Jessica Bies with the News Journal wrote an article about State Auditor candidate Kathleen Davies and willfully withheld information provided to her that would have drastically changed her article. There is absolutely no credible reason for Bies to withhold crucial information like that.
Stealth testing. A state assessment, given 3 to 4 times a year to all students in Delaware public schools from 3rd to 10th grade. On top of the end of year state Science assessment given to students in 5th, 8th, and 10th grade. Wasn’t the goal to have students receive less assessments? Or is the goal to have outside companies create the tests teachers used to create based on their college training and years in the classroom? This is stealth testing.
These tests will be online. They will be “embedded”. The following describes Delaware’s science assessment goals. When I say Delaware, I am not speaking for ALL of Delaware. I would like to know how these decisions were vetted with the General Assembly and the public for consumption and digestion. From the request for proposal:
Delaware envisions a comprehensive science assessment system in grades 3 to 10, consisting of three distinct types of assessment. Under this system, throughout the academic year students will take teacher developed, Embedded Classroom Assessments to provide information on learning in real time. Primarily for instructional use, these Embedded Classroom Assessments will be numerous, short, and administered at the discretion of each teacher. Students will also take End-of-Unit Assessments shortly after the completion of each instructional unit. In each grade, the academic school year is divided into three to four units, each of which is aligned to a specific disciplinary content domain1 (see Appendix B for more detail). Each End-of-Unit assessment is meant to provide information on student learning of the NGSS content in each unit for the purposes of instruction (e.g., determining if additional instruction on previously instructed topics is needed, to be used in place of a classroom assessment for grading purposes) and evaluation (e.g., informing curriculum adoption, adaptation, and modification) at classroom, school, district and state levels. Finally, students in grade 5, grade 8, and high school biology will also take an Integrative Transfer Assessment (whereas the Embedded Classroom Assessments and End-of-Unit Assessments are taken by students in every grade, 3 to 10). These Integrative Transfer Assessments are meant to capture students’ learning of the content instructed during the entire year, in greater depth than on the End-of-Unit Assessments. That is, the Integrative Transfer Assessments are meant to capture the ways that students integrate, transfer and apply science knowledge and skills learned during the year. The integrative transfer assessments will be used to meet federal requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
So the only thing I see here, which is required by Federal law, is the end of year assessment given in 5th, 8th, and 10th grade. To be clear, end-of-unit assessment is the same as stealth assessments. Don’t kid yourself on this! Why are we hiring a company for, what will surely be a very expensive project costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to create assessments that go beyond the scope of what is required? In the below RFP, the Delaware DOE talks about this science coalition that represents 25% of Delaware science teachers that have agreed to this. Did local school boards and charter school boards approve this complete change to the way students are tested in THEIR schools? Did the General Assembly pass laws to allow the Delaware DOE to completely change methods of assessment? Why does the Delaware DOE need End-of-Unit Assessment information? Isn’t the End-of-Year Assessment given to students in certain grades good enough for you anymore? Why do you need all this data? You don’t. Stop testing our kids incessantly. Parents, opt out of these end-of-unit assessments as well!
I’ve been warning about these stealth tests for well over a year and a half. Here they are. This IS competency-based education in a personalized learning environment. It is a simple formula- testing = data = speculative investment. They need to test to get the data so our students become investments. Those that do well. Those that don’t, keep testing them until they either get it or don’t. The Delaware DOE will NEVER tell you this, but that is what these companies want. The workforce of tomorrow! What a grand plan! Except, they forgot a few things. This flies in the face of everything legislators have been wanting: less testing. How much do teacher created tests cost compared to these “end-of-unit” assessments? When did we stop trusting our teachers to create tests? This is a big reason why Delaware has a huge budget deficit. We have allowed the Delaware DOE to do whatever they want with very little oversight. And we ALL pay the price, one way or another. This is what the folks at Rodel want, not what Delaware wants. At least be honest about that Delaware DOE!
Pathways to Prosperity is the greatest invention Delaware ever had! If you believe that one, you stand to profit from what amounts to a cheap labor program designed to beef up corporate profit while using students to do so.
The Pathways Steering Committee recently recommended a Request for Proposal to make the Pathways To Prosperity initiative really shine. They want a huge marketing push on this. After all, this committee does include Del Tech, Rodel, and The Delaware Business Roundtable. What corporate CEO doesn’t want cheap labor? The best part is you don’t have to farm jobs out to foreign countries. You can do it right here in your own state. All you need are a bunch of students in high school or college and you can call them “paid internships”. Once students complete these internships, they can earn a secondary diploma or a “certificate”. How awesome! NOT!
To be clear, I am ALL IN for students to continue education. I am ALL IN for disengaged students becoming engaged. What I am NOT all in for is companies taking advantage of school instruction for their own advantage. This RFP from the Delaware Dept. of Education is a fascinating read. RFPs always have some key information about what an initiative is REALLY about. They have to sell it to a prospective vendor.
Delaware Pathways is an education and workforce partnership that creates a career pathways system for all youth.
Notice the word “all”. Does all mean all? Eventually. Wait until Blockchain really gets going in public education…
This effort is guided by the Delaware Pathways Steering Committee, which represents a cross-sector group of policy makers, educators, employers, and community leaders who developed the Delaware Pathways Strategic Plan.
No parents. No students. No parents. No students. Shall I go on?
Registered Apprenticeship is a proven method of training which involves on-the-job work experience coupled with related instruction, typically offered in a classroom setting.
Please show me the statistics showing this “proven method”. I am not against apprenticeships. I am against taking advantage of apprenticeships for cheap labor.
Registered apprentices work for their employer or sponsor and are paid while they learn their respective trade. Registered Apprenticeship, in simple terms, is a program of “learning while earning.”
Are they paid at the same levels regular employees are who would perform the same job function? Yeah, I didn’t think so. And how much goes toward other entities while students are “paid”? Who else gets a cut of this pay? “Learning while earning” is definitely earning. The companies earn a lot toward their bottom line. Disgusting…
Registered Apprenticeships are offered in a variety of occupations. The majority of Registered Apprenticeships are four years in length or 8000 hours of on-the-job training. For each year of training, a minimum of 144 hours of related instruction is required.
8,000 hours is a whole heck of a lot of hours. That is a lot of pay at a reduced scale that could be helping the average Delawarean. Companies don’t want to train regular employees. They LOVE this initiative. And they will use taxpayer dollars to provide that training. It is a win-win for companies. This is exactly WHY they care about education so much. I kind of thought education was about kids getting a well-rounded education in ALL subjects. But this will radically transform that so kids only get instruction in certain subjects on the way to their “career path”. Dumb them down, make sure kids don’t question authority, and then you own them for life. Big Brother is here, owned by Education Inc. Did you really think it was “for the kids”? Please…
Upon completion of the required on-the-job training and related instruction, the apprentice is eligible for Journey papers. A journeyperson is nationally recognized as having a well-rounded ability in all phases of their trade.
Note the words “required” and “nationally recognized”. Say goodbye to the days of applying for a job, getting hired, and then going through an orientation-training class. This is the new hiring process for companies. If you don’t get in on THEIR agenda, you are screwed. And if you are an older person, looking to change careers, you are doubly screwed.
