which makes it possible for corporate education reformers to get student data and use it to their advantage.

The part of the plan that also concerns me is an idea concerning more people entering the workforce as an apprentice.  The article in the News Journal specifically mentions Zip Code Wilmington, which is run by Ben DuPont.  The DuPont family is a huge influence on the Delaware GOP.  They are also a huge influence on Delaware charter schools.  They run the Longwood Foundation which has donated millions of dollars to Delaware charter schools.  This is just more of the same.  Governor Markell’s “Pathways to Prosperity” program is clearly designed to track students into certain career paths.  I covered a great deal of this master plan a couple weeks ago  and I have to wonder how much of it is included in this poverty agenda.  I know, many will assume I am looking for things that don’t exist.  They said the same thing when I said the Smarter Balanced Assessment will replace the SAT.  While it was the opposite, the SAT became more like the Smarter Balanced Assessment when the College Board retooled the SAT to align with Common Core.

One glaring omission about a whole agenda to lift folks out of poverty is no mention of increased wages.  The Delaware GOP consistently, as a majority of their party, fights against minimum wage increases.  That should be the first step to decreasing poverty.  Families can’t survive on the minimum wage.  It just isn’t possible.  While the plan concedes not all members of the GOP Delaware Senate agree on all of these ideas, it opens the door to Delaware Democrats who may actually want to see programs like Social Impact Bonds in Delaware.  Like everything in Delaware, it will come down to who is involved with any type of task forces or committees if this gets to that point.

To read the entire plan, see below:

Resistance

“That is the force of resistance. It has a moral power, it has a truth. And that truth exposes any totaliterian forces, including our corporate masters for who they are. And it is our job, each of us, in whatever circumstance we are in, to find the courage to stand up and speak that truth, and damn the consequences. When you speak that truth, that good, it draws to it the good. And it is the good that will bring them down.” -Chris Hedges

A lot of people ask me why I do what I do. Why I write about education so much. Why I attack instead of cooperate. Why I question instead of answer. Why I fight instead of surrender.   Why I resist every single word that comes out of my Governor’s mouth.  Why I believe everything coming out of the Rodel Foundation serves no child, but rather a hedge fund or a company’s bottom line.  Why I can look any member of the State Board of Education in the eye and tell them in no uncertain words, “This is wrong.”  Why I disdain those who have the power to stop all of this but enable it instead.  Why I fight for parents to opt out instead of opting in.  Why I sound like a crazed madman coming out of the wilderness when I tell people, “Don’t just opt out of the state assessment, opt out of the personalized learning too.”  Why I connect the dots on all the pieces of the puzzles and say, “Don’t believe this is a good thing.  Not for one second.”

The people who are doing all of this, they can’t relate.  They don’t know what it is to be on the bottom.  They don’t know the struggles most of us go through.  They are relentless in their methods.  I will speak until I can’t.  I know the difference between genuine and fake.  I know when the same words are being said over and over and over again, it is a script.  A script designed to be force-fed to all of us until we numb our brains into believing it.  This is why. Everything Chris Hedges says in this video is why.

I would rather be shunned and ridiculed than cower to any of these pieces of trash that want to take something good from children and replace it with corporate dividends.  I would rather be laughed at than to believe the lies.  I would rather be given a look of pity than a handshake of compliance.  I will not give up the fight.  I won’t stop until these people are exposed for the frauds they are.  I will stand up for parents and children even if I am the only one standing.  I believe the rights of parents and students are more important than the rights of the test-makers and the corporate shakers.  I will fight for the rights of all children at risk even when their supposed advocates are leading them down a path of destruction designed to swallow their lives whole.

I will resist.

How The Most Unlikely Of Candidates For Delaware Governor Could Win The Whole Thing!

Delaware citizens are not happy these days.  Between our children’s education, more corporate tax gifts for companies getting passed, an economy that is losing big time, and a list of candidates for Governor who no one is really sold on.  But then, out of nowhere, comes the Libertarian candidate, Sean Goward.  A voice of reason in an otherwise uneventful race.  Sean will be filing in late April as the Libertarian candidate for Delaware Governor.  I’ve followed what he has to say, along with the other candidates.  If the election were held today, Sean would get my vote in a heartbeat!

