DOE: micro-managing district bus routes

... down to bus routes inside subdivisions?

Today's WNJ points out that DOE is overruling Cape Henlopen on where to place bus stops by withholding funds for additional buses:

In the past, when the district requested additional buses for its fleet, the state denied those requests because Cape had not followed the code for development stops or enforced walk zones. 

At the Oct. 9 Board of Education meeting, board members, such as Jennifer Burton, were caught between state mandates and local safety concerns. 

"Obviously we have our hands tied with the Department of Education and Transportation Department," Burton said. "In a lot of these instances the state has no idea of what is going on down here. They don't come and look and they're not really mindful of what is happening."

This, of course, is spun by the State as saving money, like it did when it cut the reimbursements to local districts for transporting homeless children to school.

The reality is that if the State actually cared about saving money it could do so by extending allowable school bus life to 20 years, saving 63% per year on bus replacement costs.

A Roadmap for fixing the Common Core mess ...

Look, academic standards are important.  I know--I led the Commission that from 1992-1995 developed the Social Studies Standards that Delaware still uses today.

Overzealous linkage of standards to high-stakes testing is dangerous, and we are experiencing its aftermath today (as the explosion continues to go off).

Meanwhile the Federal government is mandating draconian "scorched earth" financial action against States that abandon the Common Core, which makes political and educational leaders leery of the risks of dumping Common Core.

But there is an answer, as respected educational blogger/reporter Valerie Strauss suggests in the Washington Post:  adopt the husk of Common Core [mostly the name] and then exercise State authority to review and modify the standards.

Strauss suggests three "modest" starting points:

Step 1: Insist that the State Education Department translate each standard into clear language that the public can understand. If the standard can’t be written so that the average parent can understand it, throw it out.

For this purpose, DOE and the districts could create a Curriculum Review Commission similar to the Content Standards Commissions of the early 1990s, tasked with cleaning up the excess and overly technical jargon existing in the Common Core State Standards.  That Commission should be co-chaired by a teacher and a representative of higher education in Delaware, NOT by a DOE bureaucrat or politicians.  The commission should be mandated to have open meetings and take public testimony before taking on the task of rewriting the standards, and then those revised standards should be taken to an up or down vote by the State Board of Education.

Back to Strauss:

Step 2: Ask experts on childhood development to review the Pre-K to 3rd grade standards. Standards should be rewritten based on their consensus.

This step needs to be entrusted to a sub-committee of the CRC (above) composed entirely of Pre-K-3 teachers and childhood development experts from UD and DSU.  Their recommendations should again be folded into a final report that cannot be nitpicked, but must receive an up or down vote.

And again:

Step 3: Reduce the emphasis on informational text, close reading and Lexile levels.

This one may take some explanation (pay particular attention to the very first words):

There is no evidence that reading informational text in the early grades will improve reading. Informational text in primary school should be read as a one means of delivering content or included based on student interest. Ratios of 50/50 (informational text/literature) in elementary schools and 70/30 in high school are based on nothing more than breakdowns of text type on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, not on reading research. The force-feeding of informational texts in the primary years is resulting in the decline of hands on learning in science and projects in social studies, as my teacher’s email attests.   At the high school level, literature is being pushed out of English Language Arts to make room for informational text. For example, take a look at the readings of Common Core Engage NY curriculum modules for 9th grade. Literature is minimal, replaced by texts such as “Wizard of Lies,” a biography of Bernie Madoff, and articles that include “Sugar Changed the World,” “Animals in Translation” and “Bangladesh Factory Collapse.”

Another subcommittee of the CRC for ELA teachers and academic content experts.

 Strauss does not directly address CC Math, but the same process applies.

Of important note:  while DOE should be able to supply ex officio members, under no circumstances should they (or elected politicians or union leaders as such) receive a vote on the commission.  In my opinion, the best mix would be to create a commission that included about 45 people (enough for working subcommittees) with 20 of the spaces reserved for teachers, 5 for district content specialists, 5 for higher education experts, 5 for community partners, and 10 for parents.  At least 2 of the teachers should be special education teachers, and at least one of the parents should have a special needs child.

Look:  we can rail about CCSS and exchange memes on the internet for as long as we want, and that will gin up reservoirs of impotent outrage useful only to defeat some politicians who lack the ability to make that many changes in the first place.

But if we really want to get serious about giving a professional voice to Delaware teachers and higher education content experts, we need to be incredibly subversive and create the CCSS(D):  Common Core State Standards (adapted to Delaware) and take that process outside the normal process.

Then we let the Feds threaten us, and we laugh and tell our Attorney General to do his (or her) damn job and defend us.

