Did you know that before entering kindergarten, low-income students are an average of about one year behind other students in math and reading? Did you know that African-American and Hispanic children begin kindergarten up to 13 months behind? These are gaps in both opportunity and achievement.
With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, NCSL convened 23 legislators and two legislative staff at a two-day seminar in Seattle in November to focus on early learning policy strategies to address these gaps.
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal education law passed in 2015, there are new opportunities for states to renew their efforts to give each student a similar start to their education and to ensure that they do not fall behind once they enter kindergarten.
These policymakers dialogued with 12 national policy experts on the economics, data, research and policies related to opportunity gaps, comparing their own state data to national trends and workshopping ideas. Participants left the meeting with ideas, questions and next steps for when they return home, including the following policy options:
Improved data collection to support more robust accountability and reporting.
Adequate funding and tracking resources.
Importance of high-quality teaching.
Extra supports or wraparound services.
Strategies to support English Language Learners.
Copies of all PowerPoint presentations discussing these policy options can be found here.
Perhaps hearing some of the meeting takeaways has sparked some ideas for you as well. To learn more about NCSL’s work on closing opportunity gaps through early learning opportunities in ESSA, please visit NCSL’s webpages on closing opportunity gaps and supporting early learning, or contact Madeleine Webster and Matt Weyer.
Madeleine Webster is a policy specialist in NCSL’s Education program.
Since taking office last February, the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has eliminated dozens of education directives to school officials. Now the Education Department is reconsidering a rule intended to hold states to a higher standard when determining if districts have overenrolled minority students in special education. It has also signaled an intention to pull back on considering “systemic” causes of discrimination during civil rights investigations at schools.
The unprecedented cleansing and revisions of Department of Education guidance to states, school districts, and private schools is passed off largely as a response to President Donald Trump’s simplistic Jan. 30 executive order that agencies remove two regulatory documents for every one issued. Even if, as has been reported, large swaths of the documents the department has eliminated so far have been out-of-date or superfluous, other guidance revisions have grave implications for marginalized students. The department’s headline-making withdrawal of Obama-era policy guidance permitting transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities is just one such example.LLL
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
David C. Bloomfield is a professor of educational leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He is the author of American Public Education Law, 3rd Edition. Alan A. Aja is an associate professor in the department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College.
The Department of Education’s (Education) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and postsecondary schools collect, use, and share a variety of information—including personally identifiable information (PII)—from students, their families, and others to support the administration of student aid. This information is used to make decisions about the eligibility of schools to participate in federal student aid programs, the processing of student applications and students’ eligibility to receive various types of aid, the disbursement of funds to aid recipients, and the repayment of loans and recovery of defaulted loan payments.
Education and FSA have established policies and procedures for managing and protecting student information that are aligned with applicable federal laws. However, shortcomings in key areas hinder the effectiveness of FSA’s procedures. For example, FSA established procedures and tools for managing and organizing records and scheduling them for disposition, but did not fully establish such procedures for electronic data, ensure that employees regularly received training, or conduct a required internal assessment of its records management program. Regarding the protection of student information, FSA did not consistently analyze privacy risks for its electronic information systems, and policies and procedures for protecting information systems were not always up to date. FSA’s shortcomings are consistent with the Education Inspector General’s identification of persistent weaknesses in the department’s information security policies, procedures, and controls. Recommendations to address these weaknesses are not yet fully implemented. Until FSA implements the recommendations, it increases the risk of improper disclosure of information contained in student aid records.
Based on a GAO survey of schools, the majority (an estimated 95 percent of all schools) of those participating in the federal student aid process reported having policies in place, including records retention and disposition policies. However, schools varied in the methods they used to store records, the retention periods for paper and electronic records, and the disposition control activities they employed (such as the authorization and approval process for destroying records).
FSA oversees schools’ participation in student aid programs, but this oversight does not extend to schools’ information security programs. To oversee schools’ compliance, FSA conducts reviews of schools’ student aid programs, based on a number of risk factors. However, it has not identified implementation of information security programs as a factor to consider in selecting schools for program reviews, even though schools have reported serious data breaches. GAO’s review of selected schools’ policies found that schools did not always include required information security elements, such as assessing risks or designing and implementing safeguards. Moreover, Education’s implementing regulations do not require schools to demonstrate their ability to protect student information as a condition for participating in federal aid programs. This raises concerns about FSA’s oversight and how effectively schools are protecting student aid information. Until Education ensures that information security requirements are considered in program reviews of schools, FSA will lack assurance that schools have effective information security programs.