US Rep. John Carney sounds like Governor Markell’s mini-me on education, I really haven’t heard from GOP frontrunner Colin Bonini about much of anything, and Lacey Lafferty seems too far right for my liking.  But Sean Goward, he just gets it.  He is just a regular guy who is not embedded in the Delaware politics power circles.  As Delawareans, we really need to think outside of the box this election.  We need to mix it up and make some major changes.  You can’t complain about the status quo if you don’t change it.  We have become so used to voting with our party that the results tend to be a train wreck.  Markell sold us a litany of lies and the majority of us bought them.

Sean Goward just wrote this on Facebook, in reaction to an article I wrote yesterday about a Congressional hearing on student data:

Race to the Top, NCLB, ESSA, Common Core and Smarter Balanced have all been sold to us on faulty assumptions that the US has fallen behind the rest of the world in education. Now, the same people who sold us those programs are trying to use our own children’s metrics to continue selling bad curricula and even worse evaluation. I have no problem with competing curriculum and testing companies developing and selling their wares. Competition breeds improvement and drives down cost, but what we are given when the federal and state governments give a monopoly to specific companies on what to teach, how to evaluate, and parents are coerced or forced into subjecting our children to these programs, our children lose. This is the foundation for the same kind of social engineering China uses to plan the lives of their citizens. We need to return not only to the fundamentals of education, but the fundamentals of liberty that have created one of the most prosperous civilizations in world history. Elect me and allow me to help you and your child take control of their own future.

Like I said, Goward gets it.  Every single public education teacher in Delaware needs to vote for Goward!  Every single parent of a child in public education should vote for Goward!  Check out his official campaign page on Facebook.  See his views on the issues.  As well, Sean is very accessible.  You won’t have to wait long for an answer.  You won’t have to wait for an “event” to ask the questions.  You won’t hear his name as a candidate and then hear crickets.  Let’s make a startling change this election year and elect those who deserve to win based on the issues.  Not because it is “their turn”.  John Carney thinks he has this in the bag.  And he will if people don’t start thinking about the things that really matter to them.  We have become so “politicized” in Delaware that we continue to make many of the wrong choices.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great politicians in Delaware.  But we have many bad ones.  Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows who I support and those I don’t.  And they are on both sides of the aisle in some cases.  I will continue to support those legislators.  But we can not continue to ride down the same path and expect things to change.  We need a new car!

Capital’s Chase Christiansen Youngest Of Delaware Today’s “20 Delawareans Under 20”, Rosetta Pierce Also Recognized

Delaware Today, for their April issue, has an article on the most influential Delaware youngsters under 20.  The youngest of which is Capital School District’s own Chase Christiansen.  The nine-year old was selected for the list due to his unwavering dedication to his role as the lieutenant for South Dover Elementary School’s School Safety Patrol.  He started as a sergeant and is now a lieutenant!

Another Dover resident, Rosetta Pierce, was spotlighted for her quilting business.  Even though her home burned down last year, Rosetta kept her quilting business going.  She gives the quilts to a program called Kozy Kovers for Kids, a part of the Delaware Foster Program.

Also included in the list is Braeden Mannering, Exceptional Delaware’s 2015 Hero of the Year, for his 3B: Brae’s Brown Bags business.

Congratulations to our home-town heroes, Christiansen and Pierce, and the other 18 who are making a difference in Delaware!

Why did both unions representing teachers endorse Hillary Clinton?

Seattle Education

Hillary Clinton and Eli Broad on Jan. 20, 2009 at the inauguration ball of President Barack Obama.

This is a rhetorical question because I don’t have the answer but all teachers who are a part of either union, the AFT or the NEA, should question their leadership. And, if you don’t receive a satisfactory answer, then replace your union leaders, starting at the top.

To follow is an article that was recently brought to my attention and originally published in October of 2015 the the LA Report.

