CURMUDGUCATION: Breaking Down the Walls for CBE

CURMUDGUCATION: Breaking Down the Walls for CBE:
Breaking Down the Walls for CBE

In the discussions of Competency Based Learning (or Outcomes Based Education or Performance Based Stuff), a support that emerges from time to time is that CBE will "break down the walls between curriculum and assessment."

On the one hand, I see the appeal. In a perfect world, education shouldn't really have to stop cold for assessment, and the burden really should be on the teacher to discover what the student knows and can do, rather than putting the burden on the student to sing and dance her Proof of Achievement. Just keep learning, students, and the teacher will figure out what you know and what you can do by using the Power of Watching.

This, in fact, is what the best teachers do-- constant monitoring and collection of data, gathered by our eyes and ears, and stored and processed in our brains. That's a huge part of the job, and we've already been doing it for ages.

The unspoken issue here is that it's not enough for some folks that the teacher and the student know what's happening-- it has to be made visible to an assortment of third parties. Some of those third parties like, say, building administrators, are not a stretch. But having to make learning visible to third parties such as Pearson or a far-off government bureaucrat is more of a challenge, not unlike having to prove to a complete stranger that you have a good marriage. Actually doing the thing (teaching, learning, marriaging) is one challenge; giving outward and visible proof of the thing to other separate people is a whole other challenge.

In other words, breaking down the wall between curriculum and assessment for students, teachers, CURMUDGUCATION: Breaking Down the Walls for CBE:



Robert Marzano Takes on Edublogger

Emily Talmage has been working hard for Maine schools. She is a tireless citizen journalist who has dug and dug and dug some more to uncover some of the ugly roots that Competency Based Education has put down across the country, with those roots running deep in her own state (the decision by somebody, somewhere, to roll out the new CBE in Maine, a quiet little state with a big loud governor, must be an interesting story of its own).

At any rate, if you are not a regular reader of Saving Maine Schools just because you don't live in Maine, don't let that stop you. It should be on your don't-miss list.

Apparently, as we've learned over the last week, one reader is not a fan. Here's the story.

Last Saturday, Talmage took aim at Robert Marzano. Marzano has been at the reformster business for over two decades, hopping on the educonsultant train back in the early nineties when Outcome Based Education first reared its unattractive visage, and he's been at it ever since, with a stew of semi-researched recommendations for school reform, teacher observation, and instructiony ideas.

As an early acolyte of OBE, Marzano must be enjoying seeing his ship come in again. He was apparently not so happy when Talmage stood on the dock and told everyone else a few things about Robert Marzano Takes on Edublogger

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Legislative Updates from Senator Jamie Pederson

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Legislative Updates from Senator Jamie Pederson:

Legislative Updates from Senator Jamie Pederson

Senator Pederson is from my district, the Fightin' 43rd.

From his latest newsletter (partial:)

Today is our first big cutoff, when bills that have not passed out of committee will die for this year.
Please attend our 43rd District Town Hall on Saturday, Feb. 20 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Erickson Theater at Seattle Central College. House Speaker Frank Chopp and I will discuss the legislature’s work and answer your questions on various issues before the state.


I wanted to update you on some issues that I have been working on. I also wanted to invite you to attend our 43rd District Town Hall on Saturday, Feb. 20 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Erickson Theater at Seattle Central College. House Speaker Frank Chopp and I will discuss the legislature’s work and answer your questions on various issues before the state.

Funding Public Education
My top priority this year, as usual, is increasing funding for our public schools. As the father of four students at Stevens Elementaryon north Capitol Hill, this issue is personal to me.

