KANSAS CITY CALL — The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City will host its annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration beginning Saturday, Jan. 6, and ending on Wednesday, Jan. 17.
The celebration begins on Saturday at 7 p.m, with the Gospel Artist Tribute held at Victorious Life Church, 3400 The Paseo. Artists will include Stellar award winner Bishop Jason Nelson, Isaac Cates and Ordained, Eric Ashby and VP3. The doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available online at the SCLC website @www.sclcgkc.org
On Sunday, Jan. 7 at 3:30 p.m., an Interfaith Service will be held at the Community Christian church, 4601 Main St. The keynote address will be given by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., one of America’s most influential religious leaders.
A litany of those involved in the Interfaith service will represent Protestant, Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian, Baha’I, and Sikh faiths. Music will feature The Soulful Phase Ensemble, music from the Jewish Tradition, The Kansas City Girls & Boys Choirs, Tim Whitmer and Millie Edwards.
This event will also honor Melissa Robinson, president of the Black Health Care Coalition and Board President of the Kansas City Public Schools, who will receive the 2018 Evelyn Wasserstrom award. This event is open to the public at no charge. For more information, please visit www.sclcgkc.org
On Sunday, Jan. 7 at 3:30 p.m., an Interfaith Service will be held at the Community Christian church, 4601 Main St. The keynote add
or contact Arlana Coleman (913) 522-7526.
The MLK celebration continues Tuesday, Jan. 9, with the Rev. Dr. Nelson “Fuzzy” Thompson Community Luncheon at the Sheraton Crown center, 2345 McGee.
Keynote speaker will be Leonard Pitts Jr. renown newspaper columnist, and author who also will host a book signing.
Also during the luncheon, The President’s award will be presented to Phil Glynn, president of Travois and The Community Service award will be awarded to Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, former Jackson County Executive and current 4th District City Councilwoman. Tickets for the luncheon are $60 and are available online at www.sclcgkc.org
On Sunday, Jan. 7 at 3:30 p.m., an Interfaith Service will be held at the Community Christian church, 4601 Main St. The keynote add
On Friday, Jan. 12, at 8 a.m. at the Kauffman Conference center, 4801 Rockhill Road, high school students from the Greater Kansas City area will gather for a Youth Leadership Development workshop. This “invitation only” event will feature Rahiel Tesfamariam, Founder and Publisher of Urban Cusp and District Attorney Mark Dupree.
On Saturday, Jan. 13, at 9 a.m., the celebration continues with the annual scholarship prayer breakfast, hosted at the College Basketball Experience, 1401 Grand Blvd.
Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas need to make some big improvements to their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, according to letters released publicly Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.
The most important letter is probably California’s. It’s a huge population center, and its plan, which relies on a dashboard to track school accountability, is either one of the most innovative and holistic in the country or one of squishiest and most confusing, depending on who you talk to.
The feds gave the Golden State a long, long list of things to fix. For one thing, the department says, it’s not at all clear from California’s plan that academic factors (like test scores) will count for more than school quality factors (like discipline data), an ESSA requirement. California wants to handle schools with low test participation by simply noting the problem on the state’s dashboard. The feds aren’t sure that meets the law’s requirements. And California told the department that it plans to finalize its method for identifying the lowest-performing schools in the state in January of 2018. The feds say they need it explained before they can greenlight California’s plan.
California also doesn’t have clear “interim” or short-term goals for English-language proficiency. It’s also unclear how the state will calculate suspension rates, which California wants to use to gauge school quality and student success. The state also needs to better spell out how it will make sure disadvantaged children get access to their fair share of effective teachers.
California has a long history of bucking the department. The state faced off with the Obama administration on student data systems, teacher evaluation, and more. So it will be interesting to see how many of these changes California makes, and whether the state will be approved even it doesn’t significantly revise its plan. A number of states that turned in their plans this spring didn’t make changes the department asked for, and got the stamp of approval anyway…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
EDUCATION WEEK — Minnesota, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia have some work to do on their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
All four states, who were among the 34 that turned in their plans this fall, were flagged for issues with accountability, helping low-performing schools improve, and other areas. So far, ten other states that turned in their plans this fall — Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming—have received feedback from the feds. Puerto Rico has also gotten a response on its plan. (Check out our summaries of their feedback here and here.)
Plus, sixteen states and the District of Columbia, all of which submitted plans in the spring, have gotten the all-clear from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Colorado, which asked for extra time on its application, is the only spring state still waiting for approval.
So what problems did the department find in this latest round of states? Here’s a quick look. Click on the state’s name for a link to the feds’ letter…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Do state plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act do enough to shine a spotlight on historically disadvantaged groups of students—and do they give schools the tools they need to improve outcomes for those children?
“What we are seeing so far is not encouraging,” concludes a report from The Education Trust, a Washington-based organization that advocates for low-income and minority students. “For all the talk about equity surrounding ESSA, too many state leaders have taken a pass on clearly naming and acting on schools’ underperformance for low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners.”