Broad’s support of Clinton raising concerns within teacher unions

With his massive plan to enroll half of all LA Unified’s students into charter schools, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad is threatening major disruptions at LA Unified, cementing his role as Public Enemy No. 1 to many district and local union leaders.

But Broad’s enduring support for public charter schools now appears to be contributing…

View original post 756 more words

Opt Out: “The Data We’re Receiving Would Look Like Swiss Cheese”, The Easter Egg At A Congressional Hearing On Student Privacy

On Tuesday, the Education and Workforce Committee held a Congressional hearing called “Strengthening Education Research and Privacy Protections to Better Serve Students”.  With one parent advocate, one data guy from the Georgia Department of Education, and two corporate schills (yes, there were two, more on that one later).  The hearing was stacked with U.S. Representatives who are, shall we say, sympathetic to the data-testing regime.  We all know the type!

If you looked at the witness list for who was giving testimony at this hearing on the EdWorkforce website, you can see who they were:

So who are these people?  Rachael Strickland is the co-founder and co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  Neil Campbell is the Policy Director for Next Generation Reforms at the Foundation for Excellence in Education (Jeb Bush’s company).  Jane Hannaway is with the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.  Robert Swiggum is the Deputy Superintendent for the Georgia Department of Education.  But one of these four has another job, which the Education and Workforce Committee did not include on their website.  During the hearing, this person’s other job wasn’t even discussed at all.  But it is a whopper.  So which one was it?

The day before the hearing, I received an email from the EdWorkforce Committee notifying me of the hearing.  They had the exact same witnesses in the email, but one of them has a different job:

Take a good look at Dr. Jane Hannaway… Institute Fellow, American Institutes for Research.  Also known as AIR, this is the company that was instrumental in creating the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  They are my state’s vendor for Smarter Balanced.  They are all over the place.  Now why would the United States Education and Workforce Committee not mention that glaring fact at all?  Why would they not include it on their website and have the witness, sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, not mention this at all?  In fact non-Government employees are required to fill out a “Truth In Testimony” form prior to any Congressional hearing.  Ms. Strickland and Mr. Campbell both listed their affiliated sources, but Ms. Hannaway didn’t list any organizations.  Even though she wrote about her affiliation with AIR in her testimony, it wasn’t spoken out loud.

There are some key points I want to highlight from Hannaway’s testimony, with my thoughts in red:

Almost every state has developed an individual student level longitudinal administrative data system. These data systems have substantive and technical research advantages, as well as efficiency virtues.

Substantive, technical, and efficiency virtues: Can we say cha-ching?  Show me the money?

Because the data are existing working files – created, maintained and used by the state for administrative purposes – they are readily available for approved research purposes.

I have no doubt the states are making these “readily available”.  And I’m sure they pay a pretty penny to make it so!

Having data already in hand means the turnaround time for getting feedback on the results of new policies is short, allowing informed decision making about whether to discontinue, modify or continue particular policies and practices. Indeed, some decisions of interest can be made almost in real time.

Decision making, policies, practices: This lady is combing through your child’s data.  She doesn’t at a government agency, but I’m sure she does work for government agencies.  How are these corporations setting policy?  Very frightening…

The files include data on all students and all teachers in the state over a number of years. So data on students of interest for a particular intervention or for a particular study, say 8th graders, or high performing students, or disadvantaged students can be easily selected.

“A particular intervention”… sounds like something every parent should worry about.  Note the word “all”: all teachers, all students.  They have it set up so they can “shop” through the data for any possible category they want.  I didn’t underline this for emphasis.  It was underlined in her testimony.

Indeed, because teachers can be linked in the data to their students and students’ test scores, teachers can also be compared in terms of their performance. Indeed, some of the most important finding from studies using longitudinal data have focused on teacher effectiveness.

Because that data has given us so many unreasonable conclusions, I find that data inconclusive.  And yet, here is Hannaway continuing to use the biggest fallacy of our time…

For example, regression discontinuity designs can assess the effect of, say, receiving an award on subsequent behavior by comparing results for students just above and below the performance award threshold.

