After a crucial Senate Executive Committee hearing, Wali Rushdan was given a unanimous Senate vote for the Delaware State Board of Education about an hour ago.
The Senate Executive Committee met with Rushdan right before the full Senate vote. I must give props to State Senator Nicole Poore for tackling the elephant in the room. She just came right out and asked Rushdan about his affiliation with the Family Foundations Academy Board of Directors.
I heard about this one last week. Tony Allen, the Chair of the Wilmington Education Committee, warned about this a year ago. Now the Delaware American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the Delaware NAACP and Delawareans For Educational Opportunity, filed a lawsuit against the State of Delaware over education funding. Unbeknownst to most Delawareans, however, another Delaware ACLU complaint disappeared.
According to The News Journal, the Delaware Dept. of Education released the following statement about the suit:
The Delaware Department of Education has not seen any complaint from these groups and will respond to any litigation against it in court. It is the goal of the Department to assist Delaware’s schools in preparing every student to succeed in college or career and life.
Yeah, pretty much the same thing the DOE said back in 2014 when a complaint against them and Red Clay was filed with the Office of Civil Rights over discrimination in Delaware charter schools.
Who is named in the lawsuit? Governor Carney, Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting, State Treasurer Ken Simpler, and the heads of each county finance office.
To read the complaint, please see below with some exclusive news appearing shortly after.
Jessica Bies at the News Journal wrote in the above article:
According to the lawsuit, the state is failing students from low-income families, students with disabilities and students who are learning English. Test scores for these disadvantaged students are far below state standards set by the Delaware Department of Education in its new plan, the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA.
What the lawsuit wants seems to contradict with what Delaware Governor John Carney wants:
But Gov. John Carney, listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, has said he is not in favor of needs-based funding, in part because it gives extra money to school districts serving at-risk kids without holding them accountable for how they use it. He has also said there is neither the financial nor political support for such a measure.
Yeah, okay Carney. Whatever. We both know how you exert pressure on the General Assembly to do YOUR bidding.
But whatever happened to that old complaint filed in December, 2014? The one the Delaware ACLU filed with the Office of Civil Rights alleging discrimination in certain Delaware charter schools? The Office of Civil Rights rejected that complaint. This never made the press and the Delaware ACLU never released anything on it. Nothing can be found on the Delaware ACLU or OCR websites. But it happened. I reached out to the Delaware ACLU early last week to get information on this. They directed me to Richard Morse, who is now with Delaware Community Legal Aid. Mr. Morse did not return my call. I guess someone wanted that complaint to die a quick and painful death.
This lawsuit cannot be ignored though. It was filed with the Delaware Chancery Court today. This could be a game-changer folks!
On Facebook last week, I wrote about knowing some things coming up but I couldn’t write about them yet. This was two of them.
Delaware Governor John Carney is throwing Delaware’s public school system under the bus and he will begin this transition with the Christina School District. Yesterday, he sent an unannounced delegation to Springfield, Massachusetts that included far more than those on his public schedule. This group included Assistant Superintendent Noreen LaSorsa, Wilmington Education Improvement Commission Chair Tony Allen (who received his invite on September 23rd), Christina Education Association President Darren Tyson, and an unnamed member of the Delaware State Education Association (which was their legislative liason, Kristin Dwyer). I’m sure Carney’s Education Policy Advisor Jon Sheehan attended as well.
The News Journal covered the trip in an article by Jessica Bies:
Despite school board members asking to be equal partners in the effort, there were no members of that group on the trip.
Carney apparently seems to think Tony Allen is a better choice to bring on trips about Christina than the actual board members:
Tony Allen, chair of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, on the other hand, has known about the trip since at least Sept. 23, he confirmed Friday. He said he was invited sometime before that.
In the article, it said Board President George Evans received an invite “very recently” but was unable to attend. Board Vice President Fred Polaski said he didn’t even know about it until a reporter called him.
Christina Board member John Young had plenty to say about this trip on his Facebook account this evening:
Delaware officials touring a Massachusetts effort run by an unelected governing board under a 501(c)-3, just like DE charters for possible use in Christina. On its face it certainly appears that Governor John Carney does not intend to partner with Christina, but deploy untested, unproven ideas on us. I honestly took him at his word Tuesday, now it seems like I may have been wrong to do so. Google Springfield Empowerment Zone if you want the 411 on this ed reform trainwreck that’s seemingly on the way. I am disappointed that mere days after agreeing to engage us within the rules that govern public meetings and board actions, a delegation was sent out of state to “research” a model to insert into CSD and usurp local control, possibly placing millions and millions of dollars into the hands of an appointed board without any elected representation from Christina.
Carney is playing the exact same kind of education games Jack Markell played. I’m not sure which is worse at this point, but at the rate Carney is going I have to go with our latest corporate education reform Governor. What makes Carney so dangerous is his throw it in your face backdoor dealings. He doesn’t care who he pisses off. As long as he has his select cabal to go along with his plans. Transparency is a thing of the past with this Governor. He is initiating very scumbag moves.
There can never be public trust with John Carney. Never. He has proven that multiple times. He is getting our legislators to think his hocus-pocus public-private partnership scams are perfectly okay. There is no collaboration with Carney. If you don’t go along with his vision, he will go ahead and do it anyway. The very fact that Carney wants to emulate a flash-in-the-pan scam like this where the “partnership” creates a board to oversee these schools separate from the local education agency board of education where the state picks the four board members and the district the other three shows an immediate state control of Christina’s Wilmington schools. But his contempt for local authority was not missed by Young in the News Journal article:
It has become clear the trip was planned in advance of that meeting, school board member John Young said, which concerns him because if the Springfield model ends up being the basis for the Christina partnership, it would suggest the outcome was predetermined and the school board didn’t actually have any say in the matter.
That’s right Mr. Young. Carney doesn’t want the Christina board to have any say because he knows they would say no. This is priority schools all over again except this time Carney is very upfront about selling these schools off to a corporate entity. Call it a non-profit all you want. I’m sure the overlords of this non-profit would exact their pound of flesh from the district in the form of certain salaries and operating expenses.
Where is DSEA President Mike Matthew on this? He has been very quiet about all this since it came out in the past week. I would think, given his resistance to the priority schools fiasco, he would oppose this. But he has been silent and I would like to know why. Especially given what Bies said in the article:
Legislators in Massachusetts say the program is “compelling” and has made it possible for the state to effect educational change without seizing local control from school districts. Yet, teachers unions have complained that it removes control of schools from local officials and puts it more in the hands of the state.
What is to stop this from spreading out from Christina? I have no doubt Carney will push this on other districts as well. Especially when their Smarter Balanced Assessment scores don’t meet his fake standards. Once again, the Christina Board of Education will have to stand up against the evil empire (the state) to prevent further erosion in local control even though Carney’s crappy vision ridiculously suggests it would give more local control.
I have no doubt Carney will sell more of his public-private partnership encyclopedia salesman malarkey throughout his term as Governor (a one-term Governor I hope and pray). But what he is really doing is selling his state away. He is evaporating transparency with his Family Services Cabinet Council and the non-public board meetings of his public-private partnership board at a state level. The Delaware Department of Education seems to be okay with this and I have never been more annoyed with Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting for going along with this dog and pony show. But I suppose that’s why Carney picked her for this post. She has become Carney’s yes woman. But what should I expect from the Rodel-Vision circle of followers? This is not the change promised by Carney in terms of the Delaware DOE. They aren’t a support network for schools. He has found a way for them to micro-manage our schools more than ever with this nonsense. But he wraps it in his public-private partnership bow.
As for Tony Allen, he is being used in a big way for the second time by a Delaware Governor. Markell used him and threw him out with the whole WEIC plan. Now Carney is sucking him in with his big vision for Christina. I would think Allen would be too busy with his new Del State job, but I guess not. Not listed in the article is another attendee, Nnamdi Chukwuocha. This Wilmington City Councilman actually thought it was a good idea for corporations to take over public schools in the infamous Christina priority schools board meeting when he gave his public comment back in September, 2014. More of Carney surrounding himself with those who will suck up to him, allow themselves to be used, or whatever empty promise or vapor he whispered in their ears.
The Delaware DOE, State Board of Education, and our past two Governors have had a consistent hard-on for the Christina School District. Once they get their hooks into them it is only a matter of time until the infection spreads. Delaware is a small state so it would not come as a shock to me that we are a model state to completely destroy the word public in public education.
This whole thing stinks like hell and I hope Delawareans who do care about public education wise up and stand up fast to this fake Governor and his shallow followers. If Mike Matthews is the man I believe him to be, he will fight this tooth and nail. If he even entertains this notion, I will publicly shame him and my support for DSEA will be done. If he does not publicly go against this, it will prove he ran for President of DSEA for the power.
The Springfield model is a fake. It is just another way for Carney and other corporate education reform politicians to erode local control away and give power to states who in turn give out taxpayer money to idiotic companies who have taken more money away from the classroom than anything else since public education was first invented.
I am beginning to doubt any sincerity from John Carney. This whole district consolidation task force seems to be the big distraction. “Look here and pay attention to that while I spin my web of lies somewhere else in places you would never think to look.” The problem with Carney is his ego. He really is as transparent as Saran Wrap. I don’t look at him and think, “what a great politician I can trust”. I think, “That guy can’t be trusted at all. He’s up to something.” We all know the type. But that seems to be okay for over half of Delaware who put the guy in power with an empty campaign that essentially had no platform we hadn’t heard before. This is what happens when you reward a false sense of entitlement Delaware voters.
A University of Delaware class called Documentary Production produced a video called “The Deed: Fixing Education In The First State”. The cinematography of the video was good, but I feel it should have been renamed “Fixing Education In Wilmington” because that was pretty much what the video was about.
It gave a good history of segregation before 1954, but after that it focused solely on Wilmington. But I found the stereotypes to be a bit too much. The video primarily focuses on two Caucasian mothers. One is in what appears to be a classroom, and the other is out in the suburbs in a very nice home. When they do show African-Americans (aside from Tony Allen), it is primarily urban Wilmington. As if there are no African-Americans in the suburbs.
The TedX Wilmington videos shown in this are from Tony Allen, the Chair of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, and Dr. Paul Herdman, the CEO of the Rodel Foundation. Other folks shown in the video are Dan Rich from the University of Delaware and one of the main WEIC players, Atnre Alleyne from DelawareCAN and TeenSHARP, and Brandywine Superintendent Dr. Mark Holodick. There are cameos from Delaware Teacher of the Year Wendy Turner and the not-even sworn in yet Christina Board Member Meredith Griffin Jr.
Here is a newsflash. There are 19 school districts in Delaware. Up and down the state. I love Wilmington, but if you are going to make a video called Fixing Education In The First State, you have to focus on the whole state. This was one of the biggest mistakes WEIC made, focusing on Wilmington and expecting the rest of state to pick up the tab to fix Wilmington issues. Yes, Wilmington is the biggest city, but many issues with poverty and low-income exist all over Delaware.
Like most discussions about “fixing” education in Delaware, we go through the history and the present situation. Add some current events like the upcoming Colonial Referendum to make it current. Show some shots from a WEIC meeting a few months ago when Governor John Carney and Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting attended for some extra oomph and importance.
I recognize segregation in Wilmington schools and what school choice has done to Northern New Castle County as major problems in Delaware. But there are other equally important issues, only one of which was briefly touched on in the video- education funding. We also have special education with a rapidly growing population of students with disabilities, standardized testing, a growing population of English Language Learners, a General Assembly that generally makes some very bad choices for our schools, bullying in our schools,the continued fall-out from the Race To The Top accountability era, a State Auditor who doesn’t audit school districts every year even though that office has to by state law, referenda, a new Governor that is putting a ton of cuts towards school districts (but not charters), the Rodel Foundation’s stranglehold on decisions made in education, data mining of personal student information, and the upcoming and very real threats of competency-based education, personalized learning, an eventual replacement of real teachers with glorified moderators instead in a digital technology wonderland, and the upcoming Blockchain technology which will institute a full-blown “digital badge” scenario, tracking children from cradle to grave and predetermined careers and what their societal worth will be. And yes, even Social-Emotional Learning is in the process of getting hijacked by the corporate education reformers (more on that soon).
Many of these things aren’t on the radar as much as they should be. We are still bickering over how to “fix” education but we are stumbling with talking about what is right in education. We are in a constant state of flux, in a state of constant improvement. This obsessive need for improvement is actually what is fracturing education the most in Delaware. The problem comes when we try to measure all these changes by one standardized test.
