Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: vision and mission

 There's a backup on this here
Johnston: "you are our audience right now" 
as we go into this transition, want to be make sure we're grounding this work in the vision we have of change for our schools
when he was a superintendent, "I was on the receiving side" of DESE work
"while the creativity was always clear" was not always clarity in how those spoke to each other? were they timed well? 
for students who have been historically marginalized, there is no time for DESE to lose its footing

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: proposed virtual school

 Johnston notes it has been ten years since a new virtual school was considered
Felix Commonwealth Virtual School
Board is sole authorizer of virtual schools 
proposed to partner with Arizona State University
proposal is for 4000 students statewide, opening September 2025
recommended conditions for the applicant group 

memo allows $14K which is maximum allowed at this time; virtual school can then seek higher amount once authorized
both other virtuals have recently requested such increases
Hills and Gardiner held public hearing on proposed school

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for March: Commissioner Search

 Craven: search for Commissioner "is an orderly process"
"this is the most important selection that this Board will make"
"will provide monthly updates...think process should take several months"
drafted scope of work for a search firm 
RFP will close April 24
firm that does the public outreach 
once RFPs are in will be scored by Craven, Hills, Tutwiler
will be advisory committee
"there is a transparency to how the search is being conducted"

Moriarty: don't know if those who participated last time if we ever debriefed about the process
template that happens in every state, every school district
don't know that we need to reinvent, just want to be best in class

Craven: comprehensive outreach 

Rocha: if there were feedback learnings for this process, so we are not repeating the same mistakes "if there were any"

Stewart: asks about RFP placement

Craven: this will be a standing part of the agenda each month

Hills: recommends talking to then-Chair Sagan
all three finalists went on to be first time Commissioners

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for March: opening comments

 The agenda is here. The livestream is here. 

This is of course the first meeting at which Jeff Riley is not Commissioner; Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston is here.

please enjoy these cold pigeons over the Malden River

Craven opens the meeting; Matt Hills is participating remotely

A few notes from the Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast

 I promise I'll go back and post on last Thursday's Worcester School Committee, but before we get too far away or lose the impact, I did want to share a few notes from Friday's Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast, As it was a posted public meeting--it had to be, as the School Committee was discussing the budget, which is under their purview--I attended and took a few notes.

The presentation at the breakfast was largely (though not exactly) the preliminary budget presentation the School Committee heard from Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen in February after the release of the Governor's budget; my highlights of that are here. You may remember that the upshot of that is: 

If you're at all looking at headlines across the state, you will have caught that the picture has only gotten more grave since then (there are so many articles I could link to there that I don't know where to start). As shared at the breakfast by Mr. Allen, last week MASC/MASS/MTA/AFT-MA sent a joint letter of advocacy on inflation to the state legislature. 

The Board of Ed meets Tuesday

 A short agenda, but some important stuff: 

To comment briefly, from the bottom up:

• I genuinely do not understand what is going on with the mission and vision things, because from what I can tell, they're using stuff from 2019, and then aligning things they're already doing with that. At least, that was what was going on at the last round of this I saw.
  (Some day, someone is going to shock me, by grounding this is the constitutional reason for public education for Massachusetts, but let's say that I'm not holding my breath!)
  
  
• I'm annoyed that they didn't share the virtual school information until well after they posted the agenda; no one had any more information, so good luck if you wished to speak. Reviewing the now posted backup, we can see that we're going for another round of "we're going to say yes with a lot of conditions" which a) is not a good plan for an educational institution, and b) should sound hauntingly familiar to any who followed DESE's last charter approval. 
  Also, I completely don't understand how the state that couldn't insist hard enough that no child should be learning via a screen, that won't allow districts the option of virtual school on snow days, wants to add another virtual school. 
  
  
• Commissioner's search: hey! Let's not make it a whole bunch of "education is only about business, and the last time we were near a school, we were students!" people like last time, please! 