In other words, they set the “performance award threshold”, aka, the high-stakes standardized test scores, based on a point where there would always be some above or below the threshold.  We will NEVER have maximum proficiency.

The advantages in terms of policy insights of individual education data are also substantially expanded when linked to later individual measures in areas beyond education, such as labor market (employment and earnings), justice and health outcomes.

Basically, she is saying we are going to use this data to track and catalog every individual student and determine your outcome for you based on high-stakes standardized testing data.

The state anonymizes the data before researchers receive them. Each student is assigned a state-constructed unique student id (USI) that is used by researchers to link data for each student across years and schools.

So instead of giving a name and social security number, I’ll call this the number of the beast scenario.  For “each student”… has anyone read “Revelations” recently?

Hannaway said, when asked about opt out and what it does to the data: “The data we’re receiving would look like Swiss cheese.”  She couldn’t have said it any better!  If you never had a reason to opt your child out before, know that your child’s “unique” number of the beast, assigned by your state, is given to all education agencies who ask for it from your state.  They base conclusions and policy and decisions, which become laws, based on that crappy test your child takes once a year.  Do your child a favor: make some Swiss cheese for companies like American Institutes for Research.  It is the ONLY way this nonsense will ever stop!  We need MORE Swiss Cheese!

To watch the full video, watch below.  The hearing doesn’t begin until the 6:37 mark.

Campbell looks really nervous at several points during this hearing.  He keeps wringing his hands.  Is that because he is afraid of what will come out or guilt?  Or is he generally a nervous guy?

I love how Swiggum says that states own the data.  Really?  Does the Delaware DOE “own” the data on my child?  His academic performance, social-emotional behavior, all that… they “own” it?  I don’t think so.  If they own it, they should take better care of it!

The Dead Heart

We have not had a major world war in over seventy years.  There are very few alive who fought in World War II.  But the modern war is the companies.  The huge corporations.  Companies have more say than people.  They infiltrated education and took over.  Do you we the people have what it takes to take it back?  How loud do we have to get?  If we miss our chance, which is pretty much right now, our children will never be the same.  All the things we take for granted will be gone forever.

“You Are A Tourist”

Happy Easter to all who celebrate.  Taking it easy on the blog today.  If you are reading this, please stop and spend time with your family and get off the internet!  I have a good excuse… I’m working and I’m on my lunch break.  If you are in a similar situation as myself, then keep reading and watch the video.  I’ll be completely honest.  The only reason I’m posting today is to continue my streak of posting something every day since September, 2014.

I’ll be back tomorrow with something real to write.  And it will be a doozy!  And that will be followed up with something which explains quite a bit in the corporate education reform world.  Until then, have a great day!

The Irony Of Mark Zuckerberg & Facebook Jail For A Parent Bill Of Rights For Education

As I look back on the last 20 hours or so, I am still in shock over my Facebook banning.  Frankly, with the thousands of articles I’ve written on here and posted all over education groups on Facebook, I’m shocked it didn’t happen sooner.  It makes me wonder, what was it about this post, a “Parent Bill of Rights” for education, written in reaction to the education reform tainted “Testing Bill of Rights”, that caused this banning on Facebook?  Did I fly too close to the sun with my “Parent Bill of Rights in Education”?  I could hypothesize all day long who may have complained to Facebook, but the plain simple fact is this: I’ve ticked off many in nearly two years of blogging.

But what if it was more than someone just complaining?  Others have been banned from posting in groups before.  But have they had the groups they administer decimated?  The Delaware Opt Out district groups (all 20 of them), the Refuse The Test Delaware page, and Delaware Against Common Core?  While I can see the posts I put on those groups, others can’t.  Why are they restricting others from seeing what I’ve written?  This is censorship at it’s absolute worst.  I would love to know the justification for my two week ban.  What criteria do they use?   I saw their community page, but nothing in my article called out anyone, threatened anyone, bullied, or harassed anyone.  There was no sexual content or nudity.  Nothing remotely bad.  Especially compared to what I’ve written before!

