Our blog post last week introduced the topic of “charter-district collaboration”, and reported on the status of Minneapolis’ District-Charter Collaboration Compact, as well as the Minneapolis Public Schools and Hiawatha Academies Collaboration Agreement.
In a January 2017 report, the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) wrote about the status of collaboration in the 23 cities that have signed a District-Charter Collaboration Compact. CRPE determined that five cities—Boston, Chicago, Denver, Central Falls, and New Orleans—have charter and district schools working together in a robust manner such that “systemic issues of equity for students and access to resources are being addressed.”
Below are summaries of the benefits that the aforementioned cities’ districts and charters have experienced from the Compacts, as well as key takeaways for Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities.
Boston
In September 2011, Boston’s mayor, 16 charter school organizations, and Boston Public Schools (BPS) signed their District-Charter Collaborative Compact, with the Catholic Archdiocese joining later on. According to CRPE, “Boston’s Compact is one of the strongest and most successful collaboration efforts in the country.” Some of the benefits that have resulted from the collaboration are:
School partnerships between district, charter, and Catholic schools in order to identify and share classroom level strategies
Shared use of data to locate and learn from classrooms and schools where students are thriving academically
Nationally recognized, researched based professional development for teachers from all three sectors for English language learners
Coordinated release times across sectors helped BPS save roughly $1 million per year in transportation costs
Two charter organizations (three schools) received leases for vacant buildings
The Compact was renewed in the fall of 2015 with new personnel dedicated to continuing the collaborative work between the three sectors. In September of 2015, Mayor Walsh called upon the Compact to help improve Boston’s enrollment process so that it would be “simple, unified, and equitable for all public schools.”
Additionally, in April 2017, the Boston Compact announced one of their new initiatives, the Boston Educators Collaborative. Through the Collaborative, Boston teachers are able to attend free classes that cover a range of topics from mathematical thinking to the impact of culture in the classroom.
Chicago’s District-Charter Collaborative Compact was signed in November 2011 by Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the Illinois State Board of Education, and the Illinois State Charter School Commission (INCS). Over the course of six years, across three CPS superintendents, and with constant help from INCS, Chicago has accomplished substantial achievements for both district and charter schools. Some of the accomplishments include:
Joint lobbying by both district and charter schools produced increases in funding for all public schools
A cross-sector committee designed the School Quality Rating Policy, which is a common tool that provides parents with comparisons of schools across multiple metrics
District and charter leaders are regularly brought together for professional development, with feedback on the program being very positive
Charter schools saw a rise in facility funds from the district
Denver signed their District-Charter Collaborative Compact in December 2010 and, in 2012, they were awarded $4 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue and build on their work. Since then, Denver has had several wins, including:
Implementing a common enrollment system
Creating a unified accountability system
Correcting an inequitable distribution of levy dollars across district and charter schools
Cross-sector professional development specifically targeted to better serve special education students and English Language Learners
Denver also has a District-Charter Collaborative Council that discusses and develops policy recommendations to improve the way that the district and charter schools collaborate and work together.
In August 2011, Central Falls signed their District-Charter Collaborative Compact. The Compact had been largely pushed by Central Falls’ superintendent, Dr. Frances Gallo, and received support from the school board. Early in the Compact the focus was on joint professional development, sharing a reading curriculum and bilingual language knowledge, cross-sector teacher fellowships, combined teacher recruitment, and facilities.
Even though Gallo retired in 2015, Central Falls School District and charter school leaders have continued to collaborate. According to their website, the Compact is collaboratively working on strategies around human capital and STEAM learning strategies, special education, and parent engagement.
While New Orleans’ citywide portfolio model is very different from the educational landscape in Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities, there are still lessons that can be learned from their June 2012 Charter-District Collaboration Compact. For example, the initial Compact agreement helped launch the OneApp common enrollment system and produced an “equity report”, which includes information regarding student achievement, growth, and demographic data for each school in New Orleans. They also developed a new, equitable system for distributing per-pupil funding to schools for their students with special needs.