The intersection of Delaware Pathways and Registered Apprenticeship programs is a result of Delaware’s career pathways system, which begins in the public education system (K-12) through Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways offered in charter, comprehensive, and technical school districts.
What a well-timed intersection. Like it wasn’t planned for decades. This is what happens when you let a “non-profit” like the Rodel Foundation dictate education policy. This is what happens when you let corporations in education. They plant the seeds and take over.
These pathways continue through adult education, occupational training programs, as well as Registered Apprenticeship and postsecondary programs that are administered by partnering state agencies, institutions of higher education, and other service providers.
Thus, we have Governor Carney’s “public-private partnerships” in full swing. All hail the Chief!
As a result, Delaware’s career pathways system aligns secondary and postsecondary education and concurrently pairs rigorous academics and workforce education within the context of a specific occupation or occupational cluster.
“Rigorous academics” means the Common Core State Standards. Which was, ironically enough, a Department of Defense initiative designed to change the human mind. It was adopted by the Department of Education to actually change young minds to a digital technology environment. But those standards have to be tested, thus crap like the Smarter Balanced Assessment and PARCC. Make them once a year, get teachers and parents in a tizzy over them, and then institute a competency-based education environment. Then comes the “stealth tests”- same tests as before, but broken up into chunks, to be given at the end of each unit in each class. Impossible to opt out of those. This takes it a step further, tying in the education and corporate worlds into a marriage of game-changing high stakes.
Participants who complete a career pathway attain a secondary school diploma or its equivalent, earn an industry-recognized credential, certificate, or license that holds value in the labor market, and have the opportunity to complete an Associate or Bachelor’s degree program at a Delaware college or university.
Don’t kid yourself. This will be how it is done for ALL students in the future. Call it what you want, but this will be a “digital badge” created specifically for your personal share on the Blockchain ledger. The cradle to grave data tracking job creating machine is here!
Red Clay taxpayers beware: You might get a sticker shock on a future tax bill! The Delaware Department of Education issued a Request For Proposal on November 28th for a “time sensitive” Facilities Condition Evaluation of all the Christina schools based in Wilmington. While I initially thought this could have been related to Christina’s recent mold issues, I found this went much deeper than that. Is this some type of surprise announcement that will come in John Carney’s State of the State address?
The schools that will be evaluated are Bancroft Elementary School, Bayard Middle School, Elbert Palmer Elementary School, Pulaski Elementary School, Stubbs Elementary School, Douglass School, and the Sarah Pyle Academy. Even the district office at the Drew Education Support Center is on the list! The smoking gun is this part:
Develop cost estimates to bring each of the above listed facilities to a similar state and with the same control systems such as building controls, camera systems, keysets, alarm, access control, phones, tech. infrastructure (switches), and wifi as Highlands Elementary School, 2100 Gilpin Avenue; Shortledge Elementary School, 100 West 18th Street; Lewis Dual Language Elementary School, 920 North Van Buren Street; Baltz Elementary School, 1500 Spruce Avenue; and DuPont Middle School, 3130 Kennett Pike.
Those are all Red Clay schools. If this were just some random facilities evaluation, there is no way there would be something to bring Christina schools up to Red Clay specifications. There is going to be a big move coming soon!
Identical to the process and methodology followed for typical school facilities assessment work, the assessment will identify any potential issues related to major building systems and building components such as the building envelope/structure, roofing, HVAC/mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, telecommunications, and security systems as well as any site improvements required to the immediate surrounding area for building access. Data generated from this effort will:
• Evaluate the above listed schools in 1. facility condition indices as compared to RCCSD facilities as listed in 2.
• Identify and prioritize required short and long term improvements
• Identify code compliance, accessibility and system coordination issues requiring immediate attention
• Identify potential energy conservation opportunities
But does the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission know about this? They are having a regular commission meeting next Wednesday at Warner Elementary School. If they don’t, boy are they in for a surprise!
As well, it looks like the Delaware Autism Program could be shifted to Red Clay as well:
Prepare a design analysis for the Christina Administrative space, Douglas Alternative School, Sarah Pyle Program and Delaware Autism Program as currently located in one of the buildings listed above.
Who is the driving force behind this? If it is John Carney, he may want to open with a huge splash by finally giving the civil rights advocates in Wilmington their hearts desire. But if this is his move, it would also be a huge smack in the face to the Red Clay taxpayers. Carney was very wishey-washey during his campaign about what he would do with the WEIC redistricting plan. He hinted at liking some of it but not all of it. But WEIC Chair Tony Allen is on his transition team. If Carney pulls this off without the General Assembly he risks alienating many of State Reps and Senators. Which may not work out in his favor with the special election for Bethany Hall-Long’s seat. That race will determine whether the Democrats or Republicans control the Delaware Senate.
Another option is Governor Jack Markell. With the time sensitive status around this and a due date for bids of December 13th, could he have the gumption to stick it to Christina one last time before he leaves office? While ticking off the taxpayers at the same time?
The RFP was authored by a Renee Harris. The only thing I found on her while doing a Google search and a State of Delaware search was related to the Tobacco Settlement from the Delaware Attorney General’s office.
No matter what this is, it is going to be something that will change the Wilmington education landscape. There is absolutely no way the DOE would issue an RFP like this without something waiting in the wings. The WEIC redistricting plan was put on hold for a year. The state isn’t overflowing in cash right now either.
**UPDATED** 12:35pm, 12/2/16: Senate Bill 300 with House Amendment 1 was what allowed the WEIC Redistricting Plan to survive. But there is key language in the amendment put forth by State Rep. Kim Williams:
The amendment removes language obligating the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission and affected school districts to develop, before February 2017, a detailed assessment of the impact of transitioning City of Wilmington Students from the Christina School District to the Red Clay Consolidated School District. Such detailed assessment would require development of school- and student-level changes that require public input and facility analysis that cannot be completed in the timeframes in the original bill. Instead, they should be undertaken as part of the planning phase for redistricting upon commitment of necessary and sufficient funding. The amendment preserves appropriation of $200,000 to continue the work related to the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, including analysis of fiscal impacts, and language clarifying and ensuring that any additional state funding requires further action of the General Assembly.
That date of February 2017 flies in the face of this RFP. I would strongly consider a “Facilities Evaluation” part of a “detailed assessment of the impact…” for the WEIC plan. The amendment does not include the Delaware DOE though. But the original WEIC bills from 2015 do not give the Delaware DOE to have this much involvement. Something is happening…
**UPDATED** 2:04pm, 12/2/16: If you read the fiscal note for Senate Bill 200, it states the following:
But once again, that due date was changed based on House Amendment #1 to the bill. So, once again, why is the DOE issuing an RFP with a submission due date for bids of 12/13/16 and labeling this as “time sensitive”? The key words in the amendment are this- “commitment of necessary and sufficient” funding. The amendment states this work should not take place until a time when that commitment is assured. No budget proposal will come out until towards the end of January. And a budget proposal does nothing until the General Assembly approves it. So even if folks are saying this is part of the $200,000 allocated to WEIC as a result of SB300, it appears the amendment is being completely ignored. The bill was dead before the amendment. The amendment saved WEIC. I am not convinced of anything I am hearing at this point. Whomever is directing these actions is breaking the law.