Why GAO Did This Study
FSA oversees the award of billions of dollars in federal student aid to eligible students each year. The processing of student aid requires FSA, along with participating schools, to perform a range of functions across the student aid life cycle, including the management of PII on students and their families.
GAO was asked to examine how FSA and schools manage federal student aid records. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe how FSA and schools use information they collect to manage the federal student aid program, (2) determine the extent to which FSA policies and procedures for managing and protecting this information align with federal requirements, (3) describe the extent to which schools have established policies and procedures for managing student aid information, and (4) determine the extent to which FSA ensures that schools protect this information. To do this, GAO reviewed Education and FSA policies and interviewed agency officials. GAO also administered a survey to a stratified random sample of 560 schools that is generalizable to the population of about 6,200 schools.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that FSA take seven actions to strengthen its management and protection of federal student aid records and enhance its oversight of schools. FSA concurred or generally concurred with five of GAO’s recommendations, partially concurred with another, and did not concur with another. GAO believes all of the recommendations as discussed in the report are warranted.
For more information, contact Nick Marinos at (202) 512-9342 or marinosn@gao.gov.
Today “education is where medicine was in 1910,” stated Dan Leeds, founder of the Alliance for Excellent Education (the Alliance) and current board chairman. Leeds was referring to the pivotal moment in history, after the publication of the Flexner report, when American medical schools began to adhere strictly to the protocols of science in their teaching and research. With modern technological advances and a wider range of research methodologies for studying how humans learn and develop, the field of education likewise now has greater access to research that can guide practitioners and policymakers in how best to design schools to improve student outcomes and close achievement gaps.
But this research must be useable and accessible if researchers hope to influence education decisions. Therefore, the Alliance’s science of adolescent learning initiative focuses on translating and disseminating adolescent learning and development research to inform school improvement policy and practice, especially for secondary schools serving historically underserved students.
As part of this initiative, the Alliance recently gathered together an impressive group of researchers, practitioners, and policy experts to examine these advances in research and discuss how recent findings from the science of adolescent learning might inform high school improvement strategies under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). As states finalize their plans for identifying schools in need of comprehensive or targeted support, school districts are developing processes and strategies for ensuring that they support these schools, and their subgroups of students, using evidence-based strategies…
The science of adolescent learning is the interdisciplinary study of what happens in and with the brain during learning. To learn more, visit https://all4ed.org/issues/science-of-learning/.
Robyn Harper is a policy and research associate at the Alliance for Excellent Education.
Under ESSA, the California Dept. of Education debuted a “school accountability dashboard” website. The page is designed to be a “one-stop comparison tool” for its “ability to highlight high-performing schools for best practices and low-performing schools that need the most help.”
California Model Five-by-Five Placement Reports & Data
The Five-by-Five Placement Reports provide an “at a glance” display on how a district or school is performing on the state indicators. They graphically display which schools or student groups are: a) performing well, or b) in need of additional support.
When Matthew Powell of Kentucky began his profession as instructional assistant and custodian, he was handed a big wad of keys and told to go upstairs. With no further direction, Powell figured out his professional path—for the most part—on his own.
Looking back now, “I wish I had a mentor,” he reflects, “someone to go along with me and explain the value of my role in that school and the different opportunities where I could be an educator for students.” Today, Powell is a custodial supervisor and bus driver for Graves County Schools in the Bluegrass State. He’s also night a night watchman and campus resident, meaning he lives on school grounds.
“Public education is my passion and my desire to live at school to look after students who are staying at school events or coming back from sporting events late at night is an example of my dedication to our children and their safety,” he says.
NEA members, like Powell, have always been passionate about their profession, appreciating the profound influence they have (in their many and varied roles as educators) on the health, safety, well-being, learning opportunities, and development of their students. So it’s fitting that NEA would become the vehicle for members to take the lead of their profession, express their voice, and make a difference for kids, schools, and the communities they serve.
