Washington State Lawmakers Attempt to Strip Powers From State Board - State EdWatch - Education Week

Washington State Lawmakers Attempt to Strip Powers From State Board - State EdWatch - Education Week:

Washington State Lawmakers Attempt to Strip Powers From State Board

One of the big hurdles to pushing for education change in states is that, oftentimes, it's not exactly clear who's in charge. This has become a big issue as states craft their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act. The law dictates who has to be consulted, but doesn't specify who has the final say and state constitutions aren't always clear.  

Enter Washington state, where an ongoing legal battle over school funding and the pending ESSA plan has collided in a way that could lead to fundamental changes to the Evergreen State's power structure for the coming years. 

Currently, local school board members, the state's superintendent of public instruction, and seven of the state's 12 school board members are elected (the other five are appointed by local school board members). Local school board members report to the state superintendent, who reports to the state school board. But who crafts and approves policy has been pretty murky—and it could soon get murkier.  

The legislature's House of Representatives heard a bill Monday that essentially would gut the state board of most of its powers and hand those powers to the state's superintendent. 

House Bill 1886 takes from the state's board of education and places in the hands of the state Washington State Lawmakers Attempt to Strip Powers From State Board - State EdWatch - Education Week:

Bullying remains a serious problem in Los Angeles schools - LA Times

Bullying remains a serious problem in Los Angeles schools - LA Times:

Bullying remains a serious problem in Los Angeles schools

Add fighting bullying to the long list of priorities for which the nation’s second-largest school system has good intentions but sluggish follow-through.

One in 5 Los Angeles high school students and 1 in 4 elementary students said they had been bullied last school year, according to a survey conducted as part of a newly released internal audit.

As for efforts to curb bullying, at one campus, the person in charge of handling bullying complaints was “not aware that she was appointed for this role,” the report says.

And although schools were supposed to keep bullying complaint logs, at nearly every campus the audit examined they were either not in use or were not up to date.

Although the extent of bullying found by the L.A. Unified’s Office of Inspector General is not necessarily out of line with national figures, the audit suggests that students are getting less help than they should.  

“Most teachers and staff did not receive high quality training on bullying prevention on an annual basis,” the report says. Schools try to address bullying but fall short, to varying degrees.

In addition, the district, according to the audit, has fewer staff members overseeing anti-bullying efforts than other school systems with similar goals.

Part of the problem is a lack of clarity about what to do. Some of the report consists of auditors and administrators disputing or trying to agree on the best approaches. The district conceded the need for better training.

Teaching has become increasingly complicated, with instructors already required, among other things, to get annual training to recognize and report sexual misconduct, to deliver specialized instruction to students learning English, and to stay up to date on academic goals, teaching methods and technology.

But curbing bullying also is important, said Ron Avi Astor, a professor at USC’s schools of social work and education.

“Part of a school’s purpose is to create A-plus human beings, who get along and speak to each other in respectful ways,” said Astor, who has analyzed and conducted research on bullying around the world. “If you are able to create a school that makes kids happy, where there’s a good school climate, it not only becomes fertile ground for creating civic, democratic and communal values but also for strong academic gains.”

Anonymous student surveys, Astor said, offer the most reliable bullying data, and should be conducted at every school annually. If L.A. Unified made this happen, it could track progress and determine which schools are models and which ones need help.

So far, L.A. Unified has not taken this step, even though the school system has long considered itself a groundbreaker in addressing the social and emotional challenges of Bullying remains a serious problem in Los Angeles schools - LA Times:

Support Betsy DeVos, shoot yourself in the foot - The Hechinger Report

Support Betsy DeVos, shoot yourself in the foot - The Hechinger Report:

Support Betsy DeVos, shoot yourself in the foot
Education groups aimed at uplifting black students should not be the black face of her agenda

There are some things that can get you uninvited to a black family reunion — and tap dancing to the news that Betsy DeVos is the next Secretary of Education is one of them.