Education Trust, whose executive director, John B. King Jr., served as President Barack Obama’s last secretary of education, reviewed the 17 ESSA plans submitted to the department so far, as well as the 34 that have been submitted. It found that:
In general, states picked indicators that get at whether students are learning, including chronic absenteeism, college and career readiness, and on-track graduation. But some states picked so many indicators that it will be that there’s a “real risk” schools won’t have the incentive to improve on any of them, the advocacy group said. Example: Connecticut and Arkansas each have more than 10 indicators. Plus, some states, including Louisiana, have proposed indicators that aren’t ready for rollout yet…
Read the full story here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming are the latest states to receive feedback on their plans for implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The U.S. Department of Education staffers seem to be burning the midnight oil on feedback letters lately. Four other states—Georgia, Maryland, Puerto Rico, and Utah—got responses last week. Every state has submitted a plan to implement ESSA. And 16 states and the District of Columbia have had their plans approved.
So what do the latest letters say? They are extensive and almost all of them ask for a lot more detail on testing, school turnarounds, accountability, goals, teacher distribution, and more.
Here’s a quick look at some highlights. Click on the state name to read the full letter.
Alabama: The department wants to state to make its student achievement goals clearer, and better explain how student growth on state tests would be used to calculate a school’s academic score. And the feds aren’t clear on how Alabama will calculate English-language proficiency and incorporate it into school ratings—an ESSA must. The state also needs to make it clear that it will flag schools that don’t get federal Title I money for extra supports with subgroups of students…
Read the full story here: May require an Education Week subscription.
CHICAGO – Bestselling author and American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Misty Copeland will lend her support to advocate for our nation’s libraries as honorary chair of National Library Week, April 8 – 14, 2018. Like librarians and library workers, Copeland’s efforts to lead social change through her writing and teaching fuel the transformation of lives through cultural understanding, education and lifelong learning.
[/media-credit] Misty Copeland
“Libraries Transform: Libraries Lead” is the theme for this year’s 60th anniversary celebration of National Library Week, reminding the public that libraries of all types serve as community compasses that lead users to endless opportunities for community engagement, enrichment and development.
“We are honored that Misty Copeland has agreed to join us as National Library Week honorary chair,” stated American Library Association President Jim Neal. “Copeland’s efforts to lead youth to pursue their dreams regardless of what challenges they may encounter, mirrors the efforts of librarians and library workers, as they work to inspire, educate and lead users to resources that improve lives.”
Copeland’s passion is giving back to communities. She supports many charitable organizations by giving her time and influence to support the greater good. Her generosity and support has extended to libraries by means of print PSAs, social media artwork and other materials that feature Copeland. Free downloadable tools are available now at ala.org/nlw, and more will be added throughout December.
“I’m thrilled to join leaders from the library community in celebrating National Library Week,” Copeland said. “Libraries help people of all backgrounds access the services and resources they need to discover their passions and achieve their goals.”
Copeland is the author of “Ballerina Body,” an instant New York Times Bestseller, published in March 2017. She is the author of the New York Times Bestselling memoir “Life in Motion,” published March 2014. Copeland is also the author of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Book Award-winning 2014 book “Firebird,” an inspiring children’s book that shows that through hard work and dedication any young dancer can become a Firebird.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the late age of 13. At 15, she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. Misty joined ABT’s Studio Company in September 2000, joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, and in August 2007 became the company’s second African American female Soloist and the first in two decades. In June 2015, Misty was promoted to principal dancer, making her the first African American woman to ever be promoted to the position in the company’s 75-year history.
In the fall of 2014, she made history as the first black woman to perform the lead role of “Odette/Odile” in American Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake during the company’s inaugural tour to Australia.
First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is an annual observance by the American Library Association and libraries across the county each April. National Library Week celebrations include the release of the ALA’s 2018 “State of America’s Libraries Report,” April 9; National Library Workers Day, April 10; National Bookmobile Day, April 11; Take Action for Libraries Day, April 12; and the celebration of School Library Month throughout April.
For more information on National Library Week, please visit ILoveLibraries.org.
About the American Library Association
The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 56,000 members in academic, public, school, government, and special libraries. The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.
Back during the Obama administration, many states were working to tie teacher evaluation to student test scores, in part to get a piece of the $4 billion Race to the Top fund, or to get flexibility from the No Child Left Behind Act.
Then Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, and the feds were totally barred from monkeying around with teacher evaluation. So have a ton of states dropped these performance reviews? And what has happened in the ones that didn’t?
So far, six states, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, have dropped teacher evaluations through student outcomes, according to the National Council of Teacher Quality. And other states have kept performance reviews, but made some modifications. Florida, for instance, has kept the student-growth measures, but allows districts to decide how they are calculated. More in this story from Liana Loewus…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
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 group, co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Bill Gates, has been undeniably influential in shifting how states and districts have approached teacher quality over the last decade.
(Education Week receives financial support from the Gates Foundation for coverage of continuous improvement strategies in education. Education Week retains sole editorial control of its content.)
Early results from the teacher evaluation research showed that a mixture of classroom observations, student input, and measures of student growth could provide an accurate picture of teacher performance.
So if Gates has been so influential here, what does it mean that the foundation is pulling out of this teacher evaluation work?
