The Echo

http://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/finanical-judgement-for-delaware-schools-09012009/

From the UDaily:

Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell will give a public lecture on the University of Delaware's Newark campus on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Powell served as the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was appointed Secretary of State by President George W. Bush, becoming, at that time, the most powerful African-American ever to hold office.

A four-star general, Powell's numerous awards include two Presidential Medals of Freedom. He is the author of the best-selling autobiography, My American Journey.

UD Speaks is dedicated to bringing world-class leaders to the Delaware campus to educate, enlighten and engage the University community.

The event will begin at 8:30 p.m. at the Bob Carpenter Center. The speech will be followed by a question and answer session.
Tickets will go on sale at UD box offices at the Trabant University Center and at the Bob Carpenter Center, and via Ticketmaster, on Tuesday, Sept. 15. Prices are $5 for students, $10 for faculty and staff, $15 for military personnel (active duty and retired) and $25 for the public. All seating is general admission.'

(As Dear Abby would have said it!)

Porter Road Elementary is still very much a work in progress; however,

Your concerns were noted and a response has been generated from district administration:

On Bookcases:
When originally designed and laid out, the classrooms were feeling crowded with material and furniture ... Knowing that teachers often bring much stuff of their own, we waited on adding bookcases. There just weren't obvious places to put them. Now that we are moved in, a list of additional furniture that would be desirable has been generated. Chairs, tables, upright storage cabinets, some shelving and bookcases. We will be ordering this furnature as soon as the list is finalized.

On Maps:
We don't usually order physical pulldown maps anymore. They seem to be outdated the instant we hang them. The overheard projectors are wired to be used from the teacher's computer, so displays of the lastest maps and other materials like that can be brought up on the screen.

To my teachers: If you would like a laminated map to hang on the wall, please contact me directly at montagnebeau@aol.com

On Transparency Projectors:
We have the old style overhead projectors in storage for schools that want them. We are working with Ms. Talbert on whether we move them to Porter and how many. When talking with Mrs. Talbert, the staff was working out a plan where they scan many of the head documents on the large scale scanners/copiers that in the building then use these documents in electronic format on the overhead projectors installed in each classroom. Technology will be working with the staff so that all are well-versed on using the permanent projector in each classroom.


As always, please feel free to contact me at montagnebeau@aol.com
Subject line: CSD

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Scheinberg

Charter schools aren't the cure-all
Diane Ravitch • August 14, 2009

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090814/OPINION16/90813041

The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District is opening 50 schools over the next few years and considering a proposal to allow some or all to be privately managed. Before taking this step, the board should take a hard look at the evidence about charter schools and privately managed schools.

Because of a brilliant media campaign by charter school organizations, there is a widespread impression that any charter school is better than any public school. This is not true. Charter schools vary in quality from excellent to abysmal. On the authoritative federal tests called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, students in charter schools perform about the same as those in traditional public schools. A recent Stanford University study, which compared half the nation’s charter schools with a neighboring public school, concluded that 46 percent were no better, 37 percent were significantly worse and only 17 percent were significantly better than the public school.

Philadelphia launched an effort last year to compare its district-run schools with its charter schools and privately managed schools. Researchers from Rand Corp. concluded that charter students did no better than those who attended public schools. Performance in the privately managed schools did not, on average, exceed the performance of the public schools. A few months ago, Philadelphia officials — looking at their own achievement data — said that six privately managed elementary and middle schools outperformed the public schools, but 10 were worse than district-run schools.

One of the major arguments for turning schools over to private managers is that the resulting competition will spur improvements in public schools.

This did not happen in Philadelphia, nor is there evidence that it has happened elsewhere. Many charter and privately managed schools get extra resources and smaller classes with the help of corporate sponsors, but public schools typically do not. What the public schools do get are the low-performing and disruptive students who are ejected by or eased out of the charter and privately managed schools.

The Los Angeles proposal for 50 new schools has been likened to New York City’s approach. But Los Angeles should be aware of two points. First, under New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, spending on education has increased from $12.5 billion annually to $21 billion, or nearly $20,000 per child. Is Los Angeles willing to match that?

Second, New York City’s new high schools started small and were allowed to limit the admission of special-education students and students with limited English proficiency for the first two years. The remaining high schools were left with a disproportionate share of the neediest students. A study this year of the new schools found that, over time, when their enrollment became similar to traditional public schools, their attendance rates and graduation rates declined. Also, the attrition rate of teachers and principals was consistently high.