The Supreme Court has directed the state to reduce its reliance on Seattle Schools Community Forum: Legislative Updates from Senator Jamie Pederson:

Oregon's dramatic switch: 99.7 percent of kindergartners in full-day classes | OregonLive.com

Oregon's dramatic switch: 99.7 percent of kindergartners in full-day classes | OregonLive.com:

Oregon's dramatic switch: 99.7 percent of kindergartners in full-day classes

Oregon's conversion from half-day to full-day kindergarten was startlingly fast and complete, with 99.7 percent of the state's 5- and 6-year-olds currently enrolled in full-day classes, the state reported Thursday.

That's a huge change in a state where just 42 percent of kindergartners were in school all day the previous school year. The Legislature allocated an extra $110 million a year to cover the costs.

Read more about full-day kindergarten

Learn how full-day kindergarten differs from the half-day version

Educators say lessons are richer and go deeper when the school day lasts six hours rather than two hours and 45 minutes. There's more time to build classroom routines and self-management skills. Art, music and science get more attention. Students write more. And they get a real chance for hands-on exploration.

Schools could choose to offer either half-day or full-day classes this year, but they get twice as much state funding if they choose the longer option.

In 2011, the Legislature gave school leaders four years of notice that the state would begin paying schools the full per-student rate, instead of half, for every full-day kindergartner beginning in fall 2015. Back then, many school officials protested that they would not be able to find enough classrooms and other resources to handle universal all-day kindergarten.

But in the end, 740 of the 750 Oregon schools that offer kindergarten found a way. All but one of the 10 holdouts are charter schools or tiny rural schools with only one or two kindergartners.

Full-day kindergarten proved popular with parents. Kindergarten enrollments surged by in Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Sherwood and elsewhere as families embraced the extended learning opportunity.

Lake Oswego's kindergarten enrollment went up 15 percent. Beaverton schools drew 215 more kindergartners than in fall 2014.

The largest half-day kindergarten class at any neighborhood school is at Joan Oregon's dramatic switch: 99.7 percent of kindergartners in full-day classes | OregonLive.com:

The Disregard of K-12 Education in Presidential Debates

The Disregard of K-12 Education in Presidential Debates:

The Disregard of K-12 Education in Presidential Debates

If you are a parent or an educator and expect to hear something about K-12 education out of any of the Presidential candidates in their debates or fireside chats you will be sorely disappointed.

How we school our children is one of the most important issues of our day, and yet when do we hear anything about our schools discussed?

Republicans don’t like Common Core State Standards. But there hasn’t been a thorough discussion about it. They are mostly for vouchers, which are controversial in many states. But I don’t hear them talking about them either—not in-depth.

I find Republicans always big on criticism of public schools, but they seem to have little discussion of substance when it comes to children and how they learn.

How do the Democrats do?

Hillary Clinton quickly endorsed Common Core when she first started running for President, but I haven’t heard her talk about the standards lately. Probably she knows a The Disregard of K-12 Education in Presidential Debates:

Marzano Says Detroit Contract Untrue. Reporter Proves It is. – Save Maine Schools

Marzano Says Detroit Contract Untrue. Reporter Proves It is. – Save Maine Schools:

Marzano Says Detroit Contract Untrue. Reporter Proves It is.

A few months ago, I discovered an IP address in the list of referrers to my blog that linked to a private legal investigative firm in Ohio.

It struck me as odd, but I told myself that I was being paranoid and soon forgot about it.

This Sunday, the IP address showed up again.  I posted two  blog posts about Dr. Marzano over the weekend, and each seemed to have hit a nerve with teachers around the country. Very quickly, they garnered about 20,000 views.

This time, I wondered aloud if I should be worried about the IP address.  Some said yes, others said no.  One friend speculated that the firm may have been hired to build a libel case against me.  Another wondered if perhaps they were “blog-chasers,” looking to gather clients by sending posts to high-profile individuals.

The following day, an email from Dr. Marzano was waiting in my inbox.

 Dear Ms. Talmage,

Someone sent your recent blog post to me. I assume you know that while you may state your opinions quite freely, false 

Marzano Says Detroit Contract Untrue. Reporter Proves It is. – Save Maine Schools:

Random thoughts. Union leadership conspiracy theories. | Fred Klonsky

Random thoughts. Union leadership conspiracy theories. | Fred Klonsky:

Random thoughts. Union leadership conspiracy theories.

