New Federal Special Ed. Chief Aims to Foster Partnership With States

New Federal Special Ed. Chief Aims to Foster Partnership With States

Education Week logoThe selection of Johnny Collett, confirmed in December to oversee special education for the U.S. Department of Education, was a rare point of agreement between the Trump administration and the disability-advocacy community.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was tripped up on disability-policy questions during her confirmation hearing last year, and her staunch support of school choice options has left some advocates worried that parents may not understand that choosing private schools means losing the rights guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

But Collett’s special education bona fides were not in question: A former special education teacher, he has served as a special education director for Kentucky and was the director of special education outcomes for the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Four months into his tenure, Collett, the assistant secretary for the office of special education and rehabilitative sevices, is trying to position the department as a supportive partner to states.

In an interview with Education Week, Collett discussed a wide range of issues involving special education responsibilities, including the Education Department’s oversight of the Every Student Succeeds Act; discipline and discrimination; school choice and students with disabilities; and the department’s leadership role.

He talked about the complex interplay special educators face between complying with federal law, supporting high expectations for all children, and recognizing each student’s individual educational needs.

Collett’s comments have been edited for space and clarity…

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DeVos Eyeing School Choice as Option for Military Families – Education Week

DeVos Eyeing School Choice as Option for Military Families – Education Week

The Trump administration may shift the focus of its school-choice agenda to a group of students that the federal government has a special responsibility for: children connected to the military.

Creating education savings accounts for the children of military personnel has support among some conservatives. But some advocates for military families have been cautious about embracing the idea.

Still, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a recent interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington that there’s clearly an appetite among military families for more choice.

“I know for a fact that for more than a third of active-duty military families that have school-age children, their decisions where they go, or where they don’t go, or whether they continue to serve, hinge very heavily on the opportunities they have for their children’s education,” DeVos said. In a 2017 survey by the Military Times, 35 percent of service members with children said dissatisfaction with their children’s education was a “significant” factor in deciding whether or not to continue with their service. “So I think we have an opportunity in that regard to empower them with some more of those choices.”

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Betsy DeVos Wants to Direct Federal Funds to School Choice, STEM, Workforce Readiness

Betsy DeVos Wants to Direct Federal Funds to School Choice, STEM, Workforce Readiness

Education Week logoU.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will give applicants for federal grants a leg-up if they are planning to embrace things like school choice, STEM, literacy, school climate, effective instruction, career preparation, and serving military-connected children and students in special education.

That’s according to the final list of Education Department priorities slated for publication in the Federal Register on March 1.

If the list looks familiar, it’s because it hasn’t gone through substantial changes since DeVos first outlined her proposed priorities back in October. DeVos made some tweaks based on more than 1,000 outside comments.

The department gives away at least $500 million in competitive-grant money every year. Every administration sets “priorities” for that funding. These matter because applicants that include one or more of those priorities in a grant proposal are more likely to get money. The priorities are one of the few vehicles DeVos—or any secretary—has for pushing an agenda without new legislation from Congress…

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Changes in 529 college savings plans allow families to use funds for K-12 tuition

Changes in 529 college savings plans allow families to use funds for K-12 tuition

Families with children enrolled at Winchester Thurston School have not begun asking how they can use 529 plans to pay the private school tuition, but administrators at the Shadyside-based private prep school believe that’s only because many of them still have unanswered questions.

“While the new federal tax law has made provisions for families to use 529s for K-12 education, the state of Pennsylvania is still determining how it will treat these withdrawals from a tax perspective,” said Nancy-Rose Netchi, director of marketing and communications at Winchester Thurston School.

“We expect some families may choose to exercise the 529 option if they find it’s beneficial to them after consulting with their tax adviser,” she said. “From our perspective, the new 529 provision simply gives some families an additional vehicle they can use to invest in an independent school education.”

While the federal tax overhaul made withdrawals for K-12 tuition tax-free, 529 plans are administered by states, and not every state law automatically complies with the new rules. The problem is some state legislation specifies that a 529 plan must be used for “higher education,” while other states simply follow the federal code.

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Trump’s 2019 Budget Proposal and Education: What to Watch

Trump’s 2019 Budget Proposal and Education: What to Watch

Education Week logoPresident Donald Trump is expected to release his latest federal spending wish list on Monday. And the U.S. Department of Education may not fare well.

The proposal could include a billion or two more in cuts than last year’s budget pitch, which sought to slash more than $9 billion from the department’s nearly $70 billion budget.

This is going to be a confusing year because Congress still hasn’t finalized last year’s spending plan, for fiscal year 2018, which started on Oct. 1 and generally impacts the 2018-19 school year. Congress recently passed legislation extending funding for all programs at fiscal year 2017 levels.

Trump’s newest proposal, though, will lay out his administration’s asks for fiscal year 2019, or the 2019-20 school year for most programs.

