Members Of U.S. Senate & Congress Tell John King To Kill Supplement Not Supplant Regulation!

Today, twenty-five Republicans in both the U.S. Senate and House Education committees told U.S. Secretary of Education to kill the “supplement not supplant” regulation that has drawn the ire of the majority of the teaching profession in America.  In a nutshell, this regulation would completely change the way Title I funds are disbursed to schools, would cause severe damage to the teaching profession, and would grant Title I funds to schools that are not Title I schools.  I wish some Democrat members of these committees would speak up!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Press Office
November 7, 2016	(202) 226-9440
25 Senate, House Education Committee Members: Education Department Should Withdraw Rule That Violates “the Unambiguously Expressed Intent of Congress” Proposed “supplement not supplant” regulation could harm students, schools, and teachers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Twenty-five Republican members of the Senate and House education committees today urged the Department of Education to withdraw its proposed “supplement not supplant” regulation, saying it “violates the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress,” and called on the department to instead work with Congress to implement the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act as it is written. The regulatory proposal would change the longstanding requirement that prevents school districts from using federal Title I funds as a replacement for state and local funds in low-income schools. In comments submitted to Education Secretary John King, the members said the rule “draws broad and inaccurate conclusions about what Congress intended when amending the [‘supplement not supplant’] provision that are not supported by the statutory text and violate clear and unambiguous limitations on the Secretary’s authority.” The members said certain provisions of the rule are “unlawful, unnecessary and could result in harmful consequences to [local educational agencies], schools, teachers, and students.” Specifically, the rule dictates to states and local school districts how they should distribute state and local funds, which violates the law and its prohibitions on the Secretary. They write: In Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Supreme Court established that the test for reviewing an agency’s interpretation of a statute consists of two related questions. First, the question is “whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter” because the court and agency must “give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Second, if “Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue” or “if the statute is silent or ambiguous” the question is “whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.” They continue: The intent of Congress in amending the SNS requirements under Title I of ESEA is clear and unambiguous in directly speaking to the issue of how LEAs must demonstrate compliance. As the Court has held, that should be “the end of the matter” for the Department, which through rulemaking should “give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Instead, the NPRM violates this principle in imposing new requirements that reflect the Department’s own construction of the statute. We therefore strongly urge the Department to rescind this additional language and work with Congress in a bipartisan, bicameral way to implement ESSA as Congress clearly intended. The following outlines areas of agreement, and then describes the ways in which the Department’s proposal violates the letter and intent of the statute and could lead to negative results for low-income students and schools if it were implemented. The letter was signed by Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN), along with Senate committee members Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R- ME), Michael B. Enzi (R-WY), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and House committee members Mike Bishop (R-MI), Bradley Byrne (R-AL), Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Joe Heck (R-NV), Luke Messer (R-IN), Phil Roe (R-TN), Todd Rokita (R-IN), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA), Tim Walberg (R-MI), and Joe Wilson (R-SC). To read the letter, click here.

You don’t have to click on the link, you can read the entire letter below:

View this document on Scribd

ESSA: Parents & Educators MUST Attend The Upcoming Meetings & Educate Themselves On The Law!

The Delaware Dept. of Education will have three more Every Student Succeeds Act Community Engagement meetings in the next week.  They held a meeting in Georgetown on Tuesday.  The next three meetings will take place in Wilmington, Middletown, and Dover.  The DOE is “requiring” participants to register through a company called Event Brite.  Links to register can be found here.

I will stress with all the urgency I can muster that ALL public education parents attend these meetings.  Before you go, I would familiarize yourself with the federal law.  You can read the full text of the law here.  It is a very long law with a lot of repeated jargon and “legalese” in it.  The Delaware State Board of Education and Delaware DOE has put up many links to it on their websites, but a lot of that is open to interpretation.  As well, U.S. Secretary of Education John King has issued “proposed rulemaking” which are potential regulations.  These regulations are VERY controversial.  You can read those regulations here and here.

