SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Board of Education Career and Technical Education (CTE) section announced that the Bear River Region is the winner of the 2018 Utah Excellence in Action award. The AM STEM (Automated Manufacturing STEM) program in Bear River Region was selected based on their uniquely inventive and effective approaches to stimulating student learning, offering extensive work- based learning experiences, maintaining strong partnerships with industry and community organizations, and preparing students for postsecondary and career success.
The AM STEM program represents the best CTE program in the state of Utah. While the program is unique, it offers a rigorous sequence of courses beginning with foundational skills to subject-matter, real-world hands-on experiences in the classroom led by dedicated educators, and meaningful work- based experiences facilitated by industry partners.
Bear River Region, in collaboration with industry partners, higher education, and secondary education, has created a career pipeline for high school students by offering a program that meets industry needs. Students involved in the program take courses at their high school that align with the requirements found in industry. The AM STEM program combines coursework with work-based learning experiences to support student exploration and skill development.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Five leaders from around the country have been appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board to serve four-year terms, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today.
This year’s Governing Board appointees include four new members and one re-appointed member—the Board’s current Vice Chair Tonya Matthews. The appointees’ terms begin on Oct. 1, 2018, and end on Sept. 30, 2022.
The appointees will help set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. NAEP offers to the public and to education policymakers at the national, state and local levels, objective data on student performance in nearly a dozen subjects. The information NAEP provides helps education stakeholders evaluate the progress of American education. The 26-member nonpartisan, independent Governing Board determines the subjects and content of NAEP tests, sets the achievement levels for reporting and publicly releases the results.
“I’m pleased to welcome this diverse group of leaders from across the country to the National Assessment Governing Board,” Secretary DeVos said. “The board plays an important role in assessing student achievement, and I am confident that their collective experience will be a valuable asset as we work to ensure that all students have equal access to a great education that gives them the opportunity to reach their fullest potential.”
The appointees and the roles they represent on the Board are listed below:
Paul Gasparini, Secondary School Principal: Gasparini is the principal of Jamesville-DeWitt High School in Dewitt, New York, a position he has held for 17 years. Gasparini chairs the Central New York High School Principals Consortium, and his accolades include being named state high school principal of the year by the School Administrators Association of New York state.
Julia Keleher, Chief State School Officer: Keleher was appointed as Puerto Rico’s secretary of education in December 2016. She has more than 20 years of experience in education at the federal, state, district and school levels. Keleher is also an adjunct professor at The George Washington University, where she teaches graduate-level courses in the Business School and the Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
Tonya Matthews, General Public Representative: Matthews joined the Governing Board in 2014. She is the founder of The STEMinista Project—an initiative to engage girls’ interest in science and technology careers. Mostly recently, Matthews served as president and chief executive officer of the Michigan Science Center, a science museum for children and young adults in Detroit.
Mark Miller, Eighth-Grade Teacher: Miller is a mathematics teacher and chair of the mathematics department at Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Miller has more than 20 years of experience teaching mathematics at the junior-high level. Miller is a National Board Certified Teacher and serves on a standard-setting panel for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. His accolades include being nominated for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science.
Nardi Routten, Fourth-Grade Teacher: Routten is a fourth-grade teacher at Chester A. Moore Elementary in Fort Pierce, Florida. She has taught third- and fourth-graders in St. Lucie County for more than 20 years. Routten, a National Board Certified Teacher, has received local and national recognition for her excellence in teaching, including the Milken Educator Award in 2014.
“We are excited to have such a breadth of talent and expertise join the Board and contribute to a group of leaders who are dedicated to maintaining NAEP’s rigor and quality, while making the assessment useful and relevant for the public,” said Lisa Stooksberry, deputy executive director for the Governing Board.
Every year, the Governing Board conducts a nationwide search for Board nominees. After the nominations period ends, the Governing Board narrows the pool of nominees to a list of finalists from which the U.S. Secretary of Education selects Board members.