The president’s budget is almost always dead-on-arrival in Congress, which is already poised to reject many of the cuts Trump proposed last year, including getting rid of the $1.1 billion 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

But budgets are a clear signal of the administration’s priorities. So what should you look for in this one? Here’s a quick rundown…

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Betsy DeVos Opens Up ESSA Pilot Allowing Federal Money to Follow Students

Betsy DeVos Opens Up ESSA Pilot Allowing Federal Money to Follow Students

Education Week logoSchool districts: Interested in having your local, state, and federal funding follow children, so that kids with greater need have more money attached to them? Now’s your chance.

The U.S. Department of Education is officially opening up the “Weighted Student Funding Pilot” in the Every Student Succeeds Act. The department can allow up to 50 districts to participate initially, and ESSA leaves open the possibility of opening that up to more districts down the line.

So what’s the weighted student funding pilot? Participating districts can combine federal, state, and local dollars into a single funding stream tied to individual students. English-language learners, kids in poverty, students in special education—who cost more to educate—would carry with them more money than other students. Some districts, including Denver, are already using this type of formula with state and local dollars.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is pretty excited about the pilot.

“This is a great opportunity for local district leaders to put students first,” she said in a statement. “Instead of relying on complex federal rules to allocate funds, local leaders can use this flexibility to match funds—local, State or Federal—to the needs of students.”

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A Vision for a New Garrett Middle and High School

A Vision for a New Garrett Middle and High School

Submitted by Jesse Williams, Rep. Marvin Pendarvis & Dr. Carol Tempel

THE CHARLESTON CHRONICLE — When voting to build a new Center for Advanced Studies at North Charleston High School, instead of Garrett Academy of Technology, board members added that they would continue to invest in improving the quality of education at Garrett. In order to hold the school board accountable, the Quality Education Project (QEP) encourages the board and stakeholders to consider solutions that are outlined below since a thorough revision of the academic and vocational curriculum at Garrett is urgent and necessary.

In order to ensure greater and more diverse student attendance, the Garrett campus should be open to a growing middle school population in North Charleston. The prospects of building a middle school building to cater to area students and to build a strong pipeline into the trades programs should be considered, given the fact that two standalone high schools already exist.

Key questions about the vocational curriculum must also be addressed. Garrett is poised to offer a new Curriculum and Instructional Model for Twenty-first Century Career and Technology Training. This program should offer Landscaping and Design, Renewable Energy Technology, Finance and Entrepreneurial Leadership, Hospitality and Tourism, Early Childhood Education, Culinary Arts, Automotive Mechanics and Auto Body, Mechanical Building Trades, and Transportation, Distribution and Logistics.  This vocational training offers the necessary skills for full employment in the Lowcountry that not only prepares students for the current job market but the future workplace as well. It is vital that vocational programs are aligned with the strengths of the local economy and Lowcountry employers who are committed to hiring local graduates. These trades and the overall academic program at Garrett are intended to complement the CAS at North Charleston High School to avoid duplication.

At the same time, questions about the academic curriculum are warranted. The new Garrett High School could offer a rigorous college preparatory curriculum to appeal to those students who are on the waiting list at Academic Magnet and others interested in a college track. To meet the unique academic and vocational needs of Garrett, adopting an International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which has solid academics with a career and technology component beginning in Middle School, is one constructive way to meet the unique needs of Garrett. The IB Program should offer college-level training in foreign languages, math, sciences, and the humanities that will translate into college credit at local and state institutions. The IB program also promises to differentiate itself from the programs offered at North Charleston High School.

Given the appeal this curriculum will have, it is worth considering how the new Garrett Middle and High School is governed. A traditional neighborhood public, partial-magnet (non-charter) school offers the best avenue for public participation and transparency. Any new program should not be run by a charter organization or Meeting Street Academy, or any other program that privatizes or takes away public and district oversight of the school. Garrett will therefore serve a broader school population that focuses on the local North Charleston community.

These solutions offer the beginning of a very important discussion in regard to the quality of education that the school district and school board has promised to the Garrett community. As the community and district officials contemplate a model for Garrett, QEP calls on district leadership to make a public commitment to an academically viable Garrett, to share all plans they are contemplating, and to provide a timeframe to enact these reforms. The public and communities impacted are far too often left in the dark, wondering about specifics concerning district plans. This leads to a lack of transparency and mistrust of the school board and district. As an organization committed to quality public education, QEP feels that these points of discussion are consistent with the ideals of quality public education and that Garrett can reflect these standards. With collaborative support, these inquires can inspire a model for the district, if not the entire state of South Carolina to follow.

Worship Center Church to address ‘summer slide’, brings first Freedom School to Birmingham

Worship Center Church to address ‘summer slide’, brings first Freedom School to Birmingham

By Ariel Worthy

The Birmingham Times — Freedom School is a six-week enrichment program in June to address the summer slide in school-aged students. Summer slide is the tendency for children, particularly those from low-income families, to lose the achievement gains they made during the previous school year over the summer.