For an eleven minute video, it would be impossible to catch all the issues in Delaware education. But showing very old videos of Tony Allen and Paul Herdman don’t do much for me. Most Delawareans really don’t know who the two of them are. Just because they have a TedX stage doesn’t give them more importance than a teacher giving a lecture to a class or a parent giving public comment at a school board meeting. Those are actually the voices we need to hear more of in Delaware education, the everyday citizen. Not a CEO of a “non-profit” making over $344,000 a year or a well-meaning Bank of America executive. Don’t get me wrong, I think Tony Allen is a great guy, but it has become more than obvious that WEIC isn’t heading towards the destination it dreamed of and it is time to move on. As for Dr. Paul “Rodel” Herdman, I have never been shy about my dislike of his “visions” for Delaware schools that have its roots in corporate profit.
We need to focus on what is going right in Delaware education and build from that. It begins at the grass-roots level, in the classroom. For that, the student and teacher voice are the most important. And then the parent. We go from one reform or initiative to the next, and the cycle goes on and on.
We can do it better ourselves but we won’t tell them that.
The Delaware State Board of Education could be shut down as of Tuesday. They face the Delaware Joint Legislative Overview and Sunset Committee. The State Board was put under review by the committee last year after some very rough years under former Governor Jack Markell. Many of the complaints circulate around their Executive Director, Donna Johnson. As well, many citizens and education organizations in the state feel the State Board has outlived their usefulness and just seem to perpetuate agendas brought forth by corporate education reform organizations such as the Rodel Foundation of Delaware and the Delaware Charter Schools Network. I wrote about their last meeting with the committee over a month ago. But I was able to be the sole attendee at a meeting yesterday where the State Board discussed their final meeting with the Sunset Committee and boy was it a doozy!
Instead of taking copious amounts of notes at the 2 hour Wilmington Education Improvement Commission meeting tonight, I decided to record it for video. Please keep in mind I am an amateur with this stuff. My laptop battery was about to run out half way through so I had to move my laptop away from the crowd to keep recording. All of the Governor Carney visit is visible and most of the Secretary of Education Bunting visit is as well. Once again, I apologize for the quality!
The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission will hold their next meeting on Tuesday, February 28th. On the agenda is an appearance by none other than Delaware Governor John Carney and Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting. This will be interesting!
This week, Carney gutted a proposed weighted funding formula for the FY2018 state budget stating there is no money for it. WEIC doesn’t work at all if the money isn’t in that budget either. The state is facing a $350-$400 million dollar budget deficit. In November, WEIC Chair Tony Allen publicly announced that if WEIC doesn’t go through he can foresee some type of legal action against the State of Delaware. Interestingly enough, WEIC member Meredith Griffin filed today to run for the Christina School District Board of Education for the election in May. That sets up that election for a four-person race with still another week to file for potential candidates. This week, issues of race and due process came up in Red Clay stemming from an incident at a basketball game between A.I. DuPont High School and Delaware Military Academy. Carney and Bunting are getting an hour to talk. That is actually a long time. I can’t say if I’ve ever heard Carney talk about education that long. I don’t know if all of these issues will come up at the meeting, but this meeting comes at a very interesting time. This will also be a big moment for Secretary Bunting as she is new in office and will be tasked with restricting the Delaware Dept. of Education.
WEIC and it’s earlier incarnation, WEAC, have been around for two and a half years. Eventually, WEIC presented a plan to send Christina Wilmington students to Red Clay along with several other initiatives throughout the state to improve education for high-needs students. After a long and drawn-out battle with the State Board of Education, WEIC’s plan turned into legislation. That legislation failed to pass in the Delaware Senate. New legislation extended the planning period for another year. But with this year’s budget deficit looking dismal, will WEIC get the bypass again? If it does, what will folks like Tony Allen and Jea Street’s next move be?
This could be a crowded meeting. Get there early. And what is up with five minutes of public comment? They may want to stretch that out!
In December of 2015, I posted 16 articles about who would make an impact on 2016. Did they truly have an impact and did they fizzle out? Many of them did have a huge impact, some fizzled out, and some didn’t do as much as I thought they might. You be the judge!
State Rep. David Bentz: Bentz had a relatively low-key rookie year in the Delaware House. He did get a bill passed and signed that bans the sale of Dextromethorphan to those under the age of 18. He did sit on many committees including Health & Human Services and Education. I expect Bentz will begin to rise in 2017 after running unopposed for his seat earlier this month. He did vote in support of the suspension of rules on the override of the House Bill 50 veto which won him some fast points in my book.
Henry Clampitt: Clampitt became very quiet about halfway through the year. He did help out the Delaware Charter Schools Network with some key legislation surrounding charter school audits. Over the summer he joined the board of Gateway Lab School. I am still predicting he will make a run for Red Clay’s board next year! Clampitt curtailed some of his online activity as well this year. Clampitt can usually be found at the occasional Red Clay board meeting cavorting with some of his friends.
Dr. Robert Andrzejewski: The Acting Superintendent of Christina had a huge year! And not all of it was good. He did help the cash-poor district in winning their referendum but that only introduced other problems. The fifteen charter schools that feed off of Christina students complained they weren’t getting enough money from Christina. After it became public and legislators were swarmed with complaints from parents and citizens, Secretary of Education Dr. Steven Godowsky backed off the changes that would have given more to the charters. In October, the charters filed a lawsuit against Christina and the Delaware DOE. Now news comes of a possible settlement. Bob A also had to contend with mold issues at Pulaski Elementary School and soon reports came in of other schools having mold issues as well. He set up an “Academy” at Christiana High School with very poor communication and transparency which led to all sorts of controversy. Bob A also introduced many “cash in the trash” contracts for vendors which the Christina board approved nearly every single time. Rumors continue to swirl about the potential of Bob A getting the Secretary of Education role under John Carney. It could happen which would make a lot of Bob A’s activities make an odd sort of sense. Fattening up his resume or being Bob A? Time will tell.
Delaware Governor Jack Markell: Jack always makes an impact. Whenever I see that smiling face, I know he is up to something. He successfully influenced enough Delaware House reps to vote no on a suspension of rules to override his veto of House Bill 50. But then many of those same legislators voted yes on a suspension of rules for a corporate tax bill. This rightfully earned Markell the wrath of many parents in Delaware. In fact, many of us beat the hell out of him over opt out on his own Facebook page before the vote. Instead of going up to Howard High School and dealing with the death of Amy Joyner Francis, Markell issued a brief statement and merrily went on his Common Core tour at Delaware schools. He pimped the Delaware Pathways to Prosperity program every single chance he could. He spoke at a conference on Blockchain technology and announced Delaware would get legislation going so Blockchain firms could incorporate in Delaware. He created the Governor’s ESSA Advisory Committee while issuing another executive order to create a Pathways Steering Committee that had its first meeting with no public notice. The “Education” Governor won some fancy-schmancy award from the National Association of State Boards of Education. Despite rumors, Markell firmly stated he was never a consideration for a Cabinet post in a Hillary Clinton administration (easy to say after the shocking upset when Donald Trump won the presidency). He continued to appear at press conferences and letters to the editor promoting corporate education reform which pretty much landed with a resounding thud in the minds of Delawareans. As Jack enters his final days as Delaware Governor, I don’t think history will be very kind to his legacy of putting corporations over people. But I will ask one boon of Jack Markell before he leaves his post: a chance to meet with him, do an interview, and get his side of the story on Delaware education. What do you say Jack? One for the road?
Delaware Governor John Carney: Unless you’ve been living in a hole the past few weeks, John Carney won the Governor’s seat by a landslide. Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see who Carney picks for his administration. He has been very quiet (as he was during the election) about what he is going to do. He came out with platforms on various subjects, but they were somewhat vague. As of today, he has only announced two members of his administration. This blogger has reached out to Carney many times with zero success, as recently as yesterday. I don’t want Carney and I to be at odds with each other. We will assuredly disagree on many things, but if he isn’t willing to sit down with me then I fear this will be the case. In education, Carney will have his hands full between whomever he picks for his next Secretary, education funding, ESSA implementation, and a budget deficit which will force the state to begin cutting items from the state budget. I expect Carney will be more low-key on many issues facing Delaware, but he should not be underestimated at all.
Delaware Senator David McBride: McBride was relatively low-key this year, but he did become the President Pro Tempore of the Delaware Senate when Senator Patti Blevins suffered a shocking loss earlier this month to Anthony Delcollo. But this title will not have as much importance since Delaware has a Lieutenant Governor again in the form of Bethany Hall-Long who will preside over the Delaware Senate.
Tony Allen: Allen was all over the place in 2016. State Board of Education meetings, ESSA Advisory Committees, Legislative Hall, and forums kept the Bank of America executive very busy. Allen stood his ground with the Delaware State Board of Education when they kept trying to change the redistricting language. When the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission’s redistricting bill failed to pass the Delaware General Assembly, Allen did save the plan by extending the timeline. It remains to be seen what Carney will do with the plan, especially given that deficit I told you about. Allen is serving on the transition team for Governor Carney. Earlier this month, Allen predicted another segregation lawsuit against the state based on Delaware schools, especially those in Wilmington. Allen did admit one of WEIC’s weaknesses was not including Kent and Sussex County representatives on the plan.
Ashley Sabo: The Red Clay mom of a special needs child had a very busy year. While she continued to fight for inclusion in Red Clay, she also held the district accountable for the lack of communication surrounding the plan. Sabo also adopted a foster child and became a Court Appointed Special Advocate as well as becoming the Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Orphan Care Coalition. I am very optimistic about Sabo’s future in Delaware and I see her as a rising young star who will become a very important voice for not only students with disabilities and foster children, but all citizens of The First State.
The Delaware Bloggers: It was an interesting year. Three longtime Delaware bloggers closed up shop this year: Transparent Christina, Kavips, and the Delaware Grapevine. The first two dealt with many education issues. For Transparent Christina, the beginning of the end came when the author of that blog discovered Facebook and all the fun he could have on there. Kavips ended his blog earlier this month capping off a ten-year run of what he viewed as “The Progressive Era” of Delaware politics. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of the enigmatic one and he will pop up somewhere once he/she gets his/her groove back once Donald Trump is inaugurated. Kilroy’s Delaware slowed down this year but that had more to do with fixing up his house at the beach than a lack of interest. Delaware Liberal provided a healthy dose of election news and dealt with the epic defeat of Hillary Clinton and bemoaned to rise of Donald Trump. A new blog by ex-Delaware DOE employee Atnre Alleyne called The Urgency of Now stirred up tons of controversy this year as teachers were blasted constantly on his blog. Another longtime blog, The Colossus of Rhodey, also ended. As for this blogger, now almost halfway through his third year, who knows what the future will bring. One sure thing is that change is inevitable but things stay the same in too many of the wrong places.
The Parents of Delaware Students: The parents of Delaware received a fatal blow when the Delaware House refused to suspend the rules to allow for an override of Markell’s House Bill 50 veto. The Delaware PTA received a hush order on opt-out from their National headquarters. Parents still opted their kids out, but it was comparable to 2015. The Delaware DOE has attempted to corral parents into their Every Student Succeeds Act Community Conversations, but I really hoped more parents would attend to lend their voices in opposition to the DOE’s crazy plans. Many parents attended referenda this year as Christina, Brandywine, and Cape Henlopen referendums passed. Not enough Indian River parents supported their referendum when it failed to pass last week. By and large, Delaware parents continue to get the shaft in education policy. I predict the voice of parents will rise in 2017 to unheard of levels. With national and state politics the way they are now, many parents will be pitched against each other with various events. One appointment of U.S. Secretary of Education for Betsy DeVos has already renewed a lot of debate about school choice, charter schools, and school vouchers. These arguments will heat up in 2017. Many parents of students with disabilities (as well as advocates) successfully thwarted an attempt at a very bad special education strategic plan at the Delaware DOE. Parents of special needs children are quickly learning that banding together in unison across various groups is more important than debating their differences. So much so that a two-day planning session for a new special education strategic plan will take place on December 8th and 9th.
Karen Field Rogers: While the first half of the year started very slow for the promotion of Field Rogers as the new Delaware Deputy Secretary of Education, she certainly made her mark in the second half as the Delaware DOE spokesperson at many ESSA meetings. The jury is still out on what Delaware’s ESSA plan will be. I can picture her still working at the Townsend Building under Governor John Carney. She is not really a subject of controversy down there.