Additionally, New Orleans’ district and charter leaders collaborated to create a set of universal school discipline standards that were adopted by all of the city’s public schools. Further, all of the city’s public schools implemented the Louisiana Recovery School District’s centralized school expulsion system, which has ensured consistent behavioral expectations across schools and has resulted in a decrease in expulsion rates.
Even though Minneapolis’ District-Charter Collaboration Compact is currently inactive, there is no reason why they, or other Minneapolis cities, cannot take advantage of the benefits that come from charter-district collaborative relationships. Some of the key takeaways from the five cities’ Compacts are that collaboration between the two sectors can result in:
Increased funding for all public schools
Sharing of best practices and professional development, particularly with regard to students who are ELL or have special needs
Unified data, accountability, and enrollment systems
Increased charter access to facilities and facility funding
In their report, CRPE asserted that for a rising number of school districts, “cooperative action between districts and charter schools is a necessity, not a nicety.” With over 21 percent of Minneapolis students, 23 percent of St. Paul students, and 15 percent of Duluth students attending charter schools, it’s time for the two sectors to set aside their differences and develop collaborative relationships for the benefit of students, schools, families, and communities.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia students showed improvement in math in six of the seven grade levels assessed on the 2017 statewide summative assessments, and half of the students in grade 11 were proficient in English language arts (ELA), according to results released today at the West Virginia State Board of Education meeting.
Results from both the 2017 West Virginia General Summative Assessment and the West Virginia Alternate Summative Assessment were combined to obtain the final assessment results released today. About 150,000 students took the West Virginia General Summative Assessment, while about 2,200 students who have significant cognitive disabilities took the alternate assessment.
“I am pleased to see improvements within mathematics, but recognize we still have work to do to ensure our students are mastering the skills necessary at each grade level,” said West Virginia Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Steven Paine. “I am confident we will continue to see improvements as our standards are fully implemented and new math instructional materials are adopted.”
Results were presented for math and ELA in grades 3-8 and grade 11. The West Virginia State Board of Education voted not to test students in math and ELA in grades 9 and 10 earlier this year.
Math scores improved in grades 4-8 and 11, but dropped 1 percentage point, from 49 percent to 48 percent, in grade 3; however, that grade still had the highest percent proficient in math across all the grade levels. The biggest gain in math occurred in grade 4 where 43 percent of students were proficient in 2017 compared to 40 percent in 2016.
Although ELA did not see as many gains as math, the percent proficient in ELA was still greater than the percent proficient in math in most grades. ELA proficiency ranged from a low of 45 percent in in grades 3, 6 and 8 to a high of 50 percent in grade 11. The percent proficient in grade 11 increased 1 percentage point from last year’s 49 percent, but ELA scores dipped slightly in grades 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8; the percentage proficient in grade 8 stayed the same as last year at 48 percent.
In science, the percent proficient in grade 10 increased from 36 percent last year to 39 percent this year, while 37 percent of students were proficient in grade 5 and 38 percent in grade 8. In previous years, the science test was administered in grades 4, 6 and 10.
Spring 2017 was the third and final administration of the Smarter Balanced assessment. In response to legislation passed in 2017, the WVDE has issued two request for proposals to identify new assessments that will be used during the 2017-18 school year. One assessment will be selected for grades 3-8 and another assessment, which must be a college-entrance exam, will be selected for grade 11. The WVDE plans to announce the new statewide assessments by September 1.
Fifty Democrats in Congress have urged Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to nominate a “qualified individual” to run the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights, and are continuing to criticize her approach to issues ranging from sexual assault to transgender student rights protections.
In a letter Tuesday, the Democratic lawmakers specifically singled out Candice Jackson, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, for displaying a “hostility towards the very mission and functions of the office she is charged to lead.” More broadly, the lawmakers criticized the department’s approach to investigations involving students of color, English-language learners, and LGBTQ students, among others.
