The experts, both from the federal and district level, provided education officials and state lawmakers with independent information on how each state could improve their plans and implementation. However, what they discovered in Florida’s ESSA plan was not encouraging.
In September 2018, Florida received final approval from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) for its ESSA State Plan. Florida was the last state in the nation to receive such approval, as state and federal education officials squabbled for months over the state’s proposed plan.
The Florida plan was originally submitted to the DOEin September 2017, but officials failed to include the waiver requests for the specific portions of the law to which it objected.
Federal officials sent the plan back to Florida Department of Education, saying they couldn’t pick and choose which aspects of the law to follow, and that they needed to submit waivers for the areas where they would like to be granted exceptions.
Florida submitted a revised ESSA plan to the DOE in April 2018 in an effort to comply with their requests and included a separate federal school rating system—one that factors in English-language learner proficiency and subgroup performance—which would work alongside the state’s existing A-F grading methodology to target struggling schools.
The primary areas of difference between Florida’s education officials and those within the DOE had to do with the Florida’s proposed approach to provisions regarding English-language learners and demographic-based subgroups — and federal officials weren’t the only ones saying that Florida’s plan left a lot to be desired. Civil rights groups repeatedly raised the alarmas well, asking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to rejectFlorida’s ESSA plan.
In a November 2017 letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, more than a dozen civil rights groups said they had “significant concerns” regarding the plan, which they believed failed “to serve the interests of marginalized students in the state” and “to comply with the requirements of the law.”
According to Dr. Rosa Castro Feinberg, who serves on the committee for LULAC Florida, an advocacy group serving all Hispanic nationality groups, Florida’s “current plan includes features that contradict common sense, expert opinion, popular will, and the intent of the ESSA. Contrary to the purposes of the ESSA, the Florida plan denies attention to struggling subgroups of students. Without attention, there can be no correction.”
A year later, with Florida now implementing a revised state accountability plan, the peer reviewers convened by the Collaborative had similar (and additional) concerns.
While noting that “empowering local leaders is a core component of successful school turnaround,” the peer reviewers worried that “too much autonomy, without sufficient state supports, may not help the students and schools in most need.”
This, the peer reviewers believe, reflects a “lack of commitment to closing achievement gaps by not addressing subgroup performance or English learner proficiency in the state’s accountability system,” meaning “districts and schools are less likely to focus on these populations as they plan and implement school improvement strategies.” The same concern and fear raised by civil rights groups a year earlier.
The peer reviewers did applaud Florida for its “overall clear, student-focused vision around high standards, college and career readiness, and rigorous accountability and improvement,” and “clearly defined and easy-to-understand A-F grading system, which places a strong emphasis on academic growth and accelerated coursework.”
However, the peer reviewers recommended that the state rework its accountability system to incorporate student subgroups and English-language learner proficiency. They also noted that Florida’s use of dual accountability systems “raises issues with school improvement implementation as it can cause confusion about which schools are being identified and how to prioritize efforts.”
Elizabeth Primas is an educator who spent more than 40 years working to improve education for children. She is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow her on Twitter @elizabethprimas.
New federal data on bullying, discipline, and school safety should prompt tough questions about why certain groups of students are unfairly singled out. Could it also prevent Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from rescinding Obama-era guidance on school discipline? Today’s Federal Flash addresses that question, highlights new people taking over top positions at the U.S. Department of Education, and covers interesting comments on education coming from top Republicans on Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Education released the 2015-2016 Civil Right Data Collection or CRDC, a biennial snap shot of data on bullying, discipline, and school safety among other items.
The data shows that black students and students with disabilities are suspended and arrested far more often than their peers. Given the information, many are hoping this will prevent the department from rescinding Obama-era guidance on school discipline that was designed to address those problems.
The data also confirms racial disparities across students when it comes to success in science, technology, engineering and math courses. For example, 85 percent of white eighth graders who were enrolled in Algebra I passed the course, compared to only 72 percent of Latino students and 65 percent of black students. Among Native American students and students of two or more races, fewer than 50 percent passed the course.
The data also show that high schools with high percentages of black and Latino students are less likely to offer advanced math and science courses like calculus, physics, chemistry and advanced math.
In other news from the Education Department, several empty positions have been filled. On April 18, the Senate confirmed Carlos Muñiz to serve as the Education Department’s top lawyer.
In his role as General Counsel, Muñiz will be charged with tackling some of the stickiest legal issues confronting the Department including determining whether states are complying with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), deciding whether to rescind the school discipline guidance mentioned earlier, and laying out new rules for colleges handling allegations of sexual assault on campuses under Title IX.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced new leadership for the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr. is now the new Chairman of the President’s Board of Advisors on the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This position comes not long after Taylor was appointed to be the president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in June of last year. Taylor is the former president of Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
At the White House event announcing the new leadership, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos praised HBCUs for their cultural and historical significance in her remarks ahead of Trump.