“If you can imagine a low-income child, once the summer starts, if their parents don’t have the means or the time to expose them to anything that will continue the educational process that was started in the school year, then what happens is the summer slide,” said Van Moody, lead pastor at The Worship Center.

The Children’s Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization that focuses on child advocacy and research. It was founded in 1973 by Marian Wright Edelman.

The program is free for families, and the goal is to build “empowered, literate and forward-thinking children who will gain the confidence to make an impact in their families and communities,” Moody said.

Students will reinforce skills learned during the school year with a focus on literacy and reading comprehension during the programs, which is geared toward low-income families, Moody said.

A child can lose half a grade level every summer if affected by the summer slide, Moody said.

He provided another example: “If you take a child from kindergarten through fifth grade, and each summer they lose half a grade level … by the time they get to fifth grade, they’re 2 ½ to 3 years behind their middle-income contemporaries. It gets worse as they continue to grow,” he said.

Literacy is a focus because it’s the foundation of all education, “particularly for kids; everything builds on literacy,” Moody said. “There are a number of summer programs and programs that take the (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) STEM approach, and different disciplines, but one of the things about Freedom Schools, and one of the reasons I think they’ve had the kind of success they’ve had, is the focus on the foundational building blocks. If we can increase the literacy rate of kids, then everything becomes easier for them.”

A Day at a Freedom School

Along with literacy, reading is a component of the first half of the day in Freedom Schools where someone from the community visits. “We’ll invite the mayor, superintendent, business leaders . . . to read to them in a session called Harambe, when we bring all the students together before they break into their individual classes.”

Students can take home the books read during the day to build their personal library.

Charles A. Smith Photography

“The books are specifically picked out and chosen for their specific ages and demographics,” Moody said. “Depending on a normal school year, students may have to read the classics, or books that don’t really connect to their reality . . . the books are profound, but they are intentionally designed for low-income kids.”

The second part of the day is dedicated to different activities and interests, he said.

“Kids will be exposed to things like Chess Club and field trips to the McWane Science Center, and things that are a little bit in the scope of traditional summer programs but it’s a great balance,” he said.

The program is usually for kindergarten through high school, but in its first year, it will be available for first through fifth grade. “We want to build some success with that and build additional grade levels,” Moody said.

The program is funded by The Worship Center in its first year, but Moody said he hopes more community will be involved in the upcoming years.

“Our ultimate design is not to have just one Freedom School in the city, but we want to have multiple Freedom Schools available throughout the city. When you look at the hurdles that are in front of the public school system, we know that 50

kids, which is the max capacity of one Freedom School, are really just a drop in the bucket, compared to the need in the city.”

To get more information about registration, visit www.theworshipcentercc.org/index.php/freedom-school/

Different City, Same Results: Students in DC who use vouchers to go to private schools do WORSE than their peers who don’t 

Different City, Same Results: Students in DC who use vouchers to go to private schools do WORSE than their peers who don’t 

Washington Post — Students in the nation’s only federally funded school voucher initiative performed worse on standardized tests within a year after entering D.C. private schools than peers who did not participate, according to a new federal analysis that comes as President Trump is seeking to pour billions of dollars into expanding the private school scholarships nationwide.


“D.C. students who used vouchers had significantly lower math scores a year after joining the program, on average, than students who applied for a voucher through a citywide lottery but did not receive one. For voucher students in kindergarten through fifth grade, reading scores were also significantly lower. For older voucher students, there was no significant difference in reading scores.

“For voucher recipients coming from a low-performing public school — the population that the voucher program primarily aims to reach — attending a private school had no effect on achievement. But for voucher recipients coming from higher-performing public schools, the negative effect was particularly large.”

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Democrats Press Trump Nominees on School Choice and Civil Rights

Democrats Press Trump Nominees on School Choice and Civil Rights

Senate education committee Democrats used the confirmation hearing of two top U.S. Department of Education nominees to make their case against the Trump administration’s favorite K-12 policy: School choice.

Both contenders have long records in pushing for charters, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and other types of school choice programs. Mick Zais, who has been tapped for deputy secretary of education, the No. 2 post at the agency, helped create a tax-credit scholarship for students in special education when he was the state chief in South Carolina.

And Jim Blew, who has been tapped as assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy analysis, spent nearly a decade as the Walton Family Foundation’s director of K-12 reform, advising the foundation on how to broaden schooling options for low-income communities.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the panel, kicked off the hearing by saying that she finds it “troubling” that Zais shares Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ views on “privatization.” And she told Blew that his “record of promoting school vouchers gives me pause that you will not stand up for students and public schools.”

Senator after senator on the Democratic side of the dais echoed those concerns.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., for instance, asked Zais if he was aware that the research on the efficacy of school choice is “abysmal.” Zais said, in his experience, broadening educational options improves student outcomes. But he agreed with Franken that the evidence for that is “anecdotal…”

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Source: Education Week Politics K-12