If principals and teachers understand how to measure student growth and support students in reaching their potential and if they truly value the ability to deliver a measure that an interim assessment like MAP® Growth™ provides, then consistent data practices can become part of a school or district culture. So believes Cindy Keever, Director of Student Support at the Westfield Washington School District in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Since NWEA assessments and data practices have become an embedded, integrated system of evaluating, understanding, and educating throughout the past decade, Westfield Washington School educators feel confident about their ability to understand where students are in their learning process, no matter how their buildings, classrooms, or instructional groupings are reconfigured over time.
How did MAP Growth data come to be central to the culture of learning?
The district made a firm commitment to providing professional learning for teachers and administrators, to help all become more sophisticated users of data. To this end, they have taken all the Professional Learning (PL) workshops offered by NWEA and continue to deepen their practice. They also created buy-in for the NWEA growth model by making sure it was—and continues to be—completely visible to its entire learning community. Every student, teacher, and parent understands that MAP Growth data shows how kids are growing—and that each student knows where he or she can progress further.
With race relations and civil rights issues boiling in America, the Gary chapter of the NAACP is calling on residents to take action and become more active in their community engagements more than ever before.
The call comes as the branch prepares to hold its Annual Life Membership Banquet at 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 2 at the Genesis Convention Center.
Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the first Black woman to ever hold the position, will be among several distinguished guests to speak.
Lynch will share the guest speaker role with the Honorable Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge for the U.S. District Court of Southern California. Branch President Stephen Mays, and Indiana State Senator Eddie Melton, who serves as Honorary Chairman will also be in attendance. Dorothy R. Leavell, also an Honorary Chairperson and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group (Gary and Chicago) and Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also will attend.
Making this banquet a Who’s Who event will be the President and CEO of NNPA, Benjamin F. Chavis. Earlier this year the NAACP and the NNPA made an unprecedented move to work together and pool their resources to step up the fight to advance and defend the interests of Black America.
The rights of Blacks and minorities in Gary and across the country are imperiled under President Donald Trump, whose populist message “Make America Great Again” has reignited racial tensions and threatened to roll back the civil rights gains that Black America has achieved in the past decades. With the heated mid-term elections in November, the new rules governing the U.S. Census count, the plight of Gary Schools and the state joining a lawsuit against Gary as a welcoming city, NAACP leaders are urging Blacks everywhere to turn up their involvement in politics, education and social issues that have torn apart the Black community in recent years.
With all 435 seats in the U.S. House up for reelection in November, Black voter suppression remains a serious concern in the wake of numerous reports of Russia spreading fake news in the Black community and meddling in the 2016 elections to help elect President Trump. The arrest of two Black men at Starbucks in Philadelphia has sparked a wave of 911 calls on people of color who are unsuspecting victims of racial profiling in restaurants, parks and schools.
“Now is the time to fight. We have come too far to allow decades of hard work, sweat and bloodshed to be vain,” said Leavell. “The Black Press stands by the nation’s oldest civil rights organization in calling on Black America to take their community activism and engagement to the next level. The future of Black America is at stake.”
“The NAACP must remain steadfast, unmovable and never silent about the things that matter,” said Stephen Mays, president of the Gary branch of the NAACP.
At the annual Life Membership Banquet, Lynch and Curiel are expected to address civil rights, immigration and other legal challenges the country is facing under President Donald Trump. Lynch became the nation’s most powerful attorney after her predecessor Eric Holder, the first Black U.S. Attorney General, stepped down in 2015. She was nominated to the position by former President Barack Obama.
Like Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Lynch has a bachelors and J.D. degree from Harvard University.
As head of the U.S. Justice Department, Lynch investigated the practices at several police departments across the country that were accused of racial profiling and police brutality. Days before she left the department in January 2017, Lynch’s department released a scathing report on the Chicago Police Department for its treatment of minorities in the wake of the Laquan McDonald case. Lynch also made headlines after she opposed then FBI Director James Comey, who called for an investigation into the personal emails of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 11 days before the presidential election in November 2016.
