…on to our next question, which deals with ESSA funding. It comes from Sarah Boder, the director of policy & affiliate relations at the North American Association of Environmental Education.
Boder wants to know: “What’s the latest timeline for distribution of Title IVA funds to states? Are they able to receive funds as soon as their plans are approved? Do you have any sense of how many states will opt to administer those grants competitively, given the smaller appropriation?”
First off, what exactly is Title IV? And what does Boder mean by a “smaller appropriation”?
ESSA cut dozens of programs in the U.S. Department of Education and combined them into one giant block grant districts can use for everything from safety and health programs to arts education to Advanced Placement course fees. The program was supposed to get about $1.6 million annually, but Congress only provided $400 million for fiscal 2017. To help districts get more bang for their buck, lawmakers gave states the option to compete out the funds. They could also choose to dole them out by formula, with the goal of giving each district at least $10,000…
On July 4th, the vast majority of the 7,000 delegates from the National Education Association (NEA) voted to adopt a new charter school policy statement. The new statement is an overhaul of NEA’s former charter school policy statement that they had adopted in 2001.
Context for Charters Nationally and in Minnesota
A lot has changed since 2001, when chartering was just ten years old and the national enrollment was only 571,000 students. Since then, charter school enrollment has increased dramatically. Today, more than 3 million students are enrolled in charter schools across the country, which comprises 6.1 percent of national public school enrollment.
In Minnesota, even though charter school enrollment has grown by 36 percent in the past five years, it still accounts for just 6 percent of the state’s public school enrollment. According to Eugene Piccolo, executive director for the Minnesota Association of Charter schools, “We’ll see probably steady, slow growth” for charter school enrollment and expansion.
NEA Provides Criteria that “Charters Must Meet”
NEA President, Lily Eskelen Garcia, said that, “This policy draws a clear line between charters that serve to improve public education and those that do not.” Specifically, NEA’s new policy statement lays out three criteria that charter schools must meet in order to provide students with “the support and learning environments they deserve.”
Criterion #1: Charter schools must be authorized and held accountable by public school districts. Specifically, the statement asserts that charter schools only “serve students and the public interest when they are authorized and held accountable by the same democratically accountable local entity [school board] that authorizes other alternative school models in a public school district such as magnet, community, educator-led.”
Criterion #2: The charter school must demonstrate that it is necessary to meet the needs of the students in the district, and they must meet those needs in a manner that improves the local public school system. Additionally, charter school may only be authorized or expanded only after the public school district has “assessed the impact of the proposed charter school on local public school resources, programs and services.”
Criterion #3: The charter school must comply with the same basic safeguards as other public schools, which includes open meetings and public records law, prohibitions against for-profit operations, and certification requirements, among other things.
The policy statement contends that if these criterion are not met then no charter school should be authorized, and that NEA would support state and local moratoriums on “further charter authorizations in the school district.”
In addition to the three criteria, the policy statement asserted that “fully virtual or online” charter schools should be not authorizer at all because they “cannot, by their nature, provide students with a well-rounded, complete educational experience.”
NAPCS, NACSA Respond to NEA Policy Statement
On July 5th, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) issued a response to NEA’s statement. The response provided clarifications to some of the assertions that NEA had made. In response to NEA’s claim that charters are largely held “unaccountable” and are for-profit, NAPCS wrote, “Eighty-five percent of charter schools are either independently run or part of a non-profit network, but no matter their structure, all charter schools are public schools and all are held accountable to their authorizers and the families they serve.”
Further, the NAPCS noted several achievements in the charter sector over the past year, including that six of the ten best high schools in America, as ranked by U.S. News, were charter schools and that the National Teacher of the Year, Sydney Chaffee, is a Massachusetts charter school teacher.
Greg Richmond, President and CEO for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), asserted that NEA’s policy statement seems to indicate that “they are not against charter schools as long as they operate just like district schools,” and have union contracts and school board politics. Richmond asked, so then “What’s the point?”
