The 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…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
SBOE Honors 2018 Teacher of the Year and Blue Ribbon Schools
At this month’s public meeting, the State Board honored the exceptional efforts of Mr. Paul Howard who was recently named the District’s 2018 Teacher of the Year. Mr. Howard has taught social studies at LaSalle-Backus Education campus for the last five years.
SBOE members applauded the outstanding leadership and commitment to student achievement exhibited by Mr. Howard. He will now go on to proudly represent the District of Columbia in the Council of Chief State School Officers’ National Teacher of the Year competition.
The State Board also honored DCPS’s Banneker High School and Horace Mann Elementary School for being selected as a U.S. Department of Education 2017 National Blue Ribbon School. The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.
The Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education provides conflict resolution services for parents and students across the city. Serving approximately 500 families per year, the dedicated staff of the office, under the leadership of Ombudsman Joyanna Smith, works on issues including: student discipline, special education, truancy, student enrollment, transportation, academic progress and bullying. The 2017 Ombudsman’s report builds upon the equity analysis provided in last year’s report by introducing a proposed equity framework for the city. This framework builds upon more than three years of collaboration with school-based, local, and national education leaders, and intervention with over 1,500 families in all eight wards.
The Office of the Student Advocate, led by Chief Student Advocate Faith Gibson Hubbard, assists District families in navigating the complex public education system. By supporting and empowering District residents, the Office of the Student Advocate strives to bring equal access to public education. The Student Advocate’s office focused this year on expanding the services our office offers in support of students and families throughout all eight wards of the city. By leveraging connections and partnerships with government agencies, schools, and community-based organizations and increasing strategic outreach efforts, the office has nurtured vital working relationships that are student and family-centric. In doing so, the office tripled the amount of families it was able to serve through its Request for Assistance line (350 families) and direct outreach engagement (2000 individuals).
Our SBOE #DCGradReqs Task Force held its seventh meeting on November 8, 2017. In case you missed our #FacebookLive broadcast, watch the replay here and read the minutes here.
Key Takeaways
Task force members split into four groups to react to a “straw man” set of requirements – proposed changes to high school graduation requirements designed to ensure the District diploma fulfills its intended purpose.
Members then suggested further edits to the requirements, indicating which of their peers’ changes they liked, disagreed with, or wanted more information about.
In the coming weeks, members will take a new version of the draft straw man out to their constituent groups and provide feedback from those conversations at our December meeting.
Tell us what you think of our progress so far! Please take a look at the updated draft straw man and tell us what you like about it, what you dislike about it, and what you would change. Please submit all comments by emailing sboe@dc.gov or by filling out an online form here. We also encourage you to join our Facebook discussion group here to make your voice heard.
The next #DCGradReqs task force meeting will be held on December 13, 2017.
The SBOE ESSA Task Force, led by Ward 4 representative Dr. Lannette Woodruff, held its fourth meeting on November 7, 2017. Representatives from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) provided an update on feedback received from recently held community focus groups on a new school report card. Dr. Lillian Lowery of The Education Trust delivered a presentation to task force members on equity.
On November 16th, SBOE staff members headed out on a #SBOESelfieTour to visit schools across Wards 7 and 8 to help spread the word about our #ESSATaskForce and the new DC report card. Check out which schools they visited here. The next ESSATaskForce meeting will be held on December 5th.
At this month’s public meeting, the State Board heard from two members of the DC Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network’s Backbone: Marlena Jones and Maya Garcia. The State Board supports Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM and recognizes that these subjects are vital components of a 21st century education. The Network updated the Board on their work and provided some opportunities where the Board and public can become more involved.
St. Louis — State education chiefs are scrambling staff duties and outsourcing tasks such as data collection and school improvement efforts as they prepare for new responsibilities under the Every Student Succeeds Act—at the same time they cope with continued funding and staffing pressures.
ESSA, which goes into effect for accountability purposes next fall, is a mixed blessing in the view of state superintendents who have long asked for more flexibility to figure out on their own how best to improve student outcomes.
One big challenge: Budget cuts in recent years have left large swaths of state education departments squeezed on the capacity to carry out the training, data collecting, and innovation necessary to fully exploit that flexibility.
That tension was top of mind this month as the Council of Chief State School Officers gathered here for its annual policy forum.
With all their ESSA accountability plans now submitted to the U.S. Department of Education for approval, state education agencies in the coming months move into the implementation phase, which has the potential to be more arduous and politically contentious than the planning phase that took place over the previous two years…
More than 1,000 people and organizations had some thoughts for DeVos and her team when it comes to these priorities, which the department will use to help decide who gets hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive grants.
DeVos had pitched giving applicants a leg-up in applying for the funds if they focus on school choice, innovation, citizenship, meeting the needs of children with disabilities, STEM, literacy, effective instruction, improving school climate, expanding economic opportunity, or helping military-connected students. She gave the education community thirty days to offer formal feedback.
She got nearly 1,500 comments from the education field. We read them, well, okay, fine, some of them, so you don’t have to.
“The Department should not reward states for adopting voucher programs that do not serve all students, fail to improve academic achievement, undermine public education funding, harm religious freedom and lack critical accountability for taxpayers,” the groups wrote.
Opinion by Carol McCall — Much is written — especially nationally — about what is happening in education in Louisiana. We should be cheering for our students and teachers as we do for our athletes and their coaches. By critically important measures, Louisiana has experienced and continues to experience major wins in education.
For more than 20 years, the state has been moving for higher standards and accountability. Now led by state Superintendent John White and his staff at the Department of Education, Louisiana has been nationally recognized for progress in a number of key areas.
Teacher preparation: Recognized by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Louisiana has built a collaboration between PreK-12 and higher education institutions for teacher preparation programs that include a year-long teacher internship program, to increase competence prior to entering the classroom.
Curriculum-driven reform: According to an article by national education policy journal Education Next, Louisiana’s education administration “has quietly engineered a system of curriculum-driven reforms that have prompted Louisiana’s public school teachers to change the quality of their instruction in measurable and observable ways.” These advances are unmatched in other states.
High school graduation rate: In 2005, 54 percent of Louisiana students graduated from high school, and now that number has significantly increased to 77 percent. These results come amidst a five-year push by Louisiana’s Department of Education to increase the number of graduates earning employer-validated “Jump Start” credentials and early college credits…
Carol McCall is chairwoman of the Education Committee for Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans.
Washington – When the Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015, there was widespread worry that states would walk away from making sure that particular groups of students, English-language learners, students in special education, and racial minorities, mattered in their school accountability systems.
Now that pretty much every state has filed its plan to implement the law have those fears become the reality?
States are working to make sure that’s not the case, said several state chiefs who spoke on a panel here moderated by Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. (Some advocates are skeptical more…
Most states are using the Every Student Succeeds Act as an opportunity to measure student growth, not just straight-up performance on tests. And states are broadening their accountability systems to include factors beyond reading and math to comply with a requirement in the law, with many choosing to rate schools in part on whether or not they prepare kids for college and the workplace, according to a review of state plans commissioned by the Collaborative for Student Success and Bellwether Education Partners. The review is aimed in part at helping to pinpoint promising practices in state plans so that states can learn from one another.
The 30 experts including former state chiefs, policy wonks, and civil rights advocates who reviewed plans for Bellwether and the Collaborative also found that five of the 17 states who have submitted ESSA plans so far considered the performance of historically overlooked groups of students in school ratings.
And they found that, with the exception of New Mexico and Tennessee, states aren’t doing a great job of explaining how they plan to intervene in low-performing schools. In fact, the review gave New Mexico whose state chief, Hannna Skandera, departed after the plan was submitted high marks overall. But reviewers found that states such as Arizona and Michigan were lacking in information…
The U.S. Department of Education responded to these concerns at the end of last week, publishing a list of Frequently Asked Questions that seeks to explain exactly what its letters to three states, the first feedback states have gotten from the Trump team on ESSA, actually meant when it comes to DeVos’ approach to the law. The document may not clear up every question states and others may have, however. More on that below…
U.S. News & World Report notes that just three of the 10 ESSA plans submitted to the Dept. of Education include language related to expanding school choice, despite Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ suggestion that they do so. New Mexico, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. do not propose any new strategies, but focus on “highlighting policies already in place.” According to Kristen Carr, program director for accountability at the Council of Chief State School Officers, “We know that a lot of states are doing a lot of different things beyond that scope,” but “just because it’s not in the state plan doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it.”
A national survey of teachers finds that a plurality believe that the Every Student Succeeds Act won’t ultimately help schools, while a majority don’t think state education agencies have sought enough input from teachers in developing their state ESSA plans.
The survey was commissioned by Educators for Higher Standards, a project of the Collaborative for Student Success (which has advocated on behalf of the Common Core State Standards and aligned assessments), and released on Wednesday. It also found that teachers have mixed views on whether states will ultimately make big changes thanks to ESSA, as well as whether ESSA’s increased flexibility for districts will create improved conditions for educators. And in general, teachers said they are pessimistic about the general direction of the nation’s public schools.
The Educators for Higher Standards polled 800 teachers, and broke out separate results for “teacher advocacy leaders” who are engaged in education advocacy work. The survey also asked the general public certain questions about education. On a few key questions, those educators involved in educators expressed more optimism about what could happen under ESSA…
The 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.