Powell was one of several educators who were recently in Washington, D.C. to rollout two NEA developed reports, Great Teaching and Learning and the ESP Professional Growth Continuum. These reports offer teachers and education support professionals (ESP) recommendations to create a system of continual professional learning with an intense focus on student needs, and they were created with input from two expert panels and task forces focused on how educators, including ESP, can work even more effectively to help students, their families, and communities.
“Every student deserves to have a team of educators that cares for, engages and empowers learners, provides challenging instruction, and enlists the entire school community to ensure student success,” says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “The reports call for a new vision—a system of shared, mutual responsibility—that is founded on the premise that educators are ultimately responsible to students, to their colleagues, and to their professions.”
NEA began to chart a course to greater student learning through strong professional practice with its 2011 report, Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning, and its 2015 Accountability Task Force Report, which outlined a vision for shared responsibility and student success…
Nashville, Tennessee – Thank you, Denisha for that very kind introduction. I am so glad Denisha has joined our team at the U.S. Department of Education. Even though she’s no longer a child, it’s kids like Denisha who keep me focused. They are who I fight for every day, the driving force behind all we do.
I’m happy to be back with so many friends at Excel in Ed, especially as you celebrate the 10th anniversary of this National Summit on Education Reform. The Summit has welcomed visionary and inspiring leaders from across government, business and academia, and, as those of you who attended the 2011 Summit in San Francisco will remember, even some friends from Sesame Street made an “unscheduled” guest appearance! I hope they’re not joining us again today!
While this certainly is not my first Summit, it is my first as Secretary of Education.
It is truly an honor to serve America’s students and to speak with you today at this important convening of advocates, policymakers and elected officials, all of whom share a common goal: to equip every child in America with the education necessary to achieve his or her God-given potential.
Governor Bush, Patricia and the entire Excel in Ed team: hundreds of thousands of kids – and former kids, like Denisha – have been able to do just that, thanks in no small part to your efforts.
On behalf of them and their parents – and on behalf of the millions more who deserve that same opportunity – a very sincere and heartfelt thank you for your tireless work and for your continued commitment.
Like many of you, I’ve been involved in education reform for some time. For me, it’s been 30 years. Now, some folks would think that means I should be in the twilight of my career – looking back and winding down with an eye toward retirement.
Well, I do have a bit of bad news to share with you today…
Bad news, that is, for the teacher union bosses, the defenders of the status quo, the “education-expert” bloggers and muckrakers and many of our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle in Congress. Allow me to borrow a line from the great American author Mark Twain: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!
I’m not going anywhere! In fact I’m just getting started!
And to get started, let’s talk a bit about where I think we as a country need to go. But first, let’s step back.
You would never know it by watching the news or reading the papers today, but this whole notion of “education reform” isn’t exactly new. In fact, you can trace its roots all the way back to ancient times and Plato’s writings in The Republic. That’s right – 380 B.C.
From the ancient Greek debate, through the Roman Empire, across early Europe, on to America’s widespread adoption of the Prussian model, past progressive theories, amid the important advances made during the civil rights era, through today’s continued debate, education reform has commanded the attention of some of history’s greatest and most influential figures.
And while each one of those transition points could generate hours of debate and discussion, I want to go back to 1983.
In April 1983, A Nation At Risk had just been released. Most everyone here has heard of it. Commissioned by then-U.S. Secretary of Education Terrell Bell, it took a hard look at education in America.
The conclusion, as the report’s title hints, was anything but rosy. This is from the summary:
“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity.”
And further:
“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
That was nearly 35 years ago. And what has changed?
In 1983, A Nation At Risk found that on international tests, America was, quote, “never first or second.” Today, the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, shows America stuck in the middle of our international peers. We are being outpaced and outperformed by countries like China, Germany, Vietnam and the U.K.
We are a nation still at risk. We are a nation at greater risk.
This is unacceptable.
This is inexcusable.
And this is truly un-American.
We can – we must – do better.
We all know this. America knows this. A recent Gallup poll showed the majority of all Americans are dissatisfied with the overall education system in our country.