He also said the statement missed some of the “nuance in the sector”. He noted that some charters are far more transparent than others due to state and local rules, but also indicated that virtual or online charters have consistently yielded poor results for students. He admitted that, “there is work to be done, but that won’t happen by making charter schools run exactly like district schools.”
Over the past 20 years, the number of English learner (EL) students in Minnesota has increased by 300 percent, making them the state’s fastest growing student group, and they currently constitute 8.3 percent of the state’s total K-12 public education student enrollment. However, despite the rapid growth, their academic progress, as compared to their non-EL peers, has plateaued.
In order to address the gaps that EL students face in the state’s public education system, the Coalition of Asian American Leaders and the Minnesota Educational Equity Partnership founded the Minnesota Multilingual Equity Network (MMEN), which is comprised of teachers, professors, parents, administrators, and advocates.
In July 2016, MMEN launched their EL-ESSA Initiative in response to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act’s (ESSA) requirement that states include progress toward EL proficiency as one of their academic accountability indicators. According to MMEN’s policy brief, ESSA’s requirement “is an opportunity to ensure that Minnesota’s education system adequately considers the academic success” of the EL student population.
Yesterday, over 60 educators, advocates, and legislators gathered at the Wilder Foundation to learn about the policy brief and recommendations that MMEN has developed over the past year. MMEN discussed the work they have done with hosting EL Parent Advisory Committee meetings in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Faribault, meeting frequently with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) staff, actively participating in MDE ESSA committees, and partnering with other coalitions.
From this work, they created seven recommendations, which are summarized below, for MDE to consider as they are finishing the ESSA state accountability plan.
MMEN’s Seven Recommendations to MDE
Recommendation #1: Family Engagement– MDE should provide resources and support for MDE family engagement staff to work with EL families in order to meet the unique educational needs of their children. Additionally, MDE should engage EL families and communities in “developing and refining” policies that impact EL education.
Recommendation #2: Academic Native Language Literacy – MDE should strengthen academic native language curriculum and courses in order to support global citizenship for ELs, increased educational content access, and support for rigorous literacy development.
This recommendation comes from the state’s lack of access for EL students to participate in language immersion schools, which are primarily dedicated towards native English speaking students. Additionally, most of Minnesota’s programs that are accessible to EL students are mostly English-only, rather than multilingual. The brief acknowledges that ESSA focuses on English language proficiency, but adds that Minnesota can support multilingualism through ESSA implementation.
Recommendation #3: English Language Proficiency Goals – MDE should provide more robust and multidimensional calculations of EL proficiency growth. The brief gave an example of a composite indicator that contains three measurements:
Percentage of students that attain target growth based on their language level
Percentage of reclassified ELs
Percentage of long-term ELs (5+ years)
Recommendation #4: Standardized EL Entry/Exit Criteria – MDE and schools should create “consistent and objective criteria and school practices” that include family discussions for EL program placement and reclassification.
Recommendation #5: Options for Inclusion in Assessment and Accountability – MDE should establish and maintain high standards for all EL students by using baseline data from the recently arrived student assessments in order to properly measure growth.
Recommendation #6: Early Childhood Education – MDE should provide support as well as work to acquire more funding for the early development of dual language learners.
Recommendation #7: Comprehensive Improvement Plans – According to the brief, under ESSA, schools that receive Title 1 funding and are identified in the bottom 25% of academic performance are defined as “Continuous Improvement Schools.” These identified schools must do the following:
Conduct a needs assessment
Complete a comprehensive school improvement plan
Collaborate with parents regarding the school’s Continuous Improvement designation
MDE should use the Comprehensive Improvement plans, as well as federal funding sources, to strengthen professional development and programs that support ELs, with a focus on those in low-performing schools.
MDE Responds to Recommendations
After MMEN presented their recommendations, Stephanie Graff, MDE’s Chief Accountability Officer, and Leigh Schleicher, MDE’s Supervisor of Student Support, gave remarks in which they thanked them for their work and spoke to what MDE was doing to accomplish some of the recommendations.