Tuesday, 9 am. I'll be blogging from Everett

CPPAC on budget Wednesday

 

I am really sorry that I haven’t shared this earlier; I only learned of it Friday, which is also when the only notice to parents went out via Remind; it doesn't appear to have been shared via social media. 

I will not be able to attend—like many, my schedule fills up much farther in advance than this—but urge you to if you can. As I've noted repeatedly here, but I fear far too few people know, it is going to be a tough year, and more people who are better informed is wise.

for your weekend (?) viewing on MA school finance

I get the sense that people are looking all over for resources on understanding what is going on with school finances in Massachusetts. 

Let me offer three things to watch for help.

• First, the Mass Municipal Association had Brian Allen (good recommendation, MASBO!) present on chapter 70 this past Wednesday, and they generously are offering the video beyond their membership. It's online here. MMA, remember, is townside, so there's a really good focus there on the local contribution side. 
  
  
• I did a session called "What Happened with Chapter 70?" a week ago Friday for MASC, which never paywalls its recordings; that session is here. Yes, I had a little bit of fun with the theme there. 
  
  
  
• I got to do something new this week and present to a town finance committee; Rutland's FinCom asked me to come to the session I did in January for Wachusett Regional. Wachusett, though, had me the day the Governor's budget came out, and I am not that fast, so they got FY24 numbers. Rutland FinCom got FY25 this week. That's obviously all Rutland/Wachusett numbers, but if you're a small town in a regional, it might be useful.
  BUT, I AM TOTALLY WRONG ON THE INFLATION QUESTION AT THE END. More coming on that...
  Three errors on the slides: the foundation budget comparison slide has the wrong total for FY25 (yes, Wachusett went up, not down) and the next; and House and Senate don't have a special ed rate yet; and yes, Holden's target pie chart isn't right!

I'm sensing that we may need another round of Q&A on this year's budget...let me see what kind of time I can put together this weekend. 

"Missing the point is a very fine art"

Missing the point is a very fine art; and has been carried to something like perfection by politicians and Pressmen to-day. For the point is generally a very sharp point; and is, moreover, sharp at both ends. That is to say that both parties would probably impale themselves in an uncomfortable manner if they did not manage to avoid it altogether.

G.K. Chesterton "The Art of Missing the Point"

It used to be a regular feature (?) of the blog for me to argue thoroughly and at length against whatever material the Boston Globe was circulating in their education coverage. While of course the post I finally got up about early literacy was in large part on that, for the most part, I'm doing less of that. However, I did find occasion to respond at length on Twitter to the Globe's piece last week on the challenge of inflation in the FY25 state budget, and I thought it warranted fleshing out here. 

Friends, Bay Staters, educators, lend me your ears

With apologies for not having this complete for Friday’s date which made the rewrite work, to the Bard of Avon, and to all those who will quickly note that this doesn’t scan perfectly
Dedicated to anyone who spent 2020, 2021, and 2022 dreading Friday afternoons 

Written, as it says, “to speak what I do know” and on no one else’s behalf 

Friends, Bay Staters, educators, lend me your ears!
I come to commended Jeff Riley, not to critique him.
The fulsome praise of retirement lives on after men,
The injudicious interred with their careers.
So may it be with Riley. You have been told
Jeff Riley is the “radical center.”
If it were so, it was not apparent,
And bitterly have we answered for it.
Here, the data-driven Commonwealth, we’re told,
Jeff Riley is the “radical center” —
Yet even so, three receiverships stay,
‘Though research says nay to state enjoinment.
He was a harbinger of Friday news,
But the press says he was decisive,
And Riley is the “radical center.”
He hath brought many demands home to Boston;
Whose buses did he make to run on time?
When real life did intrude, Riley hath fumed.
Ambition should be made of measured stuff;
Yet the press says he was effective,
And Riley is the “radical center.”
You all did see that on Board of Ed;
We oft presented him evidence,
Which he did oft refuse; was this effective?
Yet the press says he was accomplished,
And, sure, Riley is the “radical center.”
I speak not to disprove what was said,
But I am here to speak what I do know.
You all did quiz him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then, and praise him yet?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And some have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the classrooms there with all,
And I must pause til it come back to me.