DeVos’s approach to civil rights has become one of the most controversial parts of her work during her first six months on the job. The secretary has said that the education department’s office for civil rights under Obama was too aggressive and too eager to pursue broad cases against institutions, leaving individual students’ civil rights complaints to languish…
Remember the Every Student Succeeds Act’s brand new program aimed at helping states try out new forms of testing?
If not, you’re in good company. We hardly hear anything about ESSA’s “innovative assessment pilot” anymore, including from the U.S. Department of Education. That could change, however. The agency is considering next steps to open the pilot in the 2018-19 school year, a spokesman said.
When ESSA passed back in December 2015, the pilotâwhich would initially allow up to seven states to try out new forms of testing in a handful of districts for federal accountability purposesâwas one of the most eye-catching pieces of the new law. State officials crammed conference rooms and jumped on webinars to figure out how to apply. Two big states, New York and California, expressed at least some interest. And Colorado even passed a law requiring the state education agency to seek the flexibility…
Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released a draft of its plan to comply with the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Under the new law, states were given more leeway in how to set education policy and spend federal public school dollars. The most notable news within the report was the announcement that PDE plans to unveil a new school quality metric in 2018 that it believes will foster a more holistic student experience, one less narrowly focused on state standardized tests.
But within the 133 page report there were a few other noteworthy facts about Pennsylvania public schools that caught our attention.
We can all agree that students are a key stakeholder in their own education. When they are involved in the assessment process and in their own learning, the result is an improvement in achievement. So while reviewing test results with them after the fact is important, communicating with students – as a class or individually – before they test is equally important. Here are seven things to consider discussing with your students before testing:
Explain where the test fits in the bigger picture.Any given test or assessment is just one piece of their overall progress as students. This one test on this one day is not the sole measure of their potential or their future. A better understanding of context will help them better understand how it all fits together.
Share how the test results will affect their overall class grade.Often, students are unaware of why they are being tested or why the teachers need the data they are looking for. Is it going to be used for setting student or class goals, establishing a grade, or for placement purposes? Share this information with your students before the test so that they are aware of exactly what the score of the test will mean to them. If it does not affect their class grade, let them know that, too.
Pre-empt questions about what their data will look like and who will be seeing it.Depending on the age of your students, you should consider sharing with them what results you’ll be receiving after the test, what results they as students will receive, and what will be shared with their parents.
Take the fear out of the testing jargon.Words like evaluate, criteria, evidence, and scores can be scary for some students. While they may seem obvious and interchangeable to you as a teacher, it’s helpful to students to explain these definitions to them and set their minds at ease.
Clarify the testing environment.Some students are less familiar than others when it comes to testing and how testing schedules can interrupt a given week. Providing better clarification can help alleviate student stress. Let them know if it will be a one-day test or if it will happen over a period of days. Provide insights into breaks, whether they can use the restrooms, and what they should bring with them on testing days.
Make any transition to computers or tablets easy.If there is a computer lab being used as part of the testing process, be sure they know where the lab is, how the computer will be used as part of the test, and how to log in.
Provide the dates of the next assessment.When you explain growth over time to students, it helps to share a basic schedule of how the assessments will be administered. Let them know when the next one will occur and whether it will be similar to the one they are preparing for now. This is a great way to emphasize a focus on growth.
Getting students on the same page before an assessment or test can really help settle nerves and reduce stress. If you have time, consider one-on-one meetings with your students to allay individual concerns or answer specific questions. If your students are taking the MAP® Growth™ assessment, you should consult this post in particular – 11 Talking Points for Teachers Preparing Students for the MAP Test. And stay tuned here on the blog, where every Tuesday we will feature some of our best tips and resources as you head back to school.
What’s the process for the General Assembly to deal with the governor’s veto?
The Fix the Formula coalition, of which Illinois PTA is a member, has an informative flow chart that explains the process for the General Assembly. The veto starts in the Senate, where senators must vote with a 3/5 majority (36 votes) to either override the veto or concur with it within 15 days. If they can’t get a 3/5 majority, the bill dies and schools will not receive funding until a new evidence-based funding model (EBM) bill is passed. Since such a bill would be passing after May 31 and take immediate effect, it too would require a 3/5 majority to pass.