Specifically, Schleicher referenced MDE’s efforts to ensure that teachers and staff are properly prepared to teach EL students through professional development, standardizing EL entrance and exit criteria, and and including recently arrived and former ELs in assessment and accountability.
Graff noted that, with the ESSA requiring EL proficiency as one of their accountability indicators, states have shift their mindsets regarding EL students; “ELs are all of our kids and we need to make sure that people have the tools to help them.”
MDE will make the state’s ESSA accountability plan available for public comment on August 1st, and will submit the plan to the US Department of Education on September 18th.
Last night, Governor Dayton signed the policy and funding bills that laid out Minnesota’s next two-year, $46 billion dollar budget, which includes over $18 billion for K-12 education.
However, even though Governor Dayton signed the bills, he used his line-item veto power to eliminate funding for the Legislature, which will likely force another special session. In a letter to the Speaker and Majority leaders, Governor Dayton asserted that he would only allow a special session if they agreed to “re-open and re-negotiate” five provisions, one of which is the overhaul of the teacher licensure system.
Even though a second special session is likely imminent, we have provided in-depth policy summaries for a few of the provisions that we have previously covered, as well as other provisions that have been widely covered during this legislative session.
First Things First, What Isn’t in the K-12 Education Bill?
One noticeable provision not included in the Education Bill is the tax credit scholarships. Opponents of the scholarships claimed that they were “proxy school vouchers” that move state funds toward private education, while proponents asserted that it would give parents more freedom in finding a school that fits the needs of their child.
Innovation Research Zone Pilot Program (Lines 67.6-70.30)
The Innovation Research Zone Pilot Program enables the establishment of innovation zones (IZs) that “allow school districts and charter schools to research and implement innovative education programming models designed to better prepare students for the world of the 21st century.” Read more about the new program in our earlier blog post, and in this summary.
The IZ legislation was championed by Education Evolving, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, and the Minnesota School Boards Association, and had the support of Schools for Equity in Education and Ed Allies.
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Accountability Plan (Lines 71.1-71.12)
The commissioner must submit the state’s ESSA accountability plan to the legislature’s education policy and finance committees at least 30 days before submitting the plan to the US Department of Education. Additionally, the state plan must be “consistent and aligned, to the extent possible” with the World’s Best Workforce. This language is much more relaxed than earlier versions of the bill that prescribed what should be included in the school quality and student success indicator.
Funding for PreK Programs and the Creation of “School Readiness Plus” Program (Lines 51.28-154.15 & 154.27-155.7)
It’s no secret that Governor Dayton is a champion for voluntary prekindergarten. In his letter to the Speaker, he wrote that he is “pleased” that the bill has additional funding for prekindergarten, but that the bill “failed to meet the known demand for the prekindergarten program established last session” and that since the funding is one-time only it will be a “detriment to establishing ongoing programs to serve our youngest learners.”
The “additional funding” Governor Dayton referenced in his letter was the $50 million that the legislature allocated for mixed delivery, voluntary prekindergarten programs and for the new “School Readiness Plus” program. The purpose of the “School Readiness Plus” program is to “prepare children for success as they enter kindergarten,” by allowing a district, charter school, or a combination of the two to establish a program for students ages four to kindergarten entrance.
For the “School Readiness Plus” program, district and charter schools are able to contract with a charter school, Head Start or child care center, family child care program, or a community-based organization to provide “developmentally appropriate services.”
The $50 million allocation is in addition to the $67 million dedicated to school readiness, $140 million for early learning scholarships, and $50 million for Head Start for the two-year biennium.
Alternative Teacher Preparation Grant Program (Lines 60.26-62.16)
The commissioner, in consultation with the Board of Teaching, must establish and manage a program that will annually award grants to eligible alternative teacher preparation programs. In order for a program to be eligible for the grant, they must be a “school district, charter school, or nonprofit” that has been in operation for three continuous years in Minnesota or any other state, and must be working to fill the state’s teacher shortage areas. The commissioner must give preference to programs that are based in Minnesota.