**UPDATED** 2:16pm, 12/2/16: Upon further analysis of the above amendment, it states the type of work included in this RFP should be done during the “planning phase” of the redistricting plan. As per the plan approved by the State Board of Education, the timeline consists of the following:
• December 17, 2015 to June 30, 2016 Approval Stage
• July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 Planning Stage
• July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 Transition Stage
• July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 Implementation Stage
But because the General Assembly did not pass the legislation that would make the redistricting plan happen, they instead bumped it up a year. So the Planning Stage of July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 is no longer in place. The amendment is very clear about what should happen during this stage. That planning stage can’t begin again until July 1, 2017 if the General Assembly allows for that to happen based on signed legislation. I’m just a blogger without the legal expertise the WEIC and DOE attorneys would have. But if I can clearly see that the law is not being followed, they would assuredly know.
To read the RFP, please read below:
The Delaware Dept. of Education put out a request for proposal for their Social Studies and Science state assessments. For Social Studies, the bidding ended on 9/9 and for Science, 9/23. This is the second time the Delaware DOE put out requests for these two tests and some of the same companies bid again. I went into detail about some of those companies last December. The last time both the state assessments were included in one big lump. This time, they separated them. I had a lot to say about the Social Studies request for proposal last month and how this could lead to embedded stealth testing in a constant online competency-based personalized learning environment.
Delaware System of Student Assessment in Social Studies
Next Generation Science Assessment for Delaware Learners
The new bidders for these assessments are Measured Progress Inc. and WestEd. Measured Progress is just more of the same according to Save Maine Schools. They were the Smarter Balanced vendor in three states last year, but they couldn’t even handle the data capacity and had to shut down testing. WestEd, though, is no stranger to Delaware. This is a company that thinks online digital learning games with Curious George are just great for preschool. They also have an extensive list of clients with some very familiar names. Ironically, the Delaware DOE hired facilitators from WestEd for their Every Student Succeeds Act Community Conversations, along with Research In Action. They even went into a partnership recently with NewSchools Venture Fund to expand small business data technology companies in K-12 classrooms. How ironic that they received grant money from the Small Business Administration to fund ed tech start-ups while they are bidding for contracts that would measure the effectiveness of ed tech instruction with state assessments. No conflict of interest there! Strategic Measurement still has the same website as last year. Both AIR and Pearson are still the lead players in the high-stakes testing arena. None of these bidders signal Delaware ending the high-stakes testing arena any time soon.
I have seen some really crazy requests for proposals coming out of the Delaware Department of Education, but this one takes the cake! This latest RFP is a multi-vendor solicitation for nine different areas of education. I would almost say it looks like vendors will completely take over the Department of Education looking at this! While that probably isn’t the case, I have often wondered why I can’t find contracts for certain vendors at the Delaware DOE. My guess is these kinds of multi-purpose vendor bids have gone out before. Which is why I have never seen a DOE contract with the Rodel Foundation or the Vision Network.
But this is huge. Are they preparing for the Every Student Succeeds Act? While the law is meant to limit federal interference in how states carry out the law, it certainly looks like it is a cash cow for corporations to come in at lightning speed before the ink is dry on the regulations. Maybe if the Delaware DOE hired more educators, they wouldn’t need all these so-called “experts” in education. Delaware education has not gotten any better with all these cash in the trash consultants and vendors.
Our General Assembly needs to get control of the DOE. They are destroying what is good about education for our children, one day at a time. Piece by piece, bit by bit. And the transparency around their actions seems to be getting murkier by the week. But make no mistake, the entire DOE is led by one man: Jack Markell. He is behind every single decision that goes on there. He is so invested, politically and personally, in corporate education reform that he is unable to tell the difference between reality and wishful thinking. He is beyond being able to reason with. He lives and breathes education, but from a corporate perspective, not an educator one.
There is far too much going on at the Delaware DOE these days. Between ESSA meetings that I have no doubt have predetermined outcomes already in the works, their Special Education Strategic Plan (which I will have more to say about soon with the Paul Herdman selected guy running this), the charter-district funding fight, the charter school performance frameworks, Teacher-Leader pilots with very questionable transparency, getting ESEA flex waivers without clearly stating what they were applying for and not having the advisory committee required by law to go along with that, ongoing concerns about the upcoming Social Studies and Science state assessments, their complete and total pimping of the Pathways to Prosperity program, their inability to understand and listen to true stakeholder input, allowing Rodel to influence their every move, and willful defiance of the will and intent of the Delaware General Assembly.
This contract confirms my worst fears about this Department. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year in contracts to vendors. Money that should go into classrooms. Money that should keep classroom sizes down. Money that give basic special education to students in Kindergarten to 3rd grade. Money that should give more resources to low-income and poverty-stricken children. Money that should go to school improvements and Capital funding. Instead they are giving it away to companies.
What if I told you the high-stakes testing American children have been going through is a complete and utter scam? Many would say they already knew that, but would they be able to tell you how they knew this? Probably not. At least not at the levels our state Department of Educations developed with the many testing companies such as American Institutes for Research, Pearson, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
The Delaware Department of Education put out a Request for Proposal for our new Social Studies State Assessment. The actual RFP is a treasure trove of testing information. For starters, the Delaware Department of Education is flat-out lying in their RFP. Last year, the Delaware DOE put out their “Delaware School Success Framework”. This is essentially Delaware’s report card for schools. Included in this horrible accountability testing machine are participation rate penalties for schools that go under 95% participation rate on the state assessments. The Delaware DOE and State Board of Education tried passing an updated version of Delaware’s regulation regarding school accountability, but many parents and education organizations balked and successfully blocked the State Board of Education from passing it. As a result, even though the Delaware State Board of Education eventually passed the Delaware School Success Framework, there is no regulatory power behind it. But that didn’t stop the Delaware DOE from making it look like it is perfectly legal in their RFP for the new Social Studies state assessment.
One of the first things the DOE calls for from a potential vendor for this test is understanding of and the ability to put the Rasch Scoring Methodology into the test. What is this Rasch the Delaware DOE has? It is an all-consuming itch to trip up kids and schools and parents. This is part of the underbelly of state testing that no one talks about. The website appropriately titled Rasch-Analysis.com explains the Rasch Scoring Methodology as this:
What is a Rasch Analysis? The Rasch model, where the total score summarizes completely a person’s standing on a variable, arises from a more fundamental requirement: that the comparison of two people is independent of which items may be used within the set of items assessing the same variable. Thus the Rasch model is taken as a criterion for the structure of the responses, rather than a mere statistical description of the responses. For example, the comparison of the performance of two students’ work marked by different graders should be independent of the graders.
In this case it is considered that the researcher is deliberately developing items that are valid for the purpose and that meet the Rasch requirements of invariance of comparisons.
Analyzing data according to the Rasch model, that is, conducting a Rasch analysis, gives a range of details for checking whether or not adding the scores is justified in the data. This is called the test of fit between the data and the model. If the invariance of responses across different groups of people does not hold, then taking the total score to characterize a person is not justified. Of course, data never fit the model perfectly, and it is important to consider the fit of data to the model with respect to the uses to be made of the total scores. If the data do fit the model adequately for the purpose, then the Rasch analysis also linearises the total score, which is bounded by 0 and the maximum score on the items, into measurements. The linearised value is the location of the person on the unidimensional continuum – the value is called a parameter in the model and there can be only one number in a unidimensional framework. This parameter can then be used in analysis of variance and regression more readily than the raw total score which has floor and ceiling effects.