The Governing Board is now accepting nominations for Board members whose terms will begin Oct. 1, 2019. To learn more about the open Board positions and the nomination process, visit http://bit.ly/JoinTheBoard11. Nominations are due by 5 p.m. EST on Oct. 31, 2018.
The National Assessment Governing Board is an independent, nonpartisan board whose members include governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives and members of the general public. Congress created the 26-member Governing Board in 1988 to set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. For more information about the Governing Board, visit www.nagb.org.
Having one child who is heading to college can be stressful, but having to help multiple children at the same time can feel like too much to manage. While I can’t save you from a forgotten application deadline or the “how to do your own laundry” lessons, hopefully, I can help make the financial aid part of the process run more smoothly with these tips:
How many FSA IDs will my children and I need?
An FSA ID is a username and password combination that serves as your legal electronic signature throughout the financial aid process—from the first time your children fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form until the time their loans are paid off. You AND each of your children will need your own FSA ID. Parents and students can create their FSA IDs now.
Note: Your FSA ID is associated with your Social Security number and is equivalent to your legal signature; therefore, each person can only have one FSA ID. If you are a parent, you will use the same FSA ID to sign each of your children’s FAFSA forms.
How many FAFSA® forms do we have to complete?
Each student and one parent need an FSA ID, and each of your children will need to fill out a FAFSA form. Your children will need to provide your (parent) information on their 2019–20 FAFSA forms unless they are going to graduate school, were born before Jan. 1, 1996, or can answer “yes” to any of these dependency status questions.
Example: You have three children who are going to go to college or who are in college. You’ll need four FSA IDs—one for you as the parent (only one parent needs an FSA ID) and one for each child. You’ll need to fill out three FAFSA forms, one for each child.
Can I transfer my information from one child’s FAFSA® form to another so I don’t have to reenter it?
Yes! Once your first child’s FAFSA form is complete, you’ll get to a confirmation page. At the bottom of the confirmation page, you’ll see an option that asks, “Does your brother or sister need to complete a FAFSA?” Make sure you have your pop-up blocker turned off and select the arrow at the right.
NOTE: This transfer option is available on fafsa.gov but it is NOT available on the myStudentAid app at the moment.
TIP: If you want the process to go as smoothly as possible, your second child should have his or her FSA ID handy so you’re ready for the next step.
Once you select the arrow, a new window will open, allowing your other child to start his or her FAFSA form. We recommend that your child starts the FAFSA form by entering his or her FSA ID (not your FSA ID) using the option on the left (I am the student) in the image below. However, if you are starting your child’s FAFSA form, choose the option on the right (I am a parent, preparer, or student from a Freely Associated State) and enter your child’s information.
IMPORTANT: Regardless of who starts the application from this screen, the FAFSA form remains the student’s application; so when the FAFSA form says “you,” it means the student. If the FAFSA form is asking for parent information, it will specify that. When in doubt, refer to the ribbon at the top-left of the screen. It will indicate whether you’re being asked to provide student or parent information.
After you select the FAFSA form you’d like to complete and create a save key, you’ll be brought to the introduction page, which will indicate that parental data was copied into your second child’s FAFSA form.
Once you reach the parent information page, you will see your information prepopulated. Verify this info, proceed to sign and submit the FAFSA form, and you’re done!
NOTE: If you have a third (or fourth, fifth, etc.) child who needs to fill out the FAFSA form and provide your information, repeat this process until you’ve finished all your children’s FAFSA forms.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, expressed concerns about the virtual charters’ student-teacher ratios, students’ performance compared to their peers in traditional public schools, and their transparency when it comes to issues like executive pay and advertising.
“Accountability models, funding formulas, and attendance policies were created for brick-and-mortar schools, and yet, state funding and accountability policies have not kept pace with the growth of virtual charter schools,” Brown and Murray wrote to the agency.