If we are ever going to get serious about improving education in the United States, we have to face up to basic facts. We can’t solve our problems by handing them off to businesses and community groups. Some schools will claim success by excluding the students who are hardest to educate; others will claim success by drilling children endlessly on test-taking skills. And although California law requires that public schools — charters included — accept all students, charters tend to draw the most motivated students and families away from the traditional public schools because of the application process.

Further, charters and privately managed schools often pay unusually high executive compensation. The leader of a small charter network in New York City that has 1,000 students received $370,000 in 2007, about triple the salary of a principal. The organizer of charter schools in a Pennsylvania suburb is also the primary vendor of goods and services to his schools and earns more than $1 million annually.

What should we do? We must strengthen — not abandon — public education. Our schools should have well-rounded curricula that include the arts, history, science, geography, literature and foreign languages, as well as basic skills. Teachers should be well-educated and treated with dignity. Principals should be head teachers, who can capably evaluate and assist their teachers. School buildings should be well-maintained. Class sizes should be reasonable, making it possible for teachers to give extra attention to students who need it. Schools should have a firm and fair disciplinary code.

Are these common-sense policies beyond the reach of the citizens of Los Angeles?

We evade our responsibility to improve public education by privatizing public schools. In doing so, we undermine the egalitarian promise of public education, thus guaranteeing that many children will continue to be left behind.

Diane Ravitch is a historian of education at New York University; her new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” will be published in March.

What do you think?


Indian River schools to begin cell phone ban
By MOLLY MURRAY • The News Journal • August 12, 2009

When students in the Indian River School District head back to school next month, they’ll need to leave their cell phones at home.

The school board has banned cell phones, pagers and all other communication devices in the schools during the school day and on district buses.

“They are a distraction,” said Indian River School Board President Charles Bireley. “These devices have no place in the classroom.”

Bireley said parents who worry that students won’t be able to call for help in an emergency need not worry. Every classroom at the district’s two high schools has a telephone, and there are phones in every district office that students can use. Each bus driver also has a cell phone, he said.

But parents can request a waiver from the new rule if there are extenuating circumstances, he said.

Last year, students in the district could have cell phones in their backpacks or lockers but they were not allowed to use them during the school day.

Bireley said there were still problems with text messaging and students taking pictures. Although the district has had no indication the devices have been used to cheat or copy tests, that is also a concern, he said.

“The board of education believes these new regulations will create a more orderly and productive learning environment.”

As promised, I'm blogging my take on the last night's CSD Board Meeting at Bancroft Elementary School:

For the most part, it was a smooth ride. The Board heard an update on the Porter Road School and the new Delaware School for the Deaf campus. Both project received survived Dover's budget crunch, were fully funded at the close the recent legislative session and immediately loaded (meaning the money promised was made available for work to continue/commence.)

Porter is now a finished product, a stunning new school ready to serve its students. Porter's open house is scheduled for August 26, from 4- 7 pm.

After a brief hiatus, The Delaware School for Deaf (DSD) is now ready to proceed into the next phase of construction. During the meeting several contracts were approved by the board to move this project along. Ground breaking is expected in early October, the onset of a 16 month construction schedule that will be completed in December 2010.

We did have an unusual bump in the flow last night concerning contracts for Produce/Seasonal items and Cafeteria Paper Products when these items were tabled after an unhappy vendor addressed the board during public comment. The board reconvened in Executive Session to discuss the concern. Though I am a new Board Member, I am confident with the information provided to the board that these contracts were awarded within the scope of the Request for Proposal(RFP)(the process by which we solicit venders to bid on contracts) fairly and appropriately. The Board reconvened in public session and voted to accept the district's recommendation. Thanks go to our patient superintendent who gracefully yielded to what some may term micro-managing vs policy making, the latter being the purpose of school boards.

Questions? Comments? Hit me at the bottom of this post!

When the State of Delaware launched it's online checkbook earlier this week, all school districts entered into a new era of transparency, as checks written by districts are actually cut by the state and therefore a part of the state's online checkbook.

Access the checkbook via http://checkbook.delaware.gov/

Date of Payments for CSD go back to 7/7/08.

Happy reading!

(Thanks, Kilroy)

Feds to issue new swine flu advice to schools
Associated Press, via www.delawareonline.com • August 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — Swine flu is expected to return when kids go back to school, and the government is hoping its new advice on when to shut down schools during an outbreak will prevent the panic and confusion that led to hundreds of school closures last spring.

The government was to issue new guidance today for schools to follow when swine flu strikes. Unlike regular seasonal flu, this virus has not retreated during the hot and humid summer months and so far has infected more than 1 million Americans.

"We hope no schools have to close, but realistically, some schools will close this fall," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said this week during a forum with administration officials that was broadcast online.