“HBCUs play a very important role in American education,” she said, according to CBS News.“Under President Trump’s leadership in supporting and uplifting HBCUs, we are taking important steps to ensure that HBCUs and the students they serve remain influential players in their communities and in our country.”
DeVos then introduced Trump, who touted the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and thanked the team working on the initiative.
Trump also praised HBCUs as being “cherished and vital.” A White House press release notes that Trump’s proposed 2018 and 2019 budgets maintain funding for HBCUs.
Taylor offered his own words about the appointment. “Every year, over 300,000 students turn to these institutions for their education and to prepare them for their careers. This president’s advisory board can be a nexus between higher educational institutions and employers,” he said.
DeVos and Trump have a rock relationship with HBCUs
We’re not fooled by Trump and DeVos making a big show of their support for HBCUs.
We haven’t forgotten the fact that DeVos called HBCUs “pioneers of choice” and had to issue an apology for her comments.
“When I talked about it being a pioneer in choice it was because I acknowledge that racism was rampant and there were no choices,” she said in August after her comments caused massive backlash. “These HBCUs provided choices for Black students that they didn’t have.”
Some HBCU students did not accept the apology. In May of 2017, Bethune-Cookman University students booed DeVos and turned their backs to her as she tried to give remarks during their graduation ceremony.
We also haven’t forgotten that infamous picture of Trump surrounded by HBCU presidents in what turned out to be more of a photo opportunity than an actual productive meeting.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ team have told states that they need to make bunch of changes in their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. But in some cases, states have said thanks-but-no-thanks to the department’s advice, turning in revised plans that may or may not be kosher under the new law.
Case in point: The U.S. Department of Education, which has given official feedback to nine of the 17 state plans that have been turned in, dinged Tennessee for using super-subgroups, which combine different historically overlooked groups of students (think English-language learners and students in special education) for accountability purposes…
So now the agency is changing the process, Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the department confirmed. Instead ofjust sending letters to states on their plans, the department will first have two-hour phone conversations with states and go over any the issues that peer reviewers had…
There were few fireworks Wednesday as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testified before a House appropriations subcommittee on the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal. DeVos deflected much of the skepticism she received and continued to push the administration’s support of school choice.
President Trump’s proposal, which has drawn sharp criticism from educators and lawmakers alike, calls for $1.4 billion to expand school choice — namely vouchers and charter schools — but slashes $10.6 billion from after-school programs, teacher training and federal student loans and grants.
In her opening statement, DeVos said Trump’s budget proposal would return power to states and school districts and give parents a choice in their child’s education.
Democrats, including New York Rep. Nita Lowey, accused DeVos of taking money from public schools to fund school choice.
“We’re not proposing any shifting of funding from public schools to private schools,” DeVos responded. “In fact, all of the proposals set forth in the budget commit to fully funding public schools as we have.”
“If you’re pouring money into vouchers, the money is coming from somewhere,” Lowey said.
Many Republicans, while upset about proposed cuts to career and technical training programs, expressed support for DeVos.
“We are beginning to see the early stages of a much-needed, robust discussion about how we begin the process of getting our federal budget under control,” Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said.
Democrats questioned DeVos about whether she would allow federal funds to go to private schools that discriminate against particular populations.
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts brought up Lighthouse Christian Academy, a school in Bloomington, Indiana that receives $665,000 in state vouchers and denies admission to children of LGBT parents.
“Is there a line for you on state flexibility?” Clark asked.
“You are the backstop for students and their right to access quality education. Would you in this case say we are going to overrule and you cannot discriminate, whether it be on sexual orientation, race, or special needs in our voucher programs?” Clark added. “Will that be a guarantee from you to our students?”
DeVos sidestepped the question.
“The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” DeVos said. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have to do something different than continuing a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach.”
DeVos’s appearance before Congress was her first public seating since a rough confirmation hearing before the Senate back in January.
Phoenix, AZ – May 23, 2017 – As teachers are saying goodbye to their students after another year’s hard work Governor Doug Ducey announced his veto of Senate Bill (SB) 1209, delivering a final insult to teachers across Arizona. The Arizona Education Association’s (AEA) teacher evaluation bill would have reduced the pressure from high stakes testing on our teachers and allowed our students to spend more time learning.
“Signing SB1209 into law was the simplest action Governor Ducey could have taken to address the teacher crisis, without increasing revenue,” says AEA President Joe Thomas. “Teachers all over the state tell me the overemphasis on standardized testing is limiting their ability to teach and for students to learn. Teachers love teaching because they cherish the moment when they see learning breakthroughs and the light bulb goes on in a child’s eye. We need to remove the hurdles to student learning created by politicians and all of these failed reforms, stop pressuring our teachers to teach the test, and let them get back to teaching our students.”
