At 9am this morning, Delaware Governor Jack Markell will sign an Executive Order to promote stakeholder engagement for the Every Student Succeeds Act. The event, taking place at Lewis Elementary School in Wilmington, will deal with the state plan for ESSA. Each state in the country must submit a plan for how they will carry out ESSA.
I have to admit I’m very curious to see what this Executive Order will be. I find it ironic Markell would sign something mandatory like this. Markell got a ton of stakeholder engagement during the House Bill 50/Opt Out saga. He didn’t listen then, and I see no sign of him listening to anyone now. He still hasn’t signed House Bill 399, dealing with teacher evaluations. This would have been the perfect place for him to do it. I have to doubt this will either be something very benign and won’t mean anything or he is up to something.
The State Board of Education in Arkansas issued a press release last week calling for more participation in planning around their state accountability system. The last time Delaware tried something similar it met with a great deal of controversy because of a lack of stakeholders. Come back later today for a recap of what Markell is planning.
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