Delaware Senator Colin Bonini: Bonini lost his bid for Delaware Governor as many predicted. But he did not do himself any favors by publicly announcing he would lose and continuing to call Carney his friend. Even if you think you are going to lose, you don’t make a spectacle of it. But he did answer a very long survey I gave all the candidates for Governor. Only Carney failed to respond to the survey, and I unintentionally left out Green Party candidate Andrew Groff. Bonini will still be in the Delaware Senate doing his thing, unless he gets a new job in the Carney administration. Whatever happened with Bonini’s recommendation for a Civil Rights Committee in the Delaware Senate?
Harrie Ellen Minnehan: She started the year as the Christina Board of Education President, but lost her gavel over the summer to the re-elected Elizabeth Paige. Minnehan overtly supported Paige’s opponent in the spring school board election. When board member David Resler announced he would not run again, Meg Mason won the election. Mason voted for Paige’s appointment as board president. The Christina board seems to still be at odds over many things but they will have to get it together soon for the sake of the district. I miss the fiery board that stood in unison against the Priority Schools debacle in the fall of 2015. Nothing against Minnehan, but the board lost a bit of that during her Presidency. Paige brings that temperament back to the board and they (along with every other board in the state) need to start speaking up now to fight for what is theirs. I must say, my favorite “HEM” moment in 2016 was when Minnehan blasted State Board of Education President Dr. Teri Quinn Gray during a WEIC meeting in Wilmington. I have no doubt her words were bubbling under the surface for a long time, going back to her days as the President of the Pencader charter school board.
The Delaware Met Kids: After causing a lot of concern in the fall of 2015, the students at Delaware Met said goodbye to the not even five-month old charter school in mid-January. The students went to various school districts and charter schools. But not until they caused enough chaos at the school to get an extra couple of days off.
The Seans: Sean Lynn gave a very stirring speech when the death penalty repeal bill hit the floor of the Delaware House. Ultimately, the House voted against the repeal, but federal rulings rendered the point moot for Delaware executions. Lynn was instrumental in crafting legislation for the WEIC redistricting bills, but the controversial redistricting effort did not pass the General Assembly. He did get several bills through dealing with courts and animal fighting. After a landmark first year in the House where six bills became law, Sean Matthews did not have any legislation signed by Governor Markell this year. But this didn’t stop Matthews from using his voice in support or opposition to many bills. Both Sean Lynn and Sean Matthews won their seats back for a 2nd term in the General Election after facing opposition. This will give them more of an entrenched status in the House. Both had a relatively quiet year, but I expect they will be re-energized and ready to go in January!
Braeden Mannering: The kid who melted Delaware hearts the past few years continued his 3B: Brae’s Brown Bags movement with growing success. In January, Braeden was invited to and attended President Obama’s State of the Union address. Later in the year, he was one of the speakers at a TedX conference in Wilmington. Braeden’s future is bright!
I will be doing this for 2017 beginning in December with those I think will make an impact in 2017. Some will be names seen on this list but others will be new faces.
The Progressive Democrats of Delaware will have a panel tonight on the subject of education funding. I was asked to be one of the panelists for this to which I happily accepted. But I’m up against some heavy hitters! One of the most knowledgeable experts on school district funding, Brian Stephan, will join myself, Tony Allen, and State Rep. Paul Baumbach on this important discussion. As well, the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission will receive the 2016 Bob Stachnik Progressive Courage Award for their advocacy efforts on improving education in Wilmington. Tony Allen is the Chair of WEIC. Brian Stephan serves on the Christina Citizens Budget Oversight Committee and is a contributor for Delaware Liberal. State Rep. Paul Baumbach is running unopposed for the 23rd State Rep. Seat which will give him his third consecutive term for the district.
I highly recommend coming out for this. The event begins at 7pm and runs until 8:30am. This will take place at the New Castle Democrat HQ at 19 East Commons Blvd., 2nd floor, in New Castle. I will gladly answer any question presented to the best of my ability but I do not consider myself an expert on this stuff. I know many facets but it is a very broad topic with many moving parts. But I do plan on talking about a few things I’m pretty sure none of the other panelists would mention as I have just discovered them myself. I have to imagine the very controversial charter school lawsuit against Christina and the Delaware Dept. of Education will come up. As well, funding for WEIC will surely be a topic as well. Many of the panelists want to revamp funding to include a weighted funding formula so children with higher needs are given a greater weight of money.
At the first official meeting for the Delaware Dept. of Education/Rodel created Guiding Coalition for Competency-Based Learning, an email went out to members to research an organization called Reinventing Schools. Theresa Bennett with the DOE sent the following email:
Bennett announces that a Kim Hanisch from the Reinventing Schools Coalition will be facilitating their meetings. The organization changed their name because of the initials, RISC, to Reinventing Schools. This group received their start-up funds from the Gates Foundation. A blog called Save Maine Schools gave a very detailed description of the man that runs Reinventing Schools, Dr. Joseph Marzano. I imagine Rodel and Reinventing Schools have a lot in common since they are both lovers of competency-based education and personalized learning in a digital classroom. Oddly enough, Reinventing Schools does not list Delaware in their map of schools and districts they work with. I guess non-profits don’t count as true education centers of learning! Save Maine Schools referred to Marzano as just another corporate education reform snake-oil salesman. His ideas, according to the article and commenters, were nothing new but repackaged to further this modern-day Competency-Based Education mixed with Personalized Learning in a digital environment.
As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, a lot was going on in Delaware education at this time. The priority schools debacle was heating up. On the same day as this first meeting of the “Guiding Coalition”, the Christina and Red Clay Consolidated Boards of Education were holding meetings to decide their next steps with the Delaware DOE and Governor Markell. Red Clay indicated they would capitulate with the DOE, but Christina was defiant and insisted on writing their own Memorandum of Understanding with the DOE. The priority schools MOU called for the firing of half the teachers and each school had to get a new principal. As teachers and Delaware citizens seethed, a growing voice was calling for the resignation of Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Murphy and a new employee at the DOE named Penny Schwinn, who led the Accountability & Assessment department, soon became the most hated person in the Delaware education landscape. Many, including legislators, began wondering what the heck Delaware did with all the Race To The Top money and FOIAs started going out to the Delaware DOE.
As a result of this, the Wilmington Education Advisory Committee was born. Governor Markell issued an Executive Order to come up with recommendations on how to deal with the rising Wilmington education crisis. Bank of America Communications Chief and Former Chair of the Wilmington Metropolitan Urban League, Tony Allen, was chosen to lead the committee. Meanwhile, a certain blogger started talking about Delaware Opt Out more and more. All of these were easy distractions for those who were very worried about what was going on with Delaware education. Markell was taking a very hard stance on the priority schools. Nobody saw what was going in with the back-door and secret meetings of the Guiding Coalition.
The Rodel Foundation of Delaware was busy preparing for their next Vision Coalition annual conference. One of their guests at the conference was a company called 2Revolutions. I did not attend the conference, but I followed along on Twitter. I decided to look into this digital learning company and was shocked by what I found. Pretty much everything I am current writing about with Corporate Education Reform 2.0 is covered in that link. That was from almost two years ago. The next day I received an email from the Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens (GACEC):
This email contained a copy and paste from the Rodel Teacher Council for their “Performance Learning” blueprint which I included in an article I wrote on this. I was skeptical of Rodel based on everything I saw and read before that email from the GACEC. But this horrified me. It was obvious Rodel was facilitating the reinvention of Delaware education and nobody was paying attention. Changes were taking place. The Delaware DOE was not running the show. It was Rodel. I began to commit myself to finding out all I could about Rodel. It was Halloween and nothing horrified me more than what I wrote about that dark evening. I didn’t truly understand it all at that time. There was a lot going on. But this was the beginning of putting the puzzle pieces together. However, the upcoming General Election in Delaware would cause things to change in the Delaware General Assembly that would provide very big distractions for many.
As everyone prepared for a potential takeover of the Priority Schools, the Delaware DOE and Rodel continued their secret meetings. To be continued in Part 3: Rodel gets a surprise and a matter of civil rights…
As I was surfing through my home page on Facebook this morning, I came across various mentions of President Obama’s eulogy for the five fallen Dallas police officers murdered last week in a moment of extreme violence in retaliation to the killing of two other men many miles away. Between all the Pokémon Go memes and the pictures of various families during their summer trips, something nagged at me to read the speech. Finally, I saw a post by Tony Allen, the Chair of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission who posted the speech. I sat on my porch, reading the whole thing, my eyes bursting to tears. I will confess I’m not always the biggest Obama fan. I have not liked his education policies at all. But he gets it. He understands the true meaning of what happened last week. He echoed the same words I wrote in a reply to a friend’s post last night that we will heal through our actions, not our words. I wanted to post the entire speech as well. I’m sure it is all over the place, but I wanted to get it on my blog. As a memorial for the five Dallas police officers, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile. Thank you President Obama, for finding the right words to say in a troubling time in American history. Thank you as well to Tony Allen, who deserves far more credit than he gets for trying to make Wilmington, Delaware a better place!
Mr. President and Mrs. Bush; my friend, the Vice President, and Dr. Biden; Mayor Rawlings; Chief Spiller; clergy; members of Congress; Chief Brown — I’m so glad I met Michelle first, because she loves Stevie Wonder — (laughter and applause) — but most of all, to the families and friends and colleagues and fellow officers:
Scripture tells us that in our sufferings there is glory, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Sometimes the truths of these words are hard to see. Right now, those words test us. Because the people of Dallas, people across the country, are suffering.
We’re here to honor the memory, and mourn the loss, of five fellow Americans — to grieve with their loved ones, to support this community, to pray for the wounded, and to try and find some meaning amidst our sorrow.
For the men and women who protect and serve the people of Dallas, last Thursday began like any other day. Like most Americans each day, you get up, probably have too quick a breakfast, kiss your family goodbye, and you head to work. But your work, and the work of police officers across the country, is like no other. For the moment you put on that uniform, you have answered a call that at any moment, even in the briefest interaction, may put your life in harm’s way.
Lorne Ahrens, he answered that call. So did his wife, Katrina — not only because she was the spouse of a police officer, but because she’s a detective on the force. They have two kids. And Lorne took them fishing, and used to proudly go to their school in uniform. And the night before he died, he bought dinner for a homeless man. And the next night, Katrina had to tell their children that their dad was gone. “They don’t get it yet,” their grandma said. “They don’t know what to do quite yet.”
Michael Krol answered that call. His mother said, “He knew the dangers of the job, but he never shied away from his duty.” He came a thousand miles from his home state of Michigan to be a cop in Dallas, telling his family, “This is something I wanted to do.” Last year, he brought his girlfriend back to Detroit for Thanksgiving, and it was the last time he’d see his family.
Michael Smith answered that call — in the Army, and over almost 30 years working for the Dallas Police Association, which gave him the appropriately named “Cops Cop” award. A man of deep faith, when he was off duty, he could be found at church or playing softball with his two girls. Today, his girls have lost their dad, for God has called Michael home.
Patrick Zamarripa, he answered that call. Just 32, a former altar boy who served in the Navy and dreamed of being a cop. He liked to post videos of himself and his kids on social media. And on Thursday night, while Patrick went to work, his partner Kristy posted a photo of her and their daughter at a Texas Rangers game, and tagged her partner so that he could see it while on duty.
Brent Thompson answered that call. He served his country as a Marine. And years later, as a contractor, he spent time in some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq and Afghanistan. And then a few years ago, he settled down here in Dallas for a new life of service as a transit cop. And just about two weeks ago, he married a fellow officer, their whole life together waiting before them.
Like police officers across the country, these men and their families shared a commitment to something larger than themselves. They weren’t looking for their names to be up in lights. They’d tell you the pay was decent but wouldn’t make you rich. They could have told you about the stress and long shifts, and they’d probably agree with Chief Brown when he said that cops don’t expect to hear the words “thank you” very often, especially from those who need them the most.
No, the reward comes in knowing that our entire way of life in America depends on the rule of law; that the maintenance of that law is a hard and daily labor; that in this country, we don’t have soldiers in the streets or militias setting the rules. Instead, we have public servants — police officers — like the men who were taken away from us.
And that’s what these five were doing last Thursday when they were assigned to protect and keep orderly a peaceful protest in response to the killing of Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge and Philando Castile of Minnesota. They were upholding the constitutional rights of this country.