 Don’t go to a state or national union convention thinking there will be real debate or democracy. As a delegate to a state convention one year I needed a bright orange sweater and my whole region waving their arms around behind me for the state president to recognize me at a microphone. At last year’s national meeting we had a two hour debate about the Confederate flag, the result being that my item passed and was filed in a deep dark hole somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again.

Union democracy. Frequently an oxymoron.

AFT President Randi Weingarten is a lawyer, so she knows how to use rhetorical devices.

When I made note on Facebook of her approving repost of a hack piece (The Right Baits the Left to Turn Against Hillary Clinton) from the New York Times suggesting the Bernie Sanders campaign was a conservative conspiracy to deprive Hillary Clinton of her earned nomination, she responded, “Fred-so Random thoughts. Union leadership conspiracy theories. | Fred Klonsky:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why "Competency Based Education' May Be a Greater Danger Than Common Core

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why "Competency Based Education' May Be a Greater Danger Than Common Core:

Why "Competency Based Education' May Be a Greater Danger Than Common Core

There are many things frightening about the latest Big Thing the Feds are pushing - "Competency Based Education" which will have school children as young as kindergarten sitting in front of computers most of their school day and have their skills evaluated on line.

Among the important issues critics have raised are privacy concerns regarding the centralized data collection the system requires; the de-professionalization of teaching as teachers main role is reduced to monitoring students computer usage rather than actually teaching them; the reduction of human interaction with other students and teachers in such away that possibilities for social and emotional learning are destroyed

All of those critiques are powerful- but given the environmental damage in the wake of the Flint water crisis, I have to bring up the issue of the health impact of this kind of pedagogy. Can young children's eyesight be undermined by sitting in front of a computer 6 hours a day when much of their time out of school is spent doing the same thing? Are there dangers of children acquiring carpel tunnel syndrome? Are there skeletal and back injuries that can be acquired by sitting in one place With A Brooklyn Accent: Why "Competency Based Education' May Be a Greater Danger Than Common Core:

Goldman Sachs Wing of @TeachForAmerica #TFA25 – Cloaking Inequity

Goldman Sachs Wing of @TeachForAmerica #TFA25 – Cloaking Inequity:

Goldman Sachs Wing of @TeachForAmerica #TFA25

 Lot’s of controversy today about @HillaryClinton & @GoldmanSachs. @TeachForAmerica loves them. Always have. Teach For America (TFA) and Goldman Sachs have had a longstanding and very fruitful relationship. Who is Goldman Sachs? From Wikipedia:

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational investment banking firm that engages in global investment banking,securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients….Goldman Sachs was [was in the middle] of the 2008 economic crisis,^[2] because of its involvement in subprime mortgages, and was subsequently rescued as part of a massive U.S. government bailout.

Goldman Sachs has done LOTS of bad stuff.

On October 28, 2008, the US Treasury paid Goldman Sachs $10 billion in exchange for Goldman Sachs shares as one of the six large banks initially given funding from TARP intended to unfreeze credit markets

And made lots of money while many Americans lost everything.

Are you surprised that Goldman Sachs is on the $100,000 Teach For America donor list? (For more on TFA’s funding see The Teat: ~Half Billion for Teach (Temp) For America)

In fact, Goldman Sachs treasures TFA alums after they leave their short classroom stay. The Business Insider reported that,

Goldman Sachs is the largest non-academic hirer of Teach for America alumni in New York City.

The leadership of TFA and Goldman Sachs have had a cozy relationship. For example, TFA gives the leadership of Goldman Sachs awards,

“I was a horrible student,” Cohn, the president and COO of Goldman Sachs, told a room full of teachers. On Thursday night, Cohn was Goldman Sachs Wing of @TeachForAmerica #TFA25 – Cloaking Inequity:

Common Core testing frenzy leads to taxpayer funded SBAC Test Prep - Wait What?

