After seeking input from various stakeholders throughout the state, the Department of Education will submit their final ESEA waiver application to the feds on February 6th, outlining our state’s vision for education reform in the coming years – with a particular focus on revamping our accountability system for school recognition and support. Parts I and [...]
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Let’s Not Just Refine, but Reimagine Accountability
The Department of Education recently released the initial draft of our ESEA waiver application– demonstrating Delaware’s initial vision for next generation accountability while leaving room for input and improvement. Based upon Delaware’s initial draft, we are proposing to: Establish the goal of reducing achievement gaps, among all subgroups, in half over six years (e.g. raising [...]
State Board of Education Meeting Summary
This month, at the State Board of Education meeting, Delaware Department of Education officials provided updates and presentations on DCAS and the Partnership Zone, as well as a charter schools update; the board voted on the student growth measurement in DPAS II. Dr. Mike Stetter, Director of Accountability Resources, discussed the status of DCAS in [...]
An Anniversary, a Conference, and a Lot of Work Ahead
This is a guest blog post by Marvin N. “Skip” Schoenhals, chairman of Vision 2015 and WSFS Bank in Wilmington, DE, for which he served as president and CEO from 1990 to 2007. He is a member of the Delaware Business Leaders Hall of Fame. Five years ago, Vision 2015 set out to transform the [...]
ESEA Reauthorization Passes HELP Committee
On Wednesday, October 19, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee began mark-up of the bipartisan Harkin-Enzi ESEA reauthorization bill. There has been plenty of education policy buzz and analysis around the bill since it was first presented last week. We previously blogged an analysis comparing this bill with USED’s NCLB waiver [...]
The Devil’s in the Details Over Different Federal Education Policy Visions
Today, the Senate HELP Committee debated and marked up Senator Harkin’s bipartisan legislation to overhaul No Child Left Behind – signifying a significant opportunity, and risk, as stakeholders come together to redefine the federal government’s role in education. After mark-up, the bill must still garner Senate support and then pass the House before being signed [...]
Partnership Zone School (Round 2) Profile: Laurel Middle School
On September 1st, 2011, Secretary Lowery and the Department of Education announced the 6 schools chosen to participate in round 2 of the statewide Partnership Zone Initiative (for more information about the Partnership Zone, see our previous blogs). Last week a question was raised about the data used to determine the schools in the Partnership [...]
Partnership Zone Update
The Partnership Zone timeline is a tight one (the first submission deadline is Nov. 17), so by necessity a lot must happen each week. Here are the latest updates as of Oct. 7 (for previous updates and analysis/information on the PZ, click here). Capital’s school board has decided upon a “transformation” model for Dover HS [...]