By the skin of her teeth, DeVos got enough votes to be confirmed last week. Many black educational organizations sent out perfunctory congratulations and obligatory messages of looking forward to working with her. However, some took it too far by actually praising her flawed candidacy. Their excitement for DeVos reminded a friend of two quotes:

“All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.”

– Zora Neale Hurston


“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

– Harriet Tubman (unconfirmed)

Join the conversation later on Andre Perry’s radio show, “Free College,” hosted Tuesdays on WBOK1230 in New Orleans at 3pm Central/4pm Eastern 504.260.9265.

Blackness doesn’t dictate a narrow set of views about education, of course. The black tent is big enough to cover a range of approaches to reforming our school systems. But if Hurston were still here, she would certainly cast out those black organizations that are selling bad policy to black families. And last week, 51 Republicans voted in Betsy DeVos, the champion of bad policies.

Chief among her causes is school vouchers, government-funded coupons intended as an escape hatch to release students from failing public schools zoned by residence to attend a better private school of their choice. Proponents advertise vouchers as giving low-income families the same opportunities afforded to rich ones.

Many states have income and performance requirements to make that sales pitch a reality. But we should never assume private means better. Nor should we assume vouchers wouldn’t be expanded to include middle-class families. In Louisiana, students who attended a private- or faith-based school on vouchers — a program DeVos enthusiastically supported — did worse academically, particularly in math.

In Indiana, thanks to DeVos’ funding of advocacy organizations and her financial contributions to political campaigns, then-Gov. Mike Pence was able to expand the state’s voucher program from about 3,900 to approximately 33,000 enrollees, currently the largest in the country. However, five years after the voucher program began, more than half of the participants have never attended a public school, and the number of low-income black participants declined dramatically. This means that taxpayers are footing the bill for Support Betsy DeVos, shoot yourself in the foot - The Hechinger Report:

Navigating Choice Reading with High-Stakes Accountability in Mind | radical eyes for equity

Navigating Choice Reading with High-Stakes Accountability in Mind | radical eyes for equity:

Navigating Choice Reading with High-Stakes Accountability in Mind

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: Trumplandia: Unmasking Post-Truth America by NCTE George Orwell Award Winning Author P.L. Thomas - Garn Press - http://wp.me/p3I85u-3NG

As long as we have had formal education in the U.S., we have had a fair amount of public crisis discourse about how students can’t read, and we persist in committing to classroom practices that often contradict our stated goals of creating eager and proficient readers among our students.

One of my arguments about how we fail reading in our schools is that virtually all K-3 students are eager to read, but very few high school students maintain that same joy; what those students have in common are 10+ years in school, where reading goes to die.

English educator and researcher Lou LaBrant began in the 1920s and 1930s producing what we would call today action research showing the essential power of choice in reading to foster both eager and proficient readers.

In the subsequent years, research on reading has confirmed over and over that access to books in the home and choice in reading are the most powerful ways to achieve the kind of literacy we often lament is missing in our young people.

During the most recent accountability era, when high-stakes testing has become king, students are increasingly schooled in scoring well on test-reading, and as a result, they are taught to hate reading. We may well have today a much greater problem in the U.S. with people who hate to read, who don’t read, than who can’t read.

And that fact is the fault of formal schooling.

The source of this dilemma is high-stakes accountability grounded in testing. As a high school English teacher throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I taught in South Carolina, an early adopter of standards and testing, and I also taught in the Advanced Placement program.

After attending my local Writing Project and finishing my dissertation on Navigating Choice Reading with High-Stakes Accountability in Mind | radical eyes for equity:

We #LoveTeaching and quizzes :) - Lily's Blackboard

We #LoveTeaching and quizzes :) - Lily's Blackboard:

We #LoveTeaching and quizzes :)

These days, who couldn’t use a healthy dose of love? Maybe love isn’t all we need, but it sure would be good to have more of it.

Valentine’s Day is about giving and showing love, and it’s also the kickoff for the weeklong #LoveTeaching campaign.