Common Core testing frenzy leads to taxpayer funded SBAC Test Prep - Wait What?:

Common Core testing frenzy leads to taxpayer funded SBAC Test Prep

 In many places across the country, the effort to undermine public education is going alive and well.

In Connecticut, thanks to Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy and his administration, the corporate education reform industry is successfully turning public schools into little more than testing factories.  These days Malloy also serves as the  head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Between the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the new “mandate” that all high school juniors must take the Common Core aligned NEW SAT, public schools are being forced to revamp their instructional programs so that they can fulfill their duties by teaching to the test.

Not only is the “high stakes” testing scheme being used to unfairly label children and evaluate teachers, but school administrators are manic about the possibility that their schools and district may not “look good” in the eyes of the testing industry and its disciples like Governor Malloy who famously said, in 2012, that he “didn’t mind teaching to the test as long as the test scores went up.”

Just last month the Westport School System sent out a letter to parents urging them not to opt their children out of the inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core testing program.  The letter read;

We are requesting that all students complete the full SBAC assessment this year. The state of Connecticut has set out a list of consequences for districts that do not have 95% of their students take the test in 2016.  Prior to 2015 we have always had 99-100% participation. Last year we were the only district in our District Reference Group (DRG A) who did not achieve this 

Common Core testing frenzy leads to taxpayer funded SBAC Test Prep - Wait What?:

An Emerging New Narrative For Education

2/4/2016 – An Emerging New Narrative For Education:

An Emerging New Narrative For Education

 February 4, 2016, 2016 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: How Bernie Would Improve Schools … Poverty Sprawl … Black Students Get Harsher Discipline … Test Rebellion Gets Bigger … Which Students Get Newer Teachers

TOP STORY

An Emerging New Narrative For Education

By Jeff Bryant

“The simple story about education no longer works – at least the one we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years … Fortunately, a new narrative is emerging from sources outside the usual think tanks and policy shops … It’s a radical departure from the current policy that constricts educational opportunity by imposing financial austerity, expanding private ownership of the system, and using narrow-minded measures of what constitutes ‘results.’”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Bernie Sanders Has A Bold, Simple Idea For Improving Public Education

Vox

“Bernie Sanders came out in favor of a massive change in the way the US funds schools … Bernie’s right: The property tax system of funding schools is inherently regressive, granting fewer resources to poorer towns with lower property values and more to rich towns with high property values. Federalizing funding of public schools … would be a huge boon for both economic and racial equality … Done right, it can improve school quality while maintaining a degree of local autonomy … Federalizing education spending would entail raising federal spending on the order of $500 billion a year … It’s … possible to raise a big chunk of that revenue by, for example, raising the top income tax rate to 50%.”
Read more …

What Will Poverty Sprawl Mean For School Districts?

Education Week

“The geography of child poverty is changing, and research suggests educators may need to tailor their supports for disadvantaged students in rural, suburban, and urban areas … Urban poor students tend to have more chronic stressors … Urban poor areas generally have a wider variety of programs … Rural poor students may have lower crime and costs of living and better access to nature and play areas, but may be more economically … isolated … have fewer early-childhood or school-age support and welfare programs … Suburban poor students tend to have lower stressors and higher resources … but they may face more frequent discrimination from wealthier peers.”
Read more …

Black Students In South Twice As Likely As Whites To Be Physically Disciplined And Suspended, Report Shows

Atlanta Black Star

“Black students in the South are twice as likely to receive corporal punishment … One in 100 Black Georgia students reported being struck by a teacher… Black male students were more likely to receive physical punishment … 42,000 Black male students reported being beaten … Black students are not just physically punished at a higher rate. They also have higher rates of suspension than white students … 15% of Black students will be suspended in a given year and Black students are twice as likely to receive in-school suspension.”
Read more …