Quick note on Worcester School Committee meetings this week

 There are actually three!

• on Wednesday at 5, there's a Teaching, Learning, and Student Success meeting; the agenda isn't up yet, but expect that today now posted: preK, gifted programming, and the "modern classroom" project
  
  
  
• on Thursday, there's the regular meeting of the full Committee (exec at 5; public session thereafter). The report of the Superintendent is on future ready learning, which you might remember is a part of the Vision of a Learner adopted last year. 
  Without going into a lot of detail, note that Biancheria's student safety center item was held from the last meeting. There's a public petition (though without the petition itself, so we don't know who from) on installing electric charging meters for the public in the Forest Grove parking lot (the petition language says "free of charge" though the backup does not, nor does it mention the cost of electricity). The student advisory has submitted an item on staff mental health support. There are a number of grants for approval: homeless student supports, two on supporting community childcare, Perkins (which is voke money) for software management and a robot,  and a history field trip. 
  There's a request for an easement for Verizon at Doherty.
  Biancheria wants a report on therapy dogs, and one on homeschooling.
  Guardiola wants a report "on school meals and nutrition including current vendors used by the Worcester Public Schools."
  The administration is sharing the city's annual other post-employment benefits (OPEB) report.
  And on the agenda for approval ahead of the April deadline is the district's three year Student Opportunity Act plan.
  FWIW, I won't be at this, as I have a meeting to present at that evening.
  
  
• There's also a legislative breakfast--you might remember this being proposed in February by Member McCullough on Friday morning at Worcester Tech (and yes, that's a posted meeting); no agenda posted as yet. 

Public officials don't lose their own First Amendment rights in serving: SCOTUS

 The Supreme Court issued a decision today in Lindke v. Freed, which was taken with O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier regarding if public officials can block people on social media, or if that violates the First Amendment rights of those blocked. The Court in both cases vacated the judgments of lower courts and handed them back down to have new proceedings in line with what they found. Lindke was a unanimous decision written by Justice Barrett. 

The determinant is if the public official is acting as "the government" when they are posting (and blocking) online, as the First Amendment binds only the government. The Court found: 

When a government official posts about job-related topics on social media, it can be difficult to tell whether the speech is official or private.  We hold that such speech is attributable to the State only if the official (1) possessed actual authority to speak on the State’s behalf, and (2) purported to exercise that authority when he spoke on social media. 

The Court noted, "[w]hile public officials can act on behalf of the State, they are also private citizens with their own constitutional rights" and the First Amendment applies to the officials as well. In order to sort of which is what, the Court sorted through the power invested in the office holder, writing "Freed's conduct is not attributable to the State unless he was 'possessed of state authority' to post city updates and register citizen concerns." They note that simply resharing information available elsewhere is not demonstrating that authority, that "[t]he alleged censorship must be connected to speech on a matter within Freed's balliwick," concluding this idea with "[t]o misuse power...one must possess it in the first place." They also warn against too broad a brush on this:

The inquiry is not whether making official announcements could fit within the job description; it is whether making official announcements is actually part of the job that the State entrusted the official to do.
In sum, a defendant like Freed must have actual authority rooted in written law or longstanding custom to speak for the State. That authority must extend to speech of the sort that caused the alleged rights deprivation.  If the plaintiff cannot make this threshold showing of authority, he cannot establish state action. 

On the second, the Court uses an analogy close to the heart here: 

Consider a hypothetical from the offline world.  A school board president announces at a school board meeting that the board has lifted pandemic-era restrictions on public schools. The next evening, at a backyard barbecue with friends whose children attend public schools, he shares that the board has lifted the pandemic-era restrictions.  The former is state action taken in his official capacity as school board president; the latter is private action taken in his personal capacity as a friend and neighbor. While the substance of the announcement is the same, the context—an official meeting versus a private event—differs.  He invoked his official authority only when he acted as school board president. 