If the Senate votes to override or concur, the bill then moves to the House, where again a 3/5 majority (71 votes) is needed to pass whatever the Senate voted to do. That means that if the Senate votes to override, the House cannot vote to concur, only override as well. If the House can’t get a 3/5 majority, the bill dies and schools don’t receive funding. If the House agrees with the Senate to override, the new funding formula would be installed, schools would receive funding with the new formula, and Illinois would begin to close its worst-in-the-nation inequitable school funding. If the General Assembly concurs with the governor’s veto, the vetoed version of the bill will become law, and many of the current funding problems would continue or get worse.
Will my school open on time?
Probably. School districts should have some cash on hand to start school, but some districts may not have much in reserve to keep the doors open. Some districts have said they have enough reserves to stay open for the full year, others have said that they can last until around Thanksgiving, and some are struggling to the point where they are already limiting payments to payroll, electricity, water, and other costs needed to keep the school open, but are not purchasing items like pens, paper, or workbooks.
Illinois is also behind in some payments from last year to school districts, which has put a strain on many of them, and without an EBM in place, funding for this year cannot be sent out. SB1 is the only EBM that has passed both houses of the General Assembly after four years of negotiations and compromises. No other EBM bill has even been through committee at this time.
School districts are due their first payment of the year on August 10 and their second one on August 20. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the comptroller’s office say they will need about 10 business days to run the evidence-based model to calculate how much each school district will receive before they can cut the checks. That means that those first two payments will likely be missed while the General Assembly attempts to override or concur with the veto.
It is unclear if or how the state will handle those missed payments. They could make them as soon as an evidence-based model is passed into law or pro-rate the missed payments into the remaining payments for the year. Complicating matters is that the comptroller can’t write checks first for the districts that are struggling the worst. All of the school districts must be paid at the same time, which also means that the state has to have the cash on hand to pay all the schools at once.
I’ve heard my school district will get more money from the governor’s veto. Others say we’ll get less. Who’s right?
That’s hard to say, because ISBE has not yet calculated how much school districts will receive under the model created by the governor’s veto. The numbers showing your district receiving additional funding are likely from other proposals that were not passed by the General Assembly.
The governor’s veto eliminated the block grant for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), which is used by CPS to pay for special education, transportation, and other “categorical” spending. Eliminating the block grant cuts just over $200 million from CPS and parcels that money out to all the other school districts in the state, so other than CPS, district may see a bit more money initially. But other changes the governor made to the bill will likely cost every school district money in the long term. One of the key designs of SB1 was that no school district would lose funding from its current level. The governor’s veto breaks that by cutting CPS’s funding.
How does the governor’s veto hurt school district funding in the long term?
Governor Rauner originally stated that he was opposed to the “Chicago bailout” in SB1, and it was anticipated that his amendatory veto would target the CPS block grant for special education and other categorical spending and how pensions are handled for CPS in SB1. When the veto was made public, it went much further than expected. Here are the key changes and how they affect school districts:
Eliminates inflation indexing of costs in the SB1. This was one item Illinois PTA specifically asked for in our testimony in May. SB1 calculates how much money a school district needs to educate a student on a variety of factors, and many of those factors have a set dollars per student amount in the bill. Without accounting for inflation, those values will essentially be cut over time just like an apple doesn’t cost a nickel any more. That means school districts will see cuts in funding even as increasing technology use in the classroom and inflation increase the real costs of educating a student.
Changes the hold harmless provisions. One item critical to Illinois PTA’s support of SB1 was that no district would lose state funding from its current level—the hold harmless provision. The governor’s veto changes the hold harmless provisions from per district to per pupil in the 2020-2021 school year. That may not sound like a big change, but for school districts that have declining student populations, it means they will see less funding even if they are far from being adequately funded by the state. Fix the Formula has an interactive map that lets you see which districts would be affected by this change, almost all of which are outside the greater Chicago area.