Something else Americans know: our nation’s broken tax system is well overdue for comprehensive reform. And I am so encouraged that, with the President’s leadership, leaders in Congress are poised to finally do something about it! This Administration believes America succeeds when American workers and job providers keep more of their hard-earned money.
Unfortunately, knowing and doing, especially when it comes to really reforming education, prove to be two very different things. Amidst the data, the numbers, the international comparisons, the debate and the vitriolic rancor from sycophants of the system, it’s really easy to lose sight of what – of whom – we’re really talking.
We’re talking about students, like Trevor. Trevor is from California. He has cerebral palsy, though he’s refused to let it define him. He excelled in elementary and middle school, earning all A’s.
But in high school, his condition made it difficult to navigate multiple floors and a large campus. One day, moving between classes, Trevor fell down a flight of stairs, breaking his knee. His accident crushed his bone, and, it nearly crushed his spirit.
Sadly, Trevor’s school was less than accommodating. They didn’t allow leeway for extra time to transfer classes nor any mechanism to catch up on missed instruction time. This 4.0 GPA high schooler saw his grades tumble and his aspirations fade.
“They really weren’t concerned about Trevor going to college,” Trevor’s mother said. “They really just wanted him to graduate high school.”
In other words, pass him along so they wouldn’t have to deal with him: a sad reality for far too many students in far too many schools.
Thankfully, Trevor and his parents discovered a blended learning charter school that allowed students to take classes online or in person.
Trevor began to thrive academically once again, as he was able to learn from his home.
“I felt excited about education again,” Trevor said. Today, he’s back on path, excelling and fulfilled, with his dream to attend college restored.
And we’re talking about kids like Orlando, from the Florida town whose name he shares. Orlando was born with an innate passion for aviation, and from age 6 knew he wanted to be a pilot. However, his life’s circumstances started stacking up against him.
Shortly after he was born, Orlando’s mother suffered a stroke that left her totally disabled, and as a young grade-schooler, Orlando’s father went to prison. In addition to the challenges at home, Orlando eventually struggled at school, too.
He fell in with a group known as “the little hoodlums.” His grades slipped and he nearly failed his junior year. Looking back, he saw himself headed down the same path as his father.
“I never wanted to be that guy,” Orlando said, “but you can see the little things that lead to someone making the wrong decision or getting arrested one day.”
He saw his dream of becoming a pilot, evaporating. “I started looking at the financial requirements and grade requirements, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to make it,'” he said. “My mom is disabled. My father was in prison. So I was like, ‘I don’t have any help. This isn’t going to happen.'”
But Orlando did have help. And it came in the form of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and a devoted and caring teacher, Mr. Nieves, who helped Orlando find it.
Through the scholarship, Orlando was able to attend a school that met his individual needs. And as Orlando tells it, everything was different from Day One. “The teachers cared for me and made sure I stayed on top of my work,” Orlando said.
Hope restored, Orlando doubled down on pursuing his dream.
He studied…hard. His teachers pushed him…hard.
And when Orlando walked across the graduation stage last May, as his recently-released father rejoined his family watching in the audience, tears filled Orlando’s eyes – not just for what he was able to accomplish, but for the opportunities that remained ahead as an accepted aeronautical science freshman at Embry-Riddle University.
“The dream really came true – I’m here. It’s a surreal feeling,” Orlando said.
Orlando’s is an outcome every student in America should be able to share, and it’s one every student in America would be able to share if adults would quit fighting over kids and start fighting for them.
And we’re talking about parents, like Shirley, a mom from Pennsylvania with whom I recently spoke. Shirley lives in a tough part of town, and her daughter was afraid of being bullied by the kids in her neighborhood. Attending her assigned neighborhood school terrified her daughter and it broke Shirley’s heart.
Left with no options, Shirley signed up as a driver for a ride sharing company before and after her fulltime day job so she can afford tuition to send her daughter to a safe, Catholic school.
Exhausted and unsure if she could keep up the pace after a year of working multiple jobs, Shirley asked her daughter if she could try her neighborhood school. Her daughter immediately broke into tears. She begged Shirley not to send her there.
“I don’t ask to be rich,” Shirley told me. “All I ask is for my children to have a better life than me. If that means I have to work three jobs, I’ll find a way. I have to do it for my girls,” she said.