I have to think, whatever is going on, I rattled someone.  So bad, they wanted to shut me up fast.  Which tells me they are worried.  Scared.  On edge.  I’ve always suspected opt out was very dangerous to the corporate education reformers.  But when you encourage parents to demand data on their children isn’t sent out at an aggregate level, that’s a whole other level of opt out.

What scared them is how fast it got out there.  Within minutes of my posting the article to different Facebook groups, it was being shared by like-minded readers.  But the action on Facebook’s part had a rebound effect.  A very big thank you to the always awesome Emily Talmage for announcing my Facebook jail status.  Nobody likes to be censored, and nobody likes to see someone being censored (unless you’re a corporate education reformer).  This caused the “Parent Bill of Rights” to become bigger than I ever thought it would.  Which is more ironic, the fact that censorship led to greater views or that Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook banned a post that actually talked about parents being censored?

If you agree with the “Parent Bill of Rights for Education”, please sign the petition on Change.org today.  Many have signed already.  And if you should want to share this post or the change.org petition on Facebook, please do so.  Until April 8th, I can only write and post on my own Facebook status.  What I learned yesterday was how many parents agree and are in solidarity about the rights of parents and children.  That’s a very good thing.

 

The Parent Bill Of Rights For Education

Since the Center for American Progress, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, and the President of the National PTA want to get 10,000 signatures on their Testing Bill of Rights within the next month, I think it is only fair parents who opt their children out of high-stakes assessments do the same.  With that being said, this article needs 20,000 commenters, or official signatures, within the next month.  We need to tell these corporate education reformers: NO MORE!  If we get 50,000, even better.

Our parental bill of rights regarding opt out or refusing the test bill of rights will be a work in progress, morphing and changing based on the need.  We will make sure every single legislator and decision-maker as it pertains to education in our country has a copy of this.  Parents and guardians are the stewards of our children, not corporations and politicians.  They are not “your” property.  They are unique and individual.

THE PARENTAL BILL OF RIGHTS FOR OUR CHILDREN IN EARLY EDUCATION, PRE-SCHOOL, ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

CONCERNING HIGH-STAKES STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENTS, OUR RIGHT TO OPT OUT OR REFUSE OUR CHILD OUT OF THOSE ASSESSMENTS, THE COLLECTION OF STUDENT DATA, AND OUR RIGHT TO GATHER

BE IT ENACTED BY THE PARENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Definition of parent: any biological parent, or a parent through legal adoption, or foster parent, or guardian, or court-appointed guardian, for children through the ages of birth to 18 or 21 with guardianship through the end of an IEP, whichever is later.

Whereas parents have been given the responsibility to raise a child and to help guide them to adulthood, as their primary caregiver, and

Whereas parents, through United States Supreme Court decisions and other laws, have the right to decide what is best for our children in education matters until they come to a legal age when they are able to make those decisions on their own, and

Whereas, we believe public education should be reserved for the public at large and not the corporations, be they profit or non-profit, and that decisions based on education are best made at the local level, and

Whereas, we believe any assessments given to our children should provide immediate feedback for the student, teacher, school, and parent as defined for the sole purpose of giving reasonable and interpretive analysis of academic progress for our child’s allotted grade.

Whereas, as the caretakers of our children, we demand that decisions regarding data and the collection of data are parental decisions and that we furthermore have the absolute, unconditional right and ability to consent or not consent to any sharing of said data

(1) As parents, we have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to make decisions on behalf of our children in regards to their education.

(a) This includes the type of school we decide they go to, whether it be in a traditional school district, public charter school, vocational school, private school, homeschool, or homeschool co-op program.

(b) This includes our ability to refuse or opt our children out of standardized assessments despite accountability measures placed upon a school.

(1) Once we have submitted our letter indicating our choice to refuse or opt out our child, we shall receive no verbal or written words meant to threaten, bully, or intimidate, in an effort, whether intentional or coincidental, to coerce us into changing our minds.

(2) We expect our children to receive instruction while their peers take the state assessment that is of equal or greater value to the type of instruction they would receive prior to or after the administration of the state assessment.

