The Thursday letter to DeVos argues that the plan should be ditched because of the way it handles English learners, among other reasons.
Written by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, League of United Latin American Citizens, and others, the letter argues that the Sunshine State’s plan is a bad idea and doesn’t follow ESSA because it doesn’t offer state tests in languages other than English, including to the 200,000 students in Florida who are learning English and speak Spanish.
They also took issue with the plan for excluding English-language proficiency from the state’s proposed accountability system.
In addition, the groups say that Florida’s plan doesn’t appropriately identify schools with low performance for student subgroups. All three moves, the groups say, run counter to ESSA’s requirements…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
Read the full letter below. This piece has been corrected to accurately reflect the civil rights’ groups concerns with student subgroups’ performance.
The grinding, two-year process of drafting accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act has upended states’ K-12 political landscape and laid bare long-simmering factions among power brokers charged with putting the new federal education law into effect this school year.
The details tucked into dozens of plans being turned in to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos this week were hammered out by a hodgepodge of elected and appointed officials—from governors and legislators to state school board members and local superintendents—during sometimes sparsely attended meetings, caucuses, and task force sessions.
Further complicating matters, 12 governors, half the nation’s state superintendents, and half of legislatures’ education committee chairpersons are new to office since the passing of ESSA in December 2015, when significant policy leeway was handed back to the states from the federal government.
“The problem with devolution and decentralization is that, by definition, you’re going to get a lot of variation … in terms of effort, political will, and the effectiveness of those efforts,” said Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist at Drew University in New Jersey who has studied state and federal policy and followed the implementation of ESSA.
In many cases, politicians, lobbyists, and membership organizations used their political prowess, technical expertise, and longevity to successfully push their agendas in the crafting of 51 state-level ESSA accountability plans.
Friction Points
Hammering out plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act has been a source of tension for rival policymakers in many states.
Governors
Governors in Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, and Wisconsin rejected their states’ ESSA plans after the required 30-day review process. The plans can be submitted without governor approval—indeed, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos approved Louisiana’s plan—but such a thumbs-down indicates to the federal Education Department that there’s not political consensus over details.
State Boards of Education
In states such as Delaware, North Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia, legislatures attempted to strip the powers of their state boards of education over key education policy areas even as the states readied their approaches to ESSA implementation. In North Carolina, the state board sued the legislature over an education law passed during a special session that board members said violated the state’s constitution.
Legislatures
Lawmakers in states such as Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, and West Virginia passed bills that dictated components of states’ ESSA plans regarding school accountability and testing. That left local superintendents and state board members frustrated.
State Chiefs
State superintendents in Alabama, Colorado, and New Mexico resigned in the middle of the ESSA-planning process after high-profile debates over key policies, leaving practitioners in the lurch and states in some instances making last-minute changes.
But the nature of state politics left out other groups, some of which will spend the coming months restructuring their spending and staffing priorities to more effectively lobby in the inevitable battles to come over the new law.
“The politics of federalism is going to dramatically change going forward,” said Sandra Vergari, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Albany who has studied federal education policy. Following all 50 states “is going to be a lot more work for us scholars, policy analyst, and advocates.”
Unlike prior federal versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESSA required “meaningful stakeholder engagement” in crafting state plans—without defining who a stakeholder is or how much or what type of engagement needs to be conducted.
Many state superintendents said shortly after ESSA was passed that they had a natural incentive to put an end to years of polarizing debates over standards, accountability, and testing. But as the ESSA planning process unfolded, power grabs ensued in a number of states. Those traditionally in charge of education policy sparred with each other and with lawmakers eager to take on a share of the new responsibility.
In North Carolina, for example, the Republican-controlled legislature—just days before Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper took office this winter—decided during a special session that the state board should no longer oversee key accountability and school turnaround decisions, and that those decisions should be left up to the state’s recently appointed Republican state superintendent.
The board sued, and a judge decided last week to delay the law, which has held up the state’s ESSA planning process.
Delaware’s legislature stripped its state board of several powers, and a pending bill in Washington would scrap that state’s board of the ability to oversee portions of its accountability system.
And after years of infighting, Indiana’s legislature decided this year that the state’s elected superintendent should instead be appointed by the governor.