For a while, the protest went on without incident. And despite the fact that police conduct was the subject of the protest, despite the fact that there must have been signs or slogans or chants with which they profoundly disagreed, these men and this department did their jobs like the professionals that they were. In fact, the police had been part of the protest’s planning. Dallas PD even posted photos on their Twitter feeds of their own officers standing among the protesters. Two officers, black and white, smiled next to a man with a sign that read, “No Justice, No Peace.”
And then, around nine o’clock, the gunfire came. Another community torn apart. More hearts broken. More questions about what caused, and what might prevent, another such tragedy.
I know that Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the past week. First, the shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and the protests, then the targeting of police by the shooter here — an act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred. All of it has left us wounded, and angry, and hurt. It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened. And although we know that such divisions are not new — though they have surely been worse in even the recent past — that offers us little comfort.
Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged. We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience. We turn on the TV or surf the Internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn, and people retreat to their respective corners, and politicians calculate how to grab attention or avoid the fallout. We see all this, and it’s hard not to think sometimes that the center won’t hold and that things might get worse.
I understand. I understand how Americans are feeling. But, Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair. I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem. And I know that because I know America. I know how far we’ve come against impossible odds. (Applause.) I know we’ll make it because of what I’ve experienced in my own life, what I’ve seen of this country and its people — their goodness and decency –as President of the United States. And I know it because of what we’ve seen here in Dallas — how all of you, out of great suffering, have shown us the meaning of perseverance and character, and hope.
When the bullets started flying, the men and women of the Dallas police, they did not flinch and they did not react recklessly. They showed incredible restraint. Helped in some cases by protesters, they evacuated the injured, isolated the shooter, and saved more lives than we will ever know. (Applause.) We mourn fewer people today because of your brave actions. (Applause.) “Everyone was helping each other,” one witness said. “It wasn’t about black or white. Everyone was picking each other up and moving them away.” See, that’s the America I know.
The police helped Shetamia Taylor as she was shot trying to shield her four sons. She said she wanted her boys to join her to protest the incidents of black men being killed. She also said to the Dallas PD, “Thank you for being heroes.” And today, her 12-year old son wants to be a cop when he grows up. That’s the America I know. (Applause.)
In the aftermath of the shooting, we’ve seen Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown, a white man and a black man with different backgrounds, working not just to restore order and support a shaken city, a shaken department, but working together to unify a city with strength and grace and wisdom. (Applause.) And in the process, we’ve been reminded that the Dallas Police Department has been at the forefront of improving relations between police and the community. (Applause.) The murder rate here has fallen. Complaints of excessive force have been cut by 64 percent. The Dallas Police Department has been doing it the right way. (Applause.) And so, Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown, on behalf of the American people, thank you for your steady leadership, thank you for your powerful example. We could not be prouder of you. (Applause.)
These men, this department — this is the America I know. And today, in this audience, I see people who have protested on behalf of criminal justice reform grieving alongside police officers. I see people who mourn for the five officers we lost but also weep for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. In this audience, I see what’s possible — (applause) — I see what’s possible when we recognize that we are one American family, all deserving of equal treatment, all deserving of equal respect, all children of God. That’s the America that I know.
Now, I’m not naïve. I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency. I’ve hugged too many families who have lost a loved one to senseless violence. And I’ve seen how a spirit of unity, born of tragedy, can gradually dissipate, overtaken by the return to business as usual, by inertia and old habits and expediency. I see how easily we slip back into our old notions, because they’re comfortable, we’re used to them. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. And so I’m reminded of a passage in *John’s Gospel [First John]: Let us love not with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. If we’re to sustain the unity we need to get through these difficult times, if we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we’ve lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know. And that’s not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. But we’re going to have to be honest with each other and ourselves.
We know that the overwhelming majority of police officers do an incredibly hard and dangerous job fairly and professionally. They are deserving of our respect and not our scorn. (Applause.) And when anyone, no matter how good their intentions may be, paints all police as biased or bigoted, we undermine those officers we depend on for our safety. And as for those who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don’t act on it themselves — well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous, but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to promote. (Applause.)
We also know that centuries of racial discrimination — of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow — they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. (Applause.)
But we know — but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s sting. Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this.
And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer — “yes, sir,” “no, sir” — but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy — when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. (Applause.) We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again — it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.
We also know what Chief Brown has said is true: That so much of the tensions between police departments and minority communities that they serve is because we ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves. (Applause.) As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. (Applause.) We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. (Applause.) We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book — (applause) — and then we tell the police “you’re a social worker, you’re the parent, you’re the teacher, you’re the drug counselor.” We tell them to keep those neighborhoods in check at all costs, and do so without causing any political blowback or inconvenience. Don’t make a mistake that might disturb our own peace of mind. And then we feign surprise when, periodically, the tensions boil over.
We know these things to be true. They’ve been true for a long time. We know it. Police, you know it. Protestors, you know it. You know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve are, and you pretend as if there’s no context. These things we know to be true. And if we cannot even talk about these things — if we cannot talk honestly and openly not just in the comfort of our own circles, but with those who look different than us or bring a different perspective, then we will never break this dangerous cycle.
In the end, it’s not about finding policies that work; it’s about forging consensus, and fighting cynicism, and finding the will to make change.
Can we do this? Can we find the character, as Americans, to open our hearts to each other? Can we see in each other a common humanity and a shared dignity, and recognize how our different experiences have shaped us? And it doesn’t make anybody perfectly good or perfectly bad, it just makes us human. I don’t know. I confess that sometimes I, too, experience doubt. I’ve been to too many of these things. I’ve seen too many families go through this. But then I am reminded of what the Lord tells Ezekiel: I will give you a new heart, the Lord says, and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
That’s what we must pray for, each of us: a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart open to the fears and hopes and challenges of our fellow citizens. That’s what we’ve seen in Dallas these past few days. That’s what we must sustain.
Because with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes, so that maybe the police officer sees his own son in that teenager with a hoodie who’s kind of goofing off but not dangerous — (applause) — and the teenager — maybe the teenager will see in the police officer the same words and values and authority of his parents. (Applause.)
With an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not just to opponents, but to enemies.
With an open heart, those protesting for change will guard against reckless language going forward, look at the model set by the five officers we mourn today, acknowledge the progress brought about by the sincere efforts of police departments like this one in Dallas, and embark on the hard but necessary work of negotiation, the pursuit of reconciliation.
With an open heart, police departments will acknowledge that, just like the rest of us, they are not perfect; that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals. (Applause.) And I understand these protests — I see them, they can be messy. Sometimes they can be hijacked by an irresponsible few. Police can get hurt. Protestors can get hurt. They can be frustrating.
But even those who dislike the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” surely we should be able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family. (Applause.) We should — when we hear a friend describe him by saying that “Whatever he cooked, he cooked enough for everybody,” that should sound familiar to us, that maybe he wasn’t so different than us, so that we can, yes, insist that his life matters. Just as we should hear the students and coworkers describe their affection for Philando Castile as a gentle soul — “Mr. Rogers with dreadlocks,” they called him — and know that his life mattered to a whole lot of people of all races, of all ages, and that we have to do what we can, without putting officers’ lives at risk, but do better to prevent another life like his from being lost.
With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry more about joining sides to do right. (Applause.) Because the vicious killer of these police officers, they won’t be the last person who tries to make us turn on one other. The killer in Orlando wasn’t, nor was the killer in Charleston. We know there is evil in this world. That’s why we need police departments. (Applause.) But as Americans, we can decide that people like this killer will ultimately fail. They will not drive us apart. We can decide to come together and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we share.
“We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
For all of us, life presents challenges and suffering — accidents, illnesses, the loss of loved ones. There are times when we are overwhelmed by sudden calamity, natural or manmade. All of us, we make mistakes. And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have control of things — not even a President does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another.
America does not ask us to be perfect. Precisely because of our individual imperfections, our founders gave us institutions to guard against tyranny and ensure no one is above the law; a democracy that gives us the space to work through our differences and debate them peacefully, to make things better, even if it doesn’t always happen as fast as we’d like. America gives us the capacity to change.
But as the men we mourn today — these five heroes — knew better than most, we cannot take the blessings of this nation for granted. Only by working together can we preserve those institutions of family and community, rights and responsibilities, law and self-government that is the hallmark of this nation. For, it turns out, we do not persevere alone. Our character is not found in isolation. Hope does not arise by putting our fellow man down; it is found by lifting others up. (Applause.)
And that’s what I take away from the lives of these outstanding men. The pain we feel may not soon pass, but my faith tells me that they did not die in vain. I believe our sorrow can make us a better country. I believe our righteous anger can be transformed into more justice and more peace. Weeping may endure for a night, but I’m convinced joy comes in the morning. (Applause.) We cannot match the sacrifices made by Officers Zamarripa and Ahrens, Krol, Smith, and Thompson, but surely we can try to match their sense of service. We cannot match their courage, but we can strive to match their devotion.
May God bless their memory. May God bless this country that we love. (Applause.)
It was a wild and crazy night-morning at Legislative Hall in Dover. I can honestly say I have never bounced back between the Senate and the House as much as I did in the past six hours. But some of my “must list” legislation passed. Some with changes and some intact.
House Bill 399 passed but not without some amendments and an odd conversation about teachers and a comment Jack Markell made years ago in the Senate. Senator Colin Bonini talked about how Governor Markell gave a speech on the Senate floor many years ago and told everyone only 19% of students in Delaware were college and career ready. But yet our teachers were rated 99% effective. He couldn’t grasp these facts. He said he would support the bill. But then Senator Dave Lawson spoke against the bill and said the system isn’t working. The bill passed with 19 yes and 2 no votes. The no votes were from Senators Lawson and Henry. The amendments added on can be seen here and here. Apparently, this was the only way it was going to pass. In looking at the first amendment, they changed a lot and many teachers won’t be happy about those changes. But this was the compromise reached. Will Governor Markell sign the bill? We shall see. I did speak briefly with Secretary of Education Godowsky and asked him if he thought they were good amendments and he said yes.
After four previous bills, the Kumbaya compromise charter school audit bill, House Bill 435, passed the Senate in the wee hours of the morning. It hadn’t been on the agenda for the Senate. I emailed Senator Sokola, and it appeared on there a few minutes later. It passed soon after.
And the WEIC redistricting plan. I thought rigor mortis was setting in on this plan, but it rose from the ashes. A crucial amendment by State Rep. Kim Williams which deleted some of the unnecessary language in Senate Bill #300 seemed to be what is going to keep that train chugging. This is what happened: WEIC is still alive, and they will plan for another year. The $7.5 million initially requested in the final recommendations has been appropriated for FY2018. But I will get to more of that after a message from Tony Allen, the Chair of WEIC:
Delaware General Assembly Affirms the Commission’s Plan
Governor commits the “necessary and sufficient funds” for next year
Commission suspends timeline
Tonight, an older African American woman stopped me on the Senate Floor and said “if you believe in this, you keep fighting on.” We did!
As the 148th Delaware General Assembly legislative session ended, the House and Senate passed Senate Joint Resolution 17, an interim affirmation of the Delaware State Board of Education’s approval of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission’s redistricting plan and Senate Bill 300, which clarifies the funding implications and supports further analysis by the Commission.
In a related action, Governor Markell committed to put no less than $7.5 million in his FY 2018 plan to support the Commission’s plan, specifically to begin to change the 70-year old student funding formula. In a letter to the Wilmington delegation, Markell said, “I am proud to have worked alongside you in these efforts and pleased to commit that I will recommend an appropriation of the funds necessary and sufficient to fund the first year of implementation of the proposals of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission, specifically an amendment to the unit count that would carry additional support for low-income students, English Language Learners and students with special needs statewide.”
Earlier this morning, I noted that because the “necessary and sufficient” funding has not yet been provided that we will immediately call on the Commission to suspend the timetable for implementing its plan.
While I am disappointed with several aspects of this legislative season, SJR17 allows the Commission to fight another day. After 62 years of waiting, fight on we will. The Commission is wholly committed to reducing the fragmentation and dysfunction caused by 23 different school systems currently serving Wilmington children, less than 10% of Delaware’s student population. In addition, the Commission will continue to focus attention on the needs of low-income students, English language learners, and other students with special needs in Wilmington and throughout Delaware. That includes meeting the non-instructional needs of these students, engaging empowered parents in school reform, and changing the antiquated funding system for students and schools that has for many years created sustained inequities dating back to well before Brown v Board of Education (1954). I am grateful to the 22 other commissioners, the previous members of the Wilmington Education Advisory Committee, and the more than 10,000 community members who have been participating in this process.
