Governor Carney’s State Of The State Address

Today, Delaware Governor John Carney delivered his State of the State Address to the General Assembly in the House chambers.  On the education front, he didn’t really say anything I haven’t heard before.  He made it a point to specifically address Christina School District and the five schools in Wilmington.  There was NO mention of Kindergarten to 3rd Grade Basic Special Education funding.  He talked about math coaches but absolutely nothing about reading specialists.  He wants to pour more money into the Pre-K Stars program.  Pretty much everything sounds like a Jack Markell third term.  Enough already Carney!  How about coming up with some new and creative ideas?  Because Governor Markell was a tyrant education Governor.  You are putting all your eggs in the Wilmington basket.  I’m not saying those kids don’t need help, but there are others across the state who need help as well.  I got your message though.  We can all expect to pay higher taxes very soon!

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HB #286 Would Eliminate Special Education Emergency Certification In Delaware

State Representative Kim Williams pre-filed legislation today that would do away with emergency certifications for pending special education teachers in The First State.  As part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, this is no longer allowed in public education.  From the bill’s synopsis:

Enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act amended the Individuals with Disability Education Act (“IDEA”) by mandating that special education teachers must have obtained full certification and may not be working under emergency certifications. The Delaware Department of Education must stop issuing emergency certifications in special education in order for the State to continue receiving $36 million in federal IDEA funding for our schools. This Act creates a mechanism that is in compliance with federal requirements to enable educators to obtain a certificate of eligibility in the areas of special education. Educators will be able to meet federal requirements while being enrolled in an approved, alternative routes to certification program. This Act will allow local education agencies to staff special education classrooms while ensuring the educators are receiving high quality training working toward their standard certificate in the appropriate area of special education. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

Also sponsored by State Senator Nicole Poore, this bill has many co-sponsors by several Democrats but no Republicans.  But that shouldn’t matter as this is a federal requirement now.  So what does this mean?  It means you can’t just be put into a classroom that has students with disabilities with an Individualized Education Program based on an emergency certificate.  You have to already be going through some type of program that would allow you to be heading towards full certification.  I expect this to pass with no problems.

As well, Williams also pre-filed legislation today concerning special education diplomas with House Bill #287 which I wrote about here.  To read the full pending legislation for House Bill #286, please go here.

Mike Matthews’ First Day As DSEA President

Mike Matthews became the next President of the Delaware State Education Association today.  Taking over from outgoing President, Frederika Jenner, Matthews will undoubtedly generate news over the next few years.  After an actual tie in the election last January, Matthews won in a run-off election two months later.

With the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act in our schools, more personalized learning/competency-based education crap, the usual teacher evaluation based on Smarter Balanced, and all the budgetary/legislative stuff going on, look for Matthews to have his hands full the next few years.  Today, he sent out a letter to Delaware DSEA educators:

A Message from DSEA President Mike Matthews

Dear Fellow Educator:

Today I begin a new journey as DSEA President. Throughout my career as an educator, DSEA has been the strongest voice to ensure our members and students have what they need to succeed. I look forward to continuing this strong tradition of advocacy, but will need your help to be successful. Stay informed by reading our e-newsletters Professionally Speaking, which covers all manner of education policy news, as well as Legislative Matters, which provides comprehensive coverage of the legislative developments impacting public education and educators.  Also, DSEA maintains active social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and publishes an all-member newspaper, ACTION, on a quarterly basis.  These are just a few of the many ways in which you can stay informed and continue to advocate for your students.

Over the next few years, working with our network of strong local leaders, I hope you will share your stories with me about what’s going on in your school. Share with me the good… Share with me the not-so-good.  I intend for open and honest communication to be an important piece of my time as DSEA President.  To that end, please feel free to contact me to share those stories.  My email is Mike.Matthews@dsea.org.

Together, our unified, collective voice can speak up on behalf of our colleagues and the students we advocate for every day. I hope you are enjoying your summer and I look forward to working with you in the near future. Thank you for all that you do.