They do note--and in the closing of the decision, warn against--the haziness of the Facebook page in question: is it a public or private page? Posting alone isn't enough, though: 

Hard-to-classify cases require awareness that an official does not necessarily purport to exercise his authority simply by posting about a matter within it.  He might post job-related information for any number of personal reasons, from a desire to raise public awareness to promoting his prospects for reelection.  Moreover, many public officials possess a broad portfolio of governmental authority that includes routine interaction with the public, and it may not be easy to discern a boundary between their public and private lives. Yet these officials too have the right to speak about public affairs in their personal capacities. See, e.g., id., at 235–236. Lest any official lose that right, it is crucial for the plaintiff to show that the official is purporting to exercise state authority in specific posts. 

Thus the conclusion: 

 The state-action doctrine requires Lindke to show that Freed (1) had actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter, and (2) purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts. 

But the Supreme Court would also like you to make your personal page clearly that.

Personal, I-am-not-a-lawyer observation: Many deliberative bodies only derive their authority from meeting as a quorum of that body; the individual members have no power, unless specifically designated (like a Chair). As such, this sure seems to point towards their lacking the authority of the first test to act as the state, and thus being unable to violate the First Amendment rights of others. Not, again, a lawyer.  
Also worth reading: LawDork, SCOTUSblog

Four years ago today...

 This was what I posted on Facebook:

Worcester, for what it's worth, was only calling for the single day left in the week; we'd call two weeks over the weekend, part of the weekend when literally every single district in Massachusetts (I vividly remember downloading the full list and opening a spreadsheet to track them) called school off before Governor Baker did a damn thing about it.

Am I still angry about that? Yes. And his lack of leadership--and I have some words about the outgoing Commissioner, too, at some point--and meeting the needs of schools during the pandemic would only continue from there. 

More as I have time, but I didn't want the day to pass without noting it. 

Some recommended reading

 A few things I've been reading that I'd recommend:

• You've no doubt caught some of the coverage of the Brockton Public Schools' financial woes (and ensuing city woes). The report from the independent third party can be found here. It's only a few pages long, and worth a review.
  
  
• The maddening lack of American society to really accept the pandemic has been particularly frustrating in a few places, education among them. Conor Williams (who I always find worth reading) does a really nice job with this in this piece in the 74:
  
  This odd unwillingness to recognize the pandemic as an unavoidable calamity is part of why we’re still endlessly relitigating pandemic mitigation measures in schools — closures, masks, quarantine policies, and the like. If, in 2019, we’d conducted a thought experiment, asking folks to predict the educational impact of a then-hypothetical viral pandemic that would be transmitted via breathing and would kill nearly 1.2 million Americans, most of us would agree that kids wouldn’t steam forth making the usual academic progress. 
  
  
  
• This year's "and then ESSER was gone" gets some coverage in K-12 Dive.

March 7 meeting of the Worcester School Committee

 The agenda is here. The report of the superintendent is here. The video of the meeting is here.

The National Anthem was sung by City View Elementary School's chorus.

The consent agenda passed as proposed.

Highlights from the Joint Committee on Ways and Means

 For those who might not want six and a half hours worth of liveblogging. Note the video of the hearing is here. Crossposted from MASC

Worcester School Committee this week plus a report to check out

 Note that: 

• the Standing Committee on Finance, Operations, and Governance meets tomorrow (Monday) at 4:45; the agenda is here. It's a three item agenda--students as custodians; three proposed years of calendars; and the proposed Haas donation (remember that?)* with a recommendation the item be filed.
  The calendars adopt the city's "Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day" phrasing. They also continue Good Friday as a "non-school day."
  
