Posts Tagged ‘Federal Funds’

Daily Education News- 12/12/12

Posted by rodel

Here are several stories in today’s news about Delaware education and from across the nation:

Local News

DFM News
DSEA president sees fiscal cliff threat to education in Delaware
Frederika Jenner, President of the Delaware State Education Association, says that translates to a possible 43 million dollar hole in Delaware for a variety of programs assisting low income K-to-12 students. Jenner notes that that wouldn’t be the only facet of education to feel the effect. “There could be a loss of funding that would require Head Start programming to be reduced, those services to be not provided for either incoming students or they’d have to literally send some students home, I guess,” said Jenner.

Middletown Transcript
M.O.T. Charter School proposes charter high school
The M.O.T. Charter School will be holding an informational meeting Thursday night on a proposed charter high school that is expected to open in the fall of 2014. The proposed school will be divided into two academies – an Academy of the Arts and an Academy of Science and Technology.

The News Journal
Christina School District to alter tainted discipline policy
The Christina School District’s board of education voted Tuesday to work with federal officials to ensure students are disciplined equitably, a move that comes after a nearly three-year investigation of the district by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The federal investigation was focused on determining if the district discriminated against black students by disciplining them more “frequently and more harshly on the basis of race than similarly situated white students,” a U.S. Department of Education spokesman said. The school board voted 5-1 to enter into the agreement to fix the problem of disparate discipline rates among students. Board member Shirley Saffer voted no, explaining that she could not vote without knowing more about the investigation’s findings.

National News

Education Week
Arne Duncan picks 16 Race to the Top District winners
Sixteen winners—including three charter school organizations—will share $400 million in the Race to the Top district competition. Miami-Dade is the biggest urban district on the list, having just won the coveted Broad Prize this year. The charter school winners are IDEA public schools and the Harmony Science Academy consortia, both in Texas, and KIPP in the District in Columbia.

K-12 education advocates lobby to avert fiscal cliff
The number-one question keeping organizations that represent school districts and educators up at night is whether Congress will be able to reach an agreement to head off “sequestration,” a series of trigger budget cuts that will hit just about every federally funded education program on Jan. 2, unless Congress averts them by crafting a long-term agreement to curb the deficit. A number of K-12 programs, including Title I grants for districts and special education would be cut by 8.2 percent, although most districts wouldn’t feel the squeeze until next fall.

Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles teachers’ evaluation bucks a trend
The recent groundbreaking agreement over evaluations for educators in the Los Angeles school district is a major victory for the teachers union because it limits the use of a controversial — but increasingly widespread — measurement of teacher effectiveness. The tentative pact puts the nation’s second-largest school system at odds with a national trend to gauge the effect of teachers on student achievement by using a value-added analysis. That method, known in Los Angeles Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, is opposed by many teacher unions as unreliable; but it is being used in Illinois, New York, Texas, Florida, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

U.S. Newswire
College Board names Dr. Stephanie Sanford as Chief of Policy, Advocacy, and Government Relations
The College Board announced that Dr. Stefanie Sanford has been appointed to lead the organization’s policy, advocacy and government relations work. The appointment is effective March 1, 2013. At the same time as Sanford’s appointment, the nonprofit education organization announced a substantial commitment to delivering high quality career technical education by appointing one of its most trusted senior leaders, Tom Rudin, to lead this major new initiative.

No Luck in Latest RTTT Competition, But Important Blueprints for Next Generation Learning Laid

Posted by Paul Herdman

After winning the last two federal competitions ($119M (2009) for K-12 and $49M (2011) for early learning), our Delaware districts were unfortunately not selected as finalists in the latest competition.

Late Monday, The U.S. Department of Education announced the selection of 61 finalists for the Race to the Top District competition among 371 applications and more than 1,000 districts. From this very large pool, the two applications from Delaware were not selected. While the applications from the BRINC Consortium (comprised of Brandywine, Colonial, Indian River, and the New Castle County VoTech Districts) and the Seaford School District were not among the finalists, both teams put a tremendous amount of well-spent time and energy into rethinking what it will truly take to “personalize” learning for all their students.

