State seeks grant applications for new, expanding charter schools

State seeks grant applications for new, expanding charter schools

By Alison May

The Delaware Department of Education is seeking grant applications for new charter schools interested in opening in Delaware or highly effective existing schools looking to add seats or additional locations.

The funds are part of the $10.4 million federal grant Delaware won in October to strengthen the state’s charter school system. Funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Program will be distributed over five years to support:

  • Sharing best practices between charter schools and other public schools;
  • Evaluating and enhancing the impact of charter schools on student achievement, families and communities;
  • Strengthening the charter school authorization process; and
  • Providing subgrants for the planning, program design and initial implementation of new charter schools and expansion and replication of highly effective existing charter schools.

The grant also will help the Delaware Department of Education to improve its charter authorization process by enhancing reporting to include additional measures, providing technical assistance to charter school stakeholders and addressing policy to strengthen authorization practices.

Those applying for subgrants from the state must show how they will use the funds to:

  • Increase academic achievement for all students in the school as well as educationally disadvantaged students;
  • Collaborate to share best practices with district and charter schools;
  • Engage the families of educationally disadvantaged children on school choice opportunities with a focus on Delaware’s rural and urban areas;
  • Leverage partnerships with local agencies (i.e. social services, behavioral health, mental health, educational support, job placement, before/after care) to enhance school services and ensure sustainability.

The department released its request for applications (find information online here). Applicants must notify their intent to apply by April 30. Applications are due May 31, and awards will be announced in July.

This article originally appeared in Delaware Department of Education News

What Other States Can Learn from Ohio’s Education Plan

What Other States Can Learn from Ohio’s Education Plan

By Dr. Elizabeth Primas (Program Manager, NNPA/ESSA Public Awareness Campaign)

While education officials in Ohio have identified six components for rating schools on their school report cards, they are giving more attention to making sure students don’t fall behind to begin with. Over the last four years, education leaders in Ohio have tripled their investments in the “K-3 Literacy component” and its corresponding preschool program. Ohio has also increased access to high-quality education programs for children living in poverty and low-income families. This investment is aligned with the state’s birth to third grade support system that is designed to ensure that students enter school with the skills necessary to be successful and reach third grade with skills needed to read proficiently.

In December 2011, Ohio began using Early Learning and Development Standards that address five essential domains of school readiness for children from birth to five years-old. Those same standards will continue with the state’s ESSA plan. The five domains include: social and emotional development; physical well-being and motor development; approaches toward learning; language and literacy development; and cognition and general knowledge. These standards have been expanded to provide a continuum of learning for children from birth to five years of age; that implies that there are different expectations for children depending on their age and development. Once parents and caregivers understand that children develop on a continuum, or with skills built upon what was previously learned, educators and parents can begin to work in tandem with each other; ensuring that children are learning and developing appropriately.

Ohio’s Early Learning and Development Standards provide parents with information and expectations for each of the five domains; allowing them to get a jumpstart in preparing their child for school readiness. Standards are organized by topic and age: Infants (birth to around 8 months); young toddlers (6 months to around 18 months); and older toddlers (16 months to around 36 months). The guides are organized to allow parents to easily identify where their children should be, developmentally. For instance, the Social and Emotional Development Domain chart for awareness and expression of emotion, states that infants should express sadness, fear or distress by crying, kicking legs and stiffening the body; by pre-K, children should be able to recognize and identify their own emotions, as well as the emotions of others.

In 2003, Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley, two researchers at the University of Kansas, published a report titled, “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3.” They found that exposure to a rich vocabulary in a child’s early years is critical and the disparities in that exposure result in an achievement gap. It is important for parents to speak to their children, all of the time, using “standard” English. Parents can introduce their children to new words by explaining things in the child’s environment. Reviewing the names of items in the grocery store, the names of animals they see in the neighborhood, and the style and color of their clothes are simple ways to make a big impact. If we are to close the achievement gap, we must start before the child arrives at the schoolhouse doors. From birth, parents should sing songs and repeat nursery rhymes. Reading rhyming books and alphabet stories promote language acquisition and literacy. Parents are a child’s first teachers. It is up to us to give our children the exposure necessary to close the achievement gap.

To find out more about ESSA and its opportunities in literacy visit www.nnpa.org/essa.

Dr. Elizabeth Primas is an educator, who spent more than 40 years working towards improving education for children of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Dr. Primas is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Dr. Primas on Twitter @ElizabethPrima3.

Dr. Elizabeth Primas talks about the Every Student Succeeds Act, the “30 Million Word Gap,” and Ohio’s ESSA state plan.

The Importance of Educating All Children

The Importance of Educating All Children

By Dr. Elizabeth Primas (Program Manager, NNPA/ESSA Public Awareness Campaign)

I am a former teacher. I taught for 25 years in the public school system and have held various titles in the field of education throughout my 40-year career. I have always had a passion for education. My family and I joke that I have been teaching since the first day of kindergarten. My older sister also wanted to be a teacher. So, we would spend our evenings “playing school” with our many siblings and neighbors. Because of our productive “pretend play” I began school already reading and writing. I remember printing the alphabet with pride. By the time I reached third grade I was reading everything I could get my hands on and helping my classmates read as well. In fact, the only time I was reprimanded was when I tried to help a classmate pronounce names during her social studies report on current events.

I shared that time during my childhood, because it is important for educators to understand that children begin school on various levels. Children develop and retain information differently. Some students begin school ahead of the pack. As educators, it is our responsibility to ensure all children, irrespective of their initial academic level continue to make progress.