In Solidarity,
Mike

A 36 Year Mainstay, Delaware Teacher Center Closes Their Doors Due To Being Cut From Budget

The Delaware Teacher Center, founded in 1981, has been forced into an unwinnable situation.  Because of being cut from the FY2018 budget for Delaware, they have no funding.  They posted the following message on Facebook.  Expect more of this folks.

What did they do?

The Teacher Center provides two main services to Delaware educators 1.) a statewide program of workshops, conferences, and community services and 2.) nine centers statewide where teachers can create free instructional materials.

In an era of digital and personalized learning, the importance of teachers is being diminished.  It will happen fast when it is fully implemented.  Beware the things you think are being co-opted by certain organizations.  They aren’t what you think they are!

 

John Carney Q&A Reveals Thoughts On Education In Delaware: Susan Bunting, Labor Day, and Test Scores

Delaware Governor-Elect John Carney and State Senator Brian Pettyjohn held a question and answer session at J.D. Shuckers in Georgetown this morning.  The packed restaurant submitted many questions.  A few of them dealt with Delaware education.  Carney’s answers provided some insight to one of his recent decisions.

Do Delaware Educators Really Embrace Common Core? Or Is This Just Another Fluff Report?

Governor Markell and the Delaware Department of Education came out with a press release today which indicates 73% of Delaware educators fully embrace the Common Core State Standards.  The report from the Center for Education Research Policy at Harvard University used five states in their findings: Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico.  Each state had “ten clusters” of schools to answer surveys.  The report does not show what the ten schools in Delaware were, but I did just email Chris Ruszkowski and Alison May at the Delaware DOE to find out.  I just received a response from May including the Communications Director for CEPR at Harvard, so hopefully answers will be forthcoming.  Ruszkowski is the head of the Teacher/Leader Effectiveness Unit at the Department.

Any report like this can be read in many different ways.  We don’t know which schools and how many teachers in each school responded to the survey.  We don’t know if this survey was given before, during, or after the first round of Smarter Balanced testing in 2015.  If anyone has any information on these surveys from last Spring or which schools had these surveys, please let me know.  As well, were ALL teachers in grades 4th-8th given these surveys or just certain ones?

Educators: Common Core going well here

A significant majority of educators are supportive of the Common Core State Standards and believe their colleagues are effectively implementing them, according to a new study of educators in Delaware and four other states by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.

The report – “Teaching Higher: Educators’ Perspective on Common Core Implementation” — collected perspectives from a sample of teachers and principals in Delaware and four additional states last spring, focusing on math and English language arts (ELA) teachers and principals in grades 4 through 8. All were asked to provide their views of the Common Core training and supports they received prior to the administration of their state’s assessments.

The survey found 73 percent of teachers feel their colleagues have embraced the standards. The study also spotlights how teachers are making substantial changes in their instructional practices and materials and are collaborating frequently with their peers.

The Common Core State Standards, developed by states and adopted by Delaware and most other states, set consistent learning goals for each grade across state lines. For most states, including Delaware, the standards also raised expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level to have the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in the 21st century.

The study found 69 percent principals believe these new standards will have a positive effect on students. Just 9 percent of principals reported resistance to the new standards from parents in their schools.

“This study gives a voice to what I hear from so many educators in schools across our state: Common Core is better preparing our students,” said Gov. Jack Markell, who co-chaired the National Governors Association’s bipartisan Common Core Standards Initiative.

“While the shift to higher standards is an undisputable requirement to best prepare our students for the new economy, we know it will only succeed with effective implementation. I’m encouraged by the feedback we have received from educators so far and by the tremendous work happening in our classrooms. Teachers have embraced professional learning opportunities to deepen their understanding of the new standards and collaborated to adjust their instruction to meet student needs. We must continue to listen to them and ensure we fully support their hard work,” he said.

The study found 76 percent of teachers said they have changed a significant portion of their instruction as a result of Common Core, and 82 percent said they had changed a significant portion of their math instructional materials; 72 percent said they had done so for ELA materials.