Many assessments in these disciplines involve a well defined group of people responding to a set of items for assessment. Generally, the responses to the items are scored 0, 1 (for two ordered categories); or 0, 1, 2 (for three ordered categories); or 0, 1,2, 3 (for four ordered categories) and so on, to indicate increasing levels of a response on some variable such as health status or academic achievement. These responses are then added across items to give each person a total score. This total score summarise the responses to all the items, and a person with a higher total score than another one is deemed to show more of the variable assessed. Summing the scores of the items to give a single score for a person implies that the items are intended to measure a single variable, often referred to as a unidimensional variable.
The Rasch model is the only item response theory (IRT) model in which the total score across items characterizes a person totally. It is also the simplest of such models having the minimum of parameters for the person (just one), and just one parameter corresponding to each category of an item. This item parameter is generically referred to as a threshold. There is just one in the case of a dichotomous item, two in the case of three ordered categories, and so on.
Now this has a lot of lingo I didn’t quite get. But the important part about understanding the Rasch Methodology of Scoring is that ALL items must be the same. This is NOT what is going on currently. With Smarter Balanced, PARCC and other state assessments, the testing companies have developed what is called a Partial Matrix of Items. What this means is that a portion of the state assessment is the same for everyone. But the remaining portion comes from a bucket of different test items submitted for these tests. In partial matrix testing theory, the similar content shared by all could be anywhere from 20-30% of the items on the test. The rest varies based on what is in the bucket. What this means is this shocking find: students aren’t taking the exact same state assessment. For Smarter Balanced test-takers, the tests aren’t the same. The same for PARCC as well.
The truly frightening part about this is the probabilities with Partial Matrix. If a student is a high achiever, the probability they will get a correct answer is above a probability of .5 on each item’s scale. If they aren’t a high achiever and struggle, the probability drops below .5 on the scale. So these tests are designed so roughly half get it right and half get them wrong. But if kids aren’t taking the same exact test, where all the items after the “common” items change, that throws the whole model into whack. The testing companies know this. Our state DOEs know this. The US DOE knows this. Chances are many corporate education reform companies, politicians, and even some school Superintendents know this. Any testing coordinator in a school district or charter school should know this.
This is also why opt out throws the whole scheme into disarray. If too many “smart kids” opt out, it will change that whole .5 probability. If too many struggling kids opt out, the test scores will be very high. The testing companies love this model because it furthers the whole standardized testing environment which gives them lots of money. With this model, schools fail and schools succeed. It really is based on the socio-economic demographics of any given school. This explains why the 95% participation rate is the desired outcome. With a school of 1000 kids, 950 kids taking the test isn’t going to skew the results too much. But once you get below that level, that .5 probability begins to shift in either direction. None of these testing advocates care if the kids are proficient or not. They already know, for the most part, exactly how it is going to turn out. That’s when the real work and potential manipulation can occur.
In Delaware, students don’t take the Smarter Balanced Assessment at the same time. There is a three month testing window. Some schools begin in the first week of March whereas others may not start until May. How do we know, with 100% certainty, companies like our testing vendor, American Institutes for Research aren’t looking at that data constantly? How do we know they aren’t able to ascertain which questions have a higher or lower probability of being answered correctly once students start taking the test? How do we know the testing gurus at our state DOEs aren’t in constant contact with the testing companies and are able to determine ahead of time which testing items in the “non-common” partial matrix to send to different schools, or even certain grades?
For example, say a state really wants to have a particular school show phenomenal “growth” in proficiency scores from one year to the next. This could be a charter school. While the overall proficiency rate isn’t phenomenal, the growth could be. As a result, more students could be wowed by this school and might be more apt to send their children there. It could flip around another way. Say a state DOE really is just sick of a particular district and wants more charters in that area. The best way to make more charters is to show more failing traditional schools. Even some charters could be expendable. Another one might want to expand their enrollment and has more influence and pull than other ones. With current accountability regulations (and more to come under ESSA), this allows states to continue labeling and shaming certain schools. The reality is these assessments can be molded into any shape a state might want if they are able to interact with the testing vendor and determine which items go to which school. This is a worst-case scenario for an already bad test to begin with.
While state DOEs brag about the computer-adaptability of these tests and how it will “work with the student”, this is the most egregious part of the whole modern-day standardized testing scheme. By having this “adaptability”, it disguises the true intent: different items on the tests for different students. Even if students talk about particular items on the test, the adaptability prevents them from having the same items on the test. It is an ingenious scheme.
For teachers, some could be guided towards certain directions by the state DOEs for where to go with curriculum. Others could be guided in the wrong direction which will ultimately change the results of these assessments. It is the grandest illusion of them all. The state DOEs will say “we have advisory committees. Teachers pick the items for the test.” I’m sure they do. And I’m also sure there are plants on those committees. Ones that wind up working with certain state foundations, state DOEs, or other corporate education reform companies. It sounds so shady, doesn’t it? How much of a soul has to be sold to make more money or climb up the corporate education ladder?
While all of this may have your head reeling, try this on for size: what happens when competency-based education becomes the next “thing”? When digital personalized learning becomes the norm and all these state assessments become broken down into mini-standardized tests? Instead of those 7-10 days when students are hogging up all the bandwidth in the school and teachers most likely lose a lot of hair, the tests will be shorter. They will become end of unit assessments. Teachers won’t even need to worry about administering their own end of unit assessment because Smarter Balanced and PARCC already did all the work! How convenient. Not only did our states reduce testing time, but also teacher’s time and effort. A true cause for celebration. And parents won’t even be able to opt their kids out of these tests because most of them most likely won’t even know their kid is testing and their classroom grades will be based off their digital personalized learning work and their competency-based education high-stakes mini-test. We know Delaware is leaning towards this testing model because Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Steven Godowsky mentioned this during our last Assessment Inventory Committee meeting back in May.
Meanwhile, back at the state DOE, they are getting all this data. They are getting it from their vendors like American Institutes for Research, or Questar, or Pearson. Other companies want to see it so they can work on a report about how to fix our schools. Our state DOEs actually pay them to do these reports. Through contracts and extensions of contracts. Yes, only the student identifier code goes out. These testing companies really don’t care about who the student is, just what they can extrapolate from the data. But then that information comes back to the state. The state knows who that student identifier belongs to. For example, Student ID # belongs to John Johns at Delaware Elementary School. Based on the information from all that data, they can easily paint a picture of that student. Based on the scores, how long it took them to take the test, how they answered responsive questions… all of this allows them to track. So much so they can determine, based on other algorithms and matrices, exactly what career path John Johns is heading towards. Perhaps we should guide him towards that culinary program. Or maybe Bio-technology pathways. Or maybe poor John Johns won’t ever advance past a welder position. FERPA guidelines allow state DOEs to actually do this.