The decision to close actually rests with local school officials. But those officials are looking to the federal government for advice about the new flu strain that has caused a global epidemic, or pandemic.

"I'm dealing first and foremost as a parent," Duncan said Friday on a nationally broadcast news show. "I want to keep my children safe and keep them learning." He said officials are asking parents to "use common sense" and encourage their children to vigorously wash their hands several times a day and take other safety precautions.

"We want to provide as much facts as we can" to local officials, he said. "Basically, this will be a tiered response. If there's a handful of children at a school who might be sick, we want the parents to keep them home. If the numbers escalate dramatically, then we might have to close the schools."

Duncan said officials anticipate the vaccine will be available by mid-October and that they want schools to be principal sites for getting the shots.

The administration wants to avoid the chaos of last spring, when more than 700 schools in half the states closed their doors. There are about 132,000 public and private schools in the U.S.

Students got an unexpected vacation, but many parents wound up scrambling to find child care.

School officials had been acting on advice from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which at first said schools should shut down for about two weeks if there were suspected cases of swine flu.

Then the CDC changed course, saying schools did not need to close because the virus was milder than feared. Instead, parents were told to keep sick kids home for at least a week.

Duncan said at a swine flu summit last month that closing school should be "a last resort, not a first resort."

He said earlier this week that school districts should use common sense. "If you have one child sick, that's one thing. If you have a whole host of children getting sick, that's another," Duncan said.

While this particular flu virus is new, the matter of school closings is not. Every winter, regular flu outbreaks prompt a relatively small number of schools to close for a few days because of high absenteeism among students or staff.

In addition to new guidance for when to close, the CDC and Education Department said this week they have set up a new monitoring system to track school closures across the country.

Still up in the air is whether schools will be turned into vaccine clinics, though Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said that seems logical.
"We're seeing schools as potential partners," she said at the forum with Duncan.

Children are on the priority list for the first doses of swine flu vaccine, but because of time needed for testing and manufacturing, inoculations can't begin until school has been in session for more than a month; the government is aiming for Oct. 15. Many questions remain, including whether people will need one shot or two for protection. That is in addition to the regular winter flu vaccine that is also recommended for children.

States and school districts should be preparing for the possibility of mass vaccinations, federal officials have said.

They also should make plans to keep kids Learning when schools do close, Duncan said.

Duncan was interviewed Friday on CBS's "The Early Show."

An absolutely genuine soliloquy with universal applications!

Published: July 29, 2009

Are Schools Wounding Kids?
By Kathie Marshall
Premium article access courtesy of TeacherMagazine.org.

When I returned to the classroom this year after six years as a literacy coach, I chose to teach a reading intervention class other teachers actively avoided—a mix of 6th and 7th graders reading at a mid-2nd to early 4th grade level.

It was a year of change for me as a teacher. I was returning to the classroom for the first time since No Child Left Behind prompted my district to introduce mandatory instructional programs. These included a scripted reading curriculum for our intervention students.

Teaching struggling readers wasn’t new to me. In the late 1990s I had created a language arts intervention course using service learning as the primary vehicle for motivation. Now, however, I found myself pushing students through a massive workbook each day. Their general response was, “It’s boooooring!”

Pretty quickly I found myself “cheating”—changing up the curriculum on Fridays. We read plays from Action Magazine, wrote and illustrated poems, did word games, and sent letters to pen pals and authors. I began letting my more creative side breathe a bit. When the theme included a story about wacky inventions, we had a contest in which students devised their own. When author Elisa Kleven’s scrap art was introduced, students invented their own scrap-art figures and wrote character sketches. Throughout the year, there was this constant tension between what I was supposed to be doing with students and what I was actually doing.

And what was I supposed to be doing? To me, hand-in-hand with the goal of improving reading was the equally important goal of providing my at-risk students with positive learning experiences. Many were already beaten down and convinced they were losers. Bringing some fun and win-win into the classroom equation would help them, however cautiously, to try once more. Was this not important, too?

Teacher-consultant Bill Page defines at-risk students as “Children who are expected to fail because teachers cannot motivate, control, teach, or interest them using traditional methods and prescribed curriculum.” This is precisely what I observed in the early months with my intervention students.

To shine a light on these issues, one day I had my kids sit in a large circle. One child at a time answered the question, “When did you turn off to school?” In my years as literacy coach, I met privately with intervention students who had the lowest grade point averages, and they always had an answer to this question. Most often they turned off in 3rd or 6th grade, when they realized they were struggling and others around them seemingly were not.

