Final U.S. DOE Regulations For ESSA Accountability Leave Same Bad Test, Shame, & Punish Policies & No Changes On Opt Out

The United States Department of Education released the final regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act accountability section of the law.  Once again, despite protest by the Republican led Education & The Workforce Committee, the U.S. DOE is leaving many things that ESSA was supposed to get rid of.  We still have the damn standardized tests as the measurement of what makes a school failing.  We still have the blame game for teachers in the “lowest” 5% of Title I schools.  We still have the Feds indicating that state accountability systems must factor participation rate below 95% as part of their scoring matrix.  Nothing has changed.  Of course, the states can submit their own state standards to the U.S. DOE, but let’s get real- most states already have their standards (Common Core) in place.  Common Core and tests like PARCC and the Smarter Balanced Assessment are NOT going anywhere.  I don’t care what Donald Trump or Betsy DeVos say.

One thing the U.S. DOE did change was the due dates state ESSA plans.  Now they are April 3rd and September 18th.  Previously, they had been March 31st or July 31st.  The Delaware DOE (with no stakeholder input) chose the March 31st deadline (but said they would submit it on March 6th).

So can we expect more “priority” schools coming out of ESSA?

In schools identified for comprehensive or additional targeted support and improvement, the final regulations require that their improvement plans review resource inequities related to per-pupil expenditures and access to ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers; advanced coursework; in elementary schools, full-day kindergarten and preschool programs; and specialized instructional support personnel such as school counselors and social workers—drawing on data already collected and reported under ESSA.

And what about opt-out?  Did the U.S. DOE offer any mercy to schools where parents make a constitutional, fundamental, and God-given right to opt their child out of the state assessment?  Yeah right!

To provide a fair and accurate picture of school success, and help parents, teachers, school leaders, and state officials understand where students are struggling and how best to support them, the law requires that all students take statewide assessments and that states factor into their accountability systems participation rates below 95 percent for all students or subgroups of students, such as English learners or students with disabilities. The regulations do not prescribe how states do this; rather they suggest possibilities for how states might take into account low participation rates and allow states to propose their own actions that can be differentiated based on the extent of the issue, but are sufficiently rigorous to improve schools’ participation rates in the future. Schools missing 95 percent participation must also develop plans to improve based on their local contexts and stakeholder input.

This is just more of the same but wrapped in a different package.  And of course, the National PTA, NEA, AFT and other organizations that should have known better jumped all over this law a year ago.  You reap what you sow!

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Is A Settlement In The Works Between Christina And The 15 Charters?

Christina School District board member John Young announced on Facebook the Christina Board of Education will be holding an impromptu board meeting on November 30th.  The purpose of the meeting: to go into executive session and then briefly come out in public session to possibly vote on a settlement in the lawsuit filed against Christina and the Delaware Dept. of Education.  The suit was filed by 15 charter schools in early October who “claim” they weren’t getting their rightful share of Christina’s local funds and the Delaware DOE allowed this to happen.

I have a gazillion questions surrounding this.

Was this a settlement brought to Christina from the Charter cabal?

Was this a settlement offered by Christina to the Charter cabal?

Is the Delaware DOE part of this settlement?

Should Christina settle?

If they settle, would this cost less than a long drawn-out court battle and they won?

If they lost the court battle, would the judgment against Christina be less than what the charters want?

Why would Christina settle if their CFO Bob Silber said they did nothing wrong?

If they settled, is that an admission of guilt and would Silber resign?

What is the DOE’s role if this does go to court?

If Christina went to court and won could a judge rule the charters have to pay Christina’s attorney fees?

If Christina did settle would that mean the local funding formula would be how the charters wanted it at the beginning of the school year?

What do the legislators think of this news?

Is Betsy DeVos behind any of this? (of course not, but never hurts to ask)

If (and this is a BIG IF) Dr. Robert Andrzejewski becomes the next Delaware Secretary of Education, would this be seen as him clearing the deck for his stint in Dover?  Would it be ethical for him to even entertain a settlement if this is the plan?

Christina doesn’t have an agenda up for this emergency meeting at this point, but I would guess it is coming shortly.  As I reported a while ago, it appears the Longwood Foundation is paying for the charter school cabal’s attorney fees.  And if I know the ringleader of all this (think Greg Meece), I can’t picture him wanting to all of a sudden settle on this.  Could a third-party (say, a recently elected Governor John Carney) have reached out to everyone involved and basically said “work this out, I don’t want to start my stint with all this in the air”?

I need more details on this.  I think Christina’s board should let it ALL out in their “brief” public session on Wednesday night.