Commissioner's screening committee

As they meet for the first time on Monday, the list of screening committee members for the search for the next Commissioner has now been posted, and I think it may be more heavily stacked with privatizers than the previous one, which was rather remarkable for that.

It's also odd to me that at least three members of the Board are timed off--they're not even lame ducks, as the law doesn't recognize that!--and we're all pretending it's perfectly normal that the law noting that they need to be off is just being ignored whilst they go on with choosing the next leader of K-12 education in the state. 

Guardian column on Linda McMahon

 Useful read in the Guardian on how Linda McMahon's relative normalcy (relative of course carries a great deal in this Cabinet) is part of what makes her a threat:

There is an illusion at play here. McMahon will be held up as a “reasonable” woman. But given that she works for Trump, her reasonableness is nothing more than “kayfabe”.

Avoiding discrimination in the use of AI: new Office for Civil Rights guidance

 Just released this week from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is new guidance on avoiding discrimination in the use of AI. The document offers 22 scenarios in which an investigation would result. Reading them, they sound a lot like what is not being thought enough about in schools.
Here, for example, is the third one: 

 Teachers at a middle school often rely on non-contracted, online third-party applications and websites to translate and interpret for parents who have LEP. Some of these applications leverage AI to translate or interpret. A parent complains to the school’s principal that they have been unable to communicate with their child’s teacher regarding the child’s academic and behavioral progress in class due to incoherent translations. The school does not investigate or attempt to resolve the parent’s concern. OCR would likely have reason to open an investigation based on this complaint. Based on the facts, as alleged, the school may not be ensuring meaningful communication with parents who have LEP in a language the parents can understand.  

Or how about this one: 

 A school district allows schools in the district to use a generative AI tool to write Section 504 Plans for students with disabilities. The school district does not have any policies regarding how to use the tool or how to ensure that the group of knowledgeable people responsible for evaluating a student review what the AI produces to determine whether it meets the individual needs of each student. One school begins using the tool to create Section 504 Plans for all students with diabetes. School staff do not review or modify the generated Section 504 Plans and begin implementing them, and they inform parents that they believe AI tools make more effective choices than people. A local group of parents of students with diabetes at that school files a complaint with the school district stating that their students’ Section 504 Plans’ provisions look almost identical and, in some cases, do not match the specific needs of their children. The school district states that they defer to the school’s decision on how to utilize AI tools and does not investigate further. OCR would have reason to open this complaint for investigation. Based on the facts, as alleged, students may not have been provided with FAPE because their 504 plans may not have been designed to meet their individual educational needs.  

You can read K-12 Dive on this here.

As I have said, we are not thinking enough about what we are doing here. 

FY26 kickoff is December 2

 The state's official start of discussing next fiscal year is the Consensus Revenue Hearing, which this year, per State House News, will be December 2. 

No further info yet (they've been having them as at least partly remote meetings), but more as I have it.

McSweeney's on McMahon

 Because satire helps: 

Make no mistake: I intend to bring my experience running the WWE to our schoolchildren, and we’ll overhaul the public school system on day one. Change in our schools must start with how we allocate our funds. The education budget is out of control. So rest assured that under my leadership, teachers will no longer have a salary, books will be pay-per-view, and the budget for folding chairs will be $390 trillion.

what percentage of each state's education funding comes from the federal government?

 Nice graph here

Massachusetts is to the right of Maryland. (I didn't do a screenshot of that, as the red states disappear.)

Note that the red states are to the right because they, in the main, spend less from other resources on public education.

Cassandra speaks: what we just got when the state passed question 2

 During my first term on the Worcester School Committee, a colleague referred to me in deliberation as "Cassandra.*" For those not up on their classics, Cassandra was the Trojan prophetess cursed by Apollo with prophetic powers that were always correct, but never believed. She of course foresaw the downfall of her home city.
I've occasionally thought of retitling this blog "Cassandra speaks" but a) I'm not always right and b) sometimes I'm believed.
However, on 2024's question 2...
As always, the following is just me.

I don't even know what's satire anymore

 Per CNN: 

Trump transition co-chair Linda McMahon is expected to be named as secretary of the Department of Education, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

While McMahn did serve as the administrator of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, she is of course best known as former executive and founder of World Wrestling Entertainment. More recently, she has been chairing the America First Policy Institute. 
Please do not claim she has education experience by citing the single year she served on Connecticut's Board of Education.
And yes, she also has a sexual assault scandal alongside her ex-husband.
Per The Guardian, she donated $814,600 to Trump's campaign.

November Board of Ed: vision

 Johnston: 
I cannot read these slides at all and there is no shared backup
advancing student learning
high dosage tutoring: saw in Waltham
what makes high dosage tutoring work
use and development of technology
scheduling is huge "every day, ready to go"
investment to take root

Moriarty: only one district hasn't answer in K-8 range
"sometimes 'see something say something;"
(it was charter schools he was calling out last month)

Johnston asked why they didn't answer: don't have the infrastructure "larger districts do"
and the smaller ones?