Interestingly, seven of my 7th graders this year had turned off to school in the 2nd grade, when they were part of a district experiment that retained the lowest performers. They still had not forgotten what it felt like to be left behind as their friends moved on. At least now I was able to tell them how sorry I was this happened to them. Surely these students deserve a chance to heal the hurt and rethink their identities as learners, something no scripted curriculum I’m aware of can address.

‘Teachers’ Little Comments’

Recently, I came across Kirsten Olson’s new book, Wounded by School. I immediately devoured it and found more insights into the world of at-risk students. See Also Help Wanted: Leader to Promote a Culture of Learning By Kirsten Olson.

Olson explains that her book began “with a desire to understand the experiences of highly capable learners, virtuoso explorers who showed unusual vitality in learning.” But she was “quickly diverted by the repeated and powerful descriptions among my research subjects of educational wounding and laceration in school.”

As I read this, I immediately saw an image of myself as a 6th grader. I was walking back to class after recess, and for perhaps the fifth day in a row I asked my teacher, “Can I go to the nurse? I have a headache.” “What’s wrong with you?” shouted Mr. Wright. “Why do you always have a headache?!” It was another 15 years before my migraines were diagnosed. I warily hid my headaches from others after my teacher taught me to believe something was wrong with me as a person.

Wounded by School delineates a dozen different types of school wounding and their effects, including:

• Feeling you aren’t smart and your ideas lack value.
• Feeling you don’t have what it takes to be successful in school.
• Feeling ashamed of your efforts.
• Suffering a loss of ambition, self-discipline, and persistence when faced with obstacles.


In a section called “wounds of rebellion,” I found my intervention kids and their defensive symptoms:

• The only way to protect yourself is to rebel.
• In response to being unsuccessful or told we are unworthy, we become hostile.
• We are unwilling to see another point of view.
• We act out, as an adaptive response and it becomes fixed, maladaptive, and self-destructive.


Olson quotes one student, who remembers a crushing moment in 7th grade that led him to declare, “I quit! I just really quit!”

The student saw himself as a screw-up: “Basically I became motivated to not do well—like what I could do well was not to do well. ... Kids that struggle are so much more sensitive to moments—especially bad ones. These moments shape their whole lives, their sense of themselves. Teachers’ little comments had a huge effect on me.”

These lines could have been spoken by any one of my intervention students. In an essay about three strengths of his, one of my students wrote: “I am good at three things. I can draw (graffiti), I like to be bad, and I get in trouble a lot.”

Olson’s book is not directed only at struggling students. Her research clearly shows that all students are vulnerable to school wounds. She nails what I observed this year among the most capable 6th graders in my English and history classes. She writes:

“Rather than making them more dutiful, more competent, and more disciplined, they grew weary of school and learning … risk averse, overly intimidated by authority, or likely to underestimate themselves … simply deadened—less enlivened by the world and its possibilities than they might be.”

I wonder if this was why some of my most successful classroom projects from past years seemed less engaging this time around. Although these students were strong oral readers and tested well, they didn’t enjoy reading, were often highly apathetic toward learning, and resisted staying on-task if the work was challenging. As a result, I was disappointed at times by their response to assignments that had once excited and engaged my students before I became a literacy coach.

On our last day of school this June, as I dismissed the class with the cheery words “have a great summer,” one of my best students turned back and said, “We’ve been waiting for this day since September.”

What is within our control to do differently?

After eight years as a literacy coach, Kathie Marshall returned to her Los Angeles classroom in the fall of 2008 to teach middle grades language arts. She writes frequently about instructional practice and the teaching life.

Former Christina Superintendent Joe Wise weasels his way back into the picture!

Thank You to fellow board member, John Young, for sharing this information via his blog http://www.transparentchristina.wordpress.com/

I took Delaware's Department of Education to task in yesterday's post for failing to create a firm and thorough request for bids for the assessment system( DCAS) slated to replace the DSTP. The original RFP (Request for Proposals) resulted in not one, but two lawsuits filed against the department, including a suit filed by the company to whom the DOE wanted to award the contract, NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (NWEA).

According to yesterday's NJ story, "Subsequently, at the end of June, the department selected Northwest Evaluation Association -- the only vendor that bid on all components and whose Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) test has been piloted in several Delaware school districts and charters -- as the winner and began negotiations despite AIR receiving the highest scores on technical ability and price for the summative test and end-of-course exams. According to documents obtained by AIR through Delaware's Freedom of Information Act, AIR was the first choice overall for 54 percent of teachers who observed a demonstration of the tests."

DOE then announced they would scrap the first RFP process and start over with a tighter (and more in line with Delaware law) request.

So who is Wise to NWEA? He is currently a member of the NWEA's Board of Directors, although his bio briefly touches on his stint in Christina, and speaks of only great things during his brief and questionable time in Duval County, Florida (the district for which he resigned from Christina to lead.)