(3) If our child is forced to take a test after we have already given our consent to refuse or opt out, we reserve the right to call the local police and press charges against the local education administration.

(4) If we witness parents who are bullied or intimidated, we will advocate on their behalf with their consent, if they feel they are unable to do so.

(2) We reserve the right, as dictated by United States of America Federal Law, Title 34, Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Part 99.32 (b), to request all personal identifiable information sent as data or official records to all parties indicated in the entirety of Title 34, Subtitle A, and to receive the entire list of all those who have disseminated, received, or researched said data, and to receive such record keeping as required by federal law, within the 30 day timeframe.

(a) Parents also reserve the right to have any aggregated data on our child, which could conceivably set up a pattern of identification based on our unique and individual child’s health records, social-emotional behavior, discipline, socio-economic, or any such identifiable trait or history of said traits, be banned from any education research organization, personalized learning computer system, or blending learning computer systems, standardized assessment(s), or any other form of educational environment practice or computer-based digital learning environment, whether it is through algorithms already built into a system or any other form of data collection that does not include the legal definition of personal identifiable information, at our request.

(1) This would also include any State Longitudinal Data System, or any Federal system, up to and including the Federal Learning Registry, a joint system shared by the United States Department of Education and the United States Department of Defense.

(2) Parents have the right to reject any “competency-based education” decisions for our children that we feel are not based on reasonable, valued, well-researched, or statistically-normed guidelines or analysis.

(3) Parents may freely reject any form of data collection, data-mining, or data sharing that would lead to our child having a pre-determined pathway to a career based on any such data unless we give consent for said behavior, before the actual data collection, data-mining, or data sharing by any education agency or institution, and as such, we reject and forbid any trajectory-based decisions for our child unless we have given complicit consent.

(3) For any education decisions regarding our children that we, as parents, feel is not safe, or is inadequate, or is unhealthy for our children, we hereby reserve the right to be able to give public comment to any governing body, without incident or refusal, based on compliance with existing, applicable, and reasonable rules of public meeting conduct, based on our First Amendment Rights.

(4) As parents, we reserve the right to gather, discuss, and give advice to other parents or concerned citizens, in any public meeting or gathering place or social gathering place, whether it is physical or on the internet, without censorship, removal, or banishment, based on existing, applicable, and reasonable rules of conduct set forth by the host of the public meeting place or social gathering place.

(5) Parents have the right to lobby elected officials or local school board officials or state board of education officials, regarding pending, suggested, or passed legislation or regulation, that parents deem harmful to their child or children in general, without cause or incident, based on existing, applicable, and reasonable law.

(a) We expect our elected officials, based on their availability, to make every concerted effort to personally respond to our request(s) and to not send a generic form letter, but rather to constructively engage with parents to the same effort they would with any official registered lobbyist who is paid to do so.

(6) As parents, we reject the ability of corporations to “invest” or “hedge” in education with financial predictors of success, including social impact bonds, or any other type of investments where financial institutions or corporations would gain financial benefit or loss based on student outcomes, as we believe a child’s education should be based on the unique and individual talents and abilities of each child, not as a collective group or whole.

(7) As parents, we believe our child’s teacher(s) are the front line for their education, and therefore, have the most immediate ability and responsibility to guide our children towards academic success, and therefore, should have the most say in their instruction.

(a) Therefore, we believe no state assessment can give a clear picture of a teacher’s ability to instruct a student or group thereof, and therefore, we reject any evaluation methods for teachers based on high-stakes standardized testing.

(b) Therefore, we believe a teacher’s best efforts should remain at the local level, in the classroom, and not to conform to a state assessment or to guide instruction towards proficiency on a state assessment, but rather on the material and instruction present before the students based on the material and instruction they have learned before.

(8) We reject any basis of accountability or framework system meant to falsely label or demean any teacher, administrator, school staff, or school, based on students outcomes as it pertains to state or national standardized assessments.

(9) As parents, we are the primary stakeholders for our child’s education, and therefore demand representation on any group, committee, task force, commission, or any such gathering of stakeholders to determine educational decisions for children, be it at a local, state, or national level.