Virtual meeting the evening of December 16 (we don't know why yet)
Next regular meeting December 17 back in Everett

ADJOURNED

November Board of Ed: Commissioner search and budget and virtual schools funding

 holding Felix Virtual School item for future meeting
updating as we go

November Board of Ed: on Holyoke

 on to Holyoke

but first a student performance; a section of "Miss Nelson is Missing" which Holyoke High performed this past week

updating as we go

November Board of Ed in Holyoke: opening comments

 Coming to you live today from Holyoke High School, home of the Knights, making a nice change from the last time I was at a Board of Ed meeting in Holyoke when they were voting on receivership.

The agenda for today is here; don't expect it to start on time.
The high school (not uncommonly!) has social media blocked, so I am going to update here rather than try to update on social media.

updating as we go...

There's a certain Worcester symmetry

 

...to the first of the city of Worcester needing to cover Polar Park payments coming at the same meeting as the first round of borrowing for a new Burncoat. While the memo regarding the stadium is full of assurances that all will be fine, the one from the Manager on Burncoat closes:

Borrowing for this project will potentially increase the municipality’s current debt by 25%. The municipality must carefully consider ways to reduce borrowing and increase both revenues and reserves to mitigate the potential impact on the City’s taxpayers. 

Framing is an interesting thing, isn't it.

 There's also an interesting note in the free cash allocation:

$7,585,935.00 to the Worcester Public Schools:  For FY25, I am proposing that the Worcester Public Schools and municipality divide the remaining funds to support operating and capital expenses.  As you know, FY25 was a difficult budget year for Worcester Public Schools due to increased students and rising City of Worcester obligations. While the municipality provided more than $1.8 million at the close of FY24 to address Net School Spending shortfalls, the Superintendent and I have been in communication about additional Worcester Public Schools costs that we believe will not meet Net School Spending requirements and therefore will exacerbate the existing shortfall. This appropriation should bring the City above the required Net School Spending amount of $127.7 million, as long as the funds are used to support Net School Spending eligible activities. I am working with the Superintendent to determine the highest and best use of these funds that will ensure the City meets its financial obligations to public education. 

The flag that goes up in my mind from the first quarter report is out of district transportation, as transportation doesn't count towards NSS, but it would be interesting to know. In any case, Worcester appears to once again be walking the line on meeting minimum obligation, though at least now it is being attended to. 

We could, of course, not minimally fund schools and then we wouldn't have this issue.

Because we have to take our joy where we can

 ...I do want to be sure others appreciate the "pick me" energy coming from Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, one presumes in pursuit of the Secretary of Education position. 

It's no good pointing out that if there is no Department of Education, there will be no Secretary of Education; this isn't a crew that thinks this way. 

In any case, last month, it made news when Oklahoma's Department of Education issued bid documents for Bibles for every classroom that could only be answered by Trump Bibles, a bid which within the week then was amended, as that would violate state bid laws. Walters has since announced that 500 Bibles have been purchased for AP Gov classes, which I'm sure those students will find not at all useful for their classes.

This week, Walters announced the creation of a new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism (it's always a tell when the state page features a photo of the head of the department), and then sent a video of his announcing this and then praying for President-elect Trump to every school district in the state, ordering them to show this video in every classroom. The Oklahoman reports that they've counted seven superintendents refusing, and they're backed by the state Attorney General whose spokesman said: 

Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents' rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights

So that's amazing!

Walters, of course, is being sued by teachers and parents seeking to overturn his mandate that the Bible be taught in public school classrooms. He's also been under several rounds of investigation. 

Note: I am sharing this in part because this week, there is a meme going around which compares Massachusetts to Oklahoma in terms of education, voting record, and other things. It is frequently being shared with a sneer.
Knock it off.
The resistance to Walters is coming from IN OKLAHOMA! That's local superintendents facing off against their state department, local parents and teachers suing! This stuff matters a lot.

And about those federal grants

Speaking of information Worcester is sharing neatly, if you look at the FY25 first quarter report, the federal grants have come through, and so there is this:

That, plus the accompanying narrative of course, gives some idea of what Worcester (second largest district in Massachusetts, about 25,000 students) gets from the federal government, though do remember it does not include school nutrition--free lunch is entirely federally funded in Worcester and like districts!-- which is another $17M for FY25.

So, figure $44M for Worcester, now that we're back to an average year.

And Worcester folks? Do take a look at that first quarter report while you're over there. My eyebrows went up. That's...an uncommon report. 

Board of Ed meets Monday and Tuesday

 and met Friday...this schedule is unsustainable. Monday's agenda (online only) is here; Tuesday's in Holyoke is here.

The extra meetings are the vocational admissions study sessions, and, while I did not see Friday's, my understanding is that it got...heated. The stats that DESE staff brought forward last month were not only eye-opening; they made it clear that we have a segregated system that is perpetuated by the admissions process. 

Here are the most noteworthy slides again:

FY26 starts now. Inflation is estimated at 2.06%

The handful of us that peek ahead have been checking with some dread the implicit price deflator for state and local services, the U.S. Department of Commerce measurement whose rate of change determines the inflation rate for the foundation budget.