I feel it is also important to disclose NWEA is also the company that provides the Christina School District with Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. I do not know if Wise was an NWEA Board member prior to our district's adoption of that assessment, nor am I advocating that we scrap it. My teacher intel share's that this is a model our educators find helpful in tailoring their approach to meeting student needs.

The disclosure aside, I was not a board member, and barely a district parent during the Wise years. I was a tax payer and like many still carry a deep resentment for Wise. His time with our district fostered an incredible distrust from stakeholders, that unlike our financial affairs has yet to remedied.

So, yes, I do question the decision of any Delaware agency that would do business with a company that values Mr. Wise. As I imagine I will state frequently over the next four years (when my time with the board comes to an end) what every smart shopper knows, the cheapest product is seldom the best.

I am further concerned that DOE entered into negotiations with NWEA despite the fact that another company received higher scores on technical ability and price for the summative test and end-of-course exams. This company was the first choice overall for 54 percent of teachers who were involved in the demonstration process.

Finally, I call into question the fact that NWEA has threatened to file suit against DOE.

According to a letter issued by Sec. Lowery to all entities that bid for the contract, NWEA had indicated that it would also file suit against the department regarding requirements of a performance bond -- an insurance policy on the vendor's performance. The letter says that what was written in the bid request and what was told publicly to vendors conflicted with what Delaware law requires. The threat of suit comes from the company with whom the DOE entered negotiations and from whom DOE already has an existing relationship. Come on!

It all reminds me of the old saying: keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer...

Of course, I am writing this as I listen to the rain wick off my new roof (one day old) into my new gutters, currently being installed as I speak ... yes, in the rain. That's work ethic! I vetted the companies that bid on my home and chose not the cheapest, but certainly not the most expensive. I chose the company that had the right product at the fairest value, who also happened to have a fantastic rating the BBB, great reviews from past customers, and who had never done business with Mr. Wise.

Okay, I fully expect to take a beating for this opinion from many in education administration throughout Delaware. But, if our board members can't ask questions openly, will we ever have any answers? This is the road to transparency and accountability.

Click to read the entire article at the NJ website:

Many Del. public high schools fail to meet federal goals
By JENNIFER PRICE • The News Journal • July 31, 2009

Twenty-one of Delaware’s 29 traditional public high schools failed to make adequate progress this year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Middle schools did slightly better, whereas elementary schools showed far more progress.

Twelve out of 30 middle schools and 83 out of 99 elementary schools showed progress toward federal proficiency goals.

-------------------------------

The good news for Christina:
The restructuring plans at Gauger-Cobbs Middle School seemd to be working. Gauger was one of only two schools that made adequate progress this year. If these schools have the same success next year, they will no longer be “under improvement.”

The bad news:
All three district high schools (Christiana, Glasgow, and Newark) and Bancroft Elementary were among the eight schools statewide that failed to make adequate progress for the sixth consecutive year despite restructuring last fall.

The worst news:
Pulaski Elementary and Red Clay School District's A.I. duPont Middle become the first schools in Delaware to enter the seventh year of “under improvement” status. Under NCLB, states are allowed to take over schools when they continue to fail, but Delaware law forbids the state from total intervention. (News Journal)

I've devoted some posts this week to the CSD's (Christina School District's) AVID program (Achievement Via Individual Determination) in response to the recent News Journal article chronicling some methods used by districts downstate to positively affect high school graduation rates.

After reading that article I felt it was important to investigate the specifics of Christina's programming, how we target our students, and how successful our interventions are. Dr. Lyles, CSD superintendent, provided me with a list of programs that our district utilizes and I have been diligently culling information that I believe is useful to parents and our tax-paying public.

The honest truth is that I know that I have much to learn to be an effective policymaker for our district. In keeping with my mission statement to this blog, I am hoping to educate as I learn.

The following information is from:

Electronic Draft FY08 Report November 30, 2008
Evaluation of Federal and State Program
Goals and Objectives
Included in the Consolidated Application
Fiscal Year 2007-2008
Submitted by Dr. Lillian Lowery, then CSD superintendent and now Delaware's Secretary of Education to Gov. Markell.

The full text of this application is available at:
http://www.christina.k12.de.us/BudgetFinance/ConsolidatedGrants/FY08-ExecSummary.pdf

Goal 5 of the Consolidated Grant reads:

Improve School Climate and Student/Staff Relationships


"The Delaware School Climate Survey shows that middle and high school parents and teachers have a higher satisfaction with school safety than students by at least 12 percentage points. It also shows a higher satisfaction with middle school safety than high school safety. Only 52.9% of high school students feel safe in their schools.