 

DOE: Don't hold us to the same standards we hold the schools

As Lt. Gov. Matt Denn's IEP Task Force continues to wade through the morass that is Special Education in Delaware, lost in the shuffle is a particularly blatant and telling piece of DOE sidestepping on so-called "Standards-based" IEPs.

In 2012 DOE applied for a grant to improve Special Education outcomes in Delaware.

What DOE told the Feds was that not enough kids on IEPs were passing DCAS or graduating:

Goal 1: To increase the academic achievement of students with disabilities, through the implementation of sustainable, evidence-based instructional strategies to impact students with the greatest academic needs. 

Goal 2: To increase the graduation rates and academic achievement of students most at risk of dropping out of school, through the use of sustainable, evidence-based social and behavioral practices, as well as enhanced professional development to educators and related staff. 

"Academic Achievement" is clearly and unambiguously defined in the grant proposal as scoring a passing grade on state assessments (then DCAS).

What DOE proposed to do (not surprisingly) was double-down on Common Core and High-stakes testing, and require--beginning in pilot districts then later extending to the whole state--that ALL IEPs be directly linked to Common Core standards.

Red Clay was selected as one of these pilot districts, and the special needs teachers there have been literally inundated with "training" in developing and implementing those new IEPs.

I'm going to leave aside for the moment the very real question of whether or not this is a good strategy for improving the education of these kids (it isn't).  Let's just assume that, for sake of argument, Standards-Based IEPS are actually going to work as advertised.

That's what DOE believes, right?  Or else they wouldn't be putting themselves on the line here to raise test scores for special needs kids, would they?

Well, it turns out that DOE is NOT putting itself on the line, and is in fact holding itself to a FAR LOWER standard than it does, say, the six "Priority" schools, Moyer, or Reach.

You see, DOE has identified the Problem (low Spec Ed test scores) and then identified a strategy to improve those scores (Standards-based IEPS), and that only leaves the ASSESSMENT of how effective the strategy has been, once it has been implemented.

That assessment would logically involve looking to see if test scores actually went up for the students in question, right?

Wrong.

Here's what DOE is assessing itself on:  Fidelity of Implementation

The project evaluator, working closely with the DE SPDG Management Team, will develop training, coaching, and intervention fidelity instruments during the first two quarters of Year 1. Each intervention fidelity instrument (IEP development, SIM, and communication interventions) will be developed in accordance with the evidence-base it is derived from. IEP training and coaching fidelity protocols will be developed in alignment with the research presented in the Holbrook/Courtade and Browder publications, and reviewed by the authors. SIM fidelity instruments are provided by the University of Kansas. Fidelity protocols established by researchers at U.K. will be used to assess the implementation of communication strategies. Pre/post training assessments will also be developed during this time. 

The DE SPDG Management Team will be responsible for overseeing fidelity measurement and reporting. Project evaluators will train and coach the state and LEA coaches on the use of implementation (training and coaching) and intervention (i.e., IEP development, SIM, and communication) fidelity instruments. An easy to use, web-based data management system (using tools such as SurveyMonkey and Microsoft Access) will be developed. 

"Fidelity of Implementation" means whether or not DOE trains teachers as it said it would do, and whether or not the teacher actually employ the new strategies like they are supposed to do.  In other words, DOE is evaluating its success in this grant NOT on whether student test scores actually go up, but just on whether or not they tried real hard according to the model they thought up.

Now you will have to read the entire 103-page grant to assure yourself that what I'm saying next is correct, and encourage you to do so:  DOE never uses data about improvements in student test scores on state testing to determine whether they have done their job.

Do you understand what this means?

To Red Clay, Christina, and the rest of the schools in the State, DOE has repeatedly said that all that matters in determining your effectiveness as educators is how well students do on the State assessments.  If a school does not do well on those assessments, it is failing, plain and simple.

Yet when DOE implements a plan to raise the test scores of a target group of students (in this case special education students), it does not evaluate its own success based on test scores.

Wow.  Just wow.

So while DOE is passing out MOUs on "failing" schools (based entirely on test scores) that empower the State to fire entire faculties and convert public schools involuntarily into charters--again, based entirely on test scores--DOE does not feel it is appropriate to measure the success of its own programs based on test scores.

Here's a serious suggestion to Red Clay and Christina:  how about when you finally develop those Priority Schools plans, you base success or failure on "fidelity of implementation," not test scores, and cite as your rationale that this is the standard that DOE applies to its own initiatives?

Here's the link to the grant application.  Check it out for yourself.