The Testing Opt-Out Movement Is Growing, Despite Government Efforts To Kill It

The Washington Post

Award-winning New York school principal Carol Burris writes, “The testing ‘opt out’ movement is gaining momentum, even as efforts to derail it ramp up … The Ohio legislature is considering a bill that would take opt out students out of accountability reporting … which would, in turn, result in less local resistance to parent requests … In Delaware, the State PTA led the fight to overturn their governor’s veto of a bill that would have made it easier for parents to opt their children out … The leader of the Florida House Democrats, Mark Pafford, publicly urged parents to opt their students out of the tests, which he characterized as meaningless … Keep an on eye on the state that accounted for nearly half of the half million opt outs last year – New York. Despite attempts to convince the public that there will be real change to the standards, testing and teacher evaluation, the parents’ opt out movement is gearing up.”
Read more …

Black, Hispanic Students Tend To Have Less Experienced Math Teachers

Education Week

“Black and Hispanic students are much more likely to have an 8th grade math teacher with five or fewer years’ experience than are their white and Asian peers … There’s good proof that experience begets quality, at least to a point – a recent study found that the average teacher’s ability to boost student achievement increases for the first 10 years of teaching, and possibly longer … 36% of black students and 33% of Hispanic students have a math teacher who has taught secondary math for five years or less.”
Read more …2/4/2016 – An Emerging New Narrative For Education:

The Theft of a Great American School: José Meléndez Ayala Elementary | gadflyonthewallblog

The Theft of a Great American School: José Meléndez Ayala Elementary | gadflyonthewallblog:

The Theft of a Great American School: José Meléndez Ayala Elementary

They came in the early morning like thieves in the night.

The predawn chill was still in the air.

But employees of Puerto Rico’s Department of Education (DOE) were already at work closing a beloved public school.

They sneaked into José Meléndez Ayala Elementary Tuesday around 4 a.m. taking out desks, chalkboards and any equipment that could be repurposed. Then they loaded it all into trucks and zoomed off.

By the time the sun had risen, it was all over.

In the morning light, parents and children staggered to their neighborhood school in the Manatí region of the U.S. territory to find it an empty shell.The Theft of a Great American School: José Meléndez Ayala Elementary | gadflyonthewallblog:

New York Teacher Sheri Lederman’s Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!

New York Teacher Sheri Lederman’s Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!:

New York Teacher Sheri Lederman’s Lawsuit Update

Recall the New York lawsuit pertaining to Long Island teacher Sheri Lederman? The teacher who by all accounts other than her recent (2013-2014) 1 out of 20 growth score is a terrific 4th grade, 18 year veteran teacher. She, along with her attorney and husband Bruce Lederman, are suing the state of New York to challenge the state’s growth-based teacher evaluation system. See prior posts about Sheri’s case here, here and here. I, along with Linda Darling-Hammond (Stanford), Aaron Pallas (Columbia University Teachers College), Carol Burris (Executive Director of the Network for Public Education Foundation), Brad Lindell (Long Island Research Consultant), Sean Corcoran (New York University) and Jesse Rothstein (University of California – Berkeley) are serving as part of Sheri’s team.

Bruce Lederman just emailed me with an update, and some links re: this update (below), and he gave me permission to share all of this with you.

The judge hearing this case recently asked the lawyers on both sides of Sheri’s case to brief the court by the end of this month (February 29, 2016) on a new issue, positioned and pushed back into the court by the New York State Education Department (NYSED). The issue to be heard pertains to the state’s new “moratorium” or “emergency regulations” related to the state’s high-stakes use of its growth scores, all of which is likely related to the political reaction to the opt-out movement throughout the state of New York, the publicity pertaining to the Lederman lawsuit in and of itself, and the federal government’s adoption of the recent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) given its specific provision that now permits states to decide whether (and if so how) to use teachers’ students’ test scores to hold teachers accountable for their levels of growth (in New York) or value-added.