In addition, the Delaware School Climate Survey puts more emphasis on student-teacher relationships in ways that help teachers to expand their capabilities for positive engagement with students. Professional development and implementation efforts include: (a) Continue to support and expand PBS, (b) Investigate and potentially implement other complementary classroom management programs,(c) Provide coaching for teachers on classroom management techniques, (d) Implement student success plans, (e) Provide resource books on potential intervention strategies to support students, and (f) Continue to focus coaching on adult behaviors to de-escalate issues. These efforts started in FY08 and should continue in FY09. Part of the intent is to develop an intensive support system for students who exhibit severe behavioral issues.

Strengths
The AVID program provides the district with an inherent broad focus on accelerating the academic achievement of students at all performance levels. Because AVID is for middle performing students from historically underrepresented groups, it increases the assurance that improvement efforts will be at their inclusion rather than at their expense. AVID is a program that touches Goals 1-5. It also requires a high Level of encouragement to students from teachers."

--------------------------------
Why did I choose to include this particular section in my blog? I frequently hear from parents of the in-between kids that their children are being left behind. They consider their children, bright, some with learning differences, or maturation issues, who are not the highest achievers (gifted/talented) nor the poor or lowest achievers. Sometimes we see these children as the half-hearted learners, those who may not apply themselves to the best of their ability, or at the other end of the spectrum, those children who work their hardest yet may never see a 100% on a test or paper, but through their diligence stay well above failing. I highlight this application of AVID because it speaks to these children as a program that may keep them engaged in their learning environment. It is a practical application that seems to apply specifically to this population.

In the coming weeks and months I will visiting our schools. I look forward to seeing AVID in our middle and high schools in action.

Ratings for 195 Delaware public schools to be released
Stimulus funds add to 'improvement dollars'
By JENNIFER PRICE • The News Journal • July 31, 2009

The Department of Education will release ratings today for 195 public schools.

The designations -- "superior," "commendable," "academic progress" and "academic watch" -- tell parents how well their children's schools are progressing toward federal goals.

And in buildings considered "under improvement" for failing to make adequate progress for two consecutive years, they also can force sanctions, such as being required to offer free tutoring to struggling students or to restructure by hiring a new principal or changing curriculum.

Schools that are "under improvement" receive "school improvement" dollars to help make changes in the building. Title 1 schools, which receive federal funds for having a high percentage of low-income students, will be receiving a boost in their school improvement dollars thanks to the federal stimulus package. Last year, there were 111 Title 1 schools in Delaware, most of which were elementary schools. Individual districts choose which schools to designate as Title 1 schools.

This year, Delaware Title 1 schools will be receiving a total of $2.94 million to improve schools, including $1.29 million in stimulus funds, compared to $1.53 million last year.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has set a goal of turning around the bottom 5 percent of the nation's schools over the next five years. He expects schools that receive the money to transform their buildings by making bold changes such as replacing teachers, reopening as a charter school or giving principals more flexibility around budgeting and staffing.

Schools that don't have Title 1 status but are "under improvement" receive state "school improvement" dollars. Last year, they received $1.5 million, but due to budget cuts this year, they'll be getting $1 million.

Delaware officials determine school accountability ratings based on three components: annual progress toward federal goals in student reading and math performances; more rigorous state requirements that also consider science and social studies performances; and the school's accountability history.

The so-called "adequate yearly progress" toward federal No Child Left Behind goals is calculated using Delaware Student Testing Program results to measure the academic performance of all students in a school, as well as the performances of subgroups such as racial minorities, English language-learners, children with disabilities and those from low-income families.

Elementary and middle schools must show the percentage of students failing the DSTP decreased from last year, and high schools must have 82.5 percent of their students graduate or show progress from the year before.

Because NCLB mandates that all students be proficient in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year, Delaware raises the targets schools must meet each year. This year, schools had to have 73 percent of their students pass the reading portion of the DSTP and 58 percent for math.

This year, only students in grades five, eight and 10 took the writing portion of the DSTP due to budget cuts last year. Because writing was only assessed in three grades, it was not used in determining whether a school made adequate progress.

NCLB does not require states to test in writing or social studies. Reading and math must be tested in grades three through eight and at least once in high school. Science must be tested at least at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

Schools also must have 95 percent of their students take the DSTP to make adequate progress.

Schools also can show progress through a "growth model" that looks at improvement of individual students' scores over time. Under the growth model, schools earn points when their students make improvements. The state education department calculates adequate progress under both the growth model and the original model, and schools can use whichever model under which they fare best.