Well, in the immediate sense, probably not too much. The majority of states currently have laws on the books requiring the sorts of teacher evaluation reforms that Gates was championing.
But other factors—mainly, the new federal education law—may soon cause real changes in this space.
Federal Incentives Push State Change
Here’s a bit of back story: While Gates’ MET research fueled interest in using student test scores as part of a teacher’s evaluation, states were already headed in that direction for several other reasons.
Back in 2009, TNTP (formerly called the New Teacher Project) published “The Widget Effect“—a seminal report finding that 99 percent of teachers were being rated as satisfactory. Many began to question the validity of these evaluation systems. At the end of that year, the federal Race to the Top program began offering states incentives to rework their evaluation systems, including by incorporating student test data. (The multiyear MET study got going at right about the same time.)
As of right now, 39 states are using objective student measures (including test scores) in their teacher evaluation systems. That’s up from 15 states in 2009, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Over the last two years, six states—Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Oklahoma—have moved away from including student growth measures, according to NCTQ. (And a couple of other states have strengthened their commitment to it.)
Whether more states will back off remains to be seen. But if they do, it’s probably a consequence of the federal education law—and not so much a result of the end of the Gates funding stream.
Sorry, Mike, it’s not. We don’t get to excellence if Ts don’t get fair, accurate feedback & leaders don’t get accurate data on their talent.
And an important side note in any conversation about teacher evaluation: Research shows that even in states that have significantly overhauled their evaluation systems, nearly all teachers continue to be rated as effective.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wants teachers and school leaders to move past the blackboards-and-desks model of schooling, with an eye towards better serving individual kids.
In DeVos’ view, schools have looked pretty much the same over the past five decades or so.
“For far too many kids, this year’s first day back to school looks and feels a lot like last year’s first day back to school. And the year before that. And the generation before that. And the generation before that! That means your parent’s parent’s parents!” she told students at Woods Learning Center in Casper, Wyo., according to prepared remarks. “Most students are starting a new school year that is all too familiar. … They follow the same schedule, the same routine–just waiting to be saved by the bell.”
That’s not helping keep kids engaged, she added: “It’s a mundane malaise that dampens dreams, dims horizons, and denies futures.”
The speech kicked off a six-state tour to highlight what it means to “rethink” education, during which DeVos gave shout-outs to former President Ronald Reagan, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. But she didn’t offer a ton of new specifics about how her department would help with that reinvention, beyond shining a spotlight on schools that she thinks are on the right track. And one of the more than thirty protestors outside urged her to “Rethink Vouchers” according to the Casper Star Tribune.
In her speech, without naming names, DeVos continued to do rhetorical battle with people who she says want to keep K-12 schools stuck in the past.
“Today, there is a whole industry of naysayers who loudly defend something they like to call the education ‘system.'” she said. “What’s an education ‘system’? There is no such thing! Are you a system? No, you’re individual students, parents and teachers.”
She said some schools have been able to move past the old model.
Woods Learning Center in Wyoming’s Natrona County, where DeVos kicked off her tour, is a “teacher-powered” school, with no principal. Its students don’t get traditional letter grades. And kids can enroll in Woods through the district’s open enrollment policy.
“Students, your parents know you best, and they are in the best position to select the best learning environment for you,” DeVos told the children.
She also likes that Woods emphasizes “personalized instruction” for each student.
“Your personalized learning program rethinks school because it is structured around you. Each of your learning plans is developed for each of you, recognizing that each of you is different, and that you learn at your own pace and in your own way,” DeVos said. “Your success here at Woods is determined by what each of you are learning and mastering. Not by how long you sit at your desks. That is awesome, by the way.”
‘Start Rethinking Schools’
DeVos didn’t delve into details though, about just how her department might help schools begin to rethink instruction, other than, of course, by highlighting what she sees as good examples through the back-to-school tour.
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal would cut two programs that schools might use to remake instruction. It seeks to zero out the main federal program for teacher training and get rid of a new block grant created under the Every Student Succeeds Act that districts can use for technology, which can enable personalized learning programs. But so far, the Trump-DeVos school choice proposals have fallen flat in Congress.
After her speech, DeVos took questions from kids. Unsurprisingly, none of them mentioned the proposed budget cuts, but one student asked how she planned to “rethink schools.”
DeVos said this will ultimately be up to educators, not Washington.
“I’m going to challenge teaching and leaders in school to start rethinking schools, because I don’t have all the answers,” she said. “And the people I work with in Washington don’t have all the answers. But I’ll bet lots of teachers in lots of schools around our country have the answers.”
This week, DeVos will be visiting private, public, and charter schools in Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Her next stop in Wyoming is St. Stephen’s Indian High School on the Wind River Reservation.
Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas need to make some big improvements to their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, according to letters released publicly Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.
CHICAGO – Bestselling author and American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Misty Copeland will lend her support to advocate for our nation’s libraries as honorary chair of National Library Week, April 8 – 14, 2018. Like librarians and library workers, Copeland’s efforts to lead social change through her writing and teaching fuel the transformation of lives through cultural understanding, education and lifelong learning.