I urge your continued resolve.
There are some key words in this, especially Markell saying “to commit that I will recommend an appropriation of funds…“ That isn’t a guarantee that the next Governor will do the same or that the 149th General Assembly will either. We don’t know what the state’s financial picture will be a year from now. But for now, WEIC lives after most thought it was dead and buried. I find it odd that Allen talks about how 23 different school systems serve Wilmington students but the WEIC plan would only reduce that to 22. Granted, Christina has a lot of Wilmington students, but that is still a lot students going to other districts or charters. I will see what this additional year of planning will produce. But it looks like I am not done writing about WEIC despite what I wrote earlier today. I talked to Rep. Charles Potter after the vote and he said this isn’t what he wanted, but it keeps WEIC alive and it is about the students.
Senate Bill 93 passed, one of two Autism bills introduced last year. Senate Bill 92, however, was another victim of funding issues in the state. An amendment was added to Senate Bill 93 in the House which got rid of the Senate Amendment that had the DOE getting involved. The Autism community in Delaware felt that was an unwelcome presence. Good for them!
It was a long second half of the 148th General Assembly. House Bill 50 had two shots to override the Governor’s veto in the House of Representatives and it failed both times. But I want to thank Rep. John Kowalko for trying and standing up for parents. I respect and admire him for doing that. Had the House ever been able to actually vote on the override, I believe it would have passed. The fact that they were never able to get to that point shows the will of the Governor influencing certain members of the House in very inappropriate ways. My other “dream legislation”, House Bill 30, which would have finally given students in Kindergarten to 3rd grade considered to be “basic special education” students, never received a full House vote despite coming out of the House Appropriations Committee weeks ago. I know Rep. Kim Williams fought hard for that bill. I still remember when she first told me about it a year and a half ago and I truly felt it was a no-brainer. For both of those bills, the 149th General Assembly will tell the tale on opt out and special education funding.
I will write more over the next few days about all the bills that passed and those that are now dead. In the meantime, Happy Fiscal New Year 2017!
I went to the Wilmington Blue Rocks game earlier tonight and now I am at Legislative Hall. The Delaware Senate defeated the WEIC redistricting legislation, HJR #12 with 6 yes and 15 no votes. But they passed the new SJR #17 and SB #300 which kicks the can down the road and makes WEIC plan more. There is a chance WEIC could continue based on a lot of stuff I heard involving amendments and very certain conditions which I didn’t completely understand. Don’t get your hopes up too much though.
Kim Williams charter school audit bill is on the Senate ready list. I wish I could tell you what the heck is on the agenda, but right now it says nothing and we all know that isn’t the case! But the Senate and the House are in Caucus right now, so I haven’t seen Sneaky Pete or Val yet. Went outside and talked to the one and only Danny Rufo next to the “tiki bar” outside.
House is back in session. Sneaky Pete waved at someone up in the balcony. I didn’t know who, so I waved back. Val came in and was talking w/Sneaky Pete and then looked up at me with a kind of sort of smile. I smiled back. I heard Jack summoned Tony Allen and Kenny Rivera to come to the office to talk WEIC. Hearing it is still on life support but might be coming off it soon. It is now July 1st. No word on HB #435 (charter audit bill). Earl told me the Senate will be putting an amendment on HB #399 (teacher evaluation bill) and he hopes it comes back to the House. Now they are going to work on Senate Joint Resolution #17, the latest WEIC bill.
There is a motion to suspend rules on SJR #17. Passed, 22 yes, 17 no, 2 absent. Rep. Collins talked about the letter from Red Clay and Christina asking them not to move forward. Rep. J. Johnson said things have worked out and the districts are okay with the compromise reached (this was the meeting in Jack Markell’s office). I have to wonder who on the Red Clay and Christina school districts are okay with this. But it passed, with 22 yes and 17 no, 2 absent. Okay, I’m going to stop writing two absent for every damn bill because they are going to be absent the rest of the night! Now we are onto SB #300, the second WEIC bill covered in July, 2016. Kim Williams put an amendment on it. Amendment to SB #300 State Rep. Miro is asking about the possibility of Red Clay suspending the plan at their next board meeting. Tony Allen was called up. Tony said if this doesn’t move forward he will be suspending the plan right after the vote. Something is up here. Something isn’t right. There is bait in the water, but I’m not sure who is biting.
State Rep. Mike Ramone asked what the $200,000 is for in the amendment and SB #300. Tony said it would be to fund the commission moving forward. Tony said the prior funding for the WEAC and WEIC books came from companies, donations, and even the Chair of WEIC (Tony Allen himself). Kowalko asked Tony if this is similar to an architect, needing planning. Tony said yes. Senate Bill #300 w/Amendment #1 passes, 21 yes, 18 no. The plan moves forward. I don’t know what the hell any of this means. Someone needs to explain it to me.
Heading over to the Senate now. HB #399 is on the agenda. And SB #300 has to come back to the Senate because the House put an amendment on it. They are doing other bills so I’ll update on other bills during the wait. Absolutely nothing on HB #30 (basic spec. ed. funding for K-3 students). The School Breakfast bill is up in the Senate (HB #408 w/House Amendment #2).
And my battery died. To be continued in a new post!
The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission’s redistricting plan is dead. Not officially, but close enough. Two bills introduced by the Delaware Senate basically say “We aren’t going to approve the plan but we are going to kick the can down the road.”
The two new bills, Senate Joint Resolution #17 and Senate Bill #300 hold about as much clout as a snowflake in July. If I were the advocates for WEIC, I would feel very insulted. These legislators need to get some gumption and either vote yes or no. Jea Street is going to sue you. He has been adamant about that. Tony Allen is going to be very angry about this. And Governor Markell? What’s his stance? Does it matter at this point? Not really. Quack-quack.
And so WEIC ends, not with a bang, but with legislative whimpers.Del
Immediately after the Wilmington redistricting bills passed the House, local and state media interviewed State Rep. Charles Potter and Wilmington Education Improvement Commission Chair Tony Allen. Both stated this is a positive step forward. Allen reiterated that if the funding isn’t there, the plan will be suspended by the commission. He stressed the funding is critical at this point.
Afterwards, Delaware Governor Jack Markell came down from his Legislative Hall office and offered congratulations to Jea Street, Tony Allen, and Senator Margaret Rose-Henry. After that, Markell, Allen, Dan Rich, Senator Henry and the Governor’s Education Policy Advisor, Meghan Wallace all went up to Markell’s office for a closed-door discussion.
Rumors are swirling that New Castle County will be giving money towards the redistricting plan. There has been no verification of this, how much money, or what the source of the money would be.
The redistricting resolution heads to the Senate now. I’m hearing the full Senate vote will be much harder than the House. Which means it may not have 100% Democrat Senate support either. No one is offering names in the leaky corridors of Legislative Hall.
Remember when the Delaware State Board of Education wanted to change a key word from “shall” to “may”? That created a resolution unanimously passed by the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission that if the “necessary and sufficient funding” is not available at two milestones of the redistricting plan, it will collapse. End. Finish. Kaput.
Today, the House Education Committee did two things: they lifted House Bill #424 from a tabled status and released it from the education committee with eight votes in the positive. But the discussion before the vote was somewhat tense. As the meeting started, no House Republicans were present. Slowly but surely, two of them came in: State Reps. Joe Miro and Tim Dukes. State Rep. Deb Heffernan started the questioning about the Red Clay Board of Education’s role if the funding is not there. After a considerable amount of confusion, WEIC Chair Tony Allen and Dan Rich clarified that the amount for the first two years just for the funding changes is $7.5 million each year for a total of $15 million. In the Governor’s proposed budget, he allocated $6 million: $4 million for the funding changes and $2 million for WEIC transitional costs.
Based on Tony Allen’s statement about the resolution, the necessary and sufficient funding of $7.5 million for FY2017 will not be available even if the General Assembly passes House Joint Resolution #12. Yesterday, DEFAC determined Delaware’s revenues are lower than projected a month ago so now there is less money in the state budget for next year. Will the WEIC redistricting plan get out of the General Assembly alive? Or will the Joint Finance Committee give the money to the redistricting plan if it passes both the House and the Senate?
JP Morgan Chase will be giving away $75 million in grants over the next five years to different states in their “New Skills For Youth” program. The goal is to implement career readiness programs in order to have more students ready to enter the workforce. This is all part of the original design, detailed in a letter to Hillary Clinton 24 years ago.
What is interesting is who is on the advisory committee JP Morgan Chase used for this initiative. We have the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, and the Education Strategy Group. The CCSSO was instrumental in launching Common Core on unsuspecting states. But the last of these groups is very interesting given one of their recent hires this year.
Remember Ryan Reyna? This former Delaware Department of Education employee was the Director of the Accountability unit under Penny Schwinn. Schwinn and Reyna were the dynamic duo in charge of creating Delaware’s new accountability system. You know, the one with the participation rate penalty that would punish schools for opt outs over 5% of the school or any sub-group.
From their bio for Ryan Reyna:
Ryan joined ESG in 2016 to support ESG’s overall college and career readiness strategy. He leads the organization’s efforts to help states bring stronger, more impactful career-focused indicators into their K-12 accountability systems to ensure that those systems measure and value students’ readiness for the 21st century world of work.
What I didn’t know about Reyna was that before he came to the Delaware DOE, he worked at the National Governor’s Association in their Center for Best Practices. And take a wild guess what he did there?
At the NGA Center, Ryan led the division’s support of governors’ offices on numerous issues, including college and career ready standards, assessment, accountability, and transitions into postsecondary education and training. He also previously held Senior Policy Analyst and Policy Analyst positions at the NGA Center and worked as a Research Associate at the Data Quality Campaign.
Even Education Strategy Group’s Founder and President has some deep ties to corporate education reform. Matt Gandal worked as a Senior Advisor to former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and prior to that he was an executive vice-president at Achieve Inc. Gandal was one of the key players in the American Diploma Project which led to the creation of the Common Core State Standards. From his bio with Education Strategy Group:
He helped found the organization and was responsible for overseeing its major initiatives, including the American Diploma Project which helped 35 states advance college and career readiness policies; the Common Core State Standards Initiative which resulted in 45 states adopting rigorous academic standards; and National Education Summits that brought together governors, CEOs and education leaders from across the country to commit to ambitious reforms.
Both he and Delaware Governor Jack Markell took part in a “Colloquim” run by the Hope Street Group in January, 2013. One of the main goals of this gathering of corporate education reformers was, you guessed it, career pathways. If you aren’t familiar with the Hope Street Group, former Delaware Deputy Secretary of Education Dan Cruce is an executive Vice-President there. He served under Lillian Lowery when she held the role for a few years when Jack Markell became Governor of Delaware.
For the states who submitted applications for this grant from JP Morgan Chase, the selection committee included the following: IBM, Southern Regional Education Board, CLASP, James Irvine Foundation, Jobs For The Future, New America, National Governor’s Association, US Chamber and Chamber Foundation, National Skills Coalition, the Aspen Foundation, a high school principal, and a former Kentucky Commissioner of Education. Look at their bios. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from one corporate education reform company to the next.
It was only a matter of time before financial institutions got involved in these “pathways to prosperity”. In a letter to the editor that appeared in USA Today back in January, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski stated:
Awarding grants to U.S. states will encourage them to implement career and technical education programs that correspond to the needs of area employers. High-quality, rigorous career technical programs would arm students with the skills to work as aviation mechanics, nursing technicians or IT specialists. The result is great jobs.
And so begins the Corporate Race To The Top. But I doubt JP Morgan Chase will be the only company doing this. Yesterday, Bank of America’s lead for corporate communications, none other than Tony Allen himself, had a very interesting tweet:
So I’m sure we can expect more of this from Bank of America and other big banking corporations out there. It seems like many states are jumping on this Career-Technical Education bandwagon.
Read the “Dear Hillary” letter if you haven’t already. This was planned a quarter of a century ago. This isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing. It is a Corporate thing. Designed for the vast majority of society to be given a pre-determined career path based on standardized test scores. To keep the bulk of the population in low-paying jobs while the top 1-5% keep the control. Think about it, if students are “guided” toward certain career trajectories, they will most likely serve that job for the rest of their life. Everyone will have their designated role in life while the fat cats reap the profits.