Whether you love the News Journal or hate it, it's the only daily in town, when it comes to local news. So, I find it rather complacent that buried on B2 is this story (definitely deserving of a front page lead!) - about the heart of Gov. Markell's education reform and the state's bum effort in getting that off the ground.

The legislation has been passed. The RFPs (Request for Proposals, or essentially bids on the contract) went out in March and today, July 30th, we learn that the DOE is restarting the bid process for the DCAS, the replacement assessment for the miserable DSTP, the bain of educators statewide. With the deadline to pilot DCAS looming, DOE is redrawing it's RFP because they failed to ensure it complied with state laws. It's all in the story, below. And though Dr. Lowery believes that the department will still meet the deadline, it makes this board member an angry parent! I've supported the DOE openly and with fidelity in moving into the DCAS model. Knowing how this was to be the diamond in the Markell/Denn budget rough, I expected that the DOE would have sealed this baby up in a perfect package, having done their homework as they expect Delaware's students to do theirs.

We cannot expect more of our children than we are willing to do ourselves!


Del. starting over on bidding for statewide testing
Two companies file lawsuits over process
By JENNIFER PRICE • The News Journal • July 30, 2009

The Delaware Department of Education has started over in its attempt to find a new statewide testing program after a company filed a lawsuit last week protesting the department's handling of its bid.

The American Institutes for Research of Washington D.C. claims that the department did not comply with the evaluation criteria laid out in its original bid request in March for the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System -- a computer-adaptive growth-model test that will replace the 12-year-old Delaware Student Testing Program by the 2010-2011 school year.

Two days after AIR filed the lawsuit in Delaware's Court of Chancery, department officials announced they were rejecting all proposals because the bid request was "flawed" and not compliant with state law.

"We needed more oversight from attorneys in that process," Education Secretary Lillian Lowery said. "We wrote what we needed conceptually, but we probably needed attorneys looking at it to make sure our concepts comported with the legalities of going out to bid. So we've scrapped everything, and we're starting over."

Lowery said the department plans to revise the bidding documents and reissue the request.

The department had planned to pilot the DCAS this coming school year and begin using the new system statewide in fall 2011. Lowery said the department still will be able to meet that deadline.

"It's more important for us to get it right than get it done," she said. "So we're going to stop and clear the deck and get it done right."

The original bid request had several components:

• An online high-stakes summative assessment that would test reading and math in grades three through eight and science and social studies once each in elementary and middle school

• End-of-course exams for high school students

• An online writing assessment for grades five and eight and once in high school

• A benchmark growth test for grades two through 10 to be taken several times throughout the school year

• An online item bank with test questions for teachers to use on classroom exams

Almost three months after putting out its bid request, the department decided not to award the online writing assessment or the online classroom assessment item bank because of the state's budget deficit.

"It is just too cost prohibitive at this time," Lowery said. "However, we are not going to walk away from writing; we will be working with the school districts to ensure that writing is emphasized."

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires states test in reading and math in grades three through eight and at least once in high school. It also requires states to test in science at least once at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Social studies and writing testing are not mandated.

In the bid request, the department said a testing company did not need to bid on all of the components. Instead, companies could bid on separate components, but the online summative assessment and end-of-course exams needed to be bid on together. AIR submitted bids only for those two components.

But once the bids came in from five vendors, the review committee decided that the efficiencies of a single vendor should be the "primary rationale for selection." According to the committee's final report, selecting multiple vendors would not only increase the total cost to the state but would "create significant additional burden on the local level" by requiring teachers and students to learn two systems.

Subsequently, at the end of June, the department selected Northwest Evaluation Association -- the only vendor that bid on all components and whose Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) test has been piloted in several Delaware school districts and charters -- as the winner and began negotiations despite AIR receiving the highest scores on technical ability and price for the summative test and end-of-course exams. According to documents obtained by AIR through Delaware's Freedom of Information Act, AIR was the first choice overall for 54 percent of teachers who observed a demonstration of the tests.

AIR said in the lawsuit that the department did not give all the vendors fair and equitable treatment.

"They decided to change the evaluation criteria to negotiate with another bidder," said Jon Cohen, vice-president and director of AIR's Assessment Program.

According to a letter sent by Lowery last week to several testing vendors, the department will revise the request and correct any non-conforming language. Lowery would not say whether the new request will require vendors to bid on not only the summative assessment and end-of-course exams but also the benchmark test.

According to the same letter, NWEA had indicated that it would also file suit against the department regarding requirements of a performance bond -- an insurance policy on the vendor's performance. The letter says that what was written in the bid request and what was told publicly to vendors conflicted with what Delaware law requires.