Includes TIF districts and PTELL in the properties in the calculation of school districts’ ability to raise money. School districts raise money through property taxes by taxing the Equalized Assessed Value (EAV) of the properties in their district. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts remove the value of properties in those districts from school property taxes, so schools do not get any taxes from those buildings. PTELL is Illinois’s tax cap law that limits the ability of school districts (and others) from increasing the total amount of taxes collected to the rate of inflation, even if the value of the property in the district has increased faster than inflation. SB1 recognizes the fact that school districts can’t get some tax money when calculating how much they should be raising to pay for themselves. The governor’s veto includes those TIF properties and ignores the PTELL limitations when making that calculation, so it looks like a school district can raise more money through property taxes and thus needs less state funding. The Fix the Formula interactive map also shows which districts have TIF and PTELL issues (select it in the “Indicator” drop down box).
Moves the CPS pension adjustment out of SB1 and into the pension law. Under SB1, every school district’s pension payments were treated the same way. The state would pick up the normal (current) cost of pensions, including CPS who currently pay for their own pensions, but keep CPS responsible for its legacy (unfunded liability) pension costs. SB1 did recognize that CPS can’t spend the same tax dollar twice, once for legacy pension costs and again in the classroom, so those legacy costs were cut from the calculation of what CPS could raise through taxes, but did not give CPS any money for those costs. This also protected the funding of every other school district if the state were to make them responsible for their own pension costs, as has been considered in recent years with the state’s financial difficulties. The governor’s veto essentially takes money from the classrooms in CPS to pay for pension costs and will do the same for all other districts should they become responsible for their own pensions.
Caps regional wage differences. SB1 put in a cost adjustment calculation to account for regional differences in salaries when calculating the amount of money needed to educate a student. SB1 has a floor for this adjustment to ensure downstate districts with low costs of living could compete with and retain high-quality teachers without wealthier districts outbidding them. The governor’s veto also adds a ceiling to this adjustment, meaning that districts with higher costs of living are penalized by artificially decreasing salaries. As the Fix the Formula interactive map for regionalization shows, this change would cost CPS and districts in the Chicago suburbs.
Illinois PTA believes that these changes by the governor’s veto fundamentally change the basis of the evidence-based model. The veto removes the protections that no school district will lose funding from current levels going forward, which is a critical reason for Illinois PTA’s support of SB1. Illinois PTA cannot support a school funding bill that cuts funding to any district, nor will we support a bill that uses vouchers, even under the guise of “scholarships,” to divert public education funding to private and parochial schools.
What can I do?
Illinois PTA is asking everyone to contact their legislators to encourage them to override the governor’s amendatory veto of SB1. It takes only a minute or two to use our prewritten letter. All you need to do is type in your signature to the letter, and provide your e-mail address, zip code, and street address to identify your legislators and provide them with the ability to contact you (usually just a “thank you for your letter”).
The Virginia Dept. of Education is proposing a new accountability system. Under the new plan, “schools will be identified as requiring either ‘comprehensive support and improvement’ — when school-wide test scores fall short of benchmarks — or ‘targeted support and improvement’ — when a subgroup falls short.” Spokesman Charles Pyle commented that “the state’s accountability program offers parents user-friendly data to evaluate schools, including an online dashboard.”
The Dept. of Education responded to North Dakota’s proposed ESSA plan. State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler noted that “Education Department officials have requested additional information on several parts of the state’s plan, and the department’s evaluation of the plan and notes from the expert peer reviewers who examined it will be made public this week.” The state is required to submit a response by August 21. See the Department’s feedback below:
We can all agree that students are a key stakeholder in their own education. When they are involved in the assessment process and in their own learning, the result is an improvement in achievement. So while reviewing test results with them after the fact is important, communicating with students – as a class or individually – before they test is equally important. Here are seven things to consider discussing with your students before testing:
Last week, Governor Rauner issued an amendatory veto of 