SB1209 passed with an overwhelming majority in both the Arizona House and Senate, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. If signed, this bill would have ended the nonsensical practice of evaluating teachers using standardized test scores of students they don’t teach. It also would have reduced the degree of standardized test data tied to teacher evaluations.
“As a French teacher, I get part of my performance evaluation and pay determined by my students’ test scores in math and English,” says Phoenix Union High School Teacher Heather Frackiewic. “I have no control over those things, and my job isn’t to teach those things. But I get evaluated and paid based on whether students learn those things.”
SB1209 was supported by teachers, parents, and community leaders who want our public schools to focus on teaching and learning. By vetoing this bill, Governor Ducey is ignoring the will of the people and what they want for our students and public schools.
“This latest insult confirms a definite pattern of disrespect for Arizona’s teachers and students,” says Thomas. “Instead of giving teachers the raise he heralded in his State of the State speech, he offers them a one percent, one-time bonus. Instead of restoring funding to our public schools, he diverts public education money to DeVos’ private school voucher scheme. Instead of supporting Arizona’s teachers and addressing the state’s teacher exodus, he lowers their professional standards and then vetoes AEA’s common sense fix to our teacher evaluation system. When you add up all of his wrong answers this legislative session, it’s clear to see the Governor failed the test.”
WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos refused to say Wednesday whether she would block private schools that discriminate against LGBT students from receiving federal dollars, explaining that she believes states should have the flexibility to design voucher programs and that parents should be able to choose schools that best fit their children’s needs.
DeVos returned frequently to the theme of what she called a need for more local control in her first appearance before Congress since her rocky confirmation hearing in January.
Fielding questions from members of a House Appropriations subcommittee, she said that states should decide how to address chronic absenteeism, mental health issues and suicide risks among students and that states should also decide whether children taking vouchers are protected by federal special-education law.
Researchers have found that many states allow religious schools that receive taxpayer-funded vouchers to deny admission to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students or children with LGBT parents.
Asked by Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., whether she could think of any circumstance in which the federal government should step in to stop federal dollars from going to private schools that discriminate against certain groups of students, DeVos did not directly answer.
“We have to do something different than continuing a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach,” DeVos said.
Democrats immediately criticized DeVos’ philosophy, saying the nation’s top education official must be willing to defend children against discrimination by institutions that get federal money. “To take the federal government’s responsibility out of that is just appalling and sad,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
DeVos pushed back against the notion that the Education Department would be abdicating its authority. “I am not in any way suggesting that students should not be protected,” she said.
DeVos traveled to Capitol Hill to defend a spending plan that has drawn criticism from both ends of the political spectrum.
President Donald Trump has proposed slashing $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, including after-school programs, teacher training, and career and technical education, and reinvesting $1.4 billion of the savings into promoting his top education priority: school choice, including $250 million for vouchers to help students attend private and religious schools.
The administration is also seeking far-reaching changes to student aid programs, including the elimination of subsidized loans and public service loan forgiveness and a halving of the federal work-study program that helps college students earn money to support themselves while in school.
In her opening remarks Wednesday, DeVos said that while the size of the proposed cuts to K-12 and student financial programs “may sound alarming for some,” the president’s budget proposal reflects a push to return more decision-making power to states and more educational choice to parents.
“We cannot allow any parent to feel as if their child is trapped in a school that is not meeting their needs,” DeVos said.
Democrats predictably attacked the administration’s budget proposal as an effort to undermine public schools and low-income students’ ability to attend college.
“This budget reflects the views of an administration filled with people who frankly never had to worry about how they were going to pay for their children going to college,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “And yet I’m most upset that this budget would undermine our public education system and the working families who depend on them.”
Several Republicans praised DeVos, particularly for her push to expand school choice.
“I’ve always made known my preference for giving parents the choice of where to send their students, because in the end the parents are the taxpayers. The parents are the ones who probably know best,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.
But GOP members also displayed their share of skepticism about the administration’s proposed cuts.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chairman of the education subcommittee, questioned the proposal to dramatically cut college financial aid programs such as work-study and college-access programs for low-income students. “Frankly, I will advise you,” Cole said, “I have a different point of view.”
Another key Republican, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, N.J., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, emphasized that it is members of Congress and not the president who hold the power of the purse and will ultimately design the federal budget.
Declaring “awe” for special-education teachers’ hard work, Frelinghuysen also questioned whether the administration had proposed adequate funding for students with disabilities. DeVos seemed open to devoting more money, calling it a “matter for robust conversation.”
