What do you do if you're the governor of a state and you can't get your choice for head of the Department of Education approved?
You just appoint yourself.
Yup. The Governor of Maine has appointed himself commissioner of the Department of Education. The legislature wouldn't approve his choice, currently acting commissioner William Beardsley. Beardsley will serve the maximum time allowed for an "acting" commissioner (six months) and then he will become deputy commissioner under the governor.
This would be wacky enough, but Maine's governor is Paul LePage, the one governor in this country who could give batshit crazy lessons to Donald Trump.
These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty—these types of
guys—they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they
sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before
they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue
we have to deal with down the road.
Yes, that Paul LePage. The one that Esquire's Charles Pierce called "the insane bowling shoe who somehow got elected governor of Maine." Here are some other LePage classics:
Said that a Democratic senator "has no brains and a black heart and claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without Vaseline"
Told robot-building students at a STEM awards ceremony “Next year I would like you to create a Legislature that doesn’t speak back.”
He's been a big fan of charter schools: “ If
you’ve got a job and you’re going to be intimidated, give it up and
we’ll get somebody who can do the job. I am asking them for the good of
the kids of the state of Maine, please go away. We don’t need you. We
need some people with backbones.” — LePage calling on the members of Maine’s charter school commission to resign, a day after the seven-member panel rejected four out of five applications for new charter schools.
If
you want a good education in Maine, and I get criticized by my
opponents because I’m hard on education, but if you want a good
education, go to an academy. If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.
He has compared the IRS to the Gestapo more than once.
And one of his first acts as governor was to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King Day breakfast and, when called on it, to tell the NAACP to kiss his butt. He also undid decades of environmental reguations, and took down a mural of labor history in the capitol, comparing it to North Korean brainswashing. He sabotaged a $120 million wind power plan.
This Politico article helps explain how such a thing happened. LePage is the Tea Party candidate who got lucky and, in a state where the GOP is a minority party, landed in the governor's mansion, where he hasn't stopped embarrassing the state since.
As commissioner, LePage woud be the sixth person to hold that position in three years. LePage is tired of having his nominations questioned and torn apart, but then, this is the guy who hired a corporate lobbyist to help him rewrite environmental laws. LePage calls confirmation hearings "a shit show."
On the one hand, the law says that a commissioner must have first served as deputy commissioner. On the other hand, Maine law says that in the absence of a commissioner, the governor is required to act on behalf of the department. Whatever the case, LePage seems to determined to make the legislature pay. Or, as suggested in the comments, he's just leveraging hard. The actual vote was scheduled next week, but likme a good pol, he's already run the numbers. Maybe he's hoping to hear sweet screams of, "Dear God, no! Anybody but you!"
"So, if they would rather have me in front of the Education Committee
talking about education issues, I would be more than happy to," LePage
said. "And that's what's going to happen."
"When they need somebody from education, guess who is going to be
appearing?" LePage asked as he tugged on his suit jacket lapels.
LePage is all about charters and choice and an unfortunate attachment to competency-based education, and his tenure as his own education commissioner should keep that rolling right along. It's probably just as well; the only person who could possibly run the department in the full-on crazy manner preferred by LePage is LePage. One can only hope that he will extend this level of wacknuttery to his entire government, eventually declaring himself King of Maine.
Showing posts with label Maine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maine. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2016
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Robert Marzano Takes on Edublogger
Emily Talmage has been working hard for Maine schools. She is a tireless citizen journalist who has dug and dug and dug some more to uncover some of the ugly roots that Competency Based Education has put down across the country, with those roots running deep in her own state (the decision by somebody, somewhere, to roll out the new CBE in Maine, a quiet little state with a big loud governor, must be an interesting story of its own).
At any rate, if you are not a regular reader of Saving Maine Schools just because you don't live in Maine, don't let that stop you. It should be on your don't-miss list.
Apparently, as we've learned over the last week, one reader is not a fan. Here's the story.
Last Saturday, Talmage took aim at Robert Marzano. Marzano has been at the reformster business for over two decades, hopping on the educonsultant train back in the early nineties when Outcome Based Education first reared its unattractive visage, and he's been at it ever since, with a stew of semi-researched recommendations for school reform, teacher observation, and instructiony ideas.
As an early acolyte of OBE, Marzano must be enjoying seeing his ship come in again. He was apparently not so happy when Talmage stood on the dock and told everyone else a few things about Marzano.