Populism in Delaware Frightens our Elites

Over the past 2-3 years something very new, and, for our political elites, very frightening has been happening in the Delaware:  the rise of actual populist (or popular) politics on both the right and left.

Consider:

Marriage equality advocates gathered signatures and lobbied for years before even the Democrats would touch their cause publicly.

The Occupy Wilmington movement held out for months in the face of every official pressure that could be brought against a handful of committed activists.

The Campaign for Liberty used grassroots organizing defeat gun-control measure HB 88 in 2012 when the supposedly essential NRA had given up.

On the other side of the spectrum, Residents Against the Power Plant turned back the University of Delaware and assorted political elites (corporate and union combined) in the fight over the so-called "data center."

Organizers for women's right to have home births attended by Certified Professional Midwives came within a hair of passing new legislation during the last General Assembly session, and will be back, stronger than ever, this year.

Parents and teachers in the Red Clay Consolidated School District organized themselves to engage their school board on a special education inclusion plan, and changed the district's choice.

A handful of activists, employing the Freedom of Information Act, got a Governor's working group on charter school reform declared to have met illegally (even though the Attorney General then declined to act).

Parental critics of Common Core and high-stakes testing have become so vocal and so numerous that even the usually-very-pro-"reform" Delaware PTA found itself forced to take a survey on parental opt-outs.

When Governor Markell and Secretary Murphy announced their "Priority" schools initiative, both the RCCSD and CSD boards, supported by massive outcry from parents and teachers alike, refused to sign DOE's "take it or leave it by September 30" MOU.

And it's starting to show in the polls:  even the University of Delaware has had to admit that, on the left, Green Party candidate Bernie August is polling four times as strongly as he did two years ago, and on the right, Libertarian Party candidate Scott Gesty is polling seven times stronger than in 2012.

But, of course, neither August nor Gesty nor Andy Groff (Green; polling at 6% for US Senate) will be invited by UD to its major televised debate.

From the Tea Party to the Green Party, the Libertarians to the Progressives, what's happening in Delaware is a sea change in the political landscape.  It's called "populism," the radical notion that citizens themselves can organize, protest, campaign, and effect direct political change without having to defer to the existing political elites.

It's unlovely, raucous, and quite scary for the people who insist that everything has to be filtered through the appropriately sanctioned organizations, to find out that rest of us are no longer willing to accept their decisions about who gets to be at the table.

For a long time the small size of Delaware contributed to the illusion that we could all have a voice in what goes on, but lately our political leaders have become so smugly satisfied that they dropped all pretense at subtlety, and that gave away the game.

Consider:  when the new IEP Task Force was formed, the "parent representative" from New Castle County was the wife of a State Senator, and one of the House appointees was the spouse of a State Board of Education member, while the other was an incumbent campaigning for his political life against (you guessed it) a special needs parent.  Several individuals with considerable experience were turned down as "parent advocate representatives" because that slot was reserved for somebody from the Federally funded Parent Information Center.  I like Matt Denn, and he works hard for special needs children, but the political debts being paid here by somebody were pretty obvious.

Or consider that when the Wilmington City Council meets this week to discuss Secretary Murphy's "Priority" schools plan, no public comment will be allowed.  Unrestricted time for the appointed bureaucrats of the entrenched politicians--no time for response or rebuttal from parents, teachers, or district officials.

They're scared that we're coming, and they're falling back on what has always worked for them before:  plowing millions into political campaigns to keep you voting for more of the same.

But if we don't lose our determination, and if populists on the right and populists on the left learn how to work together on some issues and always advocate for broader inclusion (even of their opponents), then guess what?  We'll make inroads.  We'll get there.  Maybe not this year, and maybe not in 2016.  But they are learning that it is not safe to ignore us.

(The next thing they'll try is to buy us off.  Be careful.)

Be the change  you want to see.

Ron Russo's faux call for education "conversation"

During the 1950s in the USSR, people used to parse Pravda editorials for the smallest nuances of verbiage to try to determine which way the wind was about to blow. Something similar is happening with the current education debate in Delaware.

Parent and teacher outcries at RCCSD and CSD board meetings; parent comments at the IEP Task Force; the willingness of the DE PTA even to float a survey about test opt-outs; and the mildly worded letter by DSEA supporting its upstate locals represent a groundswell "push back" against corporatist education reform in our state that is unprecedented over the last decade.

Ron Russo's op-ed in today's WNJ, combined with Secretary Mark Murphy's "charm offensive" of the past week, can be read as an indicator of just where the self-appointed intelligentsia intend to take the process now.