Hot-Button Issues
In other states, crucial policy decisions over testing, state goals, and how to define an ineffective teacher fanned flames between advocacy groups and politicians.
The governors in Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, and Wisconsin all refused to sign off on their states’ plans before sending them to Secretary DeVos. (A plan still can be turned in without the governor’s signature.)
And Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley asked DeVos to send the plan back (something his office is not allowed to do) after he took issue with portions that dealt with special education students. That state’s board-appointed superintendent involved more than 300 people in the development of the plan, a process the lieutenant governor said still left the state’s special education community without a voice.
“What we have in our system is all these interest groups across the political spectrum that have a lot of power and say,” said Calley, who has a child with special needs. “There’s no organized group with PACS and electoral power in our system that represents the parents.”
State superintendents, many with their own political agendas, were left walking a political tightrope in some states. Several didn’t survive.
In a political snub, Hawaii’s since-replaced state Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi wasn’t invited by Democratic Gov. David Ige to sit on the state’s ESSA task force.
New Mexico’s secretary of education, Hanna Skandera, resigned in June shortly after turning in her state’s controversial plan, which upset the state’s teaching force. And just last week, Alabama Superintendent Michael Sentance resigned after a bruising evaluation by the state’s district superintendents who took issue with his leadership style and the ESSA development process.
Advocates Weigh In
National, state, and local advocacy organizations all scrambled throughout ESSA planning to adjust to the fluid situation. A board meeting in California in July, for example, fielded dozens of comments protesting the state’s proposed accountability system.
In other states, advocates skipped state board meetings and went straight to their legislature.
Maryland’s Democratically-controlled legislature, pressured by the state’s teachers’ union, effectively wrote the state’s accountability system into a law called “Protect Our Schools Act.” The bill survived Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto and inflamed state board of education members who accused politicians of trapping students in failing schools.
Ohio’s teachers’ union and parent groups managed to convince the state’s superintendent in the spring to stall the turning in of that state’s plan after they convinced enough people that the plan would ramp up school testing.
And Kentucky’s legislature passed as part of its new ESSA-aligned accountability system a sweeping education bill that mostly scrapped a historic school governance model that had elevated parent voices in the form of school-based-decision-making councils.
The battle pitted Kentucky’s politically weak parent groups against the state’s well-financed superintendents’ association and teachers’ union. It flew in the face of a working relationship the three parties had forged over the years in fighting for more school funding from the legislature as the coal industry collapsed.
“We’ve been together for so long and through so much together,” said a disappointed Lynne Slone, the attorney for the Kentucky Association of School Councils.
In Florida, Rosa Castro-Feinberg, a civil rights activist for minority and English-language-learner students, said she will shift her efforts to the local level if the state’s ESSA plan passes federal muster. Castro-Feinberg launched a petition and letter-writing and media campaign to stop several waiver requests from being attached to that state’s plan, an effort that ultimately failed.
Others, however, see an opportunity for advocates and policymakers to forge ties across state lines in the wake of the sometimes-tense ESSA planning, especially on common issues such as the achievement gap, the effects poverty has on schools, and stagnant student performance.
“For some states that are diving into this more deeply, doing the soul-searching, you’re seeing a lot less partisanship,” said Michelle Exstrom, the Education Program Director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Education shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I think when you have a sense of urgency, you figure out that it’s in everyone’s best interest to improve outcomes, and leaders get motivated to go to the table to fix it.”
WHAT:
Meeting between the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Reverend Dr. RB Holmes and K-12 and HBCU Leaders
WHEN:
Wednesday, August 30, 2017, 11:45 – 3:00 p.m.
WHERE:
Bethel Family Life Center
406 N Bronough Street Tallahassee, FL 32301
Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos met with a broad spectrum of education leaders in Florida. The meeting was divided into two 45-minute sessions. The first session was titled “Saving, Sustaining and Strengthening Public Education and Schools of Choice” and the second was titled “Saving, Sustaining and Strengthening HBCUs and Higher Education.”
In each session, the group discussed:
Policies and Procedures
Challenges and Concerns
Secretary DeVos offered the following comments on the meeting:
“As we confront the many challenges facing our education system today, it is paramount that we hear from those on the front lines: local leaders who confront these issues head on each and every day. Today’s discussions were great examples of how local leaders – whether they are administrators, educators, elected officials or religious leaders – can come together to share best practices and work together to find innovative solutions that help our students and communities succeed.