And I know she will.
But no parent – no parent – should be left feeling helpless like Shirley. No parent should have to work three jobs in order to send their child to a school that is safe, to a school that works for them.
And we’re talking about kids like Jason and Mitchell Baker, and their sister Jessica from right here in Tennessee.
Jason was diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia, while Mitchell lives with Tourette’s syndrome. They both struggled to focus during the school day and they had a tough time interacting with their peers. Their parents tried many different options: their assigned school, private school, blended learning, homeschool co-ops – none seemed to be the right fit for them.
Then they found a virtual school that gave them the opportunity to learn and interact socially at their own pace, but also afforded them the chance to participate in athletics locally. They found the option that worked for their needs.
Jessica, meanwhile, knew that she wanted more from high school than sitting in a classroom for 7 hours a day. She wanted to learn, but she also wanted to go on global service missions, work a part-time job and train to be a ballet dancer.
She tried the school her brothers attended, and found that it was a great fit for what she and her parents wanted for her education, too.
Jessica graduated from the University of Memphis, and Jason and Mitchell are enrolled there now.
But they haven’t stopped there. Inspired by their own experience, these three siblings co-founded their own group to help educate, encourage and empower parents to find options for their children like they and their parents found for them.
Jason, Mitchell and Jessica are here with us today. Guys, could you stand up? Let’s all give them a round of applause.
These are all wonderful success stories. Individuals whose lives have been touched and who are on a new trajectory, with the potential for generational impact.
But for every Denisha, every Trevor and Orlando, every Shirley, every Jessica and Mitchell and Jason, there are more – millions more – whose stories don’t have the same result. Who aren’t afforded the same opportunity.
Who today… right now…sit at kitchen tables…helpless…tears filling their eyes as they contemplate a real and inexcusable possibility: by virtue of their zip code, their family circumstances or their economic means, an education system has assigned them to a future that very well might mean their dream is out of reach.
This is the very real and very human face of a nation still at risk.
These are, all too often, the “forgotten” in our society. They don’t have lobbyists, they don’t have public relations firms, they don’t have untold millions to buy their way out.
But, they have dreams.
They have potential.
They have hope.
Because they have us.
I have a simple question for everyone in this room: What are you going to do?
Lawmakers: how are you going to carry their voices through the halls of your capitol? Will you take a stand? Will you challenge the status quo? Will you fight for them?
Find ways to give your school leaders and your teachers flexibility to do what they know and what they do best: serve their students.
Find solutions to allow funding to follow students so they can learn in the way and at the pace that works for them. Find ways to breakdown artificial barriers of location or distance by exploring the promising potential of online and blended learning – options that did not exist just a few short years ago.
Policymakers: how are you going to put their needs above the needs of a “system”? Will you have the courage to buck the entrenched special interests and do what you know is right for these “forgotten” among us?
Make a commitment to put people before paperwork. Students before systems. Get beyond the walls of your offices and proactively seek the perspective and input of parents, students, teachers, school leaders. Listen with an open mind, especially to the challenges and struggles parents identify. Then act to implement policies in a way that serves them. Our job is not to make life easier for us, but to serve students.
Advocates, community leaders and faith leaders: how will you help amplify their voices? Will you be a catalyst for change in your community?
Will you leverage your spheres of influence to truly rethink education in your communities, your states? Will you support and praise lawmakers and policy makers who take courageous stands on behalf of students and parents?
We are at a time for choosing. We can choose to turn away, to offer platitudes or promises of action “next year.” Or we can say: no more. No more empty rhetoric, no more folding to political pressure, no more accepting by inaction this fundamental injustice that stains the future of the greatest republic in the history of the world. No more.
Let me not discount, in any way, the important work and advances that have been made, many as a direct result of your efforts. And some of the most recent advances have been the most encouraging.
I look to Illinois. Thanks to the courage and leadership of Governor Bruce Rauner and many champions for kids in the legislature, low-income Illinois parents will now have the option to send their kids to a school of their choice.
If it can be done in the backyard of the Chicago Teachers Association, home of the infamous teacher strike just a few short years ago, it can be done anywhere!