The campaign was launched by teachers, and NEA is a proud partner. From February 14 through the 21st, teachers are encouraged to share inspirational stories and anecdotes about their professional experiences on social media, post a video or pictures, create an infopic with Canva or another online design tool, put up a note in the teachers’ lounge or hallway display case, or find other ways of celebrating each other. Be sure and use the #LoveTeaching hashtag when posting online. Lots of shareable graphics are available, too.

Perhaps you can write a love poem for the occasion.

Need some inspiration? Take a look at these verses and try to match them up with the poets who wrote them. (No Googling allowed!)

The Poetry of Love

How well do you know your poets? Match the author to the verse.

 



Join Lily and Take the Quiz: We #LoveTeaching and quizzes :) - Lily's Blackboard:

Happy Valentine’s Day! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy Valentine’s Day! | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Let’s forget the Orange Menace in the zwhite House for the day and think positive thoughts. Hug your friends. Kiss your loved ones. Call those who are far away and tell them you miss them. Give flowers, sniff flowers. Spread joy.

I love you all. Even those who are persistently annoying.

RESIST by forgetting about HIM for the day.

Enjoy your friends and those you love.

Happy Valentine’s Day! | Diane Ravitch's blog:





Time for Some Joy and Laughter!

by dianeravitch / 47min

Do you feel that you are living in an episode of “The Twilight Zone”? In a time of despair, we need to laugh. We need to be inspired. Art, love, laughter, joy will save our sanity. Here is some sunshine . Enjoy! Here is the back story. It was truly a surprise for the students and teachers. The school leaders were in on th

Ed Notes Online: Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education

Ed Notes Online: Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education:

Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education

Has the public ed ship sailed? After rigthly declaring charters are cancers, Bob Braun asks a very pertinent question on his blog:

Do public school advocates have the will to fight Trump? Open question.

Sadly, we think not. On Saturday Braun attended a conference in New Jersey organized by advocates for public education. The conference included members and staff of such pro-public education groups as the Education Law Center and Save Our Schools. They were searching for some reason for hope given the lack of a sense of militancy in fighting off charters. 

Don’t forget these were the activists, the advocates, the good guys, at the conference. But they argued against tinkering with the school aid formula, wrung their hands about seeking an end to charter schools completely, held out little hope about seriously integrating the public schools of the state, and believed that a mayor who hires school board members really means it when he talks about independent public education.
Even if Phil Murphy is elected, public education in New Jersey–and throughout the nation–is in serious trouble. 

Braun was clearly disheartened by what he heard.

Participants in the conference danced around the danger of charters–but they are starving public schools. Yet even charter critics like Mark Weber–better known as the blogger Jersey Jazzman–offered palliatives when, in fact, bulldozers are needed. Charters suspend and expel 20 to 30 times more students than do public schools, a good way of enhancing their student test results, and such behavior raises serious moral as well as political issues.

I too am often disheartened by the response to Trump where people are running around often chasing their tails -- like little yappy dogs seeing 10 balls and racing after every one until they get tired and lay down to rest. Watching our teacher unions scratch their asses as they face the end of the cliff is almost comical - almost. [UFT Message in Times of Right to Work--Do As I Say, Not As I Do]

I also attended a an event on Saturday - the monthly MORE meeting. I think at least the people attending see charters for the Ed Notes Online: Charters are cancers. There are no good cancers–and charter schools are metastasizing throughout education:

Advocates of disabled students closely watching new ed chief - The Washington Post

Advocates of disabled students closely watching new ed chief - The Washington Post:

Advocates of disabled students closely watching new ed chief

Betsy DeVos got off to a rocky start with families of disabled children when she acknowledged being confused by a question at her confirmation hearing about a federal law that has governed special education since 1975.

Now that DeVos is on the job at the U.S. Education Department, advocacy groups say they will be watching closely to see how much the billionaire school choice champion has learned and how her philosophy will affect the more than 6.5 million public school students who need special support in class.

“It’s fair to say that there’s a high level of anxiety from our members,” said Denise Stile Marshall, executive director of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, which opposed DeVos’ nomination.