Curiel gained national attention while presiding over two class action lawsuits against Trump University. The president’s university was accused of making “tens of millions” of dollars off its students who were promised a legitimate education and services. Both cases were eventually settled out of court for $25 million.
During his campaign for the White House, Trump repeatedly called Curiel a “hater” and described him as “Spanish” or “Mexican,” suggesting that Curiel was biased because of Mr. Trump’s calls to build a wall along the border to prevent illegal immigration.
Curiel was born in East Chicago, Indiana, the youngest of four children. His parents emigrated from Mascota, a small Mexican town near Puerto Vallarta in the state of Jalisco. Curiel received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University in 1976 and his Juris Doctor from the Indiana University School of Law in 1979.
The NAACP is the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the country. The Gary chapter is one of the largest branches in Indiana.
The annual Life Membership Banquet is a premier event in the community and is expected to attract over 450 business, political, educational, civic and religious leaders in the region.
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) recently released its statewide teacher survey. Aimed toward all K-12 classroom educators in Indiana, the survey will provide the necessary information to help guide future legislative priorities and professional development opportunities.
“Indiana is full of hard-working and dedicated teachers who spend every day devoted to the success of our students,” said Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. “As a former classroom teacher, I know firsthand the importance of a great support system. This survey will allow us to hear directly from those serving in classrooms across our state and help guide what we do to support and uplift our teachers.”
Under the Office of Educator Effectiveness, IDOE worked to develop the statewide teacher survey. The survey will provide comprehensive data to help drive legislative priorities related to teacher compensation and employment factors. In addition, the information received will also help craft professional development opportunities at the local and state levels. The survey is open to all Indiana K-12 classroom teachers and closes June 15, 2018.
Please note: If you are a current K-12 classroom teacher and did not receive a participation email, please contact your district coordinator.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a big cheerleader for school choice. And way before she came into office, states around the country were adopting tax-credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and more.
So has all that translated into a big bonanza for school choice in states’ Every Student Succeeds Act plans? Not really.
To be sure, ESSA isn’t a school choice law. School choice fans in Congress weren’t able to persuade their colleagues to include Title I portability in the law, which would have allowed federal funding to follow students to the public school of their choice.
However, the law does has some limited avenues for states to champion various types of school choice options. But only a handful of states are taking advantage of those opportunities, according to reviews of the plans by Education Week and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
School Improvement: At least 12 states say they want schools that are perennially low-performing to consider reopening as charter schools to boost student achievement. Those states are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is supposed to bring about a big change in school improvement. The law says states and districts can use any kind of interventions they want in low-performing schools, as long as they have evidence to back them up.
But the provision has some experts worried. They’re concerned that there just aren’t enough strategies with a big research base behind them for schools to choose from. These experts also worried that district officials may not have the capacity or expertise to figure out which interventions will actually work.
Districts, they’ve said, may end up doing the same things they have before, and may end up getting the same results.
“My guess is, you’ll see a lot of people doing the things they were already doing,” said Terra Wallin, who worked as a career staffer at the federal Education Department on school turnaround issues and is now a consultant with Education First, a policy organization that is working with states on ESSA implementation. “You’ll see a lot of providers approaching schools or districts to say, ‘Look, we meet the evidence standard,'” Wallin said…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Beginning with a controversial nomination that ended in a tie-breaking Senate confirmation vote and continuing throughout her tenure as Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos has faced unceasing criticism. While Administration officials would be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, many across the country would argue that she is not serving the public’s interests.
A recent interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes provided an opportunity to address the nonstop criticism before a national audience. Instead, it prompted a new wave of critiques from viewers and news outlets alike.
More important than these recent headlines, however, is the Department’s attempt to stop states from holding student loan servicers and collectors accountable. Claiming that state consumer protection laws “undermine” federal regulator requirements, a non-binding memo is yet another assault on the 44 million Americans who together struggle with a still-growing $1.5 trillion in student debt.
