2017 Not That Much Smarter Balanced Results For Delaware Show Blah Blah Blah

The Delaware Department of Education just presented the 2017 Smarter Balanced, SAT, and DCAS-Alt1 preliminary results to the Delaware State Board of Education.  Even though scores were up and down, the Department is excited by the magnificent work of… and that’s about it! As the poor guy next to me was snoring through the presentation, I listened to the whole thing.  The only thing I cared about was that every district and charter school met or exceeded the 95% participation rate.  Which means opt out rates are going down.  Which means more Delaware parents are okay with their kids being tested, catalogued, tracked, and data shared with corporate education companies.  That is nothing to celebrate.  We need opt out numbers to increase and have ALL districts and charters crack that 95% barrier and plummet down to 90% or even 0% in the event of a miracle.

To see the rigorous and vigorous results (not really, just trying to add some super pizazz here), see below.  Sorry, I just can’t take this test or the results seriously it all.  They are about as important as wrapping paper after you open a gift.

View this document on Scribd

Very Odd Writing Credit Given To Critique Against Mike Matthews On Delawareonline But One Of Them Didn’t Write It

That was weird.  Today, Delawareonline published an opinion piece by Salome Thomas-El, the leader of Thomas Edison Charter School and three other people.  The big problem is Thomas-El didn’t write any such letter.  Did the other three?

The letter was a critique against newly christened Delaware State Education Association President Mike Matthews.  With Mike’s Facebook comments taken completely out of context in relation to Governor Carney’s veto of HS1 for House Bill #85, the five-mile radius bill, the piece made it seem like Matthews is anti-charter and wants them all to close.  But the true mystery is the addition of Thomas-El as a writer.  I posted a comment on their Facebook page to which Thomas-El just responded with this:

Bam! They didn’t wait a full two weeks for Matthews to break in to his new role.  But who exactly wrote this letter?  If I were Thomas-El, I would be pretty ticked off that he was given top billing in a letter he never even wrote.  Not sure how a mistake like that can just happen.  That’s pretty major.  This is an odd group to begin with, but when one them is fake, that is serious cause for concern.  Did Erica Dorsett, Daniel Walker and Cyntiche Deba also contribute to this letter?  I’m at the State Board of Education meeting and Walker is sitting a few seats in front of me.  I’ll ask him during the next break.