As education secretary, DeVos leads the department charged with enforcing the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. The 42-year-old law entitles children who struggle to learn or have medical or developmental challenges to a “free appropriate public education” aligned with their state’s academic standards. It includes services tailored to each child’s needs and in the “least restrictive environment” where those needs can be met. To help states meet the excess costs, the federal government supplied $11.9 billion in funding in 2016.

During her January hearing DeVos exasperated lawmakers and parents when, asked whether schools receiving taxpayer funding should be required to comply with IDEA, she replied it was “best left to the states.” When asked whether she was aware IDEA is a federal law, she answered, “I may have confused it.”

Amid the backlash, DeVos wrote in a letter to Sen. Johnny Isakson of the Senate education committee that she is “committed to enforcing all federal laws and protecting the hard won rights of students with disabilities.” Half of the Senate voted against her confirmation, leaving Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote to give her the job.

Apparent technical issues that blocked public access to an IDEA-related website did nothing to instill confidence. “It was not taken down and we are working to resolve ASAP,” the department tweeted Feb. 8, the day after DeVos was sworn in. As of Monday, traffic was being redirected to a different department site, which included a note saying the department was working to resolve the technical issues.

Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from Washington state who voted Advocates of disabled students closely watching new ed chief - The Washington Post:

Charter schools pose financial risk to municipalities by James Mulholland - Wait What?

Charter schools pose financial risk to municipalities by James Mulholland - Wait What?:

Charter schools pose financial risk to municipalities by James Mulholland

The charter school industry is proposing a change to Connecticut’s school funding system to require that local communities hand over local funds to subsidize charter schools attended by local students.  The “money follows the child” funding system leaves local public schools without the resources necessary to ensure children have access to a comprehensive education.  In this piece, first published in the CT Mirror, educator and education advocate James Mulholland examines this latest money grab by the charter schools.

Mulholland writes;

In  December of last year, the Connecticut Department of Education issued a request for proposals for new charter schools – the first time in nearly three years.  As the state grapples with a budget disaster and Gov. Dannel Malloy continues to propose changes that would dramatically change the way Connecticut pays for education, the state should refrain from opening any new charter schools and freeze the funding of existing ones.

Moody’s credit rating service has warned of the fiscal risks to municipalities posed by charter schools.  In its 2013 report, Charter Schools Pose Growing Risk for Urban Public Schools, Moody’s concluded that a rise in charter school enrollment, “is likely to create negative credit pressure on school districts in economically weak urban areas.”

According to Michael D’Arcy, one of two authors of the report, “A small but growing number of traditional public districts face financial stress due to the movement of students to charters.”

As urban areas such as Hartford teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, lowered bond ratings could have a devastating effect on already dire budgetary circumstances.  Gov. Malloy is proposing a new municipal accountability system for cities 

Charter schools pose financial risk to municipalities by James Mulholland - Wait What?:

Trans Students' Bathroom Rights: Will DeVos & Sessions Follow Candidate Trump's Common Sense? Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Trans Students' Bathroom Rights: Will DeVos & Sessions Follow Candidate Trump's Common Sense? 

Not Likely by Diane Klein

 The most challenging part of the school day shouldn't be figuring out where to go to the bathroom - or whether one can safely do so anywhere at all.  But thanks to the first act of our new Attorney General, those states that would deprive trans students of safe access to appropriate bathroom facilities will face no objection from a Trump DOE or DOJ.


On Tuesday, February 7, 2017, the Senate confirmed Betsy "But What About The Grizzlies?" DeVos as Secretary of Education; Jeff "Elizabeth Warren and The Ghost of Coretta Scott King Are Bullying Me" Sessions was confirmed and sworn in the next day; and by week's end, the Sessions-led DOJ had reversed course on an important Title IX case relating to the rights of transgender students. 

This may be the first (and only!) time I wish Trump's Cabinet would take their lead from candidate Trump's public statements on an issue.  Unfortunately, recent events suggest the opposite: that DeVos and Sessions will be targeting one of our nation's most vulnerable groups, in a needless and cruel policy offered as a sop to the most deplorable, ignorant part of the electorate.