Unfortunately, most students are not progressing at an appropriate pace. The reauthorized, national education law, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), grants states the freedom to develop their own academic standards and measures of accountability so long as those standards prepare students for college and career readiness. State academic standards can include a wide range of subject areas; in contrast to the previous emphasis on reading and mathematics. To support the academic achievement of students with varied academic ability, background, and socioeconomic status, it is vital that educators refrain from the one-size-fits-all model of instruction promoted during No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

To improve academic achievement, we must reflect on our stated mission: to educate all children. Not every child is going to be a mathematician. Not every child is going to be a scientist or doctor. However, every child is born with specific gifts and talents. It is up to us, as parents and educators, to help each child develop those specific talents. In a family of six children, each of my siblings had a different area of interest. One became a medical doctor, another a mathematician, still another, an engineer; there are two former teachers, and a law enforcement officer. We were all expected to excel in our respective fields, and we did.

Success comes in many forms. A successful student is allowed to pursue his/her natural talents and encouraged to learn the skills needed to be a productive citizen. Had my siblings and I been limited to reading and mathematics, we probably wouldn’t have been as successful; not in our careers or personal lives. To improve academic achievement, let’s first equip teachers with the skills to recognize the natural talents that support and encourage academic achievement. School systems must realize that tests only measure a finite set of skills and that skills do exist outside of those measured. Academic achievement is improved when we recognize the differences in children and embrace them rather than trying to put every child in the same, square box. Academic achievement is improved when parents take the initiative to advocate for their child’s needs from the womb all the way through college graduation and the start of their careers.

Who is responsible for improving academic achievement? All of us. Get engaged, go to the meetings, participate in the professional development, take part in the free webinars, read the articles on education in your local newspapers, and be a voice in your child’s education.

If you are looking for tips on how to get involved, or where to go to attend meetings, visit . www.nnpa.org/essa.

Dr. Elizabeth Primas is an educator, who spent more than 40 years working towards improving education for children of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Dr. Primas is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Dr. Primas on Twitter @elizabethprimas.

Strengthening Indiana’s School Accountability System

Strengthening Indiana’s School Accountability System

Chairman Kruse and Members of the Senate Education Committee:

With SB 416, we have the opportunity to strengthen Indiana’s School Accountability System. A strong accountability system must be in place; a system that is accurate and transparent—a system that drives improvement. I believe in accountability, and I have been held accountable as a classroom teacher for 34 years.

The Department of Education is committed to strengthening our school accountability system to address its flaws that have been talked about in our schools and in our community. As you know, there has been previous testimony opposed to our current accountability system. I am sure several of you have heard stories in your own communities, as well. Our current A-F system is so complicated that the grades are unexplainable; educators are unable to communicate to parents and the community the meaning of the grades. Schools and communities can’t comprehend how a school can be a 4-Star school one year and D-rated school the next year with very little change in ISTEP+ performance. There is no apparent explanation for how some schools went from being A schools to being F schools and how F schools became A schools in a year’s time. While the assigning of grades A, B, C, D, or F should invoke a sense of security and transparency it has instead cause great controversy in our communities.

During the past few transition weeks, there have been many questions to the department regarding A-F. My department is doing its due diligence to provide answers. For the 2011-12 school year, 135 appeals were filed. Inconsistencies have been found to cause question about the system’s integrity and validating the accuracy of the calculations is daunting. Because of this, I am not able to answer specific questions at this time regarding the inconsistencies, but the department is doing a thorough review. Right now, I am unable to communicate to a school how they can improve their overall grade. Schools deserve to have straightforward data to inform their school improvement plans. With sanctions placed upon schools for poor performance, we must have a system that is accurate and transparent.

This bill voids the administrative rule that has established the current A-F accountability model and allows for the creation of a subsequent rule that provides Indiana with a more rigorous accountability system in compliance with P.L. 221 that can report accurate and direct percentage data for schools in both student academic growth and academic achievement. In other words, the percentage of students showing academic growth from school year to school year would be reported and the percentage of students meeting or exceeding at grade-level performance cut-scores would be reported.

Measuring Academic Growth

Our current method of showing academic growth takes students’ scores and compares them with their peers around the state of Indiana; thus educators and parents do not have a clear picture of each child’s academic growth. To strengthen accountability, educators and parents need to see each child’s true measure of growth from year to year. The most direct method of reporting percentage data for student growth is to administer true student growth measure assessments at the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year to show individual growth in a given school year.

However, since Indiana does not currently have true student growth measure tests in place, we must calculate individual student growth on our pass/fail ISTEP tests from school year to school year using individual scores.

Conceptually, one way to calculate individual student growth can be determined by calculating the gap between a student’s performance score and the cut-score from year to year. The percentage of students in each school showing academic growth could then be reported.

Measuring Academic Achievement

For achievement, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the cut-score can be reported which reflects grade level achievement.

Establishing P.L. 221 Improvement Categories

According to Indiana’s Elementary Secondary Act (ESEA) Flexibility Waiver that has been granted by the U.S. Department of Education in February 2012, schools would ultimately be classified as Reward Schools, Focus Schools, or Priority Schools. Classification in these categories would be determined by performance in both growth and achievement.

Achievement vs. Growth

With both growth and achievement being reported, schools can determine a course of action through the school improvement process to raise both students growth and student achievement in language arts and math.

Under this system, each student’s improvement counts equally. This means there would be no comparison to a student’s peers, attention would not be paid to only the “bubble” students who are close to meeting the cut-scores, and schools would not be penalized for students already demonstrating high achievement.

Every student would carry equal weight and focus. School improvement would be focused on each and every child…creating a very rigorous system that is accurate and transparent to strengthen school accountability.

Thank you for your attention. I urge this committee to support SB 416.