And there’s also New Hampshire. New Hampshire is on the verge of passing similar legislation that would give parents in their state more options. Many thanks to Governor Chris Sununu and legislative leaders there as well. Keep pushing and get this done for your students!
We must turn words into action.
Millions of kids today— right now— are trapped in schools that are failing them. Millions more are stuck in schools that are not meeting their individual needs. And their parents have no options, no choices, no way out.
Nearly 30 kids have dropped out of school while I’ve been talking – that’s nearly 1,500 students a day; 521,000 this year and more than 2 million in my term as Secretary. More than the total number of students in the New York City, Los Angles and Chicago School Districts – combined. Or in the entire State of Tennessee – twice. Gone. Take some time and let that sink in.
These aren’t just numbers. These are precious young lives, full of promise and potential; kids who don’t have time to wait until next year, or until next session or until after the next elections. They don’t even have time to wait until tomorrow.
Now is the time to act.
I fully recognize this is a fight.
I acknowledge more times than not, it requires really thick skin.
And I know many of you in this room take arrows in the back— and in the front! – on a daily basis.
But know this:
I stand with you, and, together, we stand with America’s kids – all of them.
Because Denisha is worth it. Trevor and Orlando are worth it. Shirley is worth it. Jessica and Mitchell and Jason are worth it.
Every student and every parent across our great land— each of them are worth it.
America is far too great a country to deny any parent or any student the chance at their dream – the chance a great education affords them.
We owe it to our children to be fearless.
The rising generation represents 100 percent of our future; let’s give them nothing less than 100 percent of our effort.
Thank you for allowing me to be with you. May God bless you and may He bless our future – America’s students.
When people think of “urban education” in its most favorable light, they think of dedicated education professionals working hard in difficult conditions to eliminate the achievement gap by raising the academic achievement levels of their low-income, disadvantaged students.
However, a more widely held perception is that we are treading water in a stifled and almost hopeless effort to help kids who probably do not have a chance to succeed.
What an outdated, energy-sapping, and inappropriate mode of thought for this point in the 21st century. If that is our sole focus, then we should turn in our uniforms and get out of the fight.
We need to change the paradigm and broadcast our goal of preparing the next generation of students to fill the known, and the as-of-yet-unimagined, workforce needs of tomorrow.
Let us stop looking back with our heads down and look up to the future with an intentional eye on the unequivocal target of excellent career-life preparedness for all students. Let us embark upon a new frontier of technology, science, and social development that fills a need that has for too long gone unfilled in America.
Our families, students, and the nation’s economy need us to modernize our effort.
Every year, thousands of companies line up to apply for the 85,000 H-1B visas available to bring in foreign professionals to take on largely high-tech jobs awaiting them in the U.S. Those visas were filled in just four days in April, and some 235,000-foreign-born workers applied for them.
Among other things, the importation of foreign talent tells us there are plenty of jobs in our country, but simply not enough young people prepared to take them; that is where we, as urban education leaders, come in. Rather than wringing our hands about whether political types will provide enough funding for closing the achievement gap, we should be pushing the notion our country loses ground to other nations by our fear of tapping into the resources that our urban schools represent.
We should point out, with help from both the private sector and government, that we can generate enough bright and capable young people to fill the critical technology, medicine, education, and science jobs that will energize our economy, raise the standard of living, and create even more jobs.
It is time we shift the paradigm away from either a perspective of urban education as an inevitable failure or a deficit that can only be addressed by benevolent outsiders on a missionary quest of salvation. It is time we lean into urban education as a place to jump-start the revitalization of an old-fashioned plodding system into a model for the 21st century.
We took the first step at the end of September with our 50th Annual CUBE Conference, where hundreds of champions and experts at the forefront of urban education came to share their experiences, lessons, and ideas for the future.
We must see the young people — impacted by historical oppression, contemporary marginalization, and repeated hobbling by current circumstances — as the potential leaders they are. And, we must get them to see their future not as a perennial game of catching up, but as leading the world.
The world, the economy, and our children await our leadership in this area. It is imperative we answer the call.
–written by Micah Ali (mali@compton.k12.ca.us), a member of California’s Compton Unified School Board and the 2017-18 chair of the CUBE steering committee.