Nearly a year ago, on February 22, 2016, the Charlotte (NC) City Council voted 7-4 to expand an existing nondiscrimination ordinance to cover LGBT people.  The ordinance, which would have gone into effect April 1, 2016, included a provision permitting people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

On March 23, 2016, North Carolina, in a response that makes the Pearsall Plan look progressive and open-minded, enacted HB2, undoing Charlotte's ordinance, and requiring use of bathrooms corresponding to a person's "biological sex," defined in the bill as "The physical conditions [sic] of being male or female, which is stated on a person's birth certificate."  Under HB2, schools were specifically prohibited from allowing students to use any other bathroom than the one matching birth-certificate sex.  It stated, "Local boards of education shall require every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility...designated for student use to be designated for and used only by students based on their biological sex."

HB2 became hugely controversial, and prompted boycotts of North Carolina by various businesses (like PayPal) and organizations.  (For example, the NCAA has pulled its championship games out of the state.)  It was in the Education Law Prof Blog:

In Fine, New Book, Steve Nelson Urges New Education Path that Is Less Dangerous for Children | janresseger

In Fine, New Book, Steve Nelson Urges New Education Path that Is Less Dangerous for Children | janresseger:

In Fine, New Book, Steve Nelson Urges New Education Path that Is Less Dangerous for Children

Steve Nelson’s new book, First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk, is refreshing in the author’s declaration of privilege as he applies all that he has learned in nineteen years as Head of the Calhoun School, a private, progressive school in New York City to an analysis of what’s gone wrong in public school reform over the same period.

Nelson begins: “I am mindful of the position from which I write. Those of us in independent schools enjoy great privilege. This privilege allows us to draw our students into deeply satisfying and thoughtful lives. But we must recognize that these experiences should not be limited to only those children who are wealthy and/or lucky enough to enroll in our schools. Non-sectarian private schools enroll only about 6% of America’s children. So what about the other millions of children? Do we who carry privilege also bear responsibility? I think so.” (p.5)

This is a refreshing and deeply grounded book for these times when so many of our long-held values about education are being tested.

Nelson isn’t utopian; he doesn’t imagine that all public schools could possibly afford to indulge children in classes of 15 students where teachers personally appreciate each student’s learning style and developmental level, but he does believe the constructs of progressive education are a far better way to organize schools than the test-and-punish system that came with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.

A good teacher, Nelson summarizes the history of progressive education from Socrates and Aristotle through Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, A.S. Neill, Rudolph Steiner, John Dewey, Francis Parker, Felix Adler, Lev Vygotsky, In Fine, New Book, Steve Nelson Urges New Education Path that Is Less Dangerous for Children | janresseger:

glen brown: Resistance

glen brown: Resistance:

Resistance

The following is a copy-paste "Resistance Declaration" on Facebook from my good friend and colleague, Ken Previti:

“I take ownership of most, if not all, ideals listed here...I have left the piece in its entirety (aside from minor grammatical and format edits, lol) so all may appreciate it as they discern to be fit:

“Republicans have been whining about the massive protests against the new President. We liberals are being told that we have no right to criticize, since Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. Conservatives say we should just ‘work together’ to fight the problems of this country. Not everybody agrees with this. This is where I stand. Period. I make no apologies to any or all of my FB friends for this. I know some are tired of political postings and rants. FB is (until it gets taken away) a vehicle to express our outrage at how far our country has currently fallen on the humanitarian scale.

“To me, FB is a useful vehicle for my passion and activism. The fevered Ego currently occupying our White House, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all the people I love. And unless you are worth billions of dollars, they are a threat to you and your life, too. So I will Resist and I will be part of the resistance and be proud of it. If you can join in or hang with it, fine. I refuse to ‘play nice’ in the face of what these people are doing. Our country's well-being demands that we stand and resist. Some people (Republicans and Democrats) are saying that we should give #45 a chance, that we should ‘work together’ with him because he won the election and he is ‘everyone's president.’ This is my response:

•I will not say #45's name.
•I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for eight years.
•I will not "work together" to privatize Medicare and cut Social Security and Medicaid.
•I will not "work together" to build a wall.
•I will not "work together" to persecute Muslims.
•I will not "work together" to shut out refugees from countries where we destabilized their governments so that we could [maintain] our oligarchy.
•I will not "work together" to lower taxes on the 1%.
•I will not "work together" to increase taxes on the middle class and poor.
•I will not "work together" to help #45 use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his cronies.
•I will not "work together" to weaken and demolish environmental protection.
•I will not "work together" to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then despoil those lands. 
•I will not "work together" to enable the killing in any way of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.
•I will not "work together" to remove civil rights from anyone.
•I will not "work together" to waste trillions of dollars on our military when we already have the strongest in the world.
•I will not "work together" to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.
•I will not "work together" to slash funding for education or to dismantle public education for all.
•I will not "work together" to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
•I will not "work together" to allow torture and "black op" prison sites.
•I will not "work together" to "take their oil."
•I will not "work together" to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
•I will not "work together" to eliminate the minimum wage. 
•I will not "work together" to support so-called "Right To Work" laws or undermine, weaken or destroy unions in any way.
•I will not "work together" to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that #45 and his supporters are wrong about the facts.
•I will not "work together" to criminalize abortion, jail women for having abortions, or restrict health care for women.
•I will not "work together" to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.
•I will not "work together" to put even more "big money" into politics.
•I will not "work together" to violate the Geneva Convention.
•I will not "work together" to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party, and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.
•I will not "work together" to deny health care to people who need it.
•I will not "work together" to increase the profits of insurance companies.
•I will not "work together" to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of an alleged or actual "pre-existing condition."
•I will not "work together" to increase voter suppression.

•I will not "work together" to eliminate or destroy public employees’ defined-benefit pensions. 
•I will not "work together" to normalize tyranny.
I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.
•I will not "work together" with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.
•I will not "work together" with #45 or anyone who supports him, because I will not allow one man to feed upon the fears of the populace, blaming minorities for their condition or their inability to thrive. ~This is the line, and I am drawing it.~
•I will stand for honesty, love, and respect for all living beings.
•I will use my voice and my hands to reach out to the uninformed and to anyone who will LISTEN for what's really so dangerous about #45, his friends and the Big Lie they spin to the world: That "winning," "being great again," "rich," or even "beautiful" is anything more than nothing...when others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

 
"PS: If you agree, please copy and re-post (we understand this results in larger numbers of people seeing a post), and if you can, sign your name below ours. Also, if we have left anything out, feel free to add it to this list.

"Consider this an opportunity to make a declaration of commitment in becoming part of The Resistance."

Signed:

Patricia Rollins Trosclair
Andrea Dora Zysk
George Georgakis
John Christopher
John Bowles
Patrick St.Louis
Carla Patrick
Darnell Bender
Vickie Davis
JMichael Carter
Janice Frazier-Scott
Rev. ELaura James Reid
Jeanette Bouknight
Rev. Dollie Howell Pankey
Gerald Butler
Carolyn McDougle
Vaughn Chatman
Adrienne Brown
Gary Trousdale
Steven E GordonIsis Nocturne
Debi Murray
Maureen O. Betita
Mona Enderli
Fernie James Tamblin
Myrna Dodgion
Alan Locklear
Tom Wilmore
Jackie Evans
Donna Endres
Lora Fountain
Roberta Gregory
Heather A Mayhew
Stevo Wehr
Nathan Stivers
Jen RaLee
Joan Holden
Leigh Lutz
Deborah Kirkpatrick
Linda Levy
Tom Rue
Nancy Hoffmann-Allison
Beejay McCabe
Michael James Myers
Edward T. Spire
Rupert Chapman
Dawn R. Dunbar
Robin Wilson
Monique Boutot
Laura Brown 
Susan Aptaker
Steve Katz
Bonnie Wolk
Risa Guttman-Kornwitz
Angela Gora
Butch Norman
Sharon Tolman
Sue Zislis
Maurice Hirsch
Satch Dobrey
Jim Krapf
Don Starwalt
Deb Johansen
Daniel Anderson
Bob Gill
Susan Kaveny
Teresa Kennedy
"Aurora" Ellen Harris 
Catherine Martinez 
Ken Previti

Glen Brown

 glen brown: Resistance:

US Ed Sec Betsy DeVos’ Letter to State Superintendents Re: ESSA State Plans | deutsch29

US Ed Sec Betsy DeVos’ Letter to State Superintendents Re: ESSA State Plans | deutsch29:

US Ed Sec Betsy DeVos’ Letter to State Superintendents Re: ESSA State Plans

On Friday, February 10, 2017, US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos sent to state superintendents a letter regarding the formulation of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans.