Reaction to her post was immediate and loud-- in twenty years, Marzano has given many, many working educators reason to make a "yuck" face when they hear his name. But that batch of responses brought in news from Detroit that the beleagured and supposedly money-starved district just spent $6 million dollars on Marzano's consulting company. Talmage wrote about that, too.
Six million freakin' dollars in a spectacularly crumbling school district. Do you know what a district could do with six million dollars?
It was about that time that Talmage noticed two things-- the appearance of an Ohio investigation firms ip in her visitor's list, and much more noticeable, an e-mail threat from Marzano himself.
I assume you know that while you may state your opinions quite freely, false statements about people that are damaging to their reputation are considered slander. In the blog post I read you have a number of such statements about me.
Marzano took exception to two assertions in Talmage's posts-- first, that he had never taught in a classroom, and second, the whole six million dollar contract thing.
On point one, Talmage learned that she was in error, though it appears she had to do a great deal of digging on her own to confirm that he had indeed taught, though, well-- she found a document where he listed himself as an "English teacher" in "New York City Schools" in 1967-68,-- he graduated from college in 1968, so I'm not sure how that works. After that he spent two years as English Department Chair in a Seattle private school.
On point two, Talmage asked for and received copies of the contract from the reporter whose FOIA request broke the story. The $6 million company is Learning Sciences International which holds the copyright to some of Marzano's delightful teacher stuff, but which is not technically his company-- they give him money, but he doesn't have to work there.
You can read all of this in greater detail on Talmage's blog. I'm not usually one to do what is essentially a repost of other people's stuff, but this is a story that deserves to spread. Plus I'm just impressed by any blogger who can pull an actual threat from a rich and famous reformster.
I asked her how it felt.
A little scary, but exciting too... If he weren't at least a little concerned, I don't think he would have taken the time to respond ... These big shots need to realize that we are on to them.
I also felt a little sorry for him... I honestly think his companies are getting so many contracts right now that he probably didn't realize Detroit was spending so much on his professional development program ... I wonder if it was a little embarrassing for him to have a teacher point it out?
That sounds about right. It's good to know that they are paying attention, they are hearing us, and they can't just sail on thinking that nobody notices or cares what they're up to. Hats off to Talmage for making Marzano take notice.
At any rate, if you are not a regular reader of Saving Maine Schools just because you don't live in Maine, don't let that stop you. It should be on your don't-miss list.
Apparently, as we've learned over the last week, one reader is not a fan. Here's the story.
Last Saturday, Talmage took aim at Robert Marzano. Marzano has been at the reformster business for over two decades, hopping on the educonsultant train back in the early nineties when Outcome Based Education first reared its unattractive visage, and he's been at it ever since, with a stew of semi-researched recommendations for school reform, teacher observation, and instructiony ideas.
As an early acolyte of OBE, Marzano must be enjoying seeing his ship come in again. He was apparently not so happy when Talmage stood on the dock and told everyone else a few things about Marzano.
Reaction to her post was immediate and loud-- in twenty years, Marzano has given many, many working educators reason to make a "yuck" face when they hear his name. But that batch of responses brought in news from Detroit that the beleagured and supposedly money-starved district just spent $6 million dollars on Marzano's consulting company. Talmage wrote about that, too.
Six million freakin' dollars in a spectacularly crumbling school district. Do you know what a district could do with six million dollars?
It was about that time that Talmage noticed two things-- the appearance of an Ohio investigation firms ip in her visitor's list, and much more noticeable, an e-mail threat from Marzano himself.
I assume you know that while you may state your opinions quite freely, false statements about people that are damaging to their reputation are considered slander. In the blog post I read you have a number of such statements about me.
Marzano took exception to two assertions in Talmage's posts-- first, that he had never taught in a classroom, and second, the whole six million dollar contract thing.
On point one, Talmage learned that she was in error, though it appears she had to do a great deal of digging on her own to confirm that he had indeed taught, though, well-- she found a document where he listed himself as an "English teacher" in "New York City Schools" in 1967-68,-- he graduated from college in 1968, so I'm not sure how that works. After that he spent two years as English Department Chair in a Seattle private school.
On point two, Talmage asked for and received copies of the contract from the reporter whose FOIA request broke the story. The $6 million company is Learning Sciences International which holds the copyright to some of Marzano's delightful teacher stuff, but which is not technically his company-- they give him money, but he doesn't have to work there.
You can read all of this in greater detail on Talmage's blog. I'm not usually one to do what is essentially a repost of other people's stuff, but this is a story that deserves to spread. Plus I'm just impressed by any blogger who can pull an actual threat from a rich and famous reformster.