It was about this time last year that Secretary DeVos withdrew three memos that would have required loan servicers, in their renegotiated contracts, to provide more intensive “high touch” servicing for borrowers threatened with default. Then late in the summer of 2017, she withdrew inter-agency working agreements between the Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) commonly known as Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs). Prior to her joining the Education Department, these same MOUs led to a series of major enforcement actions against for-profit colleges like Corinthian and ITT Tech, as well as the nation’s largest student loan servicer, Navient.
With rollbacks in oversight and enforcement, the Education Secretary must think the department is doing a great job serving student loan borrowers that states should just butt out. A new departmental memo claims as much.
In response, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Healey, who filed a lawsuit earlier this month that alleged overcharges to students by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency was just as direct as she was quick to speak up.
“Secretary DeVos can write as many love letters to the loan servicing industry as she wants, I won’t be shutting down my investigations or stand by while these companies rip off students and families,” Healey said in a statement to The Intercept. “The last thing we need is to give this industry a free pass while a million students a year are defaulting on federal loans.”
Thank goodness for state AGs like Healey. Federal enforcement of consumer protection is currently at a real low.
When Mick Mulvaney was named Acting CFPB Director, a change of direction from consumer enforcement to education and information was promptly announced with a series of more changes. In Mulvaney’s view, CFPB would no longer use aggressive enforcement to hold financial service providers accountable. On his watch, consumers have basically been told not to expect much from CFPB, while businesses have been catered to and even asked to advise Mulvaney and company of what appropriate regulation looks like.
So, if the Department of Education is not going to work with CFPB to resolve complaints and CFPB is not interested in consumer enforcement, why try to tie the hands of states who only seek to protect their own residents?
Whitney Barkley-Denney, a policy counsel with the Center for Responsible Lending, addressed the impacts to consumers of color. “Due to racial disparities in income and wealth, the consumers hardest hit by these debts are consumers of color. While the federal government continues to find ways to placate these companies, states are ready and willing to serve the best interests of borrowers and taxpayers.”
The National Governors Association (NGA) agrees with Barkley-Denney.
In a related statement, the NGA said, “Last week’s declaration on student loan servicing from the U.S. Department of Education seeks to preempt bipartisan state laws, regulations and ‘borrower bills of rights’ currently in place and under consideration in more than 15 states…. States have stepped up to fill the void left, we believe, by the absence of federal protections for student loan borrowers, from potential abusive practices by companies servicing student loans.”
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers was even more candid.
“With this move, she [Secretary DeVos] has castrated any state legislators and attorneys general from providing meaningful oversight of student loan services, yet she continues to fail to do so herself,” said Weingarten.
In 2017, a CFPB report showed that during the past five years, more than 50,000 student loan complaints were filed. Additionally, more than 10,000 other related debt collection complaints were filed on both private and federal student loans.
Where these complaints originate is equally eye-opening. In just one year, from 2016 to 2017, the growth in the number of student loan complaints exceeded 100 percent in 11 states: Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington State and West Virginia.
It’s enough to make one wonder, ‘Who is our federal government actually serving?’
Gary School Board members are on high alert as a bill aimed at weakening the board’s authority has cleared another hurdle in the Indiana General Assembly.
On Tuesday, March 6, the Senate passed the bill with a 35-14 vote, two months after it passed the Indiana House. The bill now goes to Governor Eric Holcomb who will most likely approve the bill by signing it into legislation.
The Senate Appropriations Committee in February heard testimony for more than four hours on the bill, which could reduce the Gary School Board to an advisory committee that would meet just four times a year.
Representative Tim Brown
The bill’s sponsor, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, believes the bill would give struggling school districts more clarity to avoid pitfalls that struck Gary and the Muncie Community Schools, which also has been taken over by the state.
Once the bill becomes a state law, Gary Schools Emergency Manager Peggy Hinckley would no longer be required to meet with the board or receive input from its members. The new law would require her to hold monthly public meetings to update citizens on her actions. Current school board members would remain until their terms expire. They could also elect their own officers and replace members who resign.
Last August, the state takeover law stripped the superintendent and school board of their authority. The board was limited to meeting just once per month. Since then, multiple board members have criticized Hinckley and expressed disappointment of their reduced role. Former Board President Rosie Washington resigned in December and School Superintendent Cheryl Pruitt’s last day was February 2.
