What Would a Merged Education and Labor Department Look Like?

What Would a Merged Education and Labor Department Look Like?

Education Week logoBy Alison Klien

President Donald Trump’s proposal to scrap the U.S. Department of Education and merge it with the Department of Labor reflects the administration’s priority on workforce readiness and career development. It is likely to require a heavy lift on Capitol Hill, if past proposals are any guide.

The creation of a Department of Education and the Workforce, which the administration proposed June 21, aims to help the nation’s schools catch up to counterparts in other countries that handle both issues in one agency, including some that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited on a recent swing through Europe.

“I saw such approaches during my first international trip as the U.S. secretary of education to schools in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom,” DeVos wrote in an Education Week commentary that appears in this issue. “Each country takes a holistic approach to education to prepare students for career and life success…”

But congressional Democrats overwhelmingly panned the proposal, which would almost certainly need their votes to pass. Republicans said the idea is worthy of consideration but haven’t introduced legislation to make it a reality.

Attempts to get rid of the Education Department, or to mesh it with another agency, go back decades. In 1981, the Reagan administration tried to bust the department down to a subcabinet-level agency, to no avail. And former Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Wis., pitched a similar plan back in 1995. That plan also failed to gain traction.

Educators and advocates are highly skeptical of the latest proposal.

One local superintendent worried about the message it sends…

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Can Districts Use ESSA Funds to Buy Crossing Guard Signs?

Can Districts Use ESSA Funds to Buy Crossing Guard Signs?

Education Week logoHappy Monday! And welcome to the next edition of “Answering Your ESSA Questions.” Our next question comes Nick Scott, who works for an Arizona-based company that manufactures LED crossing guard signs for school districts. Scott wants to know, essentially, if districts can use their Every Student Succeeds Act dollars to purchase crossing guard signs. Scott noted that his company has evidence it can point to that these signs really work. (ESSA is all about evidence-based practices.)

The short answer: Most likely, yes.

The longer answer: If districts want to purchase these crossing guard signs, their best bet is using money from the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, aka Title IV Part A of ESSA. That’s one of the much closely watched K-12 federal programs these days, in part because the money can be used for almost anything under the sun, from drama classes to counseling services.

And the program just got a whopping $700 million boost in the most recent spending bill, bringing its funding to $1.1 billion for fiscal 2018.

Broadly, Title IV dollars are supposed to be geared to improving student health and safety, making students more well-rounded, or bolstering the use of technology in learning. Crossing guard signs could fit under that safety umbrella…

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Trump Administration Considering ESSA Spending Guidance, Advocates Say – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Trump Administration Considering ESSA Spending Guidance, Advocates Say – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Education Week logoU.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ team is working on guidance to help districts and states puzzle through changes to a key spending rule—known as “supplement-not-supplant”—in the Every Student Succeeds Act, multiple education advocates say.

DeVos and company have made it their mission to “right-size” the department, which they say became too powerful and too intrusive during the Obama and Bush years. For that reason, they’ve been reluctant to issue new guidance on a variety of topics. Instead, they’ve focused on getting rid of guidance and regulations from past administrations that they see as duplicative, outdated, or overly prescriptive.

ESSA made some key changes to “supplement not supplant” that says federal Title I funds targeted at low-income students must be in addition to, and not take the place of, state and local spending on K-12. And districts and states have questions about how those changes are supposed to work.

The Education Department did not respond to multiple requests to confirm that it would be issuing new guidance on ESSA spending…

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How Are States Handling Testing Opt-Outs Under ESSA?  – Politics K-12 – Education Week

How Are States Handling Testing Opt-Outs Under ESSA? – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Education Week logoThe question: This one comes from a school-based leader who preferred to remain anonymous. This leader wants to know “What are the federal guidelines for ‘testing transparency?’ Schools are mandated to get 95 percent participation, but how is that possible is we tell parents of their opt out rights?”

The answer: ESSA is actually really confusing when it comes to test participation. The law says that states and schools must test all of their students, just like under No Child Left Behind, the law ESSA replaced. Under NCLB, though, schools that didn’t meet the 95 percent participation requirement—both for the student population as a whole and subgroups of students, such as English-language learners—were considered automatic failures.

Now, under ESSA, states must figure low testing participation into school ratings, but just how to do that is totally up to them. And states can continue to have laws affirming parents’ right to opt their students out of tests (as Oregon does). ESSA also requires states to mark non-test-takers as not proficient.

State plans—44 of which have been approved by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team—are all over the map when it comes to dealing with this requirement…

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At Trump School Safety Panel’s First ‘Field Hearing,’ Plenty of Focus on School Climate, Not Guns

At Trump School Safety Panel’s First ‘Field Hearing,’ Plenty of Focus on School Climate, Not Guns

Education Week logo

Representatives of President Donald Trump’s school safety commission, which is charged with making recommendations to combat school violence in the wake of February’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and other tragedies, spent the morning at Hebron Harman Elementary School here learning about positive behavioral supports and interventions, a widely-used system to help improve school climate and student behavior.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who chairs the commission, and others heard plenty of discussion of restorative behavior practices in which students resolve conflicts through conversation, common expectations for behavior, and community building circles.

