----------------------------------------------------------
We promised to keep our journey public... the latest installment:
DOE response sent shortly before 5 pm at 4:11 pm on Friday, Nov. 1st. We offer our gratitude to DOE for giving us the weekend to craft an appropriate response - that'll be written tomorrow.
However, we are open to all of your suggestions - so please feel free to examine, research, and extrapolate for strategy. And we'll see if the direction readers offer matches the response the already milling about...
-----Original Message-----
From: May Alison
To: 'Elizabeth Scheinberg'
Sent: Fri, Nov 1, 2013 4:11 pm
Subject: your DCAS inquiry
From: May Alison
To: 'Elizabeth Scheinberg'
Sent: Fri, Nov 1, 2013 4:11 pm
Subject: your DCAS inquiry
Ms.
Scheinberg,
The
Delaware Department of Education recognizes state testing is an
important part of understanding how schools, districts and the state are
doing in educating and preparing
students for college or careers after high school. This is the primary
way we know if schools are making appropriate progress toward educating
children on the academic standards. Student testing also helps districts
and schools identify if there are specific
populations within their school that are behind and may need extra
assistance. And state testing helps parents understand how their child
is doing in comparison to students in other schools. This is important
as grading policies are different across the state
and are difficult to use as a comparison.
There are no provisions in state or
federal regulation that allow Delaware to have a system to “opt students
out” of the assessment. In addition, state and federal laws are clear
that there is an expectation that all students
will participate in the state assessment system. The only instances in
which students can be excluded relate to exemption requests. Only two
reasons are allowable for requests for exemptions: extreme medical
incidents or for reasons of mental health of the
child (each requires documentation from a physician). I have posted
some of the relevant sections below for you.
Title 14, Chapter 1, Subchapter IV § 173.
Data reporting violations.
School districts and individuals shall not:
(3) Exclude a student from participation in the state assessment except in accordance with the regulations of the Department;
The State Code reflects Federal
Regulations that assessments must include all students. See highlighted
sections below. (for clarity, some parts that were not relevant have
been removed)
ESEA, Subpart 1, Subsection 1111(b)(3):
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg2.html
ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS-
(A)
IN GENERAL- Each State plan shall demonstrate that the State
educational agency, in consultation with local educational agencies, has
implemented
a set of high-quality, yearly student academic assessments that
include, at a minimum, academic assessments in mathematics, reading or
language arts, and science that will be used as the primary means of
determining the yearly performance of the State and
of each local educational agency and school in the State
in enabling all children to meet the State's challenging student academic achievement standards …
(C) REQUIREMENTS- Such assessments shall--
(i)
be the same academic assessments used to measure the achievement of all children …
(vii) beginning not later than school year 2005-2006,
measure the
achievement of students against the challenging State academic content
and student academic achievement standards in each of grades 3 through 8
in, at a minimum, mathematics, and reading or language
arts …
I hope this provides clarity.
Alison May
Public information officer
Delaware Department of Education
401 Federal Street, Suite #2
Dover, DE 19901-3639
302.735.4000 (T) 302.735.4654 (F)
** My new email address is alison.may@doe.k12.de.us. Please update your address book. My old address will continue to work for a limited period.**
This
email and any attachments are confidential or legally privileged. Any
dissemination, copying or use of this communication by or to anyone
other than the designated
and intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. If you are not the intended
recipient, please delete or destroy this communication immediately.
P
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Word Verification May Be Case Sensitive