These are my major concerns with ESSA:

By allowing states to have more flexibility, many states have already created long-term plans based on the prior federal mandates.  Far too many in our state DOEs follow what the corporate education reformers want and give a false illusion of “stakeholder input”.

The Delaware DOE has given NO indication whatsoever that they will even consider changing the state standards away from Common Core even though they can certainly do this according to ESSA.  The US Secretary of Education isn’t required to approve these standards.  The states merely have to give an assurance that their standards will follow the law.

Student data still isn’t protected to parents satisfaction.  To stop this data from going out, they need to restore the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA) to pre-2011 levels

Bouncing off the previous statement, by allowing more social service and health-based practitioners into our schools, there is a serious question regarding what applies to FERPA and what applies to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

 

John King’s regulations would keep the 95% participation rates for state assessments with consequences for schools and districts.

John King’s Title I regulations would enact a “supplement not supplant” these funds.  This is in sharp contrast with federal law and he was called out on this the other day by the US House Education and Workforce Committee.

There is far too much talk of competency-based education through computer adaptive assessments.  That is just lingo for personalized learning.  This law would allow for classrooms to become online all the time.  There are severe dangers with this in regards to the downgrading of the teacher profession, far too much screen time for students, and the quality of the educational material.  As well as severe data privacy concerns.  In fact, there are incentives for schools to adopt personalized learning.

While the law forbids the US DOE from forcing or coercing states to implement any state standards, like Common Core, many states already have these in place and spent years embedding them into every facet of public education.

The law calls for state accountability “report cards”, based on performance of the state assessment, but the tests are not required to be exactly the same for all students.  So the state assessments are not a true measurement since they will be different for each test-taker.  Delaware set up their report card last year under the name of the “Delaware School Success Framework” but they inserted a very punitive participation rate penalty if a school dips below the 95% participation rate which can’t use parent opt-out in those calculations according to the law.

State assessments will not be required to have questions at the appropriate grade level for students.

ESSA requires any plan to be submitted to the State DOE, State Board of Education, the Governor and the state legislature.  To date, the Delaware DOE has not had “meaningful” consultation with the Delaware General Assembly about ESSA.

The law specifically states that all choice schools should have priority given to the lowest-achieving students, but Delaware allows for charter schools to have enrollment preferences that allow for higher-achieving students to have distinct advantages, especially in our magnet schools and charter schools like Charter School of Wilmington.

I have many other concerns with ESSA, but these ones stand out for me.  I am coming at this from the perspective of a parent.  I know educators have concerns over some of this as well.

Kline Calls John King’s Regulations A Convoluted Scheme

The Chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee just issued a press release on the regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act.  He blasted U.S. Secretary of Education John King and said he needs to be stopped!  We can all agree on this one Rep. Kline!  But here’s the deal: these proposed regulations have been out since the end of May.  It is now the last day of August.  Coming out with press releases is good, but you need to have the entire Congress get together for an immediate hearing and strip King of his power.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Press Office
August 31, 2016	(202) 226-9440
Kline Statement on Education Department’s Unprecedented Regulatory Proposal “The Department of Education is threatening to unilaterally impose a multi-billion dollar regulatory tax on our nation’s schools.”

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. John Kline (R-MN), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, issued the following statement today regarding the Department of Education’s unprecedented and unlawful “supplement, not supplant” regulatory proposal:The Department of Education is threatening to unilaterally impose a multi-billion dollar regulatory tax on our nation’s schools. This punitive policy will unleash havoc on schools and their students at a time when education leaders should be focused on helping children succeed in the classroom. America’s poorest neighborhoods will be hit the hardest as communities are forced to relocate teachers, raise taxes, or both. Any supposed “flexibility” is really a limited set of bad choices dictated by the secretary of education. This is not at all what Congress intended, and those who helped enact this law cannot honestly believe differently. What the secretary is proposing is unprecedented and unlawful. The only way to make this right is to scrap this convoluted regulatory scheme immediately. Members of Congress came together to pass bipartisan reforms that are designed to help every child receive an excellent education, and we will not allow this administration to undermine these reforms with its own extreme, partisan agenda.

# # #