“I want to thank Rev. Dr. RB Holmes for convening this summit, and also, more importantly, for his long track record of working on behalf of often-disadvantaged students who without his tireless efforts would not have the opportunities they enjoy today.”
ATTENDEES INCLUDED:
Reverend Dr. RB Holmes, Pastor, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Education Roundtable Participants Invited to Attend:
Dr. Timothy Moore, Director of Research, Florida A&M University
Rodner Wright, Provost, Florida A&M University
Dr. Castelle Bryant, Past President, Florida A&M University
Dr. Henry Lewis Lewis, Past President, Florida A&M University
Ms. JoLinda L. Herring, Esq. – Florida Memorial University, Board of Trustees
Dr. Freddie Grooms-McLendon – Edward Waters University, Chairman, Board of Trustees
The Honorable Senator Bill Montford – Florida Senator
The Honorable Congressman Al Lawson – United States Representative
Chancellor Hershel Lyons – FL State Dept. of Education K-12 Chancellor
Commissioner Pam Stewart – Commissioner of Education
Chancellor Rod Duckworth – Career and Adult Education
Superintendent Alex “Lex” Carswell, Jr. – Columbia County
Superintendent Dr. Patricia Willis – Duval County
Superintendent Traci Moses – Franklin County
Superintendent Marianne Arbulu – Jefferson County
Ms. Beverly Owens – Leon County Schools Office of Federal Programs & Charter School
Mrs. Diane Townsend – Principal, Tallavana Christian School
Dr. Roslyn Wilson – Principal, Bethel Christian Academy
Dr. Julius McAllister – Trustee, Edward Waters University; Pastor, Bethel AME Church
Dr. Joseph Wright – Florida Baptist General State Conventionm Pastor, Jerusalem Baptist Church
Bishop A.J. Richardson – Bethune-Cookman University, Board of Trustees,
14th Episcopal District, African Methodist Episcopal Church
Pastor Lee Johnson – Pastor, Trinity Presbyterian Church
Dr. Richard Mashburn – Associate Minister, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Dr. Isaac Manning – Moderator, 1st Bethlehem Baptist Association
Dr. Ronald Holmes – Holmes Education Post
Dr. Marvin Henderson – Retired Deputy Superintendent, Leon County Schools
Ms. Georgia “Joy” Bowen – President, Leon County School Board
Mrs. Caroly D. Cummings, Esq.
Mr. James Coleman – Vice-Chair, Board of Trustees, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Dr. Elaine Bryant – Chair, Board of Trustees, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Mr. James Mathews – Chairman of Finance, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Dr. Barbara Barnes – Retired Provost, Florida A&M University
Mr. Malcom Barnes – Retired Professor, Florida A&M University
Dr. Malinda J. James – Educational Consultant
Reverend Dr. RB Holmes, Jr. – Pastor, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Dr. Gloria Holmes – Administrator, Bethel Christian Academy
Dr. Shawnta Friday-Stroud – Dean of the School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M University
Superintendent Rocky Hanna – Leon County Schools
Dr. Patricia Green-Powell – Interim Dean and Professor, College of Education, Florida A&M University
Dr. Charles Weatherford – Title III Programs, Interim Executive Director
Mr. Christopher Petley – Project Manager, Office of District Communications
Dr. Linda T. Fortenberry – Director of Christian Education, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church
Ms. Taralisha Sanders, Office Manager, The Capital Outlook
When the Every Student Succeeds Act passed, one of the things that educators were most excited about was the chance to cut down on the number of tests kids have to take, Specifically, the law allows some districts to offer a nationally recognized college-entrance exam instead of the state test for accountability.
But that flexibility could be more complicated than it appears on paper.
Here’s a case in point: Oklahoma, which hasn’t finalized its ESSA application yet, has already gotten pushback from the feds for the way that it had planned to implement the locally selected high school test option in a draft ESSA plan posted on the state department’s website. In that plan, Oklahoma sought to offer its districts a choice of two nationally recognized tests, the ACT or the SAT. Importantly, the state’s draft plan didn’t endorse one test over the otherâboth were considered equally okay…
A national coalition of civil rights groups want U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to reject Florida’s soon-to-arrive waiver request that will ask to be relieved from key pieces of the Every Student Succeeds Act dealing with the nation’s most vulnerable and historically disadvantaged students.