We hear big companies talking all the time about the cost of training employees. By getting rid of that and having public education do all the training, guess who pays for it? The taxpayers. While the big companies score even more profit. Do you really think they are doing this to help disadvantaged students? These are some of the same companies that caused the housing collapse and the worst recession this country has ever seen. That wasn’t even ten years ago folks! Heck, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if it was one day revealed these companies wanted that to happen so they could implement all of this. Where did all the funding for Common Core and Race To The Top come from? The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The major players in the corporate education reform movement have been at this for a long time, well before Common Core became a headache for parents helping their kids with math homework. We have Bill & Melinda Gates, Marc Tucker, and Matt Gandal as some of the key figureheads in everything that has come to pass since 1992. Their policies and agendas have become embedded in nearly every single state’s educational and workforce landscape. It is the complete restructuring and redesigning of American society. Delaware Governor Jack Markell is actually a big piece of this puzzle, and has been for a long time.
These plans, long in scope and design, include corporate leaders, members of Congress, a couple Presidents, non-profit companies, state legislators, and every single education think tank and organization that has been paid one cent or more since 2009. If they received money from Race To The Top, they are in on it. And now, with personalized learning becoming the “next big thing”, we see companies like Schoology benefitting immensely from this charade we call corporate education reform. You can read about this grand design in a blog from one of the pilot states for the personalized learning and Competency-Based Education guinea pigs.
Teachers as we know them now will be a thing of the past in just a few short years. They will become moderators of the personalized learning and competency-based education platforms. The teacher’s unions will disappear. Student data will flow freely from the states to even more companies because they will now be considered “education agencies” based on initiatives like today’s announcement by JP Morgan Chase. Our children are mere cattle for investors. They will hedge bets on student outcomes and they will profit off these as well. And for every single standardized test your child takes, no longer a once a year cram but a series of small high-stakes tests, your child’s uniqueness and individuality will disappear into the abyss as they become another drone of Corporate America’s Workforce. They won’t have the ability or capability of being able to have independent thought. They will be programmed and conditioned for their career pathway and you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
This is why the opposition against opt out is so huge among the education-workforce players. Opt out kills their plans. As former Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Murphy said at a Senate meeting on opt out, “The data is important to us.” You bet it is! Without it, these plans are dead in the water. Opt out now. Seriously. What more do you need to know to convince you? If you are thinking “it won’t happen to my child”, think again. It already is. What can you do? Stand tall and offer resistance.
From the Delaware DOE’s press announcement on the JP Morgan Chase “Corporate Race To The Top” initiative:
Delaware wins grant to develop plan to improve career preparation systems
One final thought. If you go to this JP Morgan Chase document, go all the way to the bottom of the last page on the right. Look at the footnotes, #12. A report from the Center for American Progress, the creator of the bogus “Testing Bill of Rights” released last week (not to be confused with the valid Parent Bill of Rights for Education that I created last week in response, for which you can sign a petition on at Change.org). Notice the name of the author of that report in the footnotes: Sarah Ayres. Who JP Morgan Chase discloses is now an employee of JP Morgan Chase. This is how it is in corporate education reform. People jumping from one position to the next. Working for state Departments of Education at one point. Thousands of players, involved in any potential place where education policy is discussed.
Read through that link very carefully. Look at what states will be required to do to receive this Corporate Race To The Top seed money. The changes they will need to make. And then go look at the Every Student Succeeds Act. Read through it very carefully, absorbing every single word. While doing so, keep this article in mind and what the new federal education law is really about. How it was rushed out in its final wording and how many organizations blindly accepted it. Once again, they were either fooled or they already knew about all of this.
Other recipients of JP Morgan Chase’s “Corporate Race To The Top” career-readiness agenda are Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, and Montana. At press time, these were the only states I could find press releases on in this first phase of the New Skills For Youth plan.
The State Board of Education audio recordings from their very long meeting yesterday are now up on the State Board website. The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission portions of the meeting take up a collective two hours and twenty minutes of the meeting. Not included are the breaks, legal or illegal, during the meeting with respect to the WEIC discussion.
As I insanely do once in a while, during contentious board meetings, I transcribed part of the WEIC conversations. The three areas I focused on were the FOIA violation I believe the State Board committed by pausing the meeting to convene with legal counsel without calling for an executive session, the Christina priority school plans, and the funding/pause conversation surrounding the words “shall” and “may”. The key players in most of this are State Board President Dr. Teri Quinn Gray and WEIC Chair Tony Allen. Others are State Board members Pat Heffernan, Barbara Rutt, and Executive Director of the State Board of Education Donna Johnson. While I would have loved to get the whole thing transcribed, there isn’t enough time in the day. And as I’ve said before, you can only replay some of these voices so many times without wanting to jump off a bridge. Key parts or words are bolded for emphasis.
The FOIA Violation
There has been well over an hour of conversation at this point about the plan and a lot of back and forth between the State Board and Tony Allen. This occurs at the end of Part 5 in the audio recordings from the meeting yesterday.
Dr. Teri Quinn Gray: So, I just gotta check out the procedural piece of that with the attorney…do you mind? Cause I’m not sure about, uhm, the timing…
Tony Allen: Could I add, offer something, Could you make a motion to approve it with the new caveats, approval contingent upon…
Gray: Yeah, that’s why I need to make sure we get all the right pieces around that. I think I heard a little bit of that. So, let me ask for, uhm, a 15 minute break to consult with counsel and get the options around that. Do you mind?
Allen: No
Gray: Miss Rutt, can she come with me, with you, the attorney? It’s 3:46. We’ll be back at 4.
31 minutes later, beginning of Part 6 of the audio recording…
Gray: It’s 4:17 and we’re back in session. So why we left and the whole purpose of stepping away is we had , uhm, a proposal to table the current motion to approve the plan as presented. But, ugh, we brought forth an amendment motion that actually puts forth a conditional approval based on the conditions of changing the “shall” to “may” in the proposed resolution. And also having a wait for the Christina School District to act on the action item on February 23rd which involves submission of grant applications to the Department of Education for priority schools. And also contingent upon approval of the Department of Education of that plan, of that grant application. Right, so that’s the discussion that has been happening for the past thirty minutes or so and the expectation around that, uhm, if the board accepts that amended motion and vote accordingly, or affirmative in that, that we would ask that we take those two conditions and act accordingly however we see fit, we would be able to close that item before us. There is no need to bring this back to the table or as an agenda item for the board. We would be able to settle that based on those conditions being met.
Pat Heffernan: And if they’re not met?
Gray: And if they’re not met then the approval is, there is no conditional approval and we do not approve it.
Allen: Can I add two things?
Gray: Sure
Allen: I’ve consulted with many of the commissioners here on both the conditions. On condition one, back to Christina and the priority school plans, I think that, I appreciate, making sure that the condition is with respect to the Department of Education approving the plan as opposed to the Christina School Board being made, maybe that’s how I was interpreting it, made to approve their priority schools plan is a better way to get that. I think the Christina School District has every intention to approve the plan but I don’t think they take kindly to the State Board as making them so that’s…
Barbara Rutt: Sure
Allen: The second issue, with respect to “shall” and “may” is, I just want to reiterate, and you will act I know, I want to reiterate that on the board level, the commission level, the word “shall” was about making sure this wasn’t becoming an unfunded mandate. We talked about that at length during our discussion. I think that would be a significant hurdle for us. The district leaders have continued to express that if the resources aren’t provided they could not go forward. And it’s my suspicion is that they will see that change from “shall” to “may” as a potential for an unfunded mandate with a cause of concern for their districts. I will take that back to the commission, but I wanted you to know that as you make your decision, that could be a deal-breaker. While I would not speak for the commission at this moment, I can guarantee you that if it does not happen, you will not see the commission resubmit a plan.
Christina Priority Schools
Heffernan: I just want to add that, you know, the approval of the priority schools plan by Christina is, is it months or years late? So I have very little patience for Christina for semantics on that. They literally refused to approve plans to help the kids and honestly, I think got us to this table where we are today.
Secretary of Education Dr. Steve Godowsky: I just want to make this clear. On January 22nd of 2016, I sent Christina’s Acting Superintendent a letter indicating that either the board or the Acting Superintendent can submit and activate the, uhm, the original application for the priority, or the MOU that they submitted a year ago. Uhm, so that is what you are suggesting. It may not require a vote from the Board but we wanted to make sure which plan they want to move forward and if it was the MOU plan, and I have talked to the Board President. Then that will be acceptable to us going forward.
Heffernan: One thing that really troubles me about this is if the Christina Board doesn’t fully support these plans then, you know, we’re back to where we always were. And this is, so I, I, we can’t make, we have no authority to make any local boards approve anything, I totally get that, but I’m just very disappointed that this continues to be hard to get them to agree to help the priority schools. That’s all I’m saying.
Godowsky: And the Christina Board did sign off on their plan about a year ago with one day difference so I think they did support that plan. And now that we know that’s the plan on the table then we can move forward, I believe we can do our due diligence and be in a position to review that plan and make modifications.
Heffernan: So they approved this a year ago?
Godowsky: As part of, uhm, the Memorandum of Understanding, between the district and others that negotiated that alternative to the original plan, as I understand it. I was…
Allen: As I understand that, the impasse was between Christina and their approved plans and the former Secretary (Mark Murphy), not that they didn’t approve the priority school plans. That is my understanding.
Heffernan: But the Department didn’t approve the plans?
Allen: Correct
Heffernan: So we’re going to take the same plans that the Department didn’t approve…
Godowsky: No, no. I don’t know the history of why it wasn’t signed off. There were a number of contingencies on that which required the principal, replacing the principal, interviewing, or reapplying teachers for their positions, and management company that, ugh, that, those requirements have changed and we’re not in a position to impose those regulations. So I think that was the stumbling block. I don’t want to speak for Christina, and I don’t have all the history that they were the stumbling block, but later on there was an MOU submitted that never got signed off on at the Department level. I don’t know the reasons in detail. But I just know what I’ve looked at, in terms of the MOU, it’s consistent with much of what we want to do with those three schools, instructionally, which we’ve talked about since October, that I’ve been here. And, given some modifications, I’m ready to move forward.
Gray reiterates much of the conversation of what just went on…
Godowsky: I’m in receipt of those plans. I just needed, in a sense I have those plans.
“Shall” and “May”
Heffernan: I guess I’m trying to understand where the unfunded mandate is coming from. The redistricting portion of the plan is going to be unfunded or…
Allen: Remember, we arranged this for resources for English Language Learners, special education, and high concentrations of poverty. Every outline of current funding, none of that has been allocated yet, say, for the Governor’s commitment for the four to six million, right, so what we’re suggesting is each year, going through these two budget cycles, everything has to show up and if it that money doesn’t show up all the districts have particular issues with having Red Clay taking on these kids, and by the way this is not just a Red Clay issue, all the districts talk about this, taking on these kids with no changes in the funding formula for how they are going to help those kids.
Gray: And we’re committed to that same delivery around, particularly to support low-income and English Language Learners so we are… (note: Gray did not say special education)
Allen: And I agree. The question is about you all interpreting, and again, this might be an (inaudible) on our part, you all interpreting “shall” as required without deliberation.
Gray: That’s right.
Allen: We don’t interpret it that way. It was meant to be deliberation in consultation with the effected districts…
Gray: Right, so let’s just make it the “may”, and if we need to, we’ll do it, right? Because without this level of conversation and intimacy that we have now, whenever this may come forward a few years from now that “shall” is a… (very, very hard to understand what she said here but I did hear the word legal. Whether that was “legal” or “illegal” I was unable to tell)
Allen: I agree, and I do not give this short shrift, if you in fact approve it this way, it will require, I believe, a full-throated (inaudible) analysis that you will give in writing and in person to the commission, so…
Gray: Absolutely. We’re committed to that. The Board is committed to that for sure.
At this point, Dan Rich (another WEIC commissioner) says something to Tony Allen. Tony asks for five minutes, and then Kenny Rivera (President of the Red Clay Consolidated Board of Education and a commissioner on WEIC) says something. I think I heard the word “non-negotiable” but it is very hard to hear. The State Board grants the WEIC folks a five minute break. This is the end of Part 6 of the audio recordings.
The break ends, and the State Board is back in session in Part 7 of the audio recordings.
Gray: So Dr. Allen, did you want to add something before we go forward?