All of a sudden, with the great unwashed of parents, teachers, and (now) district administrators, starting to rethink and rebel, the State has decided that its actions in designating "priority" schools and handing the districts a "sign by September 30 or we'll close your schools" MOU wasn't really about a State takeover.

No, now it seems (quite retroactively), it was all about having a "conversation":

Russo: "It is apparent from recent newspaper articles that various groups and individuals have differences of opinion on how to improve public schools. The good news is they share the same common goal – to provide every Delaware student with the best possible education.

"If you accept the frequently stated premises that, 'One size doesn’t fit all' and 'You can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to education,' then the presence of multiple solutions is understandable and not necessarily adversarial. It should provide fertile ground for intense conversations."

Please understand that this is crap, and that neither Mr. Russo (whose political-educational rehabilitation depends heavily on his willingness to parrot the party line when so ordered) nor Secretary Murphy (who can't keep straight in his many interviews whether the six priority schools are the lowest performing schools in DE or not) intends anything like an honest conversation.

They intend to derail the whole process into another series of "stakeholder"-driven "conversations" in which they will re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while assuring all the passengers that there are plenty of lifeboats.

The use of "stakeholders" is the elitist attempt to stave off any real hint of unruly populism, whether it derives from rowdy parents or unrepentant unionized teachers. Just as "public comment" is a ghetto into which the leaders confine the ideas (that they're not really listening to) of those who--if they mattered--would be sitting at the adults' table, confining the conversation to "stakeholders" is a way of limiting the damage.

The problem, of course, is that those uppity parents and teachers have broken out of the blogging and social media world and gotten themselves footholds in the unions, in the PTA, and even among our legislators, so now they have to be convinced to accept the idea of "being at the table" as their reward.

Notice, however, that "being at the table" (as DSEA has hopefully finally discovered) is too often a synonym for "being ON the table" (as in "dinner") and is the last ditch effort of the corporate elites to keep control of the "conversation."

We need to resist any acceptance of their ground rules for dialogue.

Instead, let's invite them outside where the common people are having a picnic; eating and drinking too much; and letting their kids run around (possibly not always even wearing their bicycle helmets or knee pads).

In other words: don't let them talk you into believing that success is falling for the idea that they're really listening to what you think.

After November 4 they'll go back to doing whatever the hell they please.

Secretary Murphy's hypocritical "urgency"

When both the Red Clay and Christina School Districts "balked" last night at accepting the DE DOE MOU for the so-called "priority schools," and suggested they needed time to negotiate an alternative, Delaware Education Secretary Mark Murphy had this to say:

The state had originally planned on districts signing the plan by Tuesday. Murphy said the department will work with the districts to come to an agreement, but said the process needs to move quickly. 

"Our kids cannot wait," he said. "We need to have a sense of urgency about this." 

If the state and districts can't reach an agreement within 120 days, the state could force the six schools to close or hand them over to charter school operators or other outside agencies.

Here's the appropriate response:  Secretary Murphy, you're a hypocrite.

This Priority Schools agenda is being mounted with fourth-year left-over funds from a three-year Race to the Top grant.  The State received $119 million to spend on improving schools.  You handed nearly $2 million to the Vision Coalition.  You paid out millions to corporations for "data coaches" and "data consultants."  You handed out millions to charter schools and other schools that were already performing to standard or even exceeding it.  You paid Rebecca Taber a $12K/month "consulting" salary.

In the add-on year (because you failed to spend all the money) you discovered "a sense of urgency" about these six poverty-riddled urban schools, and are now hectoring the school districts about how quickly they have to move?

Let's not forget that the Delaware Department of Education, in recent years, cut the following out of its budget:  Minner Reading Specialists, Minner Math Teachers, full funding for transportation for homeless children.  Where was the sense of urgency about helping these students in these schools then?

Here's the reality behind the "urgency" hypocrisy:  Secretary Murphy has his marching orders.  The City of Wilmington is to be converted into an all-charter school district so that corporate education reformers can do for Delaware what they did for such beacons of hope as inner-city Washington DC and Newark NJ.

The State intends to use its vast expertise (so well demonstrated in the overwhelming success of Moyer) to make Wilmington a beacon for for-profit charter companies operating at taxpayer expense.

That's what all this "urgency" is really about.

Great School Leaders aren't in it for the Money

Time to get a little personal, and a little real.

There has been so much bandying about of the figure $160,000 as a salary for "school leaders" [when did we stop just saying "principals"?] in the so-called "Priority Schools" that I thought we all need a reality check.