Want to know who always loses in these testing games? Students with disabilities. They may receive accommodations but they never get the one accommodation they need the most. For regular classroom tests, IEP teams frequently agree on a student not taking every single test question. Maybe 1//2 or 3/4 of the questions. Standardized tests don’t allow for that. The answer is always the same: they will get more time. What they fail to understand is what “more time” means to these students. It means more time focusing on the same task: Taking a test. What are their regular peers doing when these kids are getting “more time”? They are learning. Receiving instruction. Getting ahead. Students with disabilities are, yet again, put in a position where they will become further behind.
We all knew our kids were guinea pigs for these tests. We just didn’t know how much. The time to opt out of these tests, no matter what the circumstances might be, is now. Not later, not tomorrow. Now. Today is your opt out day for your child.
Below is the RFP for Delaware’s Social Studies state assessment. I’ve gone through this and highlighted key wording and troubling aspects which I will write more about tonight or tomorrow. Don’t be fooled by the DOE’s statements of assurance in this. I have no doubt their legal team went through it very carefully. But I’m fairly certain they didn’t expect a citizen to go through it and dissect it like I did…
Appoquinimink finally released the documents from their board meeting on July 12th yesterday… six days later. This morning they also put up the board audio recording from the same board meeting. We got a bit of insight into their “special education costs” tax warrant “increase”. And they clearly spell out how much of the money is going towards out-of-district placements and what is staying in-district. We also find out something the money is going towards for those in-district costs. Once again, the district is as quiet as a church mouse in a response to me. I guess they don’t feel answering questions in the state where “sunshine is the best policy” is important.
Now we know the Middletown/Odessa area is growing. I don’t think anyone is questioning that. But they aren’t using this tax warrant increase of 7.76 cents per resident for increased special education costs. They are using it to increase salaries as part of the FY2017 Delaware budget. Which is provided by the state and local funds. As well, they are also using it to increase benefits and pensions. Keep in mind that in FY2016, their amount for needs-based instruction was $6,500,000. Now we are expected to believe it has jumped to $7,860,000? Without a final student enrollment count which won’t come until after September 30th? I know, budgeting is predictive in nature. But in my mind, they still haven’t justified the original $6,500,000 number. They can say what it is for, but until I see a breakdown of exactly what these collected tax dollars in the form of tuition tax is going towards, I’m not satisfied. Of particular interest is the fact that their out-of-district placement costs actually went down between FY2016 and FY2017, even though this was a major thorn in the side for the Appo board just five months ago. I have to wonder who is calling the shots here and who knows about what. I want to believe the board isn’t aware of what is going on. Which is an issue in itself. But clearly Dr. Charles Longfellow would have some insight into this but thus far has not provided ANY information. Nothing. I suppose we are just supposed to take this at face value without any logical explanation whatsoever. How much does Superintendent Matt Burrows know about this?
The entire operating budget is going up over $11 million dollars. That is a lot of coin. That is also a 10% increase over last year. Did the district receive an additional 10% amount of students? They had 10, 378 in FY2016, 9,877 in FY2015, and 9,750 in FY2014 based on their September 30th enrollment counts for the past three years. But we are expected to believe this is about the students…
Now things like a carryover budget don’t really concern me. It is normal to have that. If everything wound up exact I would be very alarmed. That is to be expected.
To see the full presentation, budget, and the budget amendment to increase the FY2016 budget (done based on May 2016 numbers in the budget…very troubling in my opinion), see the below documents. Of particular concern to me is the budget amendment request. This is where it all gets very shady. On the original pdf, if you do the right-click thing for this document and go to properties, it shows the document was created on 6/29/16. But if the Appo Board of Education didn’t approve it until 7/12/16 how can their CFO write a letter like this before the board even voted on it?
After you read those, come back to see what the district wants to get in one of their schools. Keep in mind, they seem to want this more than adding programs to take care of the complex special needs students that live in the district but have to go out-of-district to get the special education services they are rightfully and legally entitled to.
FY2017 Preliminary Budget Presentation
Actual FY2017 Preliminary Budget
FY2016 Budget Amendment Request
While all this is going on, the district really wants a pool. Not just any pool, but a “shark tank”. An actual, indoor pool. While I don’t have an issue with any school having an indoor pool, I would think it wouldn’t be a priority until ALL students living in the district get what they need to succeed. Especially the very students the district doesn’t serve: complex special education students. Granted, this is just in the, pardon the pun, ground stages. But how about an RFP for something similar to the Delaware Autism Program or something like that? Nope, they really want a pool!
RFP for Nanotorium
In listening to the board audio recording from the July 12th board meeting, we once again hear there was not a quorum of their Financial Advisory Committee present at their last meeting, but the board once again approves their monthly financial report. Who is on this committee? Even more concerning is this comment from CFO Dr. Charles Longfellow:
I never budget for assessment growth.
So if we know the entire region of Delaware is growing rapidly, and their CFO doesn’t take this into account in any way, and the board is approving tax warrants based on this, what happens when the district experiences a surplus every year based on this growing population? If the CFO is going to set firm guidelines with his budget like that, why does he overestimate on charter school payouts? (This is the amount the district has to send to charter schools when a local student choices out to a charter school). We did find out that in this district, for every $1.00 they spend in salaries, spends an addition 31 cents to cover Other Employment Costs which covers benefits and pensions. The trailers the school is putting at select schools due to running out of room are all coming out of local funds. This was correctly referred to as “portable classrooms” by a board member and Longfellow. I found it very interesting that Longfellow stated the board couldn’t approve the budget if they didn’t approve the tax warrant for the tuition costs. He did state that was later on in the board agenda, but the two went together. The board is going out for a referendum in December. There was obvious concern from one board member about pushing these tax warrants now prior to a referendum. When asked what each revenue base goes towards, Longfellow said Tuition Tax pays for out-of-district placements and programs for students with disabilities. When asked by a board member if it was accurate to say the increase in tuition tax was based on the district receiving more students with intensive and complex special needs, Longfellow said that was accurate. Giving kudos where they are due, one board member did explain that assessed value and real value of homes are two different animals. He explained the assessed value formula hasn’t changed since 1983. Longfellow explained that the state gives local boards the “right” to increase tuition taxes to make sure students get what they need but it isn’t a “fun right to have”. At no point did the board ask for a breakdown of how this amount increased at such a dramatic rate. There was absolutely nothing put forth in the preliminary budget or the tax warrant request to the board. Just numbers without any justification whatsoever. The board voted unanimously on the tax warrant first and then the preliminary budget.
Later on in the meeting, the board approved an increase for all administrators and specialists of an additional $500 above the state increase of 1.5% or $750, whichever is greater. So at a minimum, specialists will be getting a $1,250 raise for the year. Note the board approved this increase after the preliminary budget was approved, not before. A very careful sleight of hand on Longfellow’s part…
Once again, I implore the New Castle County Council to ask for a full breakdown of these costs before deciding on the tax warrant. If the district fails to give that requested information, I would highly recommend not approving their tax warrant.
In adhering to the district’s policy on Fair Use:
Fair UseUnless otherwise noted, users who wish to download and/or reproduce text and image files from this website for non-commercial educational purposes may do so without the Appoquinimink School District’s express permission, provided that they comply with the following conditions:
- The content may only be used for noncommercial educational purposes;
- Users must cite the district, school, author and source of the content as they would material from any printed work;
- The citation must include all copyright information and other information associated with the content and the URL for the ASD website;
- None of the content may be altered or modified; and
- Users must comply with all other terms or restrictions which may be applicable to the individual file, image, or text.