Allen: I consulted with many of the Commissioners here and I think there is general agreement that we could, and we would like you to consider, taking out all the provisions outlined in the resolution that we take back to the commission so that it does not come back to the State Board. But in general, but moving forward, it will be contingent upon sufficient funding. Effectively, that takes you out of the process at the final implementation stage.
Gray: So you’re saying?
Allen: What we’re saying disregard all the remaining “shalls”, make it all contingent upon the necessary and sufficient funding and resources and take it off of the State Board with respect to their responsibility for this board and to future State Boards.
Gray: So is that effectively removing the resolution?
Allen: It’s more changing the resolution but excluding State Board having ongoing responsibility for suspension of the timetable.
Gray: Could I ask the process specialist?
Donna Johnson: With process of approval of the redistricting process in and of itself, and there is the caveat there that the plan would become essentially non-void if necessary and sufficient funding were not available, what safeguards would be in place if those necessary sufficient funding and supports were not at each of the milestones? Where would there be a pause that takes place at that point?
Allen: Do you mean who would authorize that pause?
Johnson: Yes.
Allen: The authorization would come from the commission and the effected districts. So we’d take it out of the State Board’s hands. There is nothing in Senate Bill 122 that prohibits this.
After much back and forth, the State Board voted on the redistricting plan and the addendums as of 2/11/16 with no amendments which failed 3-4. The State Board then voted on the plan with the amendments about the Christina priority schools plan approval and the changing of “shall” to “may” on page 10 of the official plan. The motion passed with a 4-3 vote.
Yesterday, the State Board approved the WEIC plan with certain conditions. What is real and what isn’t from this whole process? This article has the answers to questions on the minds of many this morning. Earlier today, Wilmington Education Improvement Commission Chair Tony Allen sent a message to the members with their next step:
Yesterday, The Delaware State Board of Education voted to approve Wilmington Education Improvement Commission’s Redistricting Plan with two conditions, http://delawarepublic.org/…/state-board-ed-narrowly-approve…
• The Christina Priority Schools plan be approved the Delaware Department of Education
• The Commission change the word “shall” to “may” in item #2 of the Redistricting Resolution of our plan; this is the item that outlines a suspension of the timetable if the “necessary and sufficient resources” are not provided to move forward with implementing the plan.
While today’s approval comes with conditions, the Commission remains resolute in our commitment to our objectives and to our plan for meeting those objectives. In that spirit, I will be calling an emergency meeting of the Commission next week to discuss the conditional approval and determine our path forward. As is our normal practice, that meeting will be open to the pubic and include public comment.
On a parallel track, this morning, the University of Delaware announced the UD Partnership for Public Education and the Fund for Urban Education. These are two more examples of the catalytic nature of the Commission’s efforts and a great show of support from Delaware’s flagship institution, http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2016/feb/partnership021816.html
– Tony
This is where things are going to get very tricky. It is now incumbent on the school districts, mainly Red Clay and Christina, to decide if they even want to move forward without the guaranteed funding. While the funding could certainly be there if the Delaware General Assembly adds a few tweaks to the Governor’s budget, the simple changing of the word “shall” to “may” changes the whole ballgame.
I am very interested in this new initiative of the University of Delaware. Tony Allen, along with another alumnus, donated $100,000 to create this entity.
In terms of violations by the State Board of Education yesterday, many are assuming they had to pass the WEIC redistricting plan in its entirety. This is not true. The key to this is in the language of Senate Bill 122:
…the State Board of Education may change or alter the boundaries of school districts in New Castle County in a manner consistent with some or all of the redistricting recommendations made by the Wilmington Education Advisory Committee in the report issued March 31, 2015, provided that the General Assembly passes, and the Governor signs, a Joint Resolution supporting the proposed changes.
I can’t remember who first said it had to be approved as a whole, but everyone seems to have run with that ever since. Based on the legislation, this is not true. The addendums added by the State Board are completely within their scope to legally do so. The key words are some or all which I bolded for emphasis. However, that does not excuse the obvious other FOIA violations that happened yesterday or the intentional conflict the State Board created yesterday.
By going out of public session with their legal counsel without declaring an Executive Session (which they did in their January board meeting as well), the State Board violated FOIA and public meeting law. Even worse, they may have further violated the law by allowing someone not on the State Board access to this meeting. To complicate matters more, any citizen could have followed them into that meeting because it was still in public session. However, the State Board denied a citizen’s right to do this by barring entrance with a locked door into the area they met. You need a key card to go from the Cabinet room to the State Board offices. So they intentionally blocked a citizen from being able to do this. When the State Board came out of this illegal closed-door session, Tony Allen came out with them along with Secretary Godowsky. I think Tony Allen, at the least, needs to publicly say, to the best of his recollection, exactly what transpired in this meeting.
What does Delaware state code say about this?
§ 10004 Open meetings.
(a) Every meeting of all public bodies shall be open to the public except those closed pursuant to subsections (b), (c), (d) and (h) of this section.
(b) A public body may call for an executive session closed to the public pursuant to subsections (c) and (e) of this section, but only for the following purposes:
(1) Discussion of an individual citizen’s qualifications to hold a job or pursue training unless the citizen requests that such a meeting be open. This provision shall not apply to the discussion by a licensing board or commission which is subject to the provisions of § 8735 of this title, of an individual citizen’s qualifications to pursue any profession or occupation for which a license must be issued by the public body in accordance with Delaware law;
(2) Preliminary discussions on site acquisitions for any publicly funded capital improvements, or sales or leases of real property;
(3) Activities of any law-enforcement agency in its efforts to collect information leading to criminal apprehension;
(4) Strategy sessions, including those involving legal advice or opinion from an attorney-at-law, with respect to collective bargaining or pending or potential litigation, but only when an open meeting would have an adverse effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body;
(5) Discussions which would disclose the identity of the contributor of a bona fide and lawful charitable contribution to the public body whenever public anonymity has been requested of the public body with respect to said contribution by the contributor;
(6) Discussion of the content of documents, excluded from the definition of “public record” in § 10002 of this title where such discussion may disclose the contents of such documents;
(7) The hearing of student disciplinary cases unless the student requests a public hearing;
(8) The hearing of employee disciplinary or dismissal cases unless the employee requests a public hearing;
(9) Personnel matters in which the names, competency and abilities of individual employees or students are discussed, unless the employee or student requests that such a meeting be open.
(c) A public body may hold an executive session closed to the public upon affirmative vote of a majority of members present at a meeting of the public body. The vote on the question of holding an executive session shall take place at a meeting of the public body which shall be open to the public, and the results of the vote shall be made public and shall be recorded in the minutes. The purpose of such executive sessions shall be set forth in the agenda and shall be limited to the purposes listed in subsection (b) of this section. Executive sessions may be held only for the discussion of public business, and all voting on public business must take place at a public meeting and the results of the vote made public.
(d) This section shall not prohibit the removal of any person from a public meeting who is willfully and seriously disruptive of the conduct of such meeting.
(e)(1) This subsection concerning notice of meetings shall not apply to any emergency meeting which is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, or to the General Assembly.
(2) All public bodies shall give public notice of their regular meetings and of their intent to hold an executive session closed to the public, at least 7 days in advance thereof. The notice shall include the agenda, if such has been determined at the time, and the dates, times and places of such meetings, including whether such meeting will be conducted by video-conferencing; however, the agenda shall be subject to change to include additional items including executive sessions or the deletion of items including executive sessions which arise at the time of the public body’s meeting.
(3) All public bodies shall give public notice of the type set forth in paragraph (e)(2) of this section of any special or rescheduled meeting as soon as reasonably possible, but in any event no later than 24 hours before such meeting. A special or rescheduled meeting shall be defined as one to be held less than 7 days after the scheduling decision is made. The public notice of a special or rescheduled meeting shall include an explanation as to why the notice required by paragraph (e)(2) of this section could not be given.
(4) Public notice required by this subsection shall include, but not be limited to, conspicuous posting of said notice at the principal office of the public body holding the meeting, or if no such office exists at the place where meetings of the public body are regularly held, and making a reasonable number of such notices available. In addition, for all noncounty and nonmunicipal public bodies, public notice required by this subsection shall include, but not be limited to, electronic posting on a designated State of Delaware website, approved by the Registrar of Regulations by May 1, 2013, which shall be accessible to the public. In addition, all public bodies in the executive branch of state government that are subject to the provisions of this chapter shall electronically post said notice to the designated State of Delaware website approved by the Secretary of State.
(5) When the agenda is not available as of the time of the initial posting of the public notice it shall be added to the notice at least 6 hours in advance of said meeting, and the reasons for the delay in posting shall be briefly set forth on the agenda.
(f) Each public body shall maintain minutes of all meetings, including executive sessions, conducted pursuant to this section, and shall make such minutes available for public inspection and copying as a public record. Such minutes shall include a record of those members present and a record, by individual members (except where the public body is a town assembly where all citizens are entitled to vote), of each vote taken and action agreed upon. Such minutes or portions thereof, and any public records pertaining to executive sessions conducted pursuant to this section, may be withheld from public disclosure so long as public disclosure would defeat the lawful purpose for the executive session, but no longer. All public bodies in the executive branch of state government that are subject to the provisions of this chapter and meet 4 or fewer times per year shall electronically post draft minutes of open public meetings, identified as “draft minutes,” to the designated State website approved by the Secretary of State within 20 working days after the conclusion of the meeting. Prior to being posted, draft minutes may be distributed to members of the public body who were present at the open public meeting. Draft minutes may continue to be revised and corrected up until final minutes are approved by the public body at an open meeting. All public bodies in the executive branch of state government that are subject to the provisions of this chapter shall electronically post final approved minutes of open public meetings to the designated State of Delaware website approved by the Secretary of State within 5 working days of final approval of said minutes.
(g) Every regularly scheduled meeting of a public body shall be held within the geographic jurisdiction of that public body. All such other meetings shall be held as follows:
(1) A public body serving any political subdivision of the State, including, but not limited to, any city, town or school district, shall hold all such other meetings within its jurisdiction or the county in which its principal office is located, unless it is school board training that has been approved by the Secretary of Education as beneficial to school board development activities.
(2) For the purposes of this subsection, a “regularly scheduled meeting” shall mean any meeting of a public body held on a periodic basis.
(3) The provisions of this subsection, insofar as they are not practicable, shall not apply to any emergency meeting which is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, or to a meeting held by a public body outside of its jurisdiction which is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public financial welfare.
(h) This section shall not apply to the proceedings of:
(1) Grand juries;
(2) Petit juries;
(3) Special juries;
(4) The deliberations of any court;
(5) The Board of Pardons and Parole;
(6) Public bodies having only 1 member;
(7) Public bodies within the legislative branch of the state government other than the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Joint Finance Committee, the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement, the Joint Sunset Committee, Legislative Council, committees, excluding ethics committees, specifically enumerated and created by Resolution of the House of Representatives and/or Senate or task forces specifically enumerated and created by Resolution of the House of Representatives and/or Senate;
The question here becomes if the State Board of Education is considered part of the legislative branch of the state government. They do vote on regulations but I do not believe they are considered a legislative body. The State Board did not call for an executive session yesterday and even if they didn’t, the board did not vote to convene with counsel. This was not a collective bargaining situation nor was it pending litigation. I’m sure the State Board will come up with some lame excuse for why they did this but I would strongly urge the Delaware Attorney General’s office to do more than a “don’t do it again” slap on the wrist. This is two months in a row they have done this.
Many have asked where the “shall” that was changed by the State Board to “may” actually happens. This can be found in the WEIC Addendum dated 2/11/16.
Basically, the State Board doesn’t want to stop the whole redistricting process if the funds aren’t available. They obviously want improved educational outcomes (based on standardized high-stakes testing scores). In essence, they don’t want to be the bad guy if funding snafus comes up and have the finger pointed at them if it all went down in flames based on funding or lack thereof. The question now becomes if the State Board actually found a way to dance around the funding issue. WEIC will assuredly consult with the affected districts and may very well come back and say “It’s over.” The State Board could say “Well, we changed the word to ‘may’ so we aren’t bound by that so we are going to move forward.” But now it is an unfunded mandate. If the plan does pass the General Assembly and is signed by Governor Markell and funding stops from the state budget, the local districts would be on the hook to fund this initiative. Christina and Red Clay can not afford that. The State Board found a way to further weaken traditional school districts and further evaporate their finances. They set themselves up in their own trap. Granted, they could not do this until June 30th of this year, because that would be the completion of the approval stage and they can’t suspend the timetable until it reaches the conclusion of that stage. From page 10 of the official redistricting plan.