“Personalization” for many means better incorporating technology so that students can work at their own pace. However, more broadly, personalization means simply better understanding where each child is and designing an educational strategy that works for them; something strong educators have been doing for years. The challenge for BRINC and Seaford was to discern how our newly strengthened data infrastructure could be married with all the new tools at their disposal —online courses, new approaches to curriculum, new partnerships with colleges and businesses — to make sure every child was being challenged and supported.

Even though these groups will not be in the running for federal funding, the commitment to implementing their plans remain. Both plans were strong:

  • In Seaford, building on the promising results of the Delaware New Tech Academy at the high school level, the district proposed to extend this hands-on, deeper learning model to the middle and elementary school to create a K-12 continuum, changing the way all students in their district learn.  To support this transformation, the plan devotes significant resources to supporting teachers and developing an extensive data system to track student performance at all levels.
  • In the BRINC Consortium, the group focused on 6-12th grade students. The Consortium’s plan proposed an extensive expansion of learning opportunities for students, including online coursework, dual enrollment at college, and increased use of “blended learning” strategies in the classroom, i.e. greater integration of technology. To support this expansion, the plan calls for the implementation of “experimental” model classrooms to allow teachers to test and share innovative instructional strategies.

These plans will serve as blueprints for these districts and can offer lessons for all districts over time.

As was the case with applications coming from Delaware in the previous Race to the Top competitions, a wide range of partners—school boards, community organizations, higher education institutions, DSEA, PTA, businesses, elected officials, and foundations—came together to build a plan of action. While we, in Delaware, might take such collaborative efforts for granted, we should acknowledge the leadership required to make this happen and appreciate it because, nationally, many potential applicants were simply unable to get off the ground because they couldn’t agree on a plan.

Finally, in the busy, day-to-day, work of running schools, it’s hard to make the time to pick one’s head up and look around the corner. All of the district leaders who submitted these applications should be lauded for doing just that. On top of their demanding day jobs, they gave up several weekends and evenings working through the design of what the next generation of learning can and will be in Delaware. I have no doubt that these educators will figure out how to follow through on their plans. And when they do, we should all be watching closely, doing what we can to help, and taking notes, because they will be breaking new ground that will benefit all of us.

 

What Delaware’s Mid-year Race to the Top Evaluation Tells Us

Posted by Brian Yin

This week, the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) released a mid-year “progress report” on Race to the Top reforms. The report includes statewide DCAS data, as well as highlights from the mid-year performance evaluations of the students in twelve districts (districts participated or not based on the size of their grant and/or their past performance).

The data can be interpreted in different ways. Some will point to gains and tout how Race to the Top reforms are “working.” Others will say the growth isn’t enough. But before making judgments, it’s important to recognize that the winter DCAS exam is not meant to be a summative evaluation, but a formative one.

We should be wary of drawing any conclusions from winter proficiency statistics. As DDOE notes, the figures refer to end of grade proficiency, not proficiency of the course material taught up until the winter exam administration.  These numbers represent the percent of students who at the time of the winter DCAS administration have already met the end-of-year proficiency standards. It’s like giving a final in the middle of the semester…you wouldn’t expect most of the class to pass.

That’s not to say the winter DCAS is not important. On the contrary, I can say from experience that for educators and school leaders, the winter DCAS is just as, if not more important, than the fall DCAS (and certainly more important than the spring DCAS) for improving student performance. It shows individual student growth and provides a wealth of data on individual, class-wide, and school-wide strengths and weaknesses that can be used to make mid-year corrections in curriculum and instruction.

As for judging Race to the Top? First, this test was taken in the first half of the first full year of implementation of the 4-year grant. I think it’s a little premature to judge.

Second, Race to the Top is not meant to be a magic bullet. Providing a high quality education to all kids is something our nation has never done successfully. Rather, the reforms are intended to shift the conversation to spur and support innovation.  This is exemplified perfectly in DDOE’s report—see what works and scale it; find what doesn’t and fix it.

So perhaps the most telling thing about our mid-year evaluations is that we did them. Educators have mid-year data to further improve what’s happening in the classroom, and DDOE is providing feedback and support. Delaware is monitoring and evaluating progress, learning from mistakes, course-correcting as needed, and pushing itself towards the top.

And that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing.

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