As Mr. Allen has provided a nice ('though not happy!) chart for the WPS subcommittee this week, let's use what he shares, as it is the crucial part of what we need to speak about for FY26 statewide: 

 

As goes Worcester, so goes the state in terms of the difference that this provides, again, between the expected increases in actual costs and the increases in the foundation budget. 

Those who are asking how this is still an issue with the Student Opportunity Act, by the way, are (intentionally?) ignoring the actual math. We're not getting the benefit of SOA if we continue to pretend this is a real inflationary increase. We're just using SOA increases, in the districts receiving them, the cover the annual increases of costs to school districts. This is not what was envisioned by the Foundation Budget Review Commission. 

The final paragraph makes the point from Worcester's perspective that was the central advocacy position of MASS, MASC, MTA, and AFT-MA last budget: the two years of capped inflation are skipped aid that isn't going to districts. As MassBudget calculated last year, most districts in Massachusetts would benefit from this skipped inflation being recognized, and in actual aid increases, not in per pupil minimums that too often become the talking point in budget season.

Advocacy starts now. 

Read "The Atlantic" on Lucy Calkins

 ...because what is described there is precisely what we see with Massachusett's "curriculum map" of "the right curricula" to teach and what we saw last night at Worcester School Committee with the idea that "we are doing EITHER this OR that" when that shouldn't be how classrooms work.

Gift link is here.

The science of reading started as a neutral description of a set of principles, but it has now become a brand name, another off-the-shelf solution to America’s educational problems. The answer to those problems might not be to swap out one commercial curriculum package for another—but that’s what the system is set up to enable.

And it isn't that simple, as much as legislators and those who make fancy maps for DESE might want it to be. 

"But can he...?": Looking ahead at a second Trump administration

image of a card at Target
It simply reads "ugh"

This post is based on the following principles:

1. Despair, psychologically, makes us powerless. If we view something as impossible, we teach ourselves not to act. Things are not a given; all changes require actual action from many people. We cannot give up in advance. 
   I'm not going to do that.
   
   
2. Donald Trump is many things, and among them is erratic (which only increased during this past campaign) and lazy. We do not yet know who in his circle will have actual power, but we do know from last time that people tend not to keep it long.
   
   
3. We live under a federal system, and changing that would require changing the U.S. Constitution. Education is a power largely left to the states.
   
   
4. Most of the power of the federal government under this system of government--which, again, cannot be changed without Constitutional change, which is beyond the power of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches even together!--is coercive; that is, they cannot force states and educational agencies to behave particular ways, but they can offer inducements to act in that fashion. 
   
   
5. Schools are greatly impacted, always, by the reality that surrounds them. If you are as old as me, you may remember the old ad for the Yellow Pages: "If it's out there, it's in here." That is also true of schools.
   
   
6. Our charge in public education remains to create and sustain a system that nurtures every student as and who they are. We aren't giving up on anyone, anywhere. 

With me so far? 
I also, as always, speak only for me, and I speak only from what I know. I don't have a crystal ball, but here's the thing: neither does anyone else. 

Onward. 

🚩🚩🚩for schools now

Consider this the red flag for schools now: 

Girls in schools report being harassed in school, online, and elsewhere, part of a larger trend of misogyny exploding online since Tuesday. 

LGBTQ teen suicide hotlines have seen a spike since Tuesday.

Racist texts were sent to Black people nationally after Tuesday, including to children in Massachusetts.

For all of us in education, this is result of Tuesday. And it is now our problem. 

Two or three things Massachusetts (and other states) could do now on education

ID 204641933 © Iulian Dragomir | Dreamstime.com

Quick post as I see this being discussed:

•  The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education should affirm that the state WILL NOT accept federal dollars conditionalized on bigotry, denial of history, or other unacceptable things. They could, in fact, use the introduction to the state's educational vision, which Acting Commissioner Johnston cited in his message to superintendents on Wednesday:
  

  We will continue to work with districts, schools, and educators to promote teaching and learning that is antiracist, inclusive, multilingual, and multicultural; that values and affirms each and every student and their families; and that creates equitable opportunities and experiences for all students, particularly those who have been historically underserved.

• The state legislature and governor should commit to ensuring any federal dollars lost through commitment to all students are supplanted through state means. 
  Nationally, federal funding is about 10% of K-12 funding. This is a lift, but it is do-able

A third thing which would work in Massachusetts, but won't work everywhere, is a commitment jointly by the Attorney General and the Department to enforce state civil rights protections in schools. 

This is from me, as me, etc etc etc. Much more coming in this vein, but in the realm of "let's get moving," here's a start. 

A couple of election-related education stories you may have missed this week

 I'm planning on doing both a "because careful what you wish for/gosh, I wish people would actually read my Board of Ed coverage" post on Question 2 and a "we can't know but here are my guesses" on the coming presidential term, but in the meantime, let's start with some good things that maybe you missed:

• VOUCHERS LOST. Once again, when voters were directly asked "do you want to use public funds for