This article first appeared in the Decembe 2017 issue of American School Board Journal (ASBJ). Read more from ASBJ here.
SBOE Honors 2018 Teacher of the Year and Blue Ribbon Schools
At this month’s public meeting, the State Board honored the exceptional efforts of Mr. Paul Howard who was recently named the District’s 2018 Teacher of the Year. Mr. Howard has taught social studies at LaSalle-Backus Education campus for the last five years.
SBOE members applauded the outstanding leadership and commitment to student achievement exhibited by Mr. Howard. He will now go on to proudly represent the District of Columbia in the Council of Chief State School Officers’ National Teacher of the Year competition.
The State Board also honored DCPS’s Banneker High School and Horace Mann Elementary School for being selected as a U.S. Department of Education 2017 National Blue Ribbon School. The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.
The Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education provides conflict resolution services for parents and students across the city. Serving approximately 500 families per year, the dedicated staff of the office, under the leadership of Ombudsman Joyanna Smith, works on issues including: student discipline, special education, truancy, student enrollment, transportation, academic progress and bullying. The 2017 Ombudsman’s report builds upon the equity analysis provided in last year’s report by introducing a proposed equity framework for the city. This framework builds upon more than three years of collaboration with school-based, local, and national education leaders, and intervention with over 1,500 families in all eight wards.
The Office of the Student Advocate, led by Chief Student Advocate Faith Gibson Hubbard, assists District families in navigating the complex public education system. By supporting and empowering District residents, the Office of the Student Advocate strives to bring equal access to public education. The Student Advocate’s office focused this year on expanding the services our office offers in support of students and families throughout all eight wards of the city. By leveraging connections and partnerships with government agencies, schools, and community-based organizations and increasing strategic outreach efforts, the office has nurtured vital working relationships that are student and family-centric. In doing so, the office tripled the amount of families it was able to serve through its Request for Assistance line (350 families) and direct outreach engagement (2000 individuals).
Our SBOE #DCGradReqs Task Force held its seventh meeting on November 8, 2017. In case you missed our #FacebookLive broadcast, watch the replay here and read the minutes here.
Key Takeaways
Task force members split into four groups to react to a “straw man” set of requirements – proposed changes to high school graduation requirements designed to ensure the District diploma fulfills its intended purpose.
Members then suggested further edits to the requirements, indicating which of their peers’ changes they liked, disagreed with, or wanted more information about.
In the coming weeks, members will take a new version of the draft straw man out to their constituent groups and provide feedback from those conversations at our December meeting.
Tell us what you think of our progress so far! Please take a look at the updated draft straw man and tell us what you like about it, what you dislike about it, and what you would change. Please submit all comments by emailing sboe@dc.gov or by filling out an online form here. We also encourage you to join our Facebook discussion group here to make your voice heard.
The next #DCGradReqs task force meeting will be held on December 13, 2017.
The SBOE ESSA Task Force, led by Ward 4 representative Dr. Lannette Woodruff, held its fourth meeting on November 7, 2017. Representatives from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) provided an update on feedback received from recently held community focus groups on a new school report card. Dr. Lillian Lowery of The Education Trust delivered a presentation to task force members on equity.
On November 16th, SBOE staff members headed out on a #SBOESelfieTour to visit schools across Wards 7 and 8 to help spread the word about our #ESSATaskForce and the new DC report card. Check out which schools they visited here. The next ESSATaskForce meeting will be held on December 5th.
At this month’s public meeting, the State Board heard from two members of the DC Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network’s Backbone: Marlena Jones and Maya Garcia. The State Board supports Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM and recognizes that these subjects are vital components of a 21st century education. The Network updated the Board on their work and provided some opportunities where the Board and public can become more involved.
By Madeleine Webster
Commentary By David C. Bloomfield & Alan A. Aja
When Matthew Powell of Kentucky began his profession as instructional assistant and custodian, he was handed a big wad of keys and told to go upstairs. With no further direction, Powell figured out his professional path—for the most part—on his own.
When people think of “urban education” in its most favorable light, they think of dedicated education professionals working hard in difficult conditions to eliminate the achievement gap by raising the academic achievement levels of their low-income, disadvantaged students.