First, the corporate education reform party line:  Ed Sec Mark Murphy recently said that he doesn't know of a great school without a "great leader" and that the $160,000 salary was to incentivize such great leaders to step forward and accept the challenges of high-needs schools.  Then our local "me-too" coalition of bankers and other Rodel hacks stepped up to agree with him.

Where this all comes from is the corporate mentality that says the only reason that people want to run the show is because the person who runs the show gets the best salary.  These are the people who've always said things like corporate CEO salaries have to be 300 times that of the workers, or otherwise we wouldn't get the very best people ...

So they naturally assume that teachers and educational administrators are in it for the money, which is a real laugh.

I know a lot of those people in that elite group of "best school leaders" in Delaware over the past twenty years.  One--my wife Faith Newton--I know really well, and I watched her spend countless hours turning around not one but two floundering urban middle schools (Central Middle School in Dover and Stanton Middle School if you're keeping score).  Then I watched her come back to the Red Clay Consolidated School District as a School Board member after back surgery took her out of the active school administration game.  I watched her take a massive pay cut to come out of disability retirement in order to go to work at DSU training teachers for half of what she used to make.

You know what?  By and large she never paid attention to the money.  She paid more attention to getting the scheduling done, observing teachers, working with curriculum, managing the physical aspects of the building, courting grant money, talking to parents, encouraging students, making sure the cafeteria ran smoothly, organizing student mentors, chaperoning dances, and doing all of the 1,001 things that a principal (sorry, I am so done with "school leader") has to do in the average 75+ hour work week.

Paying her more money would not and could not have given her more hours in the week to work or more reason to care about the teachers, kids, staff, and parents in her school.

(This also applies to most teachers as well, but I digress.)

Here's the thing:  education, as much as the corporate hack reformers would like to make it about "preparing the workforce" or "achieving high standards on high-stakes tests" is generally about avocation and calling--like the military or the clergy.  People go into these fields, for the most part, because some part of them is called or driven to undertake a life that will necessarily be challenging and fulfilling in ways other than total compensation and stock options.

They are an idiosyncratic group, most educators.  Those of you who live in Red Clay or Christina might love or hate Merv or Freeman, might vociferously disagree with this choice or that strategy, but do you really (REALLY?) believe in your heart of hearts that they're doing it purely for the big bucks?

As Education Secretary Mark Murphy has proven, there are a lot of easier ways to get to the big bucks than being a superintendent--something he knows precious little about.

Yeah, there are mediocre and even BAD principals and teachers out there.  There are also bad soldiers, bad sales representatives, bad mechanics, bad CEOs, bad chefs, bad reporters, and bad governors, ad infinitum ad nauseum.

But the reality is that almost NO competent school principal, classroom teacher, or district superintendent (yes, Joey Wise is the exception who proves the rule) is purely in it for the money.

You want a good, no, a GREAT principal?  Then have the courage to recruit for the traits that really lead to success in the job, rather than simply dangling a huge wad of cash and muttering about the lessons of corporate leadership.

Look for somebody who has shown a driving passion for kids and their success first as a teacher and then as an Assistant of Associate Principal (often your very best principals will be those in their first such position, because they don't yet know what can't be done and will often do the impossible).

Look for somebody who is so tough and independent-minded that they don't need guarantees of flexibility from Big Brother at DOE, because they're strong enough to take on their own district and get what they need.

Look for somebody who has the reputation of almost never being in the office, and always showing up at the right place ("How do your find the principal, kids?  Screw up and then look over your shoulder").

Look for somebody who makes it a point to know 75%+ of the kids in the building by name by the middle of October.

Look for somebody who not only knows curriculum, but can step into a suddenly absent teacher's classroom and start teaching without missing a beat.

Look for somebody with high standards that teachers are relentlessly expected to meet, but who will fight to the death for the building faculty and staff against all comers when necessary.

Look for somebody who hates to lose.  Who refuses to lose.

You can find these people ONLY if you convince them that the challenge is big enough and that they'll be able to do it their way.

But here's the thing:  the really great principals are also people with families and geographical preferences and (you'd better believe it) a survival instinct.  So they only constitute about 5-10% of the available folks with the theoretically appropriate qualifications.  You can't headhunt them.  Unless you're lucky and one just walks through your door by accident, you have to spend weeks, maybe months, sniffing around to find them, and then figuring out how to make the challenge of your problem school sound so attractive that you can steal them.

You don't get them with the bucks like Secretary Murphy thinks, and you don't get them as many of our districts do by simply promoting the next AP in line.

You get them by simply taking as long as it takes to find the square peg who will re-drill the round hole in spite of all obstacles.

And when you'll find them they'll help the teachers and students transform the building without ever wanting to take the credit for it.