I asked her how it felt.
A little scary, but exciting too... If he weren't at least a little concerned, I don't think he would have taken the time to respond ... These big shots need to realize that we are on to them.
I also felt a little sorry for him... I honestly think his companies are getting so many contracts right now that he probably didn't realize Detroit was spending so much on his professional development program ... I wonder if it was a little embarrassing for him to have a teacher point it out?
That sounds about right. It's good to know that they are paying attention, they are hearing us, and they can't just sail on thinking that nobody notices or cares what they're up to. Hats off to Talmage for making Marzano take notice.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
ME: Reformster Drive By
One of the basic premises of reformsterism is that nobody who actually lives in your state or district already knows what your community needs to do about education-- you must bring in an expert. So a whole cottage industry of traveling education consultants/experts/talking heads has sprung up, despite the lumps of cognitive dissonance floating in this ideological soup (when the phone rings at Fordham, and someone is looking for a reformy expert on how the states should have more power over ed reform, do the Fordham folks ever say, "Hey, you have the know-how and wisdom to operate your district without help from DC, so we aren't going to go there"?)
Examples of the smaller fish can be as instructive as the whales of the consulting expert industry. And so, let's travel to Maine and meet Vicki E. (Murray) Alger.
Alger will be in Maine to present on Friedman Legacy Day, a totally not-made-up holiday that will be celebrated by the Maine Heritage Policy Center in Portland. On July 31, Alger will be talking about The Future of School Choice in Maine. Admission to the luncheon meeting is a mere $25 for non-members. The event starts with the usual blurbly excesses:
Allowing parents to choose which school their children attend is a common-sense measure that has been shown to promote educational growth and achievement, and foster healthy competition among schools.
None of those things are true. Heck, even the adjectives (common-sense, healthy) are not true. But it lets us know which brand of baloney is being served right up front. Why is Dr. Alger (because, of course, she's a PhD) here in Maine? She's not only going to sing the praises of choice, but she is going to let these Mainesters know how their state is doing, choice-wise.
So who is Vicki E. (Murray) Alger? Is she some sort of Mainey expert on school choice? Well, of course not. Why would you call on someone local to explain your local issues? Alger lives in Phoenix, Arizona. But her reformy credentials are impeccable.
In 2003, Alger received her PhD in political philosophy from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas (a private Catholic college in Texas). I could not find a profile that covered any of her adventures before grad school. The Institute statement of purpose contains some awesome language, like this:
The IPS attempts to correct the tendency in higher education at the Ph.D. level toward increasing specialization at the expense of utility, ever more barbarous and repugnant technical jargon at the expense of intelligibility, and indifference to the need human beings have to make good choices in life. Yet the primary aim of education, so we assert, is to supply useful knowledge, expressed with clarity, and ordered in accordance with a notion of the good.
Alger taught some college courses and lectured here and there before landing at the Goldwater Institute as the Director of the Center for Educational Opportunity. She went on to do her thing at the Pacific Research Institute and the Platte Institute for Economic Research, eventually spending enough time on the rubber chicken circuit to land a spot on the Friedman Foundation's Speakers Bureau. She has written (or co-written) a number of books, including Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Reform, and she is apparently working on a history of the US Department of Education. She has even written a work for ALEC.
Like any good one-person industry, she has an LLC (I've got to get that done one of these days). They/she are/is dedicated to transforming education. Here's what they can do for you!
Examples of the smaller fish can be as instructive as the whales of the consulting expert industry. And so, let's travel to Maine and meet Vicki E. (Murray) Alger.
Alger will be in Maine to present on Friedman Legacy Day, a totally not-made-up holiday that will be celebrated by the Maine Heritage Policy Center in Portland. On July 31, Alger will be talking about The Future of School Choice in Maine. Admission to the luncheon meeting is a mere $25 for non-members. The event starts with the usual blurbly excesses:
Allowing parents to choose which school their children attend is a common-sense measure that has been shown to promote educational growth and achievement, and foster healthy competition among schools.
None of those things are true. Heck, even the adjectives (common-sense, healthy) are not true. But it lets us know which brand of baloney is being served right up front. Why is Dr. Alger (because, of course, she's a PhD) here in Maine? She's not only going to sing the praises of choice, but she is going to let these Mainesters know how their state is doing, choice-wise.