A 1975 federal special-education law promised that Congress would pay 40 percent of the cost of providing additional services to students with disabilities. Lawmakers have never come close and in 2017 are footing only about 15 percent of the cost. The Trump administration is proposing to hold funding at that level.
Critics said they are hopeful that Congress will reject many of Trump’s ideas, as lawmakers did this month when they reached a bipartisan deal to fund the government through September.
But even in that scenario, Trump’s proposal creates damaging uncertainty for school districts and students seeking to pay for college, said John King, who served as President Barack Obama’s education secretary and now helms the nonprofit group Education Trust.
“The administration has framed the conversation as a conversation about cuts rather than a conversation about investment,” King said. “We should be talking about investing more.”
While the administration’s proposed cuts have been embraced by fiscal conservatives who argue that Education Department programs need to be trimmed or eliminated, some conservatives are also troubled by the administration’s proposal to invest new money in school choice, saying that represents an unwelcome expansion of the federal footprint in education.
“As much as I want to see every single child in America have school choice, it is just not appropriate for the federal government to be using new dollars and new programs to push states in that direction,” said Lindsey Burke, an education policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “You need local buy-in for these school-choice options to really be supported and viable in the long run.”
Trump and DeVos are seeking to increase the federal investment in charter schools by 50 percent, bringing the total appropriation to $500 million per year. They also want to establish a new $250 million fund to expand and study private-school vouchers, and they want to dole out $1 billion in grants to school districts to adopt policies that allow tax dollars to follow students to the public school of their choice.
In a speech Monday night, DeVos called the push for school choice “right” and “just” and an opportunity to “drag American education out of the Stone Age and into the future.” She referred to her critics as “flat-earthers” and said that while the federal government would never force states to adopt choice-friendly policies, those who opt out are making a “terrible mistake.”
By Emma Brown, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel Copyright 2017, The Washington Post
President Donald Trump’s full education budget proposal for fiscal 2018 would make notable cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, and leverage existing programs for disadvantaged students and K-12 innovation to promote school choice, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Trump’s full education funding blueprint would cut $9.2 billion, or 13.6 percent, from the Education Department’s current $68 billion budget, said the report, based on still-unreleased budget documents. Also, the spending plan calls for the creation of a new, $1 billion federal grant program under Title I to allow students to take federal, state, and local dollars to their public school of choice. That money would be added to the $15.9 billion Title I receives this budget year, fiscal 2017 that current funding is not “portable” to public schools of choice and goes out by formula.
Both the cuts and the new grant for Title I, along with other aspects of the full budget proposal expected to be released as early as next week, are consistent with Trump’s preliminary budget released in mid-March...
Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The administration would channel part of the savings into its top priority: school choice. It seeks to spend about $400 million to expand charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools, and another $1 billion to push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.
President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have repeatedly said they want to shrink the federal role in education and give parents more opportunity to choose their children’s schools.
The documents – described by an Education Department employee as a near-final version of the budget expected to be released next week – offer the clearest picture yet of how the administration intends to accomplish that goal.
Though Trump and DeVos are proponents of local control, their proposal to use federal dollars to entice districts to adopt school-choice policies is reminiscent of the way the Obama administration offered federal money to states that agreed to adopt its preferred education policies through a program called Race to the Top.
The proposed cuts in longstanding programs – and the simultaneous new investment in alternatives to traditional public schools – are a sign of the Trump administration’s belief that federal efforts to improve education have failed. DeVos, who has previously derided government, is now leading an agency she views as an impediment to progress.
“It’s time for us to break out of the confines of the federal government’s arcane approach to education,” DeVos said this month in Salt Lake City. “Washington has been in the driver’s seat for over 50 years with very little to show for its efforts.”
The proposed budget would also reshape financial aid programs that help 12 million students pay for college.
A White House official said Wednesday (May 17) it would be premature to comment on any aspect of “ever-changing, internal discussion” about the president’s budget prior to its publication. “The president and his Cabinet are working collaboratively to create a leaner, more efficient government that does more with less of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” the official said.
The Education Department had no immediate comment.
The budget proposal calls for a net $9.2 billion cut to the department, or 13.6 percent of the spending level Congress approved last month. It is likely to meet resistance on Capitol Hill because of strong constituencies seeking to protect current funding, ideological opposition to vouchers and fierce criticism of DeVos, a longtime Republican donor who became a household name during a bruising Senate confirmation battle.
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate education committee, referred to Alexander’s response in March to the release of Trump’s budget outline. That statement emphasized that while the president may suggest a budget, “under the Constitution, Congress passes appropriations bills.”
https://youtu.be/YF3zO2shiQc