A couple of the uses that the grant monies can be put towards are recruiting, selecting, and training teachers of color and for establishing professional development programs for teacher who obtained their teacher licenses via alternative teacher preparation programs. The legislature allocated $750,000 for the program for the 2018 fiscal year.
Tiered Teacher Licensure System—At Least for Now (Article 3)
Under the new tiered teacher licensure system the Board of Teaching is abolished and replaced by the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB), which is responsible for issuing teacher licenses to qualified candidates.
The meat of the law lies with the four-tiered teacher licensure system, which follows the recommendations from the 2016 OLA report and the Legislative Study Group on Educator Licensing, who both asserted that a tiered system would provide “transparency, consistency, and flexibility.” Starting with Tier 1, candidates have prescribed pathways and requirements for how they can work up to the paramount license, Tier 4.
Changes to this newly passed system, however, are likely given that Governor Dayton stripped the Legislature of its funding and mandated that they re-open negotiations on the teacher licensure system, and four other provisions, in order for a special session to occur.
Education Evolving will continue to follow and report the development of the teacher licensure system, as well as other relevant education policy topics.
On Tuesday evening, members of the House cast a party-line 72-59 vote to pass the education finance omnibus bill. It includes things like a 1.5 percent funding increase to the basic education formula — a number that falls short of the 2 percent increase opponents say is needed to help schools keep up with the cost of inflation. It also earmarks dollars for school readiness funding and early learning scholarships, but doesn’t include funding for the expansion of Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature voluntary pre-K program. And it abolishes the Perpich Center for Arts Education, redirecting resources to establish an arts outreach division at the Department of Education.
There’s another item in the bill having to do with school accountability that’s far less attention-grabbing, but still significant. In brief, state legislators want to review the state’s new federal accountability plan — the Every Student Succeeds Act, commonly known as ESSA — at least 30 days before it gets submitted to the U.S. Department of Education for approval this fall. Language in the bill directs the commissioner to ensure there’s alignment with the existing state school accountability system, the World’s Best Workforce, “to the extent practicable.” That’s an aim that most can agree on.
But when it comes to selecting which new indicator should be adopted to create a more holistic definition of school quality and student success, it appears that the Department of Education’s preferred frontrunner — chronic absenteeism — may be up against an unexpected hurdle.
“I just think chronic absenteeism has become trendy,” Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, chair of the House Education Innovation Policy Committee, said, noting it’s included in several other draft ESSA plans from states who hit the first deadline for submission. “Why doesn’t Minnesota do something different? If absenteeism is really what we think we should do in a school quality indicator, lets look at it a little differently.”
Why chronic absenteeism?
From a technical standpoint, Commissioner of Education Brenda Cassellius points out, state legislators are laying out parameters that contradict federal law. As currently written in the education omnibus bill, “The school quality or student success accountability indicator required by ESSA must be an academic indicator.”
“That’s against federal law,” Cassellius said in a phone interview. “The federal law requires that the school quality or student success accountability indicator be nonacademic. It’s not that it can’t be academic. It’s just that it also has to include a nonacademic measure.”
One of ESSA’s distinguishing characteristics is that it gives states greater flexibility in setting student achievement goals and directs them to look beyond test scores to gauge school performance. This addition of a so-called “fifth indicator” — which measures things like the number of minutes students spend in physical education, parent engagement, social-emotional learning or some other factor outside of test scores and graduation rates — signals a widely hailed shift away from the more punitive, test-centric No Child Left Behind law. States can opt to add more than one of these new indicators to their accountability plan.
To be clear, the addition of a fifth indicator to round out how schools are evaluated doesn’t mean the hallmark school accountability data sets — proficiency in reading and math, along with high school graduation rates — go to the wayside. Rather, states must now track these measures, along with academic growth (which Minnesota already does in reading and math) and English-language proficiency, plus at least one other indicator of school quality or student success. Also, as states assign a weight to each indicator, ESSA specificities that the indicator of school quality or student success must count much less toward a school’s score than the combined weight of the other indicators.