So who is Vicki E. (Murray) Alger? Is she some sort of Mainey expert on school choice? Well, of course not. Why would you call on someone local to explain your local issues? Alger lives in Phoenix, Arizona. But her reformy credentials are impeccable.
In 2003, Alger received her PhD in political philosophy from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas (a private Catholic college in Texas). I could not find a profile that covered any of her adventures before grad school. The Institute statement of purpose contains some awesome language, like this:
The IPS attempts to correct the tendency in higher education at the Ph.D. level toward increasing specialization at the expense of utility, ever more barbarous and repugnant technical jargon at the expense of intelligibility, and indifference to the need human beings have to make good choices in life. Yet the primary aim of education, so we assert, is to supply useful knowledge, expressed with clarity, and ordered in accordance with a notion of the good.
Alger taught some college courses and lectured here and there before landing at the Goldwater Institute as the Director of the Center for Educational Opportunity. She went on to do her thing at the Pacific Research Institute and the Platte Institute for Economic Research, eventually spending enough time on the rubber chicken circuit to land a spot on the Friedman Foundation's Speakers Bureau. She has written (or co-written) a number of books, including Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Reform, and she is apparently working on a history of the US Department of Education. She has even written a work for ALEC.
Like any good one-person industry, she has an LLC (I've got to get that done one of these days). They/she are/is dedicated to transforming education. Here's what they can do for you!
Vicki Murray Associates LLC
is committed to helping your organization translate limited-government
free-market principles into effective education policy and practice.
Our team provides specialized research expertise
with a proven track-record of advancing and informing key education
policies, together with real-world experience in developing effective
web-based applications.
But by far my favorite of Alger's side affiliations are her fellowships at the Independent Institute and the Independent Women's Forum. Right Wing Watch calls the IWF "an anti-feminist organization" that houses a bunch of lady right wing "scholars." But I've looked at the IWF website, and I call them fabulous!
Remember when Bic came out with a pen "for her" and was promptly eviscerated by the Amazon reviewer hive mind? Well, we may now know where those designers went after that debacle. The Independent Women's Forum looks like it might be part of the website for Ladies Home Journal, if LHJ had built a website in 1962. It's a shade darker than Barbie pink, but boy is it pink. And every headline is rendered in a swoopy, soft, pretty font. They would like you to "help lead the charge against the so-called 'War on Women'" and join a network of women who "value limited government, free markets, personal liberty, and responsibility." But also, they like to shop. And-- most awesome of all-- they invite you to subscribe to their newsletter, the IWF Weekly Roundup, "Where Being Right Is Fashionable."
Why spend so much time and interwebs stalking on a reformster who is a C-lister? Because here once again is the pattern of affiliations, connections, and general insider world of reformsterism, a big machine that keeps sending out folks into local settings to tell community members why they need someone to come in from outside to give them an educational makeover (but not somebody from DC-- nosirreebob).
And you can make an actual career out of this. Again, I have no idea where Alger grew up or did her undergrad work, but a policy PhD and she's been supporting herself just as a thinky talky writey pusher of free markettry. It's a career as a professional outsider, without any real ties to the industry whose rules you'd like to rewrite, a career in which one never actually does anything except give other people advice about how to regulate other people who are doing the actual work. And all of it done, not in the spirit of inquiry like a scientist trying to understand What's Going On Here, but with a specific agenda to push.
The bummer for me is that I'll be arriving in Maine for a few days vacation about two-or-three hours after Alger does her luncheon thing. It would have been nice to go catch some wisdom and see her in action, but I don't think I'm going to make my wife get up four hours earlier just for that privilege. And somehow I doubt that she's sticking around all that long. Vicki, if you're reading this, I'd be happy to meet you for dessert or coffee or something later in the day. Just give me a holler, unless I can't afford the cost of a meeting, in which case, I wish you well. And if any of my New England friends can make it, please ask her for me where she grew up.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Maine's SBA Loaded With Glitches
Lewsiton Middle School teacher Brian Banton took training, complete with practice for the Maine assessments that will be take on iPads. According to the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal, his report on that experience was direct and to the point.
"I was shocked to discover it doesn't work," Banton said. “As our training went on this morning, teachers in the room looked at each other and said, 'We can't do this.'”
He offered specific examples. When a point is entered on the iPad, it can't be removed. So no correcting mistakes. Multiplication symbols do not appear as multiplication symbols. The test should allow students to see both a graph and questions about it at the same time-- but they can't.
Maine schools do have the option of offering the paper version of the test, but for those just discovering that the computer version is a mess, it's too late-- the final date for choosing the paper version was February 4.
