I believe that it is possible that, in the annals of time — should our republic survive this period in history — America will be revealed to be the hollow, shallow shell of what the experiment was meant to be. The kids from Parkland, Florida are proving that it was and should always be the government of the people, by the people, for the people, and not the people with the most money.
But I think that America stopped being that place when we refused to acknowledge that this country was built on the backs of slave labor, and we decided that there would be no accountability for that. We stopped living up to that ideal when we began to delude ourselves that this nation had a manifest destiny to lead the world, but there would be no repercussions for slavery. That lie we told ourselves — that no accountability was and no repercussions were necessary — was the beginning of the downward slide to where we are now.
At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students walk daily past a quote painted high on an exterior wall: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
After 17 classmates and staff members died in Feb. 14 mass shooting at the Parkland, Fla., school, some Stoneman Douglas students took that quote to heart. Less than than 24 hours after they were huddled in darkened classroom closets waiting for police to escort them to safety, they planted the seeds of a national movement that takes center stage Saturday at the March for Our Lives, when half a million people are expected to gather in Washington, D.C., to call for more restrictive gun laws.
Student organizers around the country have planned more than 800 coordinating events to coincide with the Washington march, including at least one in every state and on six continents. They estimate the events collectively could draw a million people.
But it remains to be seen if all the enthusiasm, and the coinciding media coverage, will lead to real policy change, especially on the federal level. There’s still a powerful gun lobby, the youth activists have ambitious policy demands that lawmakers have failed to pass many times before.
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This moment is one of tumult for our nation. In the past year, multiple mass shootings have left hundreds dead. Wide exposure of workplace sexual assault has prompted challenging reflections, conversations, and reckonings. Kneeling athletes and protests in the streets have launched a national dialogue about the experiences of communities of color and the meaning of patriotism.
Unprecedented political divisiveness has contributed to a national discourse simmering with anger and suspicion. For students and educators, it can be terrifying, it can be overwhelming, it can be uneasy. It can also be incredibly powerful.
As educators, school leaders, and school partners, it’s easy to exist within the illusion that we are able to script our students’ educational journeys. We agonize over curricular development and homework completion. We mandate graduation requirements and work tirelessly to perfect course schedules. And yet, students’ lives exist within and beyond those bubbles. And their eyes are wide open to the travails of broader society. Rather than luring students back onto our prescribed paths in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., tragedy and other moments of upheaval, we must make our schools a space where they can make sense of the world…
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In a typical high school civics class, students learn about local and federal government and media literacy, as well as citizenship and participation. They might learn how to contact their local representative, use social media for advancing a cause, or debate an issue they feel strongly about. But few students—and only a small fraction of adult citizens for that matter—participate in a highly contentious national debate.
Mere weeks after the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting that killed 17 students and educators, the news cycle would normally be winding down. But this tragedy doesn’t seem to be fading from memory quite as fast as previous school shootings. The reason is obvious: Parkland’s teenage students aren’t staying quiet.
As mass shootings become a disturbing cultural norm, the country’s reaction seems to follow a familiar pattern. America collectively gasps. We watch footage of children filing out of a school, arms raised. We rage on Twitter. We share political memes, shaming or congratulating the nation’s lawmakers for their “thoughts and prayers” refrain. We make donations to whichever side we’re on. And then we move on. Until more bullets fly…
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WESTSIDE GAZETTE — Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) announced its top teacher, principal, assistant principal and school-related/District employee during the 2018 Caliber Awards Ceremony at the Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, February 1, 2018. The annual ceremony recognizes and honors the dedication and hard work of the District’s outstanding educators, leaders and staff.
The event was attended by more than 1,300 guests to honor the nearly 550 talented nominees and 16 extraordinary finalists vying for their respective coveted titles.
Congratulations to all of the 2018 Caliber Awards winners!
Freeman
Teacher of the Year Tammy Freeman, Monarch High School
In her more than 10 years as an educator, Tammy Free-man’s passion for her work has earned the respect and admiration of both her students and colleagues. An English teacher who also serves as chair of the Language Arts Department, Freeman has shown outstanding ability as both collaborator and leader. She was named Monarch High School Teacher of the Year, in recognition of her efforts in challenging and encouraging young learners to grow as critical thinkers. “I empower my students by not only instilling skills that will help them become successful in life, but by helping them see how important their voice truly is,” Freeman says. This accomplished educator encourages her students to challenge themselves as independent learners and critical thinkers. Her commitment to personalized instruction builds students’ confidence in their abilities and a strong foundation for lifelonglearning.
Kefford
Principal of the Year Michelle Kefford, Charles W. Flanagan High School
Michelle Kefford is in her seventh year as principal of Charles W. Flanagan High School. “When educating the next generation, it is critical that we provide exciting and relevant learning experiences for all students,” says Kefford. “My journey as a principal began by stressing to all staff it was imperative that we subscribe to a personalized approach to learning.” She also emphasizes the importance of students taking ownership of their learning. Quality education is a family tradition for Kefford, who says its value was instilled from a very young age. She recalls her mother urging her to teach and says, “I am grateful every day that I took her advice.” Kefford is described by her colleagues as dedicated and relentless in her commitment to ensure that the students she serves receive a first-class, high-quality education.