All graphics, links, and pdfs in this article, as well as the ones about the Appoquinimink School District I posted on 7/14/16 and 7/17/16 are used for noncommercial educational purposes. I hereby cite the district for ownership of all applicable material in all three articles. No document was modified or altered. The district did not notify me of anything associated with this but I felt it was prudent to inform my readers of this. All material can be found at http://apposchooldistrict.com/
This district and board can keep ignoring me but I will not cease publishing my findings and their extreme lack of transparency in regards to this and any other issues I find with them. As such, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Superintendent Matt Burrows and his office to obtain a full breakdown for each dollar spent on their tuition costs and where and to whom those costs are associated. I also included, in the request, any documents presented to the Appoquinimink Board of Education for their July 12th board meeting in regards to the tuition tax increase of $815,000 and their approval of a tax warrant.
The Delaware Department of Education sent out a bid solicitation on the DPAS-II teacher evaluation system in Delaware. They wanted to know how teachers and administrators are doing with the student growth portion of the system, part of Component V. To say the report gives more sides from the pro-testing crowd would be an understatement. It is very hard for me to take these reports at face value when they ask a limited amount of questions.
What I find even more interesting is the fact that Research For Action, the vendor who created this report, is not listed as a current Delaware vendor, and there is no current contract or one that recently ended calling for such a report. But the Delaware DOE paid this company $140,000 on 6/17/16, which is well over the threshold that would trigger a mandatory bid solicitation as required by Delaware state law. In fact, a contract was signed a few months ago with American Institutes for Research (the current Smarter Balanced Assessment vendor in Delaware) to do a review of the DPAS-II system. Research For Action is also not listed as a Cooperative contract vendor or a set-aside contractor in Delaware.
Now I did find a contract with Research In Action that ended on 6/30/16 which did require an evaluation of DPAS-II. Are these the same companies? Since the report below shows them as Research For Action, I would assume they are. The Delaware DOE did award a contract to Research For Action Inc. that went from 3/19/15 to 8/31/15 for the amount of $225,000.00. Since the second awarded contract gave a fixed amount of $181,117.62, can someone at the Delaware DOE please tell me why we have already paid this company $450,742.04 for work that is $44,624.42 over the two contractual amounts? Or is there, once again, some other contract hidden away on the state procurement website under yet another different name for this company?
I wish I could get paid over $450,000 to come out with a seven page “briefing” once every couple of years, interview a few teachers and administrators, and call it a day. More DOE magic at work! Or, as some call it, cash in the trash. And we once again wonder why Delaware schools are underfunded (much more for this topic coming up on this blog).
The “briefing” is below:
The Delaware DOE wants to remove the DCAS Social Studies and Science State Standardized Assessments and have new ones implemented by the 2016-2017 school year. They currently have a Request for Proposal (RFP) with final bids due by 11/30/15. You have to love this part of the bid proposal:
The initial term of the resulting Contract(s) will be from the Contract’s effective date, on or about December 31, 2015, through June 30, 2021. The DDOE reserves the right to extend any contract awarded as a result of this Competitive Sealed Proposal (CSP) for as many as five additional annual contracts if it is deemed to be in the best interest of the State of Delaware.
I imagine these new tests will be “more aligned with the Common Core State Standards” and the RFP already states these tests will be a part of the Delaware School Success Framework. So where does the DOE have the authority to do this? And where is the oversight? Look no further than this part of the proposal:
Funding for Contract(s) resulting from this Competitive Sealed Proposal (CSP) is contingent upon approval by the Delaware General Assembly each year of appropriations, limitations, or other expenditure authority.
The DOE estimates the “winner” will be announced around 12/18/15 with a start date of 12/31/15. While this bid proposal was created on 9/29/15, note at the bottom of page 2 and page 3 what the accountability measures are for proficiency. Yes, the old participation rate multiplier is in full effect on here even though the Accountability Framework Working Group voted against it and the State Board has yet to make a decision on this. Couldn’t that affect the bid process somewhat?
And what is the DOE requiring for these tests from a vendor?
require students to demonstrate a range of higher-order, analytical thinking and performance skills in reading, writing, and research based on the depth and complexity of Delaware Social Studies Standards, Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies (grades 6-10 only) and/or Next Generation Science Standards allowing robust information to be gathered for students with varied levels of achievement. A significant portion of total score points come from items that demonstrate a deeper level of knowledge (e.g., represent the high complexity levels designated by taxonomies of cognitive demand).
And which students will be taking these tests? Currently the DCAS Science assessments are for grades 5,8, and 10 and the DCAS Social Studies is grades 4th and 7th with a High School End of Course for U.S. History. By the 2019-2020 school year, these tests will be for all students from 3rd through 10th grade, in both Science and Social Studies.
Now if the 147th General Assembly had to approve the Smarter Balanced Assessment as the State Standardized Assessment and the bids for this are due while the General Assembly is out of session (like they did with Smarter Balanced), is this even allowed? Some legislators in the 147th General Assembly stated they voted yes for the Smarter Balanced legislation (House Bill 334) because Mark Murphy and the DOE already bought it. Can the 148th General Assembly prevent the very same mistake from happening again before a contract is signed and sealed? Especially when the plan is to have even more students taking these assessments?
To read the whole contract, see below:
Updated: I read through the text of House Bill 334, which allowed the Smarter Balanced invasion in Delaware (even though the DOE already signed a contract with American Institutes for Research to be the test vendor and joined the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium). For Science and Social Studies, House Bill 334 states the following:
(c) The assessments referred to in subsection (b) of this section shall measure achievement in
readingEnglish language arts and mathematics for students in a minimum of grades 3 through 8 and high school, provided additional grades may be added by the Department. Science and social studies shall be assessed for students at least once in the elementary grades, at least once in the middle grades, and at least once in high school.
It looks like the DOE is taking the “at least once” and running with it.
The Delaware Department of Education is preparing to launch a survey unlike any other in the coming months. The survey is a product of UChicago Impact, a non-profit company owned by the University of Chicago. The survey, which is part of the Delaware School Success Framework (school report card), will have questions for students, teachers and parents to answer. To say some of the questions are intrusive would be an understatement. The part that offends me the most is this:
*Questions from the parent survey do not affect a school’s performance on the 5Essentials
Not to let the cat out of the bag so fast, but last week the DOE had a section for this on their website, but you couldn’t access any of the links. I contacted their public information officer, Alison May, and advised her of this. She emailed back and said it was supposed to be on their intranet for teachers. But today, all the links were available. So you can read the questions ahead of time and let me know what you think.
5Essentials 2016 Survey Questions
5Essentials Communication Kit for Delaware
5Essentials Phase 1 Training/Orientation for Delaware
When I emailed Alison May at the DOE about this last week, this was her response:
“The Delaware School Success Framework (DSSF) will include information to highlight performance across multiple domains. Based upon significant stakeholder feedback, information about school climate and culture will be provided through student, teacher and parent surveys. The Department recently selected the UChicago Impact, a nonprofit organization focused on K-12 education at the University of Chicago, as the state’s vendor to administer the surveys. UChicago Impact’s “5Essentials” (5E) is an evidence-based system designed to drive improvement in schools nationwide. Currently school administrators are signing up for a related training. So likely that is the restricted access. They likely can see that page when they sign into the site. I’ll alert the web folks that the tab should be on the intranet as well if it is confusing.”