Parents (including some who are teachers) are making noise about opting out, and the school committee chair is right with them:
"The state can say 'it's all fixed,' but show me it is fixed,” Handy said. Or, “we opt out altogether.”
Handy said he can be “a stick in the mud and say, 'We're not going to administer it because you have given us a faulty product.' When an entire school district does that, it puts the state on notice. I have no problem doing that.”
However the school superintendent cautioned that the state has made it clear that giving any aid and comfort to the opt out movement would be "playing with fire."
The school district is pursuing options with the state, but it appears to be one more example of Not Ready for Prime Time testing.
"I was shocked to discover it doesn't work," Banton said. “As our training went on this morning, teachers in the room looked at each other and said, 'We can't do this.'”
He offered specific examples. When a point is entered on the iPad, it can't be removed. So no correcting mistakes. Multiplication symbols do not appear as multiplication symbols. The test should allow students to see both a graph and questions about it at the same time-- but they can't.
Maine schools do have the option of offering the paper version of the test, but for those just discovering that the computer version is a mess, it's too late-- the final date for choosing the paper version was February 4.
Parents (including some who are teachers) are making noise about opting out, and the school committee chair is right with them:
"The state can say 'it's all fixed,' but show me it is fixed,” Handy said. Or, “we opt out altogether.”
Handy said he can be “a stick in the mud and say, 'We're not going to administer it because you have given us a faulty product.' When an entire school district does that, it puts the state on notice. I have no problem doing that.”
However the school superintendent cautioned that the state has made it clear that giving any aid and comfort to the opt out movement would be "playing with fire."
The school district is pursuing options with the state, but it appears to be one more example of Not Ready for Prime Time testing.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Feds To Maine: Make Teacher Evals Worse (Or Else)
Maine joins the list of states that have received a spanking from the US Department of Education.
Maine came to the waiver party with the other last-minute slackers of the third wave, still working on passing a plan that they could submit for federal approval in the summer of 2013. The account of that work (including eleven months of negotiation with the USED) is a reminder of how completely state ed departments have become focused not on figuring out the best plan for students of their, but on achieving compliance with the federal USED.
Those negotiations had hit some snags as they came down to the wire. Internally, lawmakers could not agree how to handle the requirement that states base a significant portion of teacher evaluations on student test results.
It seemed that all that was settled, but according to Maine's NPR last week, the work has come undone. The waiver acceptance had included a promise by the Maine legislature to hammer out the details of a fed-acceptable teacher eval system. But after the work was completed last spring and sent off to the Us Department of Education, it came back (albeit slowly) with a big red F. Maine now faces the risk of joining Washington on the list of Naughty States That Didn't Do Exactly What USED Wanted.
"The federal government looked at those and said they don't meet the standard they expect," says Tom Desjardin, who says word of the U.S. Department of Education's misgivings about the state's approach came in a recent letter to former Maine Education Commissioner Jim Rier. Desjardin took over as acting commissioner in December.
Says Desjardin, when it comes to teacher eval, "The big rub is that the federal government wants student assessment scores to be a significant factor - 20, 25 percent."
Maine's evaluation system has the support of its teachers union. MEA president Lois Kilbey-Chesley says the Maine plan "represents what Maine wanted." She also expresses concern that the Maine plan has already begun implementation.
Pro-testing advocates were also happy with the Main plan
State Sen. Brian Langley, an Ellsworth Republican, chairs the Legislature's Education Committee. Langley says those who favor the use of standardized tests in teacher evaluation didn't want to lock districts into a 20 percent threshold either.
Granted, Langley wants to see a system where local districts can go higher than 20% if they wish, so clearly there's some disagreement in the state about the role of testing in teacher evaluation. But the point is that Maine worked out a system that its legislature got behind and which left some flexibility for local control by school districts.
It appears the Maine legislature will get back to the important job of making the US Department of Education happy, though some legislators aren't sure they're ready to get to work yet.
Democratic state Sen. Rebecca Millett, who serves with Langley on the Education Committee, says she finds parts of the U.S. Education Department's letter vague. Millett is asking Congresswoman Chellie Pingree to intervene and find out exactly what changes the federal government wants to see.
And so another state in the union gets to experience the inefficiency of a system in which the USED tries to control state education programs without looking too much like it's controlling state education programs. Maine has to scrap its work and rewrite it to better include a failed policy for teacher evaluation, because state autonomy is so last-century.
