Say It Ain’t So! Academy of Dover Violating Probation Terms With DOE! **UPDATED**

In a shocking and unexpected announcement yesterday, the Academy of Dover is not meeting the terms of their probation!  Once again, it is all related to financial transparency!  Seems they can’t get their act together…

When will they ever learn?  And do I mean the DOE or Academy of Dover?  Both!  This school has been flaunting the rules for years now.  The DOE needs to shut them down.  If they aren’t following the terms of their probation (which I think they got off very easy with), they need to go back on formal review!

UPDATED, 8/21/15, 1:47PM: I reached out to DOE Public Information Officer Alison May to find out if the State Board of Education acted on the news Academy of Dover is in violation of their probation terms, and she indicated they did NOT take any formal decision on the violations.

They should have always had a Citizens Budget Oversight Committee.  The fact they can’t even get this group to meet regularly with the majority of members to actually show up is sending a clear message to citizens and parents of Delaware: we will do what we want and the DOE will let us.  Only the DOE can reverse this arrogant trend!

And the oddest part about this report? The last page entitled “Good News” with a blank page. This says it all!

Breaking News: Court Rules Smarter Balanced Assessment Violates The U.S. Constitution

“The Court finds that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is an unlawful interstate compact to which the U.S. Congress has never consented, whose existence and operation violate the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution”

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has been ruled to be breaking many laws in our country according to Judge Daniel R. Green of the Circuit Court of Cole County in Missouri.  The most important of which is the fact that it was never passed by Congress.  The Court also found that taxpayer money must not be given to this unlawful compact.

The Missouri Coalition Against Common Core, led by Frank Sauer, filed suit against Missouri Governor Jay Nixon last year.  Judge Green, on November 26th, ordered a two week restraining order against any taxpayer dollars going to the SBAC.  Yesterday, he gave his final ruling against Governor Nixon and essentially invalidated the very premise of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

For my own state of Delaware, I will be forwarding this case to our Attorney General Matt Denn for an official legal opinion on this type of arrangement within our own state.

Special thanks to the awesome Delaware blog Minding My Matters for bringing this to my attention.

Updated, 11:33am, 2/25/15: Diane Ravitch has written a post on this as well based on an article in the Missouri News Tribune which can be read here and gives more details on the case:

http://m.newstribune.com/news/2015/feb/25/green-blocks-state-common-core-payments-smarter-ba/#.VO3zYbl0zIV