As for the Christina priority school plans, their board did submit these to Secretary Godowsky a few months ago. These are the same plans the district drew up last year as part of the brokered agreement between the Governor’s office and Christina based on the WEAC recommendations. But in an article with the News Journal, Godowsky did not gave a 100% guarantee these plans would be approved:
The first condition attached is that the Department of Education approve a plan to provide extra resources to Christina School District. That plan came out of the clash over priority schools in early 2015, and Secretary of Education Stephen Godowsky said he was optimistic it would be approved.
Godowsky was also optimistic the harsh participation rate penalties would not be included in the Delaware School Success Framework and two weeks later they were after he did a complete turnaround on his earlier announcement to the press. It is my opinion Godowsky likes to soothe the moment and say what he thinks people want to hear but when the directive comes down from his boss, he is forced to change his stance.
While the whole redistricting plan has many moving parts, the State Board complicated matters even more yesterday. Whether you agree or not with the plan, the onus was on the State Board to do the right thing. They clearly did not and instead played political games and toyed with wording in a way that gives them a quick exit without looking like the bad guys. However, there was a lot of media there and they came across looking like complete and utter idiots in my opinion. With the exception of board members Dr. Terri Whittaker and Jorge Melendez, I have to wonder why we even need this State Board of Education in its current line-up. They are not publicly elected and they cause more harm than good.
2:38pm…back in session….
Tony Allen takes the stand. Actually, it’s a chair… He will answer questions for the State Board of Education.
Dr. Gray is asking about Question #2: concerning commitments to evidence-based practices for students from now until implementation of redistricting plan…How would these best practices and services be available to all children?
Tony Allen is answering. Said the principals are dedicated to all students of Wilmington.
Dr. Gray is asking about a commitment from the Christina School District. Said due to a weather delay they can’t vote on the commitment until their next meeting on February 23rd. He is now talking about the priority schools in Christina. He said he expects the Christina board to take that action on 2/23.
Dr. Gray is talking about the $1.3 million grant application from Christina School District for their priority schools. Said that doesn’t have a lot to do with this right now.
Gray wants to talk about the graduation rates and student outcomes for the students of Wilmington. Brought up the Delaware School Success Framework (yawn)…
Tony Allen said WEIC is committed to an annual qualitative review of all the Wilmington schools, not just Red Clay. He said the plan will progress every year with these enhanced services.
State Board member Gregory Coverdale is asking about the Colonia back-out from the plan. Tony is explaining they were not willing to commit to sending their students to Red Clay but are committed to the WEIC plan.
Board member Pat Heffernan is talking about teaching and learning. He said what they got is a summary if they didn’t have WEIC. Tony said WEIC may not have happened if it weren’t for the priority schools. Said that was an impasse in all of this. Said he is not an expert on education but there are several members on the commission who are. Tony just announced University of Delaware will be acting as a partner to help the districts, along with the United Way who will be bringing in other non-profits who have relationships with the schools. They are committed to helping students with trauma.
Board member Nina Lou Bunting just said we are the State Board of Education, not the State Board of Redistricting. Said the reason they have asked so many questions because the plan is going to give all this to Red Clay to get best practices and what will be coming into the state. She said she doesn’t know everything about the plan, but is asking if it is a living and ongoing thing…
Bunting is saying “Yearly, we’re going to get a report with what worked.” In her view it is not complete in terms of telling the State Board of Education what educational initiatives are going to be adapted with the redistricting plan. Allen responded that the priority schools were announced by the Governor and the DOE in September, 2014. He said Red Clay did a lot of community outreach in coming up with their plans. He said on the Christina side, they are going through this now. (editor’s note: Christina got a lot of community input at the same time Red Clay did)
Bunting said she is hearing from several districts that they want to know where their piece of the pie is. Said this is going to cost a lot of money and it has to be right. Heffernan said there is a belief that they (the State Board) are adversaries. (why would he ever think that?) Tony said they are not adversaries and this has been an intense debate. Board member Whittaker said he sees this as a five year plan to let other districts copy on the success of the plan. Tony is stressing that it has always been the recommendation of the commission that all areas of intense poverty, ELL, and students with disabilities need support and funding right away. He understands the state doesn’t have enough money for that. He mentioned Dover as one of these areas and not just Wilmington.
Gray is saying they didn’t get an educational prong in the plan. She said the measures and impacts are going to be what’s important. She said the redistricting isn’t as difficult. It is sweat equity to get it done. She said district’s accountability or level of blame and accountability needs to start at day one. She said they shouldn’t be having a conversation at a special board meeting to make this work. We should be doing it anyways. Gray is getting huffy again… She said the odds on this are 50-50.
Tony is saying you can’t find a more dedicated coalition of educators as the ones involved in this initiative. He never said this is the final plan and he never said this will fix everything. He said this is building and not an end result.
Board member Barbara Rutt is asking if there is sufficient funding but no change in academics, what happens then? Tony said they don’t want an unfunded mandate. Rutt is asking if it could be rephrased. Tony said sure, but the resolution is more about a set of safeguards (missed part of this, will update based on the audio recording when it’s released). Rutt doesn’t feel it is appropriate to tie the hands of the future board (State Board).
Rutt said the letters of commitment from the districts could be tough in the future. Allen said this is a citizen led group. He said the results will be at the discretion of the schools. They (WEIC) don’t have the authority to enforce this.
Gray said their initial reaction was of great concern. She wanted to make sure they have the funding. She wants to know what “transition supports” are in the funding. Tony gave an example of United Way as a partner in this which gives them the ability to be an “engine” to move this forward.
Gray keeps going on about student outcomes (based on the very faulty Smarter Balanced Assessment… when is this unelected State Board going to get it? Sorry, had to go there!). She is saying something about July of 2017, and that is when they will see a lot of activity around the parent collaboration and engagement. Tony agreed, as well as meeting the needs of students in poverty.
Gray is saying they won’t see a lot of convergence until that date. Not to be disrespectful to the huge effort that has already taken place. All the things will start to go at the same time. Tony said right.
Quiet moment.
Heffernan wants to switch gears. Bringing up funding. Talking about the Governor’s budget. Asking about local funds being collected without a referendum. Tony is saying the General Assembly will be coming out with recommendations around this. What they have heard from the districts is these would be operating funds, not capital funds. He said those recommendations could render this moot, but their intention is to have the Education Funding Task Force make necessary recommendations to make this work. Gray is concerned about distribution of funds between Red Clay and Christina. Red Clay will get the bulk of those dollars in the initial years. Tony is indicating this would be expanded to all of Christina in the second year and all the city kids in the third year. Tony said all low-income kids will get these funds. Rutt wants to know more about transition administrative funds. Tony said the Governor put in $2 million in the budget for this purpose but it could be held in the Office of Management and Budget. $7.5 million is needed for this, but $3 million would be transition funds. Planning year first year, transition second year and implementation third year. Tony said they are trying to get spec ed funding statewide before this.
Bunting is saying she wants all these programs to be going on right now while they transition. Tony agrees. Brought up CEO Hope and the Wilmington Education Strategic Think Tank.
Heffernan is very much in alignment with everything they have talked about. But he is concerned about question #1 in the State Board’s questions: how will shifting district boundary lines change student outcomes? He can’t wrap his head around it and doesn’t understand why district lines need to change. Tony said students vacillate between Christina and Red Clay every year, around 20-30%. What he is saying is students need district stability. A student shouldn’t move in with his grandmother across the street and all of a sudden be in a different district. They need to be in the same construct.
Rutt isn’t satisfied with this answer. Said she was naïve in thinking she would get answers based on the questions the State Board asked of WEIC. She gets the part about students and stability but said it isn’t as big a number of students as they thought. Tony and Heffernan states these issues keep them up at night.
Conversation going back and forth but difficult to hear. Board member Jorge Melendez said this is the first step in a long journey. He said that everyone who is here cares. If the State Board passes this they need to take this back to their community and be in this 100%.
Gray is saying this is a risk. The measures of success for the State Board are less of the redistricting facets and more on the educational outcome. They aren’t expecting graduation rates to go up 3% in a year, but does want to see progress. They all want to serve the students in Wilmington. She is stating they can’t have full district support without the Christina commitment.
Motion on the table is to approve with addendum to take out “shall” in terms of ??. Rutt put a motion out to table it again. Gray said the first motion is to approve the plan and it has been seconded. Rutt is saying it is important to have the Christina action. Gray is asking the legal counsel. She is asking for a fifteen minute break to convene with counsel.
One of the WEIC members stated anyone who came down on the WEIC bus has to leave now because the bus will be coming in fifteen minutes.
Many folks in the room are talking about how the State Board can’t do this outside of public session. Many feel this is a violation of FOIA law.
State Board is still on break consulting with their legal counsel. Meanwhile, some of us have figured out the Christina thing. Thanks to Avi Wolfman-Arent with Newsworks who pointed out an action item on Christina’s board meeting on 2/23. Basically it is the district’s approval of the grant application for their priority schools. The “shall” item is in regards to the funding for WEIC. Red Clay is insisting it “shall” be given, not “may”, and that isn’t optional.
Okay, Tony Allen just came out of a door with Secretary Godowsky and the State Board. Lowered and angry faces. WEIC left the room for a quick meeting. Gray is explaining what I just wrote about the “shall” thing and the Christina action item on 2/23.
The State Board is going to vote based on those two conditions having been met. If the conditions aren’t met their vote doesn’t mean anything. Tony Allen is saying the Commission leadership met just now. He said there is a better way of doing this. He said he expects Christina to pass their plans. He said the “shall” thing is a significant curve for them. He said that change from “shall” has the capability of an unfunded mandate.
Gray is saying the commitment here cannot have the State Board’s hands tied. The State Board shares the concern about an unfunded mandate. Tony is saying there is a concern with WEIC for the State Board to mandate Christina approve the priority school plan. Heffernan said Christina refused to approve plans (last year) and that is what got us to this point in time.
Secretary Godowsky said he submitted a letter to Acting Christina Superintendent Robert Andrzejewski on January 21st indicating if Christina submitted the Memorandum of Understanding plan that would be acceptable. Godowsky said they aren’t changing the rules midstream. He said if the Acting Superintendent submits the grant application and the Department approves it. Heffernan said if Christina doesn’t approve their plans they are back where they started from. Godowsky said they don’t authority over a local board. Godowsky said if they submit their plans they can do their due diligence and move forward. Godowsky is referring to the MOU alternative plan passed in March. Godowsky said he doesn’t know the full history but it was around replacing principals and a potential management company. He doesn’t want to speak for Christina and say they were the stumbling block. He doesn’t know the details around the alternative MOU. He said much of what WEIC wants to do is what they want to do for the Christina priority schools.
And of course my battery is going to run out and I’m not near a plug…
Secretary Godowsky said he is in receipt of those plans. Tony Allen said it is a formal response to the commitment from Christina (the letter Christina Board President Harrie Ellen Minnehan wrote WITHOUT board approval in the WEIC addendum to the State Board questions). How can Godowsky be in receipt of plans that weren’t voted on by the Christina Board of Education?
Red Clay Board President Kenny Rivera is talking about the unfunded mandate. WEIC is asking for a five minute consultation.
There was talk from WEIC about removing the State Board’s role in this until July of 2018 pending passage of the redistricting plan by the State Board. This was not an acceptable proposal to the State Board of Education.
Okay, got plugged in. About twenty minutes ago, the State Board of Education voted on a motion to approve the WEIC plan without any addendums. It did not pass. Roll Call- Yes: Dr. Teri Quinn Gray, Dr. Whittaker, Jorge Melendez, Nay: Pat Heffernan, Nina Lou Bunting, Barbara Rutt, Gregory Coverdale. Then they made a motion to approve the WEIC plan based on DOE approval of the submitted Christina priority school plans and the changing of “shall” to “may” in regards to the funding. Roll Call- Yes: Dr. Teri Quinn Gray, Barbara Rutt, Jorge Melendez, Dr. Whittaker, Nay: Pat Heffernan, Nina Lou Bunting, Gregory Coverdale. The plan passed the State Board with the amendments. But this is a deal breaker because the Red Clay Consolidated Board of Education voted in November that if the funding was not guaranteed, they would not move forward. So the WEIC redistricting plan appears to be dead. But this is Delaware.
The Season Of Myths 