Update: Rep. Brian Hubbell has another view of what the letter from USED actually requires (h/t to reader Nancy Hudak).
Recently, the state has received a letter from the federal Department of Education seeking clarification about Maine’s implementation of the compromise amendment on the rules for teacher evaluations that I helped to negotiate last session.
The Maine Department of Education is concerned that this notice jeopardizes the state’s waiver from the onerous and outdated federal requirements of No Child Left Behind. The Department’s immediate suggestion is to amend the rules to incorporate more uniform standardized assessments and remove the provisions for local flexibility.
But, after consultation with other state educators and staff from Senator King’s office, I believe that the USDoE concerns may be addressed more productively simply by clarifying Maine’s process and providing better explanation of Maine’s efforts to improve both proficiency-based learning and professional development for educators
So, in response to the USDoE letter, in collaboration with the Maine School Management organization and the new state Commissioner of Education, I hope to have a better proposal ready for federal consideration in the next week or two.
Maine came to the waiver party with the other last-minute slackers of the third wave, still working on passing a plan that they could submit for federal approval in the summer of 2013. The account of that work (including eleven months of negotiation with the USED) is a reminder of how completely state ed departments have become focused not on figuring out the best plan for students of their, but on achieving compliance with the federal USED.
Those negotiations had hit some snags as they came down to the wire. Internally, lawmakers could not agree how to handle the requirement that states base a significant portion of teacher evaluations on student test results.
It seemed that all that was settled, but according to Maine's NPR last week, the work has come undone. The waiver acceptance had included a promise by the Maine legislature to hammer out the details of a fed-acceptable teacher eval system. But after the work was completed last spring and sent off to the Us Department of Education, it came back (albeit slowly) with a big red F. Maine now faces the risk of joining Washington on the list of Naughty States That Didn't Do Exactly What USED Wanted.
"The federal government looked at those and said they don't meet the standard they expect," says Tom Desjardin, who says word of the U.S. Department of Education's misgivings about the state's approach came in a recent letter to former Maine Education Commissioner Jim Rier. Desjardin took over as acting commissioner in December.
Says Desjardin, when it comes to teacher eval, "The big rub is that the federal government wants student assessment scores to be a significant factor - 20, 25 percent."
Maine's evaluation system has the support of its teachers union. MEA president Lois Kilbey-Chesley says the Maine plan "represents what Maine wanted." She also expresses concern that the Maine plan has already begun implementation.
Pro-testing advocates were also happy with the Main plan
State Sen. Brian Langley, an Ellsworth Republican, chairs the Legislature's Education Committee. Langley says those who favor the use of standardized tests in teacher evaluation didn't want to lock districts into a 20 percent threshold either.
Granted, Langley wants to see a system where local districts can go higher than 20% if they wish, so clearly there's some disagreement in the state about the role of testing in teacher evaluation. But the point is that Maine worked out a system that its legislature got behind and which left some flexibility for local control by school districts.
It appears the Maine legislature will get back to the important job of making the US Department of Education happy, though some legislators aren't sure they're ready to get to work yet.
Democratic state Sen. Rebecca Millett, who serves with Langley on the Education Committee, says she finds parts of the U.S. Education Department's letter vague. Millett is asking Congresswoman Chellie Pingree to intervene and find out exactly what changes the federal government wants to see.
And so another state in the union gets to experience the inefficiency of a system in which the USED tries to control state education programs without looking too much like it's controlling state education programs. Maine has to scrap its work and rewrite it to better include a failed policy for teacher evaluation, because state autonomy is so last-century.
Update: Rep. Brian Hubbell has another view of what the letter from USED actually requires (h/t to reader Nancy Hudak).
Recently, the state has received a letter from the federal Department of Education seeking clarification about Maine’s implementation of the compromise amendment on the rules for teacher evaluations that I helped to negotiate last session.
The Maine Department of Education is concerned that this notice jeopardizes the state’s waiver from the onerous and outdated federal requirements of No Child Left Behind. The Department’s immediate suggestion is to amend the rules to incorporate more uniform standardized assessments and remove the provisions for local flexibility.
But, after consultation with other state educators and staff from Senator King’s office, I believe that the USDoE concerns may be addressed more productively simply by clarifying Maine’s process and providing better explanation of Maine’s efforts to improve both proficiency-based learning and professional development for educators
So, in response to the USDoE letter, in collaboration with the Maine School Management organization and the new state Commissioner of Education, I hope to have a better proposal ready for federal consideration in the next week or two.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)