The commissioner’s preference for using chronic absenteeism as a fifth indicator was guided by a pretty intensive community engagement process. She toured the state seeking feedback on all aspects of the new ESSA plan. And folks at the state Department of Education conducted dozens of meetings over the past year and a half with community members, education advocates, teachers, administrators, parents and data experts who served on two ESSA accountability committees.
The two groups explored the possibility of tracking postsecondary readiness, access to student support services, school climate, student engagement, social-emotional learning and more. They reached a general consensus around tracking chronic absenteeism for a couple of main reasons. First of all, it’s a data set that doesn’t require a heavy lift. Using attendance numbers that are already collected for the Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System (MARRS) reports, state department staff can simply divide each students’ number of days attended by the number of days they were enrolled.
Secondly, there’s value in paying better attention to which students are missing out on a critical portion of their education. This new use of existing data would reveal which students are missing 10 percent or more days of the school year — a threshold that puts them at greater risk of falling behind. In Minnesota last year, for instance, nearly a quarter of students enrolled in the free or reduced priced meal program were chronically absent. Rates also largely broke down along racial lines, with minority students missing more school days. The thinking is that as disparities are identified, schools can dig into the underlying causes and better direct resources to support students.
The state education omnibus bill spells out four academic options legislators would rather see the state Education Department adopt as part of its ESSA plan, all of which can be pulled from existing state accountability assessments. That list includes: reading and math growth for students performing in the bottom quartile, third grade reading proficiency, eighth grade mathematics proficiency, and science proficiency.
This push to fall back on existing data points prompts an important question: Is Minnesota going to stick with the status quo? Or is it going to use new, innovative, data points to tackle one of the worst achievement gaps in the nation?
Time to make a decision
Erickson says the options listed out in the education bill focus on what’s most important: academic outcomes that highlight what teachers are doing in the classroom. She has concerns that focusing on chronic absenteeism will put pressure on schools to change their attendance policies and will distract from what’s going on in the classroom.
“I don’t know how we solve this chronic absenteeism other than kids have to be in school,” she said. “And usually they’re not because they don’t have a parent at home who’s making sure they get to school. We can’t legislate parenting. I guess I would have to say it’s going to take the school district …. actually getting out there and visiting the homes of the children who are not showing up at school, and finding out what the reason is, and helping the parent to get more organized. Maybe social work gets involved.”
Erickson says she realizes the commissioner will likely move forward with adopting chronic absenteeism anyway. But she also laid out a third guideline in the bill, regarding the state’s ESSA plan, directing the commissioner to include a measure for college and career readiness. For instance, tracking student success or attainment in advanced placement or international baccalaureate examinations would be one way of looking at which students are not only accessing, but also succeeding in courses designed to prepare them for a postsecondary education.
It’s a popular indicator that’s made the cut in a number of state ESSA plans that have already been submitted for federal review. And it has quite a bit of popular support in Minnesota. The holdup, at least for now, says Cassellius, is figuring out a meaningful, reliable way to collect that data, statewide.
“We need to be digging into those numbers and finding out who has access and who doesn’t have access to those classes, but we don’t have a reliable way to collect that yet. Once we’re able to get good compliance in school districts on their Minnesota course catalog, we’ll be able to see all of that information,” she says, noting less than half of schools currently report their course information. “We’ll also be able to see, because of our STAR report, who’s teaching that and what tier those teachers are at, teaching those subjects, in the future. But we’re building those systems now.”
Once the Education Department is equipped to better support this data collection, she says, she can write to the U.S. Department of Education and add new indicators by simply amending the state’s ESSA accountability plan.
Madaline Edison, executive director of the Minnesota branch of Educators for Excellence, who’s been a part of the ESSA meetings held at the department of education, is hoping for a compromise that takes alignment with World’s Best Workforce and the opportunity to innovate into account.
“The spirit of the law is really about going beyond your typical graduation scores and test rates to look at other measure of the student experience in school that are deeply correlated to academic and life outcomes,” Edison said. “It’s not surprising that the legislature would like to play a role in such an important decision in our state as this. But it is troubling to me this is happening so late in the process. In hindsight, I wish the department and legislators would have been working together throughout this whole process.”
A little over a year ago, Barack Obama signed into law the biggest K-12 education reform in over a decade: the Every Student Succeeds Act, a product of years-long compromise in Congress, was intended to smooth over the shortcomings of the previous education law of the land, No Child Left Behind.
The bill, informally called ESSA, aims to lighten the footprint of the federal government in K-12 education policy. Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreed to give local education policymakers greater authority to decide how schools and students were performing, and to decide how to allocate federal education dollars.
Minnesota and other states are currently working on their plans for complying with ESSA, and they will ultimately require approval from the U.S. Department of Education. Those plans, however, will arrive in a Washington under much different leadership than the one that signed ESSA into law.
Where Obama’s team believed there was an important role for the federal government to play in education, President Donald Trump’s controversial Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has supported conservative education causes — like providing vouchers to students attending private schools — and an ethos of taking power away from D.C.
Educators at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis credit the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) with increasing awareness about their historic music program.
“MacPhail is one of the nation’s oldest and largest music education non-profits,” said Claire Forrest, the digital communications and public relations coordinator at the center. “We serve 15,500 students, transforming lives and communities through exceptional music learning for all ages, backgrounds and abilities.”
The center boasts 245 teachers with instruction in 35 instruments, including voice. Youth can explore the world of music in an age-appropriate and fun environment.
Forrest noted that certain provisions included in ESSA will provide educators with more tools to assist students. Those provisions include the requirement that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers.
ESSA was enacted to help increase the effectiveness of public education in every state. Under ESSA, states have greater flexibility under federal regulations. The law also ensures that every child, regardless of race, income, background, or where they live has access to a high-quality education.
The law also helps to support and grow local innovations, including evidence-based and place-based interventions developed by local leaders and educators.
Forrest and others credit the provisions under ESSA with boosting more interest in the program and gaining even more tools to assist students.
“Students learn in many ways and ESSA acknowledges and supports that with the emphasis on well-rounded curriculum and well-rounded students,” said Paul Babcock, president and CEO of the MacPhail Center for Music. “The inclusion of music and arts both supports student engagement in creative arts and allows students to learn through active participation in arts making.”
Babcock continued: “These are items important to all students and especially important to students in underrepresented communities where opportunities are limited.”
Babcock said that early exposure to the arts help to level the playing field and allow students’ talents to be nurtured in ways that are vital to their future success in life and the workplace.
And MacPhail offers dozens of ways to explore those talents.
It’s “Sing, Play, Learn” program allows young ones to experience the joy and the benefits of music while it’s “Suzuki” program is one of the largest and most established of its kind in the country, Babcock said.
Students learn music fundamentals, technique and appreciation from some of the most qualified musicians around and they can develop musical skills in a fun, collaborative setting with group music lessons, classes, and ensembles or in private lessons at MacPhail.
The center also hosts summer camps and music therapy options to help children improve their physical, psychological, cognitive, behavioral and social functioning through clinical and evidence-based research and practices by working with an experienced, board-certified music therapist.
“In our early childhood and school partnership programs, students often do not have access to music education due to the constraints on school time and budgets,” said Babcock. “The focus of school time and resources in many of those cases is put towards subjects that are being tested and how schools are being measured.”
Babcock said that, as a result, music and arts education is often ignored. Babcock noted that when McPhail’s School Partnership programs are being instituted at schools that did not have music, the students have demonstrated gains in social, emotional and executive functioning skills; they students also become more engaged in their communities.
“These advancements for the students are directly benefiting students’ attendance at school and therefore their accomplishments in school,” said Babcock. “ESSA’s focus on the well-rounded student provides the opportunity for resources to be directed to music and the arts, therefore, removing the time and resource limitation.”
Happy almost Thanksgiving, and welcome to the second installment of Answering Your ESSA Questions!
On July 4th, the vast majority of the 7,000 delegates from the National Education Association (NEA) voted to adopt a new charter school 