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Can Districts Use the SAT or ACT for School Accountability Without  State OK?

Can Districts Use the SAT or ACT for School Accountability Without State OK?

Education Week logoDo districts need state permission to take advantage of new ESSA flexibility to substitute a nationally recognized, college-entrance exam (like the SAT or ACT) instead of the state test for high-school accountability purposes?

The short answer: Yup.

The longer answer: ESSA does indeed allow districts to use a college-entrance test instead of the state test for high school accountability. But the state has to be OK with it. Districts can’t just do this on their own, without the state’s approval.

This guidance, from the U.S. Department of Education, makes that crystal clear: “A state has discretion as to whether it will offer its [local education agencies] this flexibility.”

And at least one district, Long Beach,Calif. has sought its state’s permission to use the SAT instead of the state test and was told no dice.

In general, states have been reluctant to offer districts this flexibility.

Read the entire article here. May require and Education Week subscription. 

Will the Texas Shooting Prompt Action From Trump’s School Safety Commission?

Will the Texas Shooting Prompt Action From Trump’s School Safety Commission?

Education Week logoEarlier this year, shortly after 17 students and teachers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., President Donald Trump created a school commission, led by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, to explore solutions.

And now that there has been another deadly school shooting, at Santa Fe High School in Texas, educators, parents, and others, including advocates in Washington and folks on social media, are wondering just what the commission has been up to since its inception in early March.

Besides DeVos, the commission includes Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. It has had one organizational meeting, on March 28. By contrast, there have been seven school shootings since the one in Parkland, Fla., according to Education Week’s tracker.

Separately, DeVos met May 17 with experts and those personally affected by past school shootings. That meeting was not open to the public or press, but has been posted online here…

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Source: Education Week Politics K-12

Arne Duncan: Parents Should Boycott Schools Until Gun Laws Are Fixed

Arne Duncan: Parents Should Boycott Schools Until Gun Laws Are Fixed

Education Week logoParents of public school students should consider pulling their children out of school until the nation passes new restrictions on gun laws, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tweeted Saturday.

Duncan, who has long argued that tighter gun restrictions would save children’s lives, was co-signing an idea, also floated on Twitter, from his one-time communications chief, Peter Cunningham. Cunningham now heads up Education Post, a K-12 advocacy and communications organization.

 

Duncan’s comments came in the wake of a school shooting Friday in Sante Fe, Texas, which left 10 dead, mostly students.

He said in an interview with the Washington Post that the idea was meant to spark discussion.

“I’m open to other ideas, I’m open to different ideas, but I’m not open to doing nothing,” Duncan told the Post. “We will see whether this gains traction, or something does, but we have to think radically…”

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Source: Education Week Politics K-12

Betsy DeVos Approves ESSA Plans for Alaska and Iowa

Betsy DeVos Approves ESSA Plans for Alaska and Iowa

Education Week logoU.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has given the thumbs up to two more state Every Student Succeeds Act plans: Alaska and Iowa.

That brings the total number of states with approved plans to 44, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Still waiting for the OK: California, Florida, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Utah.

Alaska is working local interim tests into its accountability system, as a measure of school quality or student success for elementary schools. The state will also consider chronic absenteeism and literacy by 3rd grade. High schools will be measured on chronic absenteeism, “on track” freshmen, and how many students are eligible for “Alaska Performance Scholarships,” which are based on GPA, completion of a certain curriculum, and achieving a certain score on tests such as the ACT. The state also makes it clear it can’t ‘”coerce” a parent to make a child take standardized tests…

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Source: Education Week Politics K-12

ESSA: How Can States Figure Out If New School Improvement Ideas Work?

ESSA: How Can States Figure Out If New School Improvement Ideas Work?

Education Week logoOne of the biggest changes in the Every Student Succeeds Act is that states and districts get to come up with their own school improvement ideas, as long as they are backed by evidence.

Here’s how that works: Schools that get Title I money that’s been specifically set aside for school improvement have to come up with a plan with at least one component that has at least one well-designed “correlational study” to back it up. Ideally, the law encourages districts and states to push schools toward ideas that have at least one strong randomized control trial behind it. (A randomized control trail is considered a better test of a strategy than a correlational study, researchers say.)

So what about schools that have been flagged as low-performing but aren’t getting school improvement funds? Schools don’t have to choose a strategy with a particular study to back it up, but they do need to come up with a plan that has a rationale behind it, and then carefully study the results.

So how should states go about that? Results for America, a research organization, and Chiefs for Change, an advocacy organization for state and district officials, have some thoughts and recommendation, outlined in a new report released Thursday…

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.