The bill also affects Muncie Community Schools, another troubled school district that was taken over by the state. Under the bill, that district will be operated by Ball State University.
Under Hinckley, Gary Schools is struggling to reduce debts totaling over $100 million. Since Hinckley was appointed last July, she has been at odds with board members and some parents who don’t agree with her decisions as emergency manager. Hinckley says cuts are necessary to keep the district afloat.
Last month, Hinckley decided to close the 79-year old Wirt-Emerson School of Visual and Performing Arts in the Miller neighborhood. The Indiana State Board of Education approved the decision on March 2, making this year’s graduating class the last one in Wirt-Emerson’s history. Some 225 students are enrolled at Wirt-Emerson.
In a letter, Miller Citizens Corp. President George Rogge said the closing won’t represent a savings if students decide not to attend West Side or the recommended middle school, Bailly.
Hinckley said she is considering closing Gary’s storied Roosevelt College and Career Academy, which is managed by EdisonLearning Inc.
Last January, Hinckley appointed veteran member Nellie Moore as president of the Gary School Board, over the protests of three other board members, who walked out of the meeting.
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education’s (IDOE) Office of eLearning announced today the recipients of the 2018 Digital Learning Grants. This year’s grants offer up to $75,000 in support for districts developing a new focus for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instruction, or computer science, within their existing digital learning environment.
“Maintaining a focus on STEM activities in today’s educational environment is vital to preparing students for their future success,” said Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Superintendent of Public Instruction. “I congratulate the awarded districts as I know they will use this grant to continue making a positive impact in their communities.”
In line with IDOE’s 2018 Strategic Priorities, the 2018 Digital Learning Grants focused on proposals that included vetted STEM curriculum, devices for coding, robotics equipment, and professional development for teachers. Twenty-Seven districts were awarded Digital Learning Grants, totaling nearly $2 million in funding. Awarded grants ranged from just over $11,000, up to $75,000.
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education announced today the 2016-2017 Four Star Schools. The Four Star Schools designation is designed by the Department to recognize great schools in Indiana.
“Receiving designation as a Four Star School signifies a pursuit of academic excellence among students, educators, and the administration,” said Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. “I am honored to recognize these Four Star Schools for their hard work and dedication in preparing their students for a bright and prosperous future.”
The Four Star School Award has been in existence for 30 years. To receive Four Star designation, a school must receive an “A” on the state’s A-F accountability system, have excellent ISTEP pass rates, carry an overall high graduation rate (if applicable), and show success in closing achievement gaps. A total of 238 schools received the award.
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) announced today recipients of the 2018 School Improvement Grants. Over $5.3 million will be allocated to six schools and are made available to support student achievement in Title I schools.
“School Improvement funding is critical in supporting high-poverty schools in addressing low student achievement,” said Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. “I am grateful to our awarded recipients as we work together to create academic success for Indiana’s students.”
School Improvement Grants are federally funded and were enacted under No Child Left Behind. Alternate school improvement funding streams will be utilized in the future in accordance with Indiana’s Every Student Succeeds Act. Funds were awarded through a competitive process to eligible schools who demonstrate a strong commitment to raise low student performance.
For more information regarding the 2018 School Improvement Grants, including a list of grantees, please visit: https://www.doe.in.gov/sig.
Lynch will share the guest speaker role with the Honorable Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge for the U.S. District Court of Southern California. Branch President Stephen Mays, and Indiana State Senator Eddie Melton, who serves as Honorary Chairman will also be in attendance. Dorothy R. Leavell, also an Honorary Chairperson and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group (Gary and Chicago) and Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also will attend.
At the annual Life Membership Banquet, Lynch and Curiel are expected to address civil rights, immigration and other legal challenges the country is facing under President Donald Trump. Lynch became the nation’s most powerful attorney after her predecessor Eric Holder, the first Black U.S. Attorney General, stepped down in 2015. She was nominated to the position by former President Barack Obama.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a big cheerleader for school choice. And way before she came into office, states around the country were adopting tax-credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and more.