Porter
Assistant Principal of the Year Winfred Porter, Jr., Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
For the last five years, Winfred Porter, Jr. has served as assistant principal at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and for more than a decade, he has leveraged student ingenuity and curiosity by placing them in real-world situations. “It’s up to educators to find unique ways to prompt students to soak up information and apply it in unique and creative ways that impact the world,” he says. One of Porter’s strengths is the ability to build positive relationships with his students. “Building relationships with students is like opening a checking account. When it comes time to make a withdrawal, you must have something in the bank,” he says. “As an administrator, there are many opportunities to make withdrawals through discipline and corrective inter-actions, but I have made it a priority to make as many depo-sits of encouraging words and positive interactions, to ensure a productive understanding is developed. At the end of the day, students respect me for being consistent with them.”
Volquez
School-Related/District Employee of the Year Frinette Volquez, Office Manager/Confidential Secretary, Hallandale High School
Frinette Volquez is the confidential secretary at Hallandale High School. A 13-year veteran of BCPS, she began her career as a cafeteria aide. She believes that every student has the potential to become something special. Volquez says that “by providing students with a safe and stimulating environment, where they are free to express their feelings, ideas, and opinions without judgement. We empower them to unlock their full potential to do great things.” Volquez’ colleagues say she is a true team player who always goes above and beyond, and fosters positive attitudes to bring out the best in others.
For the first time in Caliber Awards history, and thanks to the sponsorship of the Broward Education Foundation in partnership with Toyota of North Miami, the Teacher of the Year was awarded keys to a 2018 Toyota Camry SE.
Advocates for children in foster care had good reason to cheer the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act two years ago. The new law requires schools to break out student achievement data for foster care students so that the public can see how they are doing relative to their peers.
And it calls for students in foster care to be able to stay in their “school of origin” (a term the law did not define) even if it’s no longer their neighborhood school. The state must work with school districts and local child welfare agencies to provide transportation. The transportation was supposed to be in place one year after the passage of ESSA.
The Every Student Succeeds Act may have kept annual testing as a federal requirement. But it also aims to help states cut down on the number of assessments their students must take by giving districts the chance to use a nationally-recognized college entrance exam, instead of the regular state test, for accountability purposes.
When the law passed back in 2015, some superintendents hailed the change, saying it would mean one less test for many 11th graders, who would already be preparing for the SAT or ACT. Assessment experts, on the other hand, worried the change would make student progress a lot harder to track.
Now, more than two years after the law passed, it appears that only two states—North Dakota and Oklahoma—have immediate plans to offer their districts a choice of tests. Policymakers in at least two other states—Georgia and Florida—are thinking through the issue. Arizona and Oregon could also be in the mix.
That’s not exactly a mad dash to take advantage of the flexibility.
Offering a choice of tests can be a tall order for state education officials, said Julie Woods, a senior policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States. They have to figure out how to pay for the college entrance exams, design a process for districts to apply for the flexibility, and find a way to compare student scores on the state test to scores on the SAT, ACT, or another test.
That’s “potentially a lot more work than states are currently doing,” Woods said. “States have to decide what the payoff is for them…”
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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…
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In 2011, Arizona became the first state to adopt the most flexible school reform yet, an education savings account (ESA) plan. It provides parents who believe their child is poorly served in the local public school with an annual budget they can spend on a wide variety of accredited alternatives—not just private or parochial schools, but tutoring, online academies, special-needs services, and even computer equipment for home schooling.
More recently, five other states have followed Arizona’s lead: Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and just this year North Carolina. Initially these programs were designed to better serve learning-disabled children, but with the realization that most of its students could be educated independently for a fraction of public-school per pupil spending, Nevada authorized a plan open to any of that state’s children in 2015.
To date, Democrats in the Nevada legislature have held up funding for about 10,000 applicants, but nearly all of Arizona’s K-12 children are now eligible for an ESA worth 90 percent of their district’s per pupil spending.
With this history in mind, Marty Lueken, director of fiscal policy and analysis at the EdChoice Foundation, and I decided to calculate how much ESAs could help a financially troubled blue state, where the longstanding alliance of teacher unions and liberal politicians has created per pupil costs that are three, four, and even five times what is needed to independently educate. Our goal was to see how much the taxpayers of Illinois, New Jersey, Kentucky, California, or Connecticut might benefit if just a small percentage of public school families were funded to take charge of their own children’s schooling…
Washington — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told a roomful of CEOs here Tuesday that many students aren’t mastering the skills they need to be prepared for the careers of the future.
DeVos argued that 65 percent of today’s kindergartners will end up in jobs that haven’t even been created yet. Business people, she said, have told her that students need be able to think critically, know how to collaborate, communicate clearly, and be creative.
“My observation is a lot of students today are not having their needs met to be prepared in those areas,” DeVos said at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council’s meeting. And later she noted that the U.S. education system was largely borrowed from Prussia, a country which she noted no longer exists. The system, she said, needs to be changed to offer more students and parents individualized options. “When we empower all parents, that will ultimately prepare students to be active participants in the workforce,” she said in remarks at the Four Seasons Hotel.
For the second time this year, DeVos held up school choice-friendly Florida as a model for the country. The Sunshine State, she said, offers, “the broadest range of choices and the greatest number of kids taking advantage of those choices.” (Other school choice stand-outs, according to DeVos, include Indiana, Louisiana, and Wisconsin.)…