From AVIDonline.com

AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) was developed by Mary Catherine Swanson at Clairemont High School in 1980 in response to San Diego Unified School District's court-ordered integration of the city’s schools. The program began as an elective class taken during the regular school day. Mary Catherine held her students accountable to the highest standards and provided them with academic and social support. She believed they would rise to the challenge. And have they ever!

In 1992 AVID Center was established as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization and the program has evolved into a fourth through twelfth-grade system that successfully prepares students in the academic middle for four-year college eligibility. Beginning with one high school and 32 students the AVID system is now on the march toward 4,369 schools in 2010.

AVID is a fourth- through twelfth-grade system to prepare students in the academic middle for four-year college eligibility. These are largely low-income students who are capable of completing a college-prep curriculum but are falling short of their potential. The core component is the AVID elective, which supports students as they tackle the most rigorous classes. AVID’s teaching strategies, curriculum, and trainings are used not only in the AVID elective class, but by subject-area teachers schoolwide....

Learn more about AVID here: What is AVID?

From the CSD website, posted in August 2005:


Christiana High to be 1st high school in Christina District to implement AVID

While students take to the roads this summer for vacation, Christiana High staffers have been paving new roads to ensure all students will have academic success when the new school year opens.

CHS staff recently traveled to the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Institute in Austin, Texas to lead CHS in its efforts to become the first high school in the Christina District to implement the program.

During her keynote speech celebrating the 25th anniversary of AVID, founder Mary Catherine Swanson urged educators to make a difference with AVID.

"AVID is about self-discovery. It is when we move from quiet acceptance to active participation. Only one in seventeen of the poorest families will earn a Bachelor's Degree. If we aren't vigil or allow petty obstacles to overcome us, we will slam doors on our students. You have the chance to change history. Through AVID, students are not bound to their backgrounds. All students regardless of their backgrounds can succeed. Nothing can hold us back or our students," Swanson said.

CHS will utilize AVID to try to reach its "least served" students who are in the middle and often overlooked. The main goal of the AVID program is to help those students eventually succeed in college for at least four years. AVID is designed to help students prepare for more rigorous studies and eventually AP courses. Students become more empowered via the WIC-R (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Reading) strategies presented in the program.

Another component of the AVID program is support. Students are given support in all of their courses via the caring AVID elective teacher who helps students with organization and tutorials.

Currently, CHS has enrolled approximately 20 freshmen in their AVID program, and their goal is to work with those students until graduation. Students will have AVID during the regular school day, and CHS will utilize tutors from the universities and community to meet the needs of students during those tutorials.

Study Pinpoints Programs that Set Some State High Schools Apart

http://www.blogger.com/Read%20the%20News%20Journal%20Article%20Here

By eHow Education Editor

Mark Twain once said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." There's no question that building a partnership between the community and the school strengthens both. The bottom line is, of course, whether your child's school stimulates and nurtures his or her emotional, intellectual and social development to its highest potential.

Instructions:

Step 1: Cultivate positive relationships with each of your child's teachers, administrative staff, directors, principals and even the superintendent. Do this by joining the PTA if it's a public school or the board of directors if it's a nonprofit or private school. You'll be privy to what is going on in the school district and get a sense of how the school stacks up against other schools.

Step 2: Keep in touch with teachers on a regular basis to see how your child is doing and to address any concerns. Don't wait for the school to call you when there is a problem; be on top of things before there is an issue. Keep an open mind to anything the teacher might say--even if you've never seen your child behaving in a particular way at home.

Step 3: Volunteer your time, whether that means becoming a PTA member, a playground monitor or a homework hotline counselor. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you stay involved.

Step 4: Help your child with homework. If the lessons are too easy or too difficult, let the teacher or guidance counselor know.

Step 5: Encourage high expectations. Share your goals with your child's teacher and guidance counselor so they'll help your child work to his or her full potential. Get involved with the PTA and the board of education, and ask about the school district's expectations for the whole student body.

Step 6: Investigate the standards of your child's school. Does a hefty percentage of the graduating class attend four-year colleges? Does the school offer enrichment and honors classes? If you feel the standards aren't high enough, encourage the teachers, principal and superintendent, as well as other parents, to fight to raise the standards.

Step 7: Make the school accountable for its discipline. In this litigious society, school districts are careful about punishing students for bad behavior. Bullying is a prime example. Too often schools won't properly address a bullying situation, and the victims become subject to irreversible taunting humiliation. If there isn't a coherent bullying policy at your child's school, volunteer to assist in creating one. You may need to take this up to the board of education for a system-wide policy.

ehow.com/how_135471_improve-childs-school