That work is paying off for Delaware students. Last spring, Delaware’s third graders had the second-highest mathematics and second-highest English language arts scores in the nation on the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced Assessment. Of all the students tested, third-graders had the greatest proportion of their academic careers under the Common Core.

“Students who had the benefit of instruction aligned to the new standards appear to be better prepared for these more challenging expectations,” Secretary of Education Steven Godowsky said.

Alison May

While Delaware may have had these great third grade scores on the Smarter Balanced Assessment, that isn’t exactly something to write home about considering the overall proficiency rate for third graders in English/Language Arts was 54% and for Math it was 53%.  Aside from white, Asian-American, and American Indian sub-groups, every other sub-group did worse than the state average in both ELA and math.  It’s very easy to praise success without talking about the factors that surround the supposed success, something we see from the DOE and Governor Markell every single chance they get.

There are 11,000 teachers in Delaware.  The CEPR report wished to thank “hundreds of teachers” in their report.  I’ve found when reports like this come out, if it is over 500, they will say “over five hundred” or give a number like 800 to show a bigger number.  This report came from five states, so for the sake of argument, they surveyed 500 teachers.  That breaks down to 100 in each state.  Over ten schools, that is about ten teachers per school.  Can we say for certainty there was no bias in who was picked to take this survey?  I will wait to hear back from the Communications Director at CEPR to see if she is even able to say which schools had a part in this report.  There are certain schools in Delaware that are very loyal to Common Core and the DOE.  Most of us know which ones those are…

To read the full report, go here: http://cepr.harvard.edu/files/cepr/files/teaching-higher-report.pdf

Secretary Godowsky Stabs Schools And Parents In The Back With His Cowardly Move

At the State Board of Education Fall Retreat today in Dewey Beach, Dr. Steven Godowsky made his first big move as Delaware Secretary of Education, and it was not a good one.  I have been writing the past couple months about the Accountability Framework Working Group and the Delaware School Success Framework.  At their last meeting in early October, the group unanimously agreed not to have opt-out penalties where the proficiency rate of a school was multiplied by their participation rate for the school report card.  They agreed to a lesser penalty whereby the school would have to write a report about how to improve the participation rate and no school could earn a status of “reward” school if their participation rate fell below the 95% mark.

Today, Dr. Steven Godowsky undid all the work this group did, their 14 months of meetings and discussion, and overrode their recommendations.  That’s right, the same guy who told the New Castle County school boards at their  combined school board breakfast just two weeks ago:

“It’s not a final decision, but it looks like from all levels of the department…that harsh sanctions will not carry the day,” he said. “There will be minimum sanctions that are required.”

So what made him override this?  Looks pretty easy to me: he got confirmed by the Delaware Senate last week.  If I had to guess, if he came across as the tough guy the Senate would have pounded him.  I never thought I would say this, but thank you to Senators Greg Lavelle and Colin Bonini for saying no to this guy getting confirmed.  All his lies about being more transparent and communicating better with the public.  He just gave the middle finger to the public school system and parents in Delaware by doing this.

Godowsky is a water carrier for Governor Markell and his buddies at Rodel.  He is NOT his own man, and he is a coward.  He met with members of the Delaware Senate before his confirmation to talk about the changes he wants in the DOE.  He will make no changes without Jack Markell whispering in his ear, I can guarantee that!  This jacked up move of his assures the State Board of Education will vote on this and pass Regulation 103 which will put this into the books at their November 19th meeting.  And now schools will be coming up with even more nonsense concerning opt-out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

Delaware Parents: Just refuse the test now.  Do not lie down and let this happen.  Let’s beat New York’s 20% opt-out rate, and get it up to 50%, or higher!  The only way this cockamamie test is going to go away is unless we MAKE it happen.  That’s right, We The People!  I was starting to believe Godowsky’s line of crap about making things better.  I know he has his defenders, and I’m okay with the heat I’m about to get, but this man is a liar!  He is worse than Mark Murphy, because he does have the experience, and he is still okay with putting the screws to the public school system.  And he used to run a few of them!