(a) We demand equal or greater representation on any such group as that allotted to outside corporations.

Updated, 7:58pm, EST: I have started a petition at Change.org which will be sent to United States Representative John Kline (MN) who serves as the Chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee in Congress.  If you have already signed the article, please sign the change.org petition instead.  I apologize for the confusion!  It has been a crazy day!

Updated, 11:46am, EST: Apparently, Facebook does not like the idea of a Parent Bill of Rights for Education that touches upon an item concerning censorship of a parent’s First Amendment Rights to express their opinion that poses no physical harm or safety risk to any individual…

 

Updated, 3/29/16, 6:42pm: I am still in Facebook jail.  I’ve sent appeals to Facebook three times with no response whatsoever.  I guess they really don’t like parents protecting their rights…

Look For Late Night Deals On Education Legislation At Legislative Hall On June 30th

As predicted, the final hours of the Delaware 148th General Assembly are going to be a hotbed of activity.  It will be Governor Markell’s last chance to get the legislation HE wants passed while he is still Governor.  For the Senate Joint Resolution #2 Assessment Inventory Committee, no date has been scheduled for their next meeting.  The final report is due 6/30/16.  And just now, the Delaware Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution #56.  This concurrent resolution which will most likely get passed by the Delaware House of Representatives today, extends the due date for the final report of the Education Funding Task Force.  This group was formed from Senate Joint Resolution #4 last year.

These are the kinds of shenanigans where transparency goes out the window.  Rules are suspended so bills aren’t heard in committee and bills fly in and out of Legislative Hall on the last day of session.  The Governor will sign them because he is the one calling all the shots.  And on so many of these kinds of bills, we see the same names: Sokola and Jaques.  The education bullies of the state.  The ones who treat the Delaware DOE and State Board of Education like they are the royalty of Delaware.  The ones who treat parents and their rights as if they are a fly to swat away.  The ones who take good education bills and make mincemeat of them (or try).  Enough.  Someone run against these two education thugs.  Please!  If I were a betting man, I would say the results of these two committees are a foregone conclusion and the legislation that will come out of them was written a long time ago.  They just want to ram it through in the wee hours of June 30th, possibly into July 1st.  When everyone will be going nuts over the budget, Markell will take advantage of this and get his usual legislative accomplices to do his work.  WAKE UP DELAWARE!

Delaware Cyber Security Advisory Council Violates FOIA In Their First Meeting

As reported by Randall Chase with the Associated Press yesterday, Delaware’s Cyber Security Advisory Council kicked off their first meeting with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violation.  But what the article didn’t cover was how the state tried to cover its tracks after the meeting.

James Collins, the state’s chief information officer and head of the council, then said the panel would meet in executive session, even though Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act requires that such closed-door meetings be noticed ahead of time.

But do they have the ability to time travel into the future to give that notice?  Apparently, they do!

This is the agenda for the first meeting as shown on Delaware’s Public Meeting Calendar website.

It looks like they have everything covered, right?  Including a FOIA Exemption Proposal because they know they are violating FOIA.  Here is the page from the Public Meeting Calendar website:

Looks okay to me, right?

In the above picture, taken from the bottom left-hand corner of the Public Meeting Calendar notice, it shows three change dates.  3/3/2016 was the original posting of the meeting, 3/22/2016 I would assume had the addition of the FBI Agent giving the briefing on the unclassified threat, and the 3/23/2016 change was to give notice about the group going into executive session to discuss the unclassified threat.  So maybe Randall Chase got it all wrong, right?

Nope.  This picture is the properties of the PDF.  If you right-click with your mouse on a PDF, it tells you when a PDF was created and modified.  This PDF was actually created yesterday, 3/23/2016 at 3:17:16pm.  It was a brand new agenda.  The part blacked out is my own personal location for my computer which I didn’t think was necessary to throw out there so I will fully admit I blacked it out in the picture.

Someone should really file a FOIA complaint on this one to the Delaware Department of Justice!  Oh wait, I already did…

 

 

Volunteer: I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Does…