Approving Florida’s request, activists say, will set a disturbing precedent for other states.
“Sometimes it feels like we’re playing three-card monteor a game of cat and mouse,” said Liz King the Director of Education Policy for The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She said approving the waiver request will effectively make ESSA toothless. “Everytime we make progress, someone finds a way to cut it back.”
The waiver, still in draft form, asks for the state to be allowed to forego using minority student subgroups and the results of English-learners’ language proficiency exams in its statewide accountability system. And because Florida education officials say English is the state’s official language, it doesn’t want to conduct standardized tests in recently-arrived immigrant students’ native languages.
Those provisions were the biggest victories for national civil rights activists when ESSA was passed in 2015 and they fear that if Secretary DeVos approves the waiver this fall, other states, eager to break free from decades of federal badgering over the nation’s stagnant achievement gap, would follow suit.
The Florida education agency gathered feedback on the request over several weeks and it’s expected to soon be considered by Republican Gov. Rick Scott. It has broad support from the state’s district superintendents who want to keep the state’s politically volatile accountability system mostly intact.
This week, the Leadership Conference, made up of 23 minority rights groups, sent a tersely worded letter to all 51 state superintendents urging them to follow the law as written rather than follow in Florida’s footsteps.
“Low-income children, children of color, children with disabilities, English-learners, and Native children have been left behind for far too long and deserve no less than robust and thorough state policy to ensure an excellent and equitable education,” the letter said.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) also sent a letter to congressional leaders and Secretary DeVos that more specifically urges her to reject the waiver request outright since, they say, the request flies in the face of ESSA’s civil rights legacy and circumvents the state’s legal obligations to English-language learners.
And a group of local civil rights activists in Florida will ask next week for a sit-down meeting with Florida department officials.
The department said in an e-mailed statement that they welcome any feedback to its plans.
“We appreciate everyone who took the time to submit input on Florida’s ESSA draft state plan,” said Meghan Collins, a spokeswoman for the department.
In its waiver request, the department said their accountability system is meant to improve the outcomes of all students, rather than students with a particular ethnicity, special need or language requirement. Instead of English proficiency exams, the state wants to use its English Language Arts test to measure ELL students’ langauge acquisition.
But the civil rights groups say that flies in the face of decades of research regarding how to close achievement gaps between minority students and their peers. Because the state for so many decades segregated its schools and denied a litany of basic education services to minority students and students with special needs, the state is obligated to provide tailored remedies to those groups’ unique needs.
“If this waiver is approved, there will be no accountability whatsover for ELL students’ progress in English Language acquisition,” said Rosa Castro-Feinberg, a civil rights activist, education consultant and former school board member in the Miami-Dade district. “I think the department has been misadvised by folks who are not up on the research related to ELL issues and subgroup accountability issues.”
One out of every 10 students in the state qualifies for ELL services.
The waiver request will create a political dilemma for Secretary DeVos who has been criticized both for her theories on the department’s role in upholding civil rights and her department’s feedback to states’ submitted plans.
“One thing we’re learning through the ESSA implementation process is that too often the decision makers at the federal, state and local level are disconnected from children who aren’t getting a fair shakeout from policy decisions,” King said.
The day Ayden came home from school with bruises, his mother started looking for a new school.
Ayden’s a bright 9-year-old with a blond crew cut, glasses and an eager smile showing new teeth coming in. He also has autism, ADHD and a seizure disorder. (We’re not using his last name to protect his privacy.) He loves karate, chapter books and very soft blankets: “I love the fuzziness, I just cocoon myself into my own burrito.”
“He’s so smart but lacks so much socially,” says his mother, Lynn.
She says Ayden was suspended repeatedly from his school in St. Lucie County, Fla., starting in first grade, for outbursts like throwing a chair. And during “meltdowns,” he was physically restrained by being held in a bear hug from behind or penned in with gym-style mats for up to 45 minutes.
“Not just sometimes, it was every single day!” Ayden says. “That kind of stress gets me all worked up and it makes my tics go crazy!”
One day, Lynn says, Ayden came home with marks all over his body from being restrained. “That was my final straw.” She started looking for another school.
Despite a decision by Congress this spring to repeal key provisions connected to the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Florida Department of Education has no intention of scrapping its efforts to date in creating an ESSA state implementation plan.
Education commissioner Pam Stewart recently informed superintendents that the state would continue its work toward the Sept. 18 due date, and have its proposed plan online for public comment over the summer. Toward that end, she has asked a group of district leaders including Mike Grego of Pinellas County to help hash out details of several key issues that needed more attention.
Those included requirements on percentage of students tested, assessment exemptions for English language learners and the use of subgroups to differentiate accountability. Florida takes approaches that do not necessarily correlate with the federal guidelines.
“Florida is ahead of most of the nation in our policies that feed into the ESSA State Plan,” Stewart said in a memo to superintendents. “We will seek the opportunity where necessary to request waivers and continue current practice where we believe as a group it is best for Florida.”
Stewart has remained steadfast in asserting Florida’s need to do what’s best for itself, and noting that the federal government cannot force states to take action beyond the scope of law, since 2016.
Visit the Department of Education’s ESSA website for more information about its progress and plans.
President Donald Trump made his first school visit as president Friday afternoon—and it should be no surprise, given the administration’s emphasis on expanding school choice, that he picked a private, Catholic school in Florida near Orlando.
It’s clear that school choice is the Trump administration’s favorite education policy. What’s less clear is exactly how he plans to push it from the federal level. One possibility: a tax-credit scholarship program, like the one in place in Florida and in more than a dozen other states. Many of the students at the school Trump picked—St. Andrew Catholic School, in Pine Hills—take advantage of the Sunshine State’s version of the program…
Michigan hasn’t been able to offer the same kind of voucher program as Floridabecause its state constitution prohibits public funds from being used for religious purposes. By contrast, Florida’s vouchers for special needs students can be used at schools affiliated with religious institutions. Michigan, which also has charters, recently started experimenting with Education Savings Accounts, which allow parents and students to “put [their] own customized plan together” for education, DeVos said…
(Originally published by Sunshine State News, November 21, 2016) — Jeb Bush’s education foundation will discuss the newly-implemented Every Student Succeeds Act at its 2016 National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C. next month — and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will moderate a panel discussion on the ESSA.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will open the summit with a morning keynote address.
Panelists will include three former Secretaries of Education, including Arne Duncan, who served as Education Secretary under President Barack Obama.
The ESSA, which replaced the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, was passed late last year and governs over the country’s K-12 education policy. The ESSA held onto some of NCLB’s provisions like standardized testing, which require all students in schools to take standardized assessment tests under the same conditions.
Rice acknowledged the need to discuss the ESSA in detail since it is a newly-passed piece of legislation.
“It is a given that any legislation as sweeping as the Every Student Succeeds Act will take time for states to digest and translate into action on behalf of their students,” said Rice, who also serves a member of the ExcelinEd board of directors. “This distinguished panel of former education secretaries and advisors from three different administrations will offer valuable insight and guidance as policymakers seek to leverage the state-driven opportunities provided in this federal overhaul.”
Rice urged state and national lawmakers to pay attention to attend the panel and listen to the discussion.
Panel participants will take a closer look at the ESSA’s historical context, the major themes of the law and how state lawmakers can use the education package to keep their own states accountable.
Other participants in the panel will include former Secretaries of Education William Bennett (who served under President Ronald Reagan) and Rod Paige, who served as Education Secretary in George W. Bush’s administration.
Obama’s Deputy Assistant for Education Roberto Rodriguez will round out the panel as the fourth member.
“This year’s National Summit comes at a crucial time,” said Bennett. “The new ESSA law has transformed the education landscape and given states opportunities they didn’t have before. I’m honored to be a part of this panel discussion to chart how states can seize upon ESSA and make meaningful and lasting reforms.”
“Reforming our nation’s system for providing children a high quality elementary and secondary education is a national priority,” Paige explained.
While many have praised the ESSA, some groups have vehemently opposed its passage, criticizing its expansive scope and for still promoting a testing-based curriculum and for not truly promoting local control over education reforms.
The summit, the foundation’s ninth, will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2. Over 900 education leaders from around the country attended the summit last year.
Several civil rights and education advocacy groups have a simple message for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos: Just say no to Florida’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan.