If the 148th General Assembly doesn’t override the House Bill 50 veto by the equally cowardly Governor, there is going to be hell to pay for those who say no.  And if the leaders don’t even let it get to a vote, they will NOT be re-elected.  I will make damn sure of that!  We have all been victims of Jack Markell for far too long, and now he is on the cusp of completely destroying parental rights and the voice of educators.  The State Board is in Markell’s pocket just as much as Godowsky.  So we need to strike NOW!

Email your legislators today and start pounding the State Board of Education right away.

Governor Markell To Teachers: “Giving You Another Year Before Consequences Kick In”

Last night at the Bright Spots Common Ground For The Common Core meeting, Delaware Governor Jack Markell gave a speech and told teachers he was “giving you another year before consequences kick in,” in regards to the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  The Delaware State Board of Education, in their March meeting, sent a request to the U.S. Department of Education to ask for an additional year aside from this year before teachers were held accountable for the assessment.  Does this mean the U.S. DOE denied the request from Delaware? Or was Markell talking about the additional year aside from this year?

Governor Markell also advised the audience he is always willing to hear concerns from educators about the assessment and indicated several have met with him at his office.  He clarified it was based on those concerns that he requested the delay in accountability for teachers.  This Governor has been rather snippy of late since the parent opt-out movement kicked in…

The keynote speaker for the meeting was Steve Leinward from the American Institutes for Research (AIR).  AIR is the DOE contracted vendor for the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

Breaking News: DSEA Supports Parent Opt Out & States Over-Emphasis On Standardized Testing

The Delaware State Educators Association has just issued a press release indicating they support parent opt out and want the State of Delaware to take a hard and thorough look  at the over reliance on standardized testing.

PRESS RELEASE
for immediate release	Contact person:  David Wright Company:  Delaware State Education Association Phone:  (302) 734-5834 Fax:  (302) 674-9499 Email:  david.wright@dsea.org Website:  www.dsea.org
Standardized testing plays over-sized role in the Delaware public education system   Dover, Del. April 1st — The Delaware State Education Association (DSEA) is concerned about the growing amounts of time, money and energy spent on high-stakes and standardized testing, as well as the use of student performance on these tests to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators, and schools. The overreliance on high-stakes and standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems continues to undermine educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools.  It hampers educators’ efforts to focus on the skills and knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy. DSEA believes that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness.  The over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools.  It is narrowing curriculums, fostering a ‘teach to the test’ approach, reducing love of learning,  driving excellent teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate. For these reasons, DSEA supports a parent’s right to opt their child out of standardized testing. DSEA also supports locally developed, authentic assessments as drivers of instruction and increasing the time allotted for educators to teach and students to learn. We call on the Governor, General Assembly, state Board of Education, local education boards, and administrators to reexamine the public school accountability systems currently used in Delaware. We urge these decision-making bodies to develop a system that is based on multiple forms of evidence, does not require extensive standardized testing, accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and can be used to support students and improve schools. ###

Delaware DOE Contract RFP For DPAS II Evaluation…What Will They Do To Educators Next? @KilroysDelaware @ed_in_de @RCEAPrez @Apl_Jax @nannyfat @ecpaige @Roof_O @DelawareBats #netde #eduDE #edchat #Delaware

The Delaware Department of Education put out a bid contract for a vendor to come in and evaluate the DPAS II system.  This measures the effectiveness of teachers in Delaware.  The DOE and Secretary of Education Mark Murphy were not happy when 99% of educators in Delaware were rated “effective” or “highly effective”.  I do believe this vendor will look to change that.  Very interesting parts of this RFP show ahead of time this vendor is only to look at districts that have been known to be innovative in implementing certain practices.  The deadline had been January 6th, but has been extended until January 20th as per the addendum on the contract bid website: http://www.bids.delaware.gov/bids_detail.asp?i=2807&DOT=N

Delaware educators: read and beware!