  
• The full Committee meets Thursday at 5 (for executive session); the agenda is here. The report of the superintendent is on alternative programs. 
  Also on the agenda: the reports related to the above; the approval of new courses (which one would expect to go to subcommittee); a request for a utility easement at North High; a proposal that something at Doherty High be named after deceased Worcester Fire Department Lt. Jason Menard; and a request for the costs of the climate and culture specialists.
  Interestingly, among the items is a request that the Committee approve a Statement of Interest for renovation/rebuild for Burncoat Middle School. To quote from the accompanying memo from the Deputy Superintendent:
  

As part of the MSBA’s onsite review of the school, it was recommended that the district would need to submit a Statement of Interest for Burncoat Middle School to be included in consideration to be included in the new school project during the feasibility phase of the project. 

The High School and Middle Schools share some mechanical infrastructure and significant instructional programs (dual language program, 7-12 advanced scholars' academy, and the district’s performing arts programs).

The approval of this Statement of Interest is intended to have the middle school considered as part of the feasibility phase of the high school project. The determination by the city whether to combine the high school and middle school into a shared facility (but remain as two separate schools) would be determined during the feasibility study of the project. That project timeline is expected to take place between 2025-2028.

The deadline for the major renovation/replacement projects is Friday, April 12, 2024.

Do note that the School Committee last term requested that the middle school be included in the consideration; this is the (state required) next step in that. This also must be approved by the    Worcester City Council. 

• While we're thinking about Worcester Public Schools facilities, give a review to the latest release by the Research Bureau, "Building the Future: Investing in Worcester Public Schools facilities."
  
  
• And speaking of the Research Bureau, nominations for the annual Thomas S. Green Public Service Award are open, so nominate your favorite teacher, custodian, bus driver, paraprofessional, nurse, school nutrition worker, crossing guard, school secretary...and so on!

_______________________________________

*Short version from me: Should the Worcester Public Schools name a facility after a man who committed felony conspiracy, witness intimidation and federal tax evasion to the tune of $30M in retaliation for the federal government fining him for patent infringement, in return for a donation of $350,000 to upgrade a shop at Worcester Tech? You can read all the documentation here.
The motion to file here means "end it all."

If what we fund is what we value, what does it say when the inequities are this stark?

Released Friday from New America is a new report using 2021 funding data, "Crossing the line: Segregation and resource inequality between America's school districts." It looks specifically at "next door neighbor" districts, so to speak, where the gulfs between neighboring districts are the largest.

This is, let's be clear, generally accompanied by gulfs in enrollment by race and ethnicity, too. It doesn't happen accidentally. As they note in the report:

Nationwide, 53 percent of public-school district enrollees are students of color, including 14 percent Black students, 28 percent Latino students, and 5 percent Asian students, among others. However, these students are highly concentrated in a relatively small number of districts, and 26 percent of school systems serve student populations that are more than 90 percent white. The average district border separates districts that are 14 percentage points apart in their proportions of students of color. But along the 100 most racially segregating school district borders in the country, the average separation is between a district that is 92.4 percent white and a district that is 86 percent students of color. 

You can read the full report here (that's a PDF).

From a Massachusetts perspective, I want to call your attention to he multimedia story of 100 most economically segregated lines, because guess what? We're in there.

Four times:

We should of course note that this is 2021 data, so not full implementation of the SOA, but that doesn't mean a) that will be closed or b) more importantly, that the reasons for this shouldn't be examined and combated. A flag of four being in the national top 100 doesn't mean this isn't a statewide issue.

Among the 100 most racially segregated borders: 

I have ongoingly said that the conversation Massachusetts never wants to have is how segregated its school districts are. Even in all the ongoing "number one for some" and descriptions of achievement gaps, we are allergic as a state to discussing why it is that some districts don't even have statistically significant enrollment of students of color or whose first language isn't English.

I don't think that serves any of us well. 

 

PS, because you know I'd never leave off Worcester; you can do these comparisons with any school district borders here. 
Here's Worcester Public Schools compared to surrounding on low income enrollment:

And on students of color:

MASC President Ways and Means testimony

I am posting here the whole of the oral testimony of MASC President Mildred Lefebvre of Holyoke.

Joint Committee on Ways and Means hearing on FY25: local and education aid

 

Greenfield Community College atrium

I was just asked why I sit where I do, and the answer is "next to the outlet when there is one!"