Virtual charters have been going through a very difficult stretch. There’s intense skepticism about their performance and management practices. In Brown’s own state of Ohio, for example, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow disintegrated after a lengthy court battle over its claims about student enrollment. (Brown and Murray mentioned the ECOT fallout in their letter). Cyber charters in states like Georgia and New Mexico have also struggled to stay open.
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
Are states shirking their responsibilities around two of the Every Student Succeeds Act’s (ESSA) most important provisions for historically underserved groups of students? A new analysis says yes.Federal Flash delves into the findings, plus a Senate education committee hearing on ESSA implementation and the latest on the bill funding the U.S. Department of Education.
A new Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) analysis finds that many states are not fully implementing the letter–or the spirit–of the Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA. All4Ed released the analysis ahead of a Senate education committee hearing on ESSA implementation, which we’ll cover later in this post.
All4Ed previously created “ESSA Equity Dashboards” for most state ESSA plans. These dashboards assess states on fourteen equity-focused policies in the law. In terms of actual outcomes for kids, however, not all of our indicators are created equal. That’s why our new analysis summarizes the two most important equity policies from the dashboards: (1) inclusion of subgroups in school ratings and (2) definitions of “consistently underperforming” subgroup used to identify schools for targeted support.
Unfortunately, the results are mixed, with many states at risk of masking the performance of historically underserved students. In other words, a school could receive an A rating, but have a graduation rate for African American or Latino students of only 60 percent – which is hardly an A. And in many states, low-performing students may not receive the assistance they need to excel because their schools are not identified for support.
Specifically:
12 states are red because they don’t include subgroups of students in all school ratings. Another 23 states get a yellow because they don’t include all of ESSA’s subgroups in ratings or are at risk of obscuring subgroup performance on school report cards. Just 17 states get a green rating for including all ESSA subgroups in all school ratings.
On the second indicator, 16 states are red because they are at risk for under-identifying schools for targeted support. 30 states earn a yellow because students will likely need to fail across multiple indicators before the school is identified for support. In other words, it won’t be enough for a subgroup to simply be below grade level in reading. Students would need to struggle in reading, math, and other areas before being identified. Only 6 states get a green for using a definition of consistently underperforming where subgroups receive support if students are struggling on a few key measures – like achievement and/or growth.
These two issues – school ratings and school identification – were major concerns raised by senate democrats in this week’s committee hearing.
But ESSA accountability wasn’t the only issue raised. Democratic senators called on Secretary Betsy DeVos to use her authority to prevent states from using federal funds for guns. Republican chairman Lamar Alexander, while he dislikes the idea of arming teachers, said states have the flexibility to use funds under Title IV of ESSA as they see fit.
Finally, the fiscal year 2019 funding bill for the U.S. Department of Education and several other agencies passed both chambers of Congress this week and President Trump has said he will sign it.
This is the first time since 1996 that the bill funding for the Department of Education has been signed into law before the start of the new fiscal year. This is notable because it allows states, districts, and schools to know what funding they will have for certain education programs prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
This blog post represents a slightly edited transcript of the September 28 episode of Federal Flash, the Alliance for Excellent Education’s five-minute (or less!) video series on important developments in education policy in Washington, DC. The video version is embedded below. For an alert when the next episode of Federal Flash is available, email at alliance@all4ed.org.
By most analyses, schools across the country are as segregated today as they were during the Civil Rights era. Both racial and economic segregation are growing. And for many young people of color, when the two come together, it usually means less access to great teachers and challenging classes, and a greater likelihood of being held back or suspended. The percentage of public schools where between 75 to 100 percent of students are both poor and Black or Latino has nearly doubled since 2000, according to a 2016 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
For district and school leaders, taking on segregation might seem like a daunting, if not impossible, task. After all, school integration efforts in the United States have had a winding and tortuous history. Policies have been tried and failed or abandoned; court mandates have been issued, and undone.
“Students who attend majority high-poverty schools are less likely to go to college and more likely to drop out of high school. I’m living proof of this.”
However, integration must be part of a leader’s plan to address inequities in her schools. Students who attend majority high-poverty schools are less likely to go to college and more likely to drop out of high school. I’m living proof of this. Growing up, I went to schools where almost all my classmates were children of color like me. I dropped out of college, completely unprepared for the academic rigor, and took years to muster the courage to make my way back to the university.
Contrast that with racially and socioeconomically integrated schools, where research has found smaller achievement gaps between students of color and their white classmates compared to similar more segregated schools.
Read full article click here, may require ED Week subscription
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team are moving forward with parts of a department-wide reorganization proposal unveiled earlier this year, including elevating the office charged with helping to advocate for the private school community within the federal bureaucracy, and changing the way privacy policy is handled.
The office of nonpublic education, which was previously part of the soon-to-be-defunct office of innovation and improvement, will now report directly to the office of the secretary. DeVos is a longtime advocate for vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and other forms of private school choice.
That move and other reorganization changes were first reported by Politico.
The remainder of the office of innovation and improvement will be moved to the broader office of elementary and secondary education, Education Week reported earlier this year.
DeVos is also planning to move the department’s budget office, which she has reportedly sought to eliminate, into a new office of finance and operations. That office’s other jobs will include finance, accounting, budgets, contract management, personnel, business data analysis and more.
And she will make changes to the way privacy policy is handled within the department. The department will continue to have a chief privacy officer, who will be housed in the office of the chief information officer. The chief privacy officer will be in charge of privacy legislation, privacy safeguards, and information collection and clearance. Subject matter experts in the family policy compliance office will provide student privacy technical assistance, and investigate Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act violations, said Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Read full article click here, may require ED Week subscription.
Over the course of last spring I had the opportunity to sit down with dozens of parents to hear their take on the promise of a personalized learning environment for their child. What I heard were two very different visions of what personalization could look like. As the lower school head at a progressive independent school in Silicon Valley, I conducted the final parent interview before admissions decisions were made. I asked every set of parents to tell me what about our school model resonated with them. Parents invariably responded: “Personalized learning!” I was struck by how they each described their vision of a personalized learning classroom so differently. I realized that as a school we would need to provide clarity on what personalization meant to us.
The ways in which schools personalize learning are far from universal, and the available options require compromises that few educators have started talking about. As teachers and principals around the country ponder how to leverage technology to provide a more personalized learning experience for students this school year, they, too, will need to decide what they value.
The term “personalized learning” has been on the rise over the last decade. According to Google Trends, use of the term really started taking off in 2013. But for all that searching, the phrase seems to mean anything or nothing. The visions and values that fall under the brand of “personalized learning” are as different as the beliefs people have about “healthy eating,” from Keto to Atkins diets.
“Personalization” is not a set of common tactics. There are schools that personalize by having 90 kids sit in a gymnasium working on adaptive software. Some schools personalize by turning over to students all decisions about how, when, and where to work. Some schools provide one-on-one teaching throughout the day. Others personalize by giving students “flex time.” There are also schools that characterize personalization as tracking, differentiation, and individualized education programs.
Read full article click here, may require ED Week subscription.
BRYN MAWR, Pennsylvania — The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is developing a “Summer Scares” reading program that will provide libraries and schools with an annual list of recommended horror titles for adult, young adult (teen), and middle grade readers. The goal is to introduce new authors and help librarians start conversations with readers that will extend beyond the books from each list and promote reading for years to come.
HWA is partnering with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Library Journal/School Library Journal on “Summer Scares.”
Award-winning author Grady Hendrix and a committee of four librarians will be selecting three recommended fiction titles in each of three reading levels— Middle Grade, Teen, and Adult— for a total of nine “Summer Scares” selections. The goal of the program is to encourage a national conversation about the entire horror genre, across all age levels, at libraries all over the country and ultimately get more adults, teens, and children interested in reading. Official “Summer Scares” designated authors will also be making themselves available to appear, either virtually or in person, at public and school libraries all over the country, for free.
“Horror is one of those genres that is incredibly popular,” Grady Hendrix says. “But people look at you funny when you say you like reading horror. We want to use this opportunity to showcase the best of what’s out there today. These stories won’t just scare readers, but they’ll make them laugh, make them cry, and make them cringe. There’s more to horror than just saying ‘boo’.”
The committee’s final selections will be announced on February 14, 2019— National Library Lover’s Day. Some or all of the authors of those titles will appear on a panel to kick off “Summer Scares” at Librarian’s Day during StokerCon 2019 on May 10, 2019, in Grand Rapids, Mich.
By Joe Feldman, Founder, Crescendo Education Group
The battle for equity in our schools is not only a fight to guarantee access to great teaching and high-quality learning environments, programs, and materials. The battle for equity also includes the practices and policies that teachers use to describe students’ success or failure in school. An issue often overlooked, grading, is of critical importance. Grades determine so many decisions made about our children: whether they are promoted, qualify to play on the athletic field, graduate, receive scholarships, and get accepted to college. Unfortunately, in too many schools and classrooms, teachers often unwittingly assign grades in ways that are unfair and make success more difficult for black and other underserved children. Teachers go to great lengths to identify what percentage quizzes, homework, tests, extra credit, and class participation count towards the overall grade, but the seemingly objective way educators determine grades are often inaccurate, hide student achievement, and actually perpetuate achievement gaps.
First, teachers inject subjectivity and biases into their grading. In much the way that schools’ disciplinary actions often disproportionately punish African-American, Latino, low-income, and students with special needs, too often traditional grading practices are often corrupted by implicit racial, class, and gender biases that affect individual teachers’ grading. Teachers often include in grades a student’s “effort” or “participation”—a subjective judgment about that student which may have nothing to do with how much the student has learned.
Second, traditional grading rewards students with privilege and punishes students without them. When teachers award points for completing homework and extra credit, they are giving advantages to students with greater resources—those with college educated parents who are available at home and can help with homework or the extra credit assignments—and making it harder for students who have weaker education backgrounds and fewer supports.
Third, grading is often based on calculations that depress student achievement and do not account for progress students make. A student may fail early on, but if they dramatically improve, their initial grades of F combined with subsequent grades of A average to a C for their final grade. This is a mathematically unsound approach that punishes students who have early struggles and conceals their progress and final achievement.
Even though teachers are dedicated to having every student succeed, they have never been trained in how to grade. They grade how they were graded, and perpetuate the same unfair and biased methods. Fortunately, new research has illuminated the harms of traditional grading and identified more equitable grading practices that are based on sound mathematical principles that (1)don’t average performance over time, (2)value growth and knowledge instead of environment or behavior, and (3) build soft skills like teamwork and communications skills without including them in grades. Grades based on these approaches have been shown to reduce failure rates, particularly for historically underserved students, and empowers teachers to create more caring classrooms.
But ensuring that schools grade students equitably isn’t just the responsibility of teachers and principals. Parents have a crucial role to play. Parents can begin by asking their child’s teacher a simple question: What would be my child’s grade if it were based solely on their academic performance? This can start an important and clarifying discussion with the teacher while encouraging the entire school to tackle a problem many have been unwilling to address. It is pertinent that parents understand what grades mean. As educators it is important that we ensure grades clearly communicate a student’s academic performance?
It’s time for parents and teachers to ask these questions about grading. If we expect our children to succeed in school, we need to be sure that they are graded accurately and fairly. If we believe that our students can compete on the world stage, then we’d better make sure that we have grades that tell us clearly if they’re ready.
Joe Feldman is a former teacher and school and district administrator who is the founder of the Oakland, CA-based Crescendo Education Group, which helps educators introduce more equitable grading practice. He is the author of Grading for Equity, published recently by Corwin Press, and the paper, School Grading Policies are Failing Children: How We Can Create a More Equitable System.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Five leaders from around the country have been appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board to serve four-year terms, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today.
Two Democratic senators have asked the Government Accountability Office to 