While the federal government did not abolish such practices via its ESSA, the federal New York Teacher Sheri Lederman’s Lawsuit Update | VAMboozled!:

Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever? - The Atlantic

Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever? - The Atlantic:

Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever?

Even if white people no longer openly promote having neighborhoods and schools to themselves, many of them continue to help make that happen.

Progress has undoubtedly been made since the days of explicit segregation, and most white people no longer openly advocate for segregation in neighborhoods, schools, and offices. When speaking to researchers, many even argue that integration is important and necessary. At the same time, old racial stereotypes die hard, and perceptions that black people are lazy, criminal, and dim-witted contribute to the maintenance of segregation and the inequalities that result from it. Despite laws prohibiting segregation—most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964—it persists on several fronts today.

Some of the most striking studies done on present-day segregation have to do with how it’s connected to the ways families share money and other resources among themselves. The sociologist Thomas Shapiro, for instance, argues that the greater wealth that white parents are likely to have allows them to help out their children with down payments, college tuition, and other significant expenses that would otherwise create debt. As a result, white families often use these “transformative assets” to purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods, based on the belief that sending their children to mostly white schools in these areas will offer them a competitive advantage. (These schools are usually evaluated in racial and economic terms, not by class size, teacher quality, or other measures shown to have an impact on student success.) Shapiro’s research shows that while whites no longer explicitly say that they will not live around blacks, existing wealth disparities enable them to make well-meaning decisions that, unfortunately, still serve to reproduce racial segregation in residential and educational settings.

Black Americans, on the other hand, are much less likely to have access to transformative assets. As the sociologists Mary Pattillo, Douglas Massey, and Nancy Denton have shown, a consequence of this is that blacks are less likely to own homes. And when they do, they are more likely to live in neighborhoods thatare adjacent to poor black communities (and the less well-funded schools that are Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever? - The Atlantic:

The High Cost of Low Quality Teachers – Missouri Education Watchdog

The High Cost of Low Quality Teachers – Missouri Education Watchdog:
The High Cost of Low Quality Teachers

Missouri, like many states, is facing a teacher shortage. Before you run out to get a degree because you love teaching those little kiddies, know that we have a glut of K-6 teachers. What this means is that most people are only comfortable teaching what they learned before the age of 13. Where we need teachers are in the sciences and math, especially for middle and high school. What we need are people who really know that content.

We are not alone in our puzzling over how to get more qualified teachers in the classroom. Some districts are tempted just to get any teacher in the classroom, so alternatively certified teachers like those coming from Teach For America look mighty tempting. The fact that many of these kinds of teachers command a much lower price than veteran content area teachers is also tempting to financially struggling districts. But an article in the New Boston Post by Dr. Sandra Stotsky points out the added costs of under qualified teachers.

The high cost of academically under-qualified teachers

by Dr. Sandra Stotsky

It was once a matter of common sense that teachers cannot teach what they do not know. And research supports the view that a teacher’s knowledge of his or her subject area is, so far, the best and only predictor of student achievement.

In Massachusetts, common sense guided the state department of education’s revision of the Bay State’s teacher licensing regulations and licensure tests a decade earlier.

The results, judged by the scores on reputable assessments, speak for themselves. Average scores in both reading and mathematics, for grade 4 and grade 8, on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, were the highest or among the highest of all 50 states.

For Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the international test of curriculum-based achievement, Massachusetts entered as a separate country, tied with Singapore for first place in grade 8 science, and was among the top six countries in mathematics in grades 4 and 8 in both 2007 and 2013.

