DOE Releases DPAS-II & Alternate Routes Report For 2014-2015, Three Of The “C” District Schools Highlighted

The Delaware Department of Education released their annual report for educator evaluation based on the 2014-2015 academic year.  The report talks about both the DPAS-II and Alternate evaluation systems.  Of course, the report plugs what is working, and not so much on what is not.  This is a mixed bag of results.  Not sure how educators would actually look at this.  But as someone who is not an educator, the report looks a bit biased to me.  What do you think?

Delaware DOE Up To Their Usual Tricks With Outright Lies

Today, the Delaware Department of Education issued a press release about the upcoming school report card launch.  Apparently they want help in getting the “right” design picked, out of two whole possible choices.  Of course they don’t want actual feedback of the content of the report card, just how it looks…

For immediate release

 

Contact Alison May (302) 735-4000

PUBLIC INVITED TO VOTE ON SCHOOL REPORT DESIGN

Parents, students, educators and other community members are invited to help choose the look of the soon-to-be-launched Delaware School Success Reports.

The Delaware School Success Reports will improve the presentation of information on the state’s schools, making it easier for families and other members of the public to find the information they need about schools across the First State. Launching in October 2015, they eventually will replace the school profiles on the state’s web site. In addition to the online accessibility of all reports, families will receive a snapshot report on their children’s school mailed to their home beginning in 2016.

Development of the reports comes after months of community engagement and feedback. In partnership with the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration and the Delaware Academy of School Leadership, the Delaware Department of Education hosted nine focus groups across all three counties to solicit feedback on the online and paper School Success Reports currently under construction. A hundred parents, teachers and community members participated in these facilitated, in-depth conversations about school performance. Demographics of the participants closely mirrored Delaware’s diverse communities, and most focus group members had students enrolled in the state’s public schools. Of the 100 participants, more than 70 percent were parents, 30 percent were educators and the remainder identified themselves as community members.

Beginning today, the public will be able to vote to choose their favorite School Success report design.

“While the focus groups informed what parents and the community want to know about their schools, this additional feedback is important to ensuring that Delaware’s School Success Reports significantly improve the presentation of the information on our schools so families have intuitive access to the information they need,” Secretary of Education Mark Murphy said.

Voting is open through 11 p.m. on Sunday, September 13. 

Email questions and other feedback to engagement@doe.k12.de.us.

Okay, I’ll bite.  When were these nine focus groups?  I know they had the four town halls groups last fall.  They had their Survey Monkey crap as well.  But now we find out there were 9 meetings nobody knew anything about?  Who were the attendees?  Where are the minutes? The agendas?  What came out of these meetings?  They are such filthy liars.

And why are they only giving this until 9/13?  Are they planning to have the State Board approve this monstrosity at their 9/17 meeting?  With the participation rate factored into the roficiency portion of the report card?  You know, punishing schools for opt-out rates, that whole thing.  Meanwhile, absolutely NOBODY from our General Assembly has done a thing about contacting Pete Schwartzkopf or Patti Blevins about calling for a special session to override Governor Markell’s veto of House Bill 50.  Even the sponsors!!!!  All I hear is, “They will never do it.”  Did anybody ASK them?  I’m just getting tired of excuses.  That’s how the DOE gets away with everything, because the General Assembly LETS them.  They sit back and expect someone else to do it.  No more.  They voted Smarter Balanced into law, so this is all on them!  I’ll bet Governor Markell just sits back and laughs at the puppets he controls.

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More Proof DOE Is Moving Ahead With Participation Rate Penalty With School Report Cards

I just came across this document.  This is a Delaware Department of Education presentation to the University of Delaware’s Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL).  Ryan Reyna with the DOE, along with Gerri Marshall from Red Clay and Jeff Klein with Appoquinimink presented the below to DASL on June 24th, 2015 with some very definitive statements about this participation rate…

We see the DOE telling DASL, Part A metrics are those that were submitted to USDOE as part of our ESEA submission.  This is very important because this is where they openly admit they submitted this to the US DOE like this.  But keep in mind, this is NOWHERE in the public draft for ESEA authorization that the State Board of Education approved for submission on 3/19/15.  It did not show up in the draft until their “redlined” edition on 3/31/15.