In short, she notes that the ESSA guidance composed under the direction of former US Ed Sec John King could be scrapped by Congress but that states should continue drafting plans knowing that any revised ESSA guide will include fewer requirements, not more.

In her February 10, 2017, letter, DeVos also offers what appears to be an olive leaf to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) by specifically mentioning education of homeless youth, a major concern of Murray’s. (Prior to DeVos’ confirmation, Murray asked DeVos numerous questions in writing about the care of homeless youth; Murray also voted against DeVos’ confirmation.)

Below is the full text of DeVos’ letter, which can be found her among the US Department of Education (USDOE) press releases:

February 10, 2017

Dear Chief State School Officer:

Thank you for the important work you and stakeholders in your State are engaged in to develop new State plans and transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). I am writing today to assure you that I fully intend to implement and enforce the statutory requirements of the ESSA. Additionally, I want to provide you with an update on the timeline, procedures, and criteria under which a State Educational Agency (SEA) may submit a State plan, including a consolidated State plan, to the Department. States should continue to follow the timeline for developing and submitting their State plans to the Department for review and approval.

On November 29, 2016, the Department issued final regulations regarding statewide accountability systems and data reporting under Title I of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, and the preparation of State plans, including consolidated State plans. However, in accordance with the memorandum of January 20, 2017, from the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, titled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review,” published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2017, the Department has delayed the effective date of regulations concerning accountability and State plans under the ESSA until March 21, 2017, to permit further review for questions of law and policy that the regulations might raise. Additionally, Congress is currently considering a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) (5 U.S.C. §§ 801- 808) to overturn these regulations. If a resolution of disapproval is enacted, these regulations “shall have no force or effect.”

In a Dear Colleague Letter dated November 29, 2016, the Department notified SEAs that it would accept consolidated State plans on two dates: April 3 or September 18, 2017. The Department also released a Consolidated State Plan Template that States were required to use if they submit a consolidated State plan. Due to the regulatory delay and review, and the potential repeal of recent 

US Ed Sec Betsy DeVos’ Letter to State Superintendents Re: ESSA State Plans | deutsch29:

CURMUDGUCATION: New Congressional Attack on Education

CURMUDGUCATION: New Congressional Attack on Education:

New Congressional Attack on Education

You probably already heard about H.R. 899, a bill elegant in its simplicity. Here's the whole text of the bill:

The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.

Thanks to Rep. Thomas Massie (R) of Kentucky for this little zen koan of legislation. It raises many questions. Will the department evaporate? Will it be terminated with extreme prejudice? When the ball drops on New Years Eve, will fall onto the department and crush it? Will the offices terminate, or just the people in them? Will it be like the obliviate spell that Hermione cast, causing everyone to forget that the department ever existed?

But H.R. 899 is actually not the first proposal for the 115th Congress to trash US Education. An earlier bill (filed on January 23, the Monday right after His Regal Orangetude was crowned President) proposes to erase ESSA, launch a national voucher system, and end federal financial support as we know it. And fix a big problem with school lunches, too.

Meet H.R. 610, a bill from Rep. Steve King (R) of Iowa. Its official not-very-musical lead is "To distribute Federal funds for elementary and secondary education in the form of vouchers for eligible students and to repeal a certain rule relating to nutrition standards in schools." The punchier press-ready title is "The Choices in Education Act."

Whose Baby Is This? 

If you're not familiar with Rep. King, his picture can be fond in the dictionary next to "piece of CURMUDGUCATION: New Congressional Attack on Education: