by NNPA ESSA | Mar 21, 2017 | ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), National, Pennsylvania, resources
DeVos, state officials meeting face to face
WASHINGTON – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a devout advocate for school choice, will likely get an earful when she meets with state education officials Monday to discuss investing in the nation’s public schools.
It will be their initial encounter since DeVos’ appointment met with bipartisan resistance, barely winning Senate approval due to her support for charter schools and government vouchers for students to attend private schools.
President Donald Trump’s budget plan, unveiled four days ago, underscored DeVos’ preference, investing an additional $1.4 billion in school choice programs, including $250 million in a new initiative to provide public money for students to attend private schools.
DeVos said the proposal “places power in the hands of parents and families to choose schools that are best for their children” and represents “the first step in investing in education programs that work.”
Overall, the Department of Education budget is cut by 13 percent, or $9 billion, under the president’s blueprint to downsize the federal government and build up the nation’s military force and border security.
Among reductions are $2.25 billion to help states hire and train teachers, $1 billion for after-school programs and cuts in college aid, including “significantly” shrinking work-study programs. But grant programs for disadvantaged students would receive a $1 billion increase.
The head of an association of state schools officials that’s scheduled to meet with DeVos at their Washington conference said he’s “deeply concerned” about the proposed budget cuts and shifting emphasis to school choice.
“We must continue to invest in our public schools and provide adequate funding so every school has the necessary resources to meet the needs of every child,” Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement.
Nicole Reigelman, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, criticized the Trump education proposal, saying Pennsylvania is still recovering from state funding cutbacks under former Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration “rejects the notion of shifting funds from already under-resourced public schools to fund vouchers for private education,” said Reigelman.
DeVos and other school choice supporters believe vouchers, charter schools, magnet schools and other creative programs can provide students stuck in distressed public schools with opportunities for a better education and greater chance at success in life.
John Schilling, chief operating officer of the American Federation for Children, a school choice group formerly headed by DeVos, said Trump’s budget proposal “included some promising first steps to empower parents.” But, he added, the president should do even more by offering tuition tax credits for families who choose to send their kids to private or charter schools.
Yet an early supporter of Trump, Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., called the idea of cutting after-school programs “misguided” in a letter to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
He said the programs assist “working families who rely more and more on afterschool and summer learning programs to effectively balance maintaining a job and raising children in a safe environment.”
Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri and Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairmen of the Senate and House education appropriation committees, expressed caution about diminishing and eliminating programs helpful to educating the nation’s children.
Blunt acknowledged that generally “there are many concerns with non-defense discretionary cuts” in the Trump budget plan. Cole said Congress should focus on reducing costly entitlement programs to avoid making “painful cuts to good programs.”
by NNPA ESSA | Mar 14, 2017 | ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Ohio
COLUMBUS (AP) — State officials will spend more time reviewing public feedback before sending federal regulators Ohio’s education and accountability plan under the law that replaced No Child Left Behind.
Ohio intended to submit its plan early next month but instead will wait until a September deadline to submit the final plan and, in the meantime, carefully consider the feedback that officials have received, state Superintendent Paolo DeMaria said. He said submission of the plan should be a unifying moment of consensus for education in Ohio, but that it instead has been divisive.
Some educators have raised criticisms about the draft, particularly objecting that it wouldn’t reduce standardized testing of students. Some also have urged Ohio officials to use more specific descriptions to categorize school districts on state report cards and to make it easier to understand those evaluations.
DeMaria rebuffed critics’ claims that Ohio’s draft plan had ignored public feedback on such issues, noting that its development took a year and involved 15,000 Ohioans.
He announced that he will convene an advisory committee to consider the issue of Ohio’s list of tests, which to be altered would require changes in state law. Ohio has 24 tests, more than the 17 required under the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, that gives states more control over schools and education policy.
The state announcement Monday about delaying the plan’s submission came the same day that the U.S. Education Department shared new accountability guidance for identifying and assisting struggling schools under ESSA. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said those new rules give states more flexibility, but some critics complained that the guidance leaves parents and other local stakeholders out of the discussion.
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education said the new federal guidance didn’t affect the state’s decision to delay submitting its plan.
The delay was applauded by the Ohio Federation of Teachers, as well as members of the state school board and lawmakers who lead education committees in the state Legislature.
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by NNPA ESSA | Feb 20, 2017 | ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, National, No Child Left Behind
By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
Without hesitation, Jill Lauren said that the most critical program that should be included under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is proper reading instruction beginning in kindergarten.
“We know that children learn to read by using either a whole language or phonics approach. Some kids seem to pick up reading, as if by magic, while others need every sound and syllable rule explicitly taught,” said Lauren, who holds a bachelor’s of science and master’s degree in learning disabilities from Northwestern University.
Known as an expert in reading and writing, Lauren has trained teachers around the country to utilize a variety of structured, multi-sensory approaches to the instruction of reading and written language.
“Teachers of pre-K to [third grade] need to know how to teach both methodologies of reading instruction,” said Lauren. “Every child entering third grade should be reading on grade level, meaning we have four years to properly teach kids how to read.”
Lauren continued: “Without the essential skill of reading on grade level, the rest of a child’s school years will be troubled, and statistics show that most youth offenders, as well as adult inmates, struggle with literacy. This educational failing is a national tragedy.”
Lauren’s concerns come as Education Week reported a push by Republicans in Congress to overturn accountability regulations for ESSA could have far-reaching consequences for how the law works in states, and the potential end of the much-contested rules is dividing the education community.
Groups supporting the move argue that it would free schools from unnecessary burdens, while opponents contend that overturning the rules could hurt vulnerable students and create turmoil in states and districts trying to finalize their transition to ESSA, the 2015 law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), comprised of 211 African American-owned media companies and newspapers, recently received a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a three-year, multi-media public awareness campaign focusing on the unique opportunities and challenges of ESSA.
Bridging the academic achievement gap in education K-12 for African-American students and others from disadvantaged communities is of critical importance over the next several years, said Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA.
“The ESSA law was established to help increase the effectiveness of public education in every state,” said Chavis. “Our task is to inform, inspire, and encourage parents, students, teachers, and administrators to fulfill the intent and objectives of ESSA with special focus on those students and communities that have been marginalized and underserved by the education system across the nation.”
Under ESSA, states will adhere to more flexible federal regulations that provide for improved elementary and secondary education in the nation’s public schools.
ESSA, which also reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), received bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 10, 2015. The regulations are administered by the U.S. Department of Education and ESSA goes into full effect at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year.
Last week, the House of Representatives approved a joint resolution that would overturn ESSA accountability rules issued by the Obama administration.
Those rules, which became final in November, are intended to detail for states the timeline for addressing underperforming schools, how schools must be rated, the ways English-language learners must be considered in state accountability plans, and other policy issues.
As some education advocates push for more intensive reading instruction in pre-K and kindergarten, others argue that attendance is the key to success.
“One of the things that should be included in any modification of ESSA is the fifth criteria for schools which is about school climate,” said Helen Levy-Myers, founder and CEO of Athena’s Workshop, Inc., a texting application for educators. “The most important metric in school climate is individual student attendance rates. Measuring when individual students attend or are absent is a key indicator of school environment and more valuable than a survey, an acceptable option, which can influence results in the way questions are phrased.”
School attendance is often dependent on other factors, like the friendliness of the staff, school leadership, safety of the school and neighborhood, health of the community, and the level of engagement between students and teachers, she said.
A white paper presented by Levy-Myers noted that the “cold, hard truth is that chronically absent children end up leading harder lives.”
Students that miss just two or three days each month in kindergarten and first grade never catch up. They become chronically absent, defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year.
About 83 percent of the chronically absent students in kindergarten and 1st grade are not reading at grade level at the end of third grade. Not being able to read well means that everything gets harder and that a student is four times more likely to drop out before graduation, Levy-Myers said.
Without a high school diploma, getting any job or advancing beyond the lowest, entry-level job is almost impossible, and that person is now eight times more likely to end up in jail, she said.
“Teachers and administrators know these facts, but parents often do not understand how small absences add up. Parents that do not visit the school or district website do not get the message about the importance of daily attendance,” Levy-Myers said. “They have not calculated that being absent two days a month, every month for nine months of school equals 18 days or 10 percent of the typical 180-day school year and that chronic absenteeism translates into a long list of negative outcomes.”
While many Republican lawmakers have moved to strike down the implementation of ESSA, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told state school officers around the country that despite a delay, several regulations will be reviewed and changed by March 21.
DeVos told the officers that state ESSA plans will still be accepted either in April or in September.
In a memo to state school heads DeVos wrote: “Due to the regulatory delay and review, and the potential repeal of recent regulations by Congress, the Department is currently reviewing the regulatory requirements of consolidated State plans, as reflected in the current template, to ensure that they require only descriptions, information, assurances, and other materials that are absolutely necessary for consideration of a consolidated State plan.”