Yes, we had pre-Common Core standards for K-12 that had been judged to be among the most rigorous in the country in all major subjects. But, The High Cost of Low Quality Teachers – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Washington Post Report Highlights Problems with State Takeovers of Schools | janresseger

Washington Post Report Highlights Problems with State Takeovers of Schools | janresseger:

Washington Post Report Highlights Problems with State Takeovers of Schools

Earlier this week the Washington Post‘s Lyndsey Layton reported on the wave of attempts by Republican governors to seize local schools and school districts and turn them over to new state-run governance structures dubbed “recovery” or “opportunity,” or “achievement” school districts: “Governors in Michigan, Arkansas, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio and elsewhere—mostly Republican leaders who otherwise champion local control in their fights with the federal government—say they are intervening in cases of chronic academic or financial failure.  They say they have a moral obligation to act when it is clear that local efforts haven’t led to improvement… Eleven states have passed or debated legislation to create state-run school districts in the past year… State takeovers were once a rarity, but they have become increasingly popular as the number of states controlled by Republicans doubled between 2010 and 2014.”

Layton cites a report from the Education Commission of the States, an organization that has historically leaned toward support of accountability-based school reform.  The Education Commission of the States describes the state run “recovery” districts this way: “In recovery districts, SEAs (state education agencies) gain legal authority to take over their lowest-performing schools and assume the LEA (local education agency) functions for those schools.  Schools in these districts are united not by geographic proximity, but rather by their status as underperformers.  The belief is that by grouping schools in this way, states can more seamlessly implement comprehensive and aggressive reform strategies in schools facing similar challenges.  Recovery districts tend to have a governance system in which ‘high-quality’ operators function in a charter-prevalent model.  Schools that are not run by charter operators are run instead by the state board or recovery district authority.”  Notice the Washington Post Report Highlights Problems with State Takeovers of Schools | janresseger:

New Orleans Charter Carver High broke special-education law by suspending student for nearly 5 weeks | The Lens

Carver High broke special-education law by suspending student for nearly 5 weeks | The Lens:

Carver High broke special-education law by suspending student for nearly 5 weeks

George Washington Carver Collegiate Academy charter high school got in serious trouble earlier this year for suspending a student with disabilities for nearly five weeks, more than double the time allowed by law.

The Louisiana Department of Education told the Collegiate Academies board it was in breach of it charter contract for violating federal law. The school returned to good standing last week after completing corrective action prescribed by the department.

The sanction was in the middle of the three available to the state Education Department if a charter school has significant financial, academic or organizational issues.. It can also issue a notice of concern, which is essentially a written warning, or it can begin a review process aimed at revoking the school’s charter.

The school’s problem stems from its suspension of a special-education student and its recommendation to expel, according to the notice from the state.

By district policy, the administration had five days to get the necessary paperwork to the city’s centralized Student Hearing Office. But it took them nearly a month. The school’s expulsion recommendation of Sept. 24 didn’t arrive at the hearing office until Oct. 22. The hearing office denied the expulsion request. .

In that time, the school didn’t let the student attend classes, and federal law limits students receiving special-education services to 10 days of suspension per academic year.

In total, the student missed 24 days before the first half of the academic year was over.

The student was not allowed to return to school until Oct. 29, according to the notice. The student missed 21 instructional days in this incident. Tack on a prior one-day suspension and a two-day suspension in December and the student missed 24 days as of the Jan. 6 notice.

It’s not the first time Collegiate has received unwanted attention for its discipline practices, drawing parent protests in the fall of 2013. In 2012-13, the network’s three schools had the highest suspension rates in the city.

The school serves about 425 high school students on its Reed Boulevard campus in eastern New Orleans, and it earned a C on the state accountability report card issued in November.

The department issues notices of breach when charter schools violate the state’s charter school performance compact. In order to avoid harsher penalties, which could include charter revocation, schools must complete a series of corrective actions specific to their problems to return to good standing.

In this case, Collegiate had to develop a plan to make up special education minutes owed to the student and outline a plan to educate Carver High broke special-education law by suspending student for nearly 5 weeks | The Lens: