The chairman of the Senate education committee wants to change the main federal education law to allow schools to hire more counselors, make infrastructure improvements, and fund violence-prevention programs.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., announced Tuesday that he would introduce the School Safety and Mental Health Service Improvement Act at some point this week. Among other things, it would change Title IV, which gets $400 billion in the fiscal 2018 federal budget, in order to let schools pay for new safety technology, “physical security,” and training school personnel to help them recognize and defuse threats of violence. And his proposal would also change Title II to make it easier for the $2 billion program for educator professional development to fund school counselors. Both Title II and Title IV are part of the Every Student Succeeds Act—Title IV was created when ESSA became law in 2015.
School safety has been a prominent topic in Congress since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last month that left 17 students and school staff members dead. There are already several bills in Congress designed to enhanced school safety, although it’s unclear what their prospects are on Capitol Hill…
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U.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.
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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Now just over a year in office, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos continues to be a lightning rod in the field of American education. The debate over her K-12 philosophy and policy ideas remains vigorous in many quarters. Education Week’s opinion editors were interested in hearing from people in the field about what they believe matters most when it comes to schooling children. To that end, we asked a handful of participants to briefly consider if they were given the chance to sit down with the secretary, what issue or course of action would they urge her to prioritize, and how would they make their case. This is what they had to say. —The Editors
Higher Education
It’s no secret that change is underway in education and beyond. Industries are morphing, jobs are shifting, and new careers are emerging because of technology. A century-long trend toward a highly skilled workforce is accelerating, and our economy will demand greater levels of education.
More Americans, both young and old, will need education beyond high school. And our institutions will have to evolve in profound ways to meet their needs.
That’s why we must seize this moment as Congress debates the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which governs colleges and universities and provides them with federal financial support. Our national legislative framework must enable and encourage the changes we will need over the next decades to build a stronger system for higher education. Our country has changed significantly since the act was last reauthorized in 2008…
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Even during Black History Month, U.S. schools are not adequately teaching the history of American slavery, educators are not sufficiently prepared to teach it, and textbooks do not have enough material about it. As a result, students lack a basic knowledge of the important role that slavery played in shaping the United States and the impact it continues to have on race relations in America, according to a recent study by the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance project.
The report, Teaching Hard History: American Slavery, traces racial tensions and even debates about what, exactly, racism is in America to the failure of schools to teach the full impact that slavery has had on all Americans. The report examines the lack of coverage that U.S. classrooms provide about American slavery through a survey of high school seniors and U.S. social studies teachers. It also offers an in-depth analysis of 15 state standards and 10 popular U.S. history textbooks, including two that specifically teach Alabama and Texas history.
The investigation – conducted over the course of one year by the Teaching Tolerance project – revealed the need for far better and much more comprehensive classroom instruction across the board.
“If we are to move past our racial differences, schools must do a better job of teaching American slavery and all the ways it continues to impact American society, including poverty rates, mass incarceration and education,” said Maureen Costello, a former history teacher who is now the Teaching Tolerance director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This report places an urgent call on educators, curriculum writers and policy makers to confront the harsh realities of slavery and racial injustice. Learning about slavery is essential for us to bridge the racial differences that continue to divide our nation.”
Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed could identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War. Most didn’t know an amendment to the U.S. Constitution formally ended slavery. Fewer than half (44 percent) correctly answered that slavery was legal in all colonies during the American Revolution.
While nearly all teachers (97 percent) surveyed agreed that teaching and learning about slavery are essential to understanding American history, there was a lack of deep coverage of the subject in the classroom, according to the report. More than half (58 percent) reported that they were dissatisfied with their textbooks, and 39 percent reported that their state offered little or no support for teaching about slavery.
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery relies on noted historian Ira Berlin’s 10 essential elements for teaching American slavery, articulated in the foreword to Understanding and Teaching American Slavery, as a framework for analysis.
Teaching Tolerance worked with the book’s editors, Bethany Jay, Ph.D., an associate professor of history at Salem State University; and Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Ph.D., an associate professor of history at Boston College; to convert these elements into 10 key concepts of what students should know.
Teaching Tolerance also assembled an advisory board of distinguished scholars, and partnered with teachers and institutions of higher education, to develop a framework and offer a set of recommendations for teaching about American slavery.
The recommendations include fully integrating American slavery into lessons about U.S. history, expanding the use of original historical documents, improving textbooks, and strengthening the curriculum on topics involving slavery.
“It is of crucial importance for every American to understand the role that slavery played in the formation of this country,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard University professor and adviser for the report. “And that lesson must begin with the teaching of the history of slavery in our schools. It is impossible to understand the state of race relations in American society today without understanding the roots of racial inequality – and its long-term effects – which trace back to the ‘peculiar institution.’ I hope that publishers, curriculum writers, legislators and our fellow American citizens on school boards who make choices about what kids learn embrace the thoughtful framework developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., also praised the report and the resources being made available to teachers through the Teaching Tolerance program.
“As the first national museum dedicated to telling the African-American story, we strongly support and encourage Teaching Tolerance’s efforts to unpack the reality of what our education system teaches about slavery and what students are learning about slavery,” the museum wrote in a statement. “The information and the resources that Teaching Tolerance has developed will have a significant impact on the realm of history education.
“The NMAAHC looks forward to being a collaborator in championing the key components laid out in the Teaching Tolerance report, especially the need for schools, educators, students and families to become more savvy about talking about race and white supremacy as it relates to the founding of the U.S. and the legacy of slavery.”
The study follows Teaching Tolerance’s widely cited Teaching the Movement reports that evaluated state standards for teaching the civil rights movement. At the time, researchers suspected that states did a poor job of teaching the civil rights movement, in part because they failed to adequately teach about its historical roots in slavery.
Teachers can access resources on teaching American slavery at www.tolerance.org/hardhistory. The resources are offered to educators at no cost.
Last spring’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District reaffirmed the importance of providing, in the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, an “appropriately ambitious” education for the nation’s 6.7 million children with disabilities. The court ruled that in order for school districts to meet their obligations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, they must offer students with disabilities an individualized education plan that enables them to make progress and be adequately challenged to meet their full potential.
The court described this standard in its ruling as a “fact intensive exercise.” From our vantage, that fact-intensive exercise must include processes to ensure that schools actually provide the mandates that appear in each student’s IEP.
In recent years, there have been substantial structural improvements to existing special education practices. Schools now typically place greater emphasis on educating students with disabilities in general education classes and have adopted stringent guidelines to ensure that students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum.
Despite these improvements, the U.S. Department of Education determined in July that fewer than half of the states are meeting their obligations under IDEA. Most of those states failing to follow educational guidelines have done so for at least two years…
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Donna Edwards already has her sights set on cleaning up the Prince George’s County school board in her bid for county executive.
If elected later this year, the former U.S. congresswoman said she would ban the school system CEO and top-ranking school officials from donating campaign contributions to board members.
“Our education leaders are bold enough to put up political contributions that can influence their hiring and contracting decisions,” Edwards said Thursday at a press conference outside the school administration building in Upper Marlboro. “It may not be illegal, but it is unethical.”
Edwards’ comments were triggered by revelations that two school board members, Carolyn Boston and Sonya Williams, received such donations for their election campaigns.
According to finance reports, schools system CEO Kevin Maxwell donated $500 to Boston, the school board vice president who served on a committee to evaluate Maxwell’s performance.
Boston, who couldn’t be reached for comment, eventually returned the money.
Williams received $3,000 from Delegate Dereck Davis (D-District 25) of Mitchellville, according to campaign documents. The money from Davis, who is married to schools Deputy Superintendent Monique Whittington Davis, came from his terminated campaign from Congress two years ago, campaign records show.
“I’ve known [Davis] forever,” said Williams, a civil engineer who has served on the board since 2014. “It is not unethical or illegal for any politician to support another politician’s campaign. My goal on the school board is for us to be great by choice.”
Although the Maryland Ethics Commission monitors and approves regulations based on the legislature, state law allows school boards to manage its own ethic rules and committees.
Michael Lord, executive director of the state’s Ethics Commission, said Prince George’s received approval for its ethics regulations at least three years ago. He said any school complaints, however, are handled by the county, not the commission.
“It is all done on the local level,” Lord said.
The donations to Boston and Williams surfaced after two parents, Keisha Chase and Yolanda Rogers, wrote a letter last week to alert the state’s ethics commission.
“The culture of pay-to-play, kickbacks, you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours must end if we are ever going to provide a quality education for our children,” the letter said.
Chase and Rogers have children who attend DuVal High School in Lanham. Parents received letters from Maxwell last month informing them several staff members had been removed for violation of grading and graduation procedures.
The parents now plan to bring their concerns about the campaign contributions to the state Board of Education and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.
The Connecticut Education Association does not endorse the idea that teachers should bring guns into the classroom.
Teachers must focus on educating students. Asking teachers to be armed, paramilitary operatives as a result of the inability of Congress to pass gun violence prevention legislation is madness. We place enough mandates on our teachers—Congress needs to take action to keep our schools safe.
After the 2012 tragedy at Sandy Hook, Connecticut passed historic gun, mental health and school safety laws—some of the toughest in the nation—to help keep our children, our families, our schools, and our communities safe from gun violence. Republicans and Democrats worked together.
Congress must take action to protect all students in every school in America.
CEA is helping to coordinate school activities and early-morning Walk-Ins For Safe Schools on Thursday, March 14. School communities can stand in solidarity, and walk-in to school together to support the changes needed to make every school and every child safe.
When the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law two years ago, leaders from both sides of the aisle hailed it as a rare and remarkable display of bipartisanship. The measure represented a significant rollback of the federal government’s footprint in education policy and the dawn of a new era of state autonomy. Both of us see the new law as an opportunity for states to sidestep the gridlock that has overwhelmed Washington and to take charge in determining a new path forward.
We have been watching the action closely in states, and there’s no point in sugarcoating: ESSA has gotten off to a rocky start. Turnover in leadership at both the federal and state levels wasn’t a surprise, but complicated matters. In many states—including the states where we helped shape education policy, North Carolina and Indiana—the process of drafting new accountability plans surfaced tensions among the multiple entities responsible for putting the new law into effect.
In spite of this turmoil, states—to their credit—have come to the table to fix things with a sense of urgency. Every state has now submitted an ESSA plan. Some have already been approved, and it shouldn’t be long now before the rest follow suit.
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President Donald Trump is seeking a roughly 5 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for fiscal 2019 in a proposal that also mirrors his spending plan from last year by seeking to eliminate a major teacher-focused grant and to expand school choice.
In order to achieve those proposed spending cuts, the president copied two major education cuts he proposed last year: the elimination of Title II teacher grants and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Those two cuts combined would come to about $3.1 billion from current levels. Overall, 39 discretionary programs would be cut, eliminated, or “streamlined.”
“Decades of investments and billions of dollars in spending have shown that an increase in funding does not guarantee high-quality education,” the Office of Management and Budget states in the budget document. “While the budget reduces the overall federal role in education, the budget makes strategic investments to support and empower families and improve access to postsecondary education, ensuring a future of prosperity for all Americans.”
On the other side of the ledger, Trump is seeking $1 billion for new private and public school choice programs called Opportunity Grants. This new funding could also help schools that go for the weighted-funding pilot. He also wants $500 million in federal charter school funding, an increase of roughly 50 percent from current spending levels, which is also the same as his first budget blueprint.
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The Delaware Department of Education is seeking online public feedback on data visuals that will be used in the Delaware State Report Card.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires public reporting on schools. The Delaware Department of Education is developing the Delaware State Report Card to replace the current School Profiles site to meet these requirements.
In October, the Delaware Department of Education hosted five community conversation meetings throughout the state to provide background about the Delaware Report Card and to solicit revision recommendations for how educational information and data will be shared with the public. Now the department needs additional feedback on data visuals. Data visuals along with guiding context, business rules, and specific data points will help provide a more comprehensive, accurate and transparent picture of state, district and school performance to the public.
The chairman of the Senate education committee wants to change the main federal education law to allow schools to hire more counselors, make infrastructure improvements, and fund violence-prevention programs.
The Delaware Department of Education is seeking online public feedback on data visuals that will be used in the Delaware State Report Card.