A year ago, the United States Department of Education really pushed 5Essentials for survey use. It looks like Delaware took the bait. Oddly enough, I can find no contract for this company anywhere on the State Contract website, nor could I find any payments going to 5Essentials, Urban Education Institute, UChicago Impact or the University of Chicago. So who is paying for this and who holds the contract? In doing an exhaustive search, the contract number for this was DOE_2015-15SuccessSurvey_RFP, but it shows no awarded bidder under the Awarded Vendors or Awarded Contracts. But we do know what was in the Request for Proposal (RFP) and who put in bids for it:
Delaware DOE School Success Survey RFP
Solicited Bids for Delaware DOE School Success Survey
So once again DOE, why is there no contract with this company for the public to see? We have seen this before with contracts with American Institutes for Research in regards to DCAS and the Smarter Balanced Assessment. When information like this is missing, it always makes me suspicious. Sounds like Dr. Godowsky may want to look into why the DOE cherry-picks which contracts the public should see. Interesting that the State of Delaware links to the bid website page in a section called “transparency”…
Earlier in the summer, I received a letter sent from the Red Clay Consolidated School District to the Delaware Department of Education and Secretary of Education Mark Murphy. Red Clay was upset because they were not being given the promised amount designated to them for the priority schools. The DOE responded shortly after, and I published both of them. I have heard the situation has been resolved, but nothing has been made public. In fact, I stumbled across an email from the DOE to Red Clay from last November strongly suggesting they would be sending $750,000 a year to each of the Red Clay priority schools. But the bottom line for each school in Red Clay is around $366,000.00.
So where did all that “promised” funding go? The way I see it, each priority school is short about $400,000 a year. There are six priority schools. That adds up to about $2.4 million dollars. I wonder where oh where the DOE could have allocated that money too…If Red Clay somehow compromised with the DOE, I have yet to know about it. But I ran across this little bit of information today. The Delaware DOE is paying a company called Mass Insight $2,445,000.00 for three years worth of work with “turnaround school support”. The contract for this disappeared on the state contract website for a little while, but it’s back now. What’s interesting is the last time I looked there were only 3 bidders for the project when it was still up for bids. By the time all was said and done, there were 13 bidders, and the last was Mass Insight and they got the contract. Nothing suspicious three….
To see this whole saga play out, check out the original RFP for the School Turnaround contract….
And then take a look at the bidders. It’s like a who’s who of education reform companies in that bunch!
Last, but definitely not least, the awarded contract letter. Sent to the very last bidder at the last minute I’m sure!
Now if the name Mass Insight sounds familiar, that’s because DOE used them back in 2010 and 2011 when they first started labeling turnaround schools. Back then they called them partnership zone schools, or PZ for short. Mass Insight was controversial then, so much so that someone started a blog called Mass Inciter. It was short-lived but you can still go to it if you Google them.
The DOE and their magic math. They have Governor Markell and Coach Murphy make a big grandstand on the steps of Warner Elementary School a year ago and publicly name these six “failing” schools. Emails I posted in a series of articles last Spring showed how the DOE had no clue about how to get “those schools”, so they worked like mad for over a month coming up with the exact formula to get them labeled as “priority schools”. Jack gave his big speech, and promised $5 million dollars to six schools. He never told us half of those funds were going to an outside vendor! That’s just like the DOE and Markell. Screw over the schools that need resources the most but make the districts feel like crap if they don’t comply.
So while the DOE spends $2.445 million dollars over the next three years, and that’s just on THIS contract, and these schools don’t get the funds they were promised, who can we blame then? Jack will be gone. Coach will be gone. You can’t blame Godowsky, he wasn’t there when this went down. Will a new Governor keep the whacky regime heading the different areas at DOE now? I doubt it. You can only play pin the tail on Penny Schwinn so much, but she answers to someone. But Mass Insight will still get their cash cause the State of Delaware signed a contract with them. And we can’t waste the money, so let’s just spend it!
The legislators need to, pardon my French, get their heads out of their asses and actually get this DOE under control. Lord knows what kind of damage they can do in the next 16 months! I’m getting tired of being the ONLY one finding out this information. The legislators should be all over the DOE, but they aren’t. The ones that do question the DOE get shunned by their own party! This is Jack’s world, and us little peons are just living in it. There must be something that can be done… oh yeah, there is and I’m about to do it!
The Delaware Department of Education has a Request For Proposal (RFP) for middle-school students to have “blended” learning in the World Immersion Program. I called this last October! Rodel has been pimping the whole personalized learning thing for the past year, and I am sure it will be a highlight of their latest Vision fest in September. Blended learning and personalized learning are essentially the same thing. The RFP states they want students in 6th to 8th grade to be able to take their time learning another language.
World Immersion, on the surface, looks great. But it is having the undesired effect in some schools of causing special needs students and low-performing students to not be able to participate in this program. It is already making it’s mark in Capital and Caesar Rodney. Students from one school in a district are moving to other ones because this program is offered at that school. This is creating a shift to occur, whereby some schools will do well and others won’t. And the districts are the ones doing this! Check out the below RFP and please let me know what you think of this latest venture. I know some teachers who agree with me on a lot who think World Immersion and personalized learning are great things, but I just see it as something that will separate the “strong” from the “weak”. And don’t forget, this is all Governor Markell’s baby. What happens to those schools in districts in a few years that have all the most high-needs students while all the “smart” ones are at the high-performing schools learning Chinese or Spanish? The way Delaware sets up certain schools to fail continues to astonish me! I’m going to predict this now: either Schoology or 2Revolutions will get this contract!
In March, Governor Markell randomly popped up at a Delaware State Board of Education meeting to announce a Statewide Review of Educational Opportunities. The State Board did a yes sir and got to work right away on this. It’s basically a review of what’s working in Delaware and using that mold to copy in different schools. And of course, this is open for interpretation by the entity conducting the research. But is that the State Board, the DOE, or Markell? Hell no! They will have their focus group with all the “stakeholders” (basically whoever they can find that blindly agree with them). But the real work will be done by an outside vendor. The bid proposal went up June 15th, and closed July 15th. These are the bidders:
American Institutes for Research (already our testing vendor for the Smarter Balanced Assessment, no conflict of interest there)
Cross & Joftus (never heard of them)
Public Consulting Group (good old PCG, data-tech company that already handles all the Medicaid reimbursement to special education providers and saves the state a lot of money while we pay them a lot of money)
So what was in the actual RFP?
Yeah, more ways the DOE can suck up even more money, throw it away on something we know will come back as saying: more charters, more magnets, more “World Immersion”. So how about saving the money and just write the damn report yourselves!
You wouldn’t know the Delaware Department of Education is tightening spending after their budget increase was slashed in half last week by the Joint Finance Committee. Just this month alone, they put out seven bid proposals. These proposals are for priority school programs, teacher quality, the proposed school report card, and more. Does anyone think it is a coincidence the 148th General Assembly will not be in session when all of these contracts are finalized?
I suppose the DOE would have to put a contract out for individual priority school leaders because it would not be an ongoing position. All of these positions report to Chief Accountability Office Penny Schwinn, not the districts involved- Christina and Red Clay.
And we can’t forget the school report card program, otherwise known as the grade your local school accountability game. Did anyone else know this will go live on August 24th, 2015?
But lest we forget, the DOE has four bid proposals in regards to teachers. Because we can never have enough taxpayer money going out to improve teachers, right DOE? I’m sure most of these are the brainchild of the Teacher Leader Effectiveness Unit, under the very watchful eye of Chris Ruszkowski…
That’s a whole lot of professional services the DOE is requesting. Is this the sole purpose of the DOE’s Accountability and Assessment Office and the Teacher Leader Effectiveness Unit, to serve as the middle men between our schools and these education reform companies? It sure seems like that. It’s very rare where you see any of them doing the actual work themselves, aside from taking other companies words, mixing them up, and presenting them to the State Board of Education at their monthly meetings. Meanwhile, over 130,000 students in the state are suffering from a severe lack of resources in their classrooms…
The following is a list of ALL the current Delaware Department of Education contracts, when they began and when the contract ends. I have also included if it is a Delaware company, if the contract can be extended, and anything odd about it. A few of these are just random contracts, but some contain some very interesting information. Our state DOE is paying tons of money to outside vendors that are simply data coaches. With Race to the Top kaput, how much money can the state keep handing out to these organizations? Some of these companies are very new, as in created in the last five years.
DOE1312-STARS EVAL Delaware Stars for Early Success Evaluation 8010 DOE 6/15/2013 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: The Rand Corporation, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1312-StarsEval_AN.pdf
DOE1309-INFRASTRUC Infrastructure Fund for Early Learning Programs 8010 DOE 4/1/2013 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Children and Families First, Inc., Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1309-INFRAS_AN.pdf Delaware Company
DOE 14017-CG 2.0 Common Ground 2.0 8613 DOE 7/8/2014 6/30/2015, Awarded Vendor: Solution Tree, Inc., Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_14017-CG_AN.pdf Extension Available, Delaware Company (website shows as based in Indiana)
DOE1311-ELLI Early Learning Leadership Initiative (ELLI) 8010 DOE 6/15/2013 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: National-Louis University, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1311-ELLI_AN.pdf
DOE12013-RecruitWeb Statewide Recruitment Website Talent Management Portal 8312 DOE 4/26/2013 10/21/2017, Awarded Vendor: SearchSoft Solutions, Inc. Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_12013-Recruit_AN.pdf ***updated: IS on DE Online Checkbook, must have been a quirk, nothing showing for FY 2015 as of yet***
DOE13001-DPAS-II Technology-based Educator Evaluation Management System (DPAS-II) 8111 DOE 5/6/2013 7/15/2015, Awarded Vendor: BloomBoard, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_13001-DPAS_AN.pdf ***one of the owners, Jason Lange, worked for New Schools Venture Fund, an education focused non-profit venture philanthropy firm***
DOE1310-COMPENSATI Compensation, Retention and Education Awards (CORE) 8010 DOE 5/1/2013 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Delaware Association For The Education Of Young Children, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1310-COMPENSATI_AN.pdf Delaware Company ***on website for DAEYC when you go to Board of Directors it is password protected but other online sources do show who they are***
DOE1414-FLOORPLAN School Floor Plans 8110 DOE 7/1/2014 6/30/2015, Awarded Vendor: ABHA Architects, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1414-FLOORPLAN_AN.pdf Delaware Company, Extension Available
DOE1313-SAHE Teacher Preparation Improvement 8613 DOE 12/20/2013 6/15/2015, Awarded Vendors: University of Delaware AND Wilmington University, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1313-TeacherPrep_AN.pdf Both Delaware Companies
DOE2014-07 Delaware Commission on Early Education and the Economy 8010 DOE 1/1/2014 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Ranie Good (Strategic Goods), Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_201407-EarlyEd_AN.pdf Delaware Company, Extension Available
DOE2013-04PRVDRENGMT Early Learner Provider Engagement 8010 DOE 1/1/2014 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Delaware Association for the Education of Young Children, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_201304-EarLearnerPro_AN.pdf Extension Available, Delaware company
DOE1403SupptAdvmt Services To Support Advancement of Select Initiative/Early Learning Challenge 8010 DOE 10/1/2013 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Susan Mitchell, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1403-SupptAdvmt_AN.pdf Extension Available
DOE1416-PAT RFP Parents As Teachers 8613 DOE 7/1/2014 6/30/2017, Awarded Vendors: Christina School District- Parent Early Education Center AND Lake Forest School- Delaware Early Childhood Center, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1416-PAT_AN.pdf Both Delaware Companies, Extension Available
DOE1317-DelSchool Communications Campaign For Delaware Public Schools 8210 DOE 5/6/2014 4/15/2016, Awarded Vendor: GMMB Inc. Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1317-DelSchool_AN.pdf
DOE 1412-DECommEnga Community Engagement and Marketing for the Early Learning Challenge 8210 DOE 2/1/2014 12/31/2015, Awarded Vendor: Donna Marie King, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1412-DECommEnga_AN.pdf Delaware Company, Extension Available
DOE1415-ALT ROUTE Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification Evaluation 8613 DOE 7/15/2014 2/28/2015, Awarded Vendor: Tembo, Inc. Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1415-ALT_ROUTE_AN.pdf
DOE-12001MIDDLESCHOOL Middle School College Preparedness Curriculum 8613 DOE 6/15/2012 1/31/2015, Awarded Vendors: Achieve 3000 Inc. AND Carnegie Learning, Inc. AND Compass Learning, Inc. Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_GSS12001_AN4rev.pdf, Previous Awarded Vendor but Removed: College Board, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_GSS12001_AN1.pdf, Adds Compass Learning, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_GSS12001_AN2.pdf, Removes College Board: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_GSS12001_AN3.pdf Achieve 3000 Inc. is a Delaware Company, Extension Available
DOE1207-DandA test Drug and Alcohol Testing – School Transportation 8512 DOE 1/1/2012 12/31/2016, Awarded Vendor: i3Screen, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1207DAtest_AN.pdf
DOE1409 ARTC Prep Alternative Route To Teacher Certification Coursework/Clinical Prep. Program 8610 DOE 9/19/2014 8/1/2017, Awarded Vendor: Relay Graduate School of Education, Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1409-ARTCPrep_AN.pdf ***wrote about this fast-track teacher program in Race To The Top/Rodel/Markell article***
DOE 1418-PLCs Job-Embedded Educator Supports to the State’s Profl Learning Communities (PLC) 8613 DOE 9/15/2014 6/30/2015, Awarded Vendor: Amplify Education, Inc., Contract: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_1418-PLCs_AN.pdf
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!
The document in the article below this one, about Penny Schwinn’s presentation to the Delaware Department of Education went over many topics, including a student growth model. It talked about an RFP, which is an overview of what prospective vendors can look at to determine if they want to bid on the project. I have located the RFP on the state contract page. It is interesting with the wording for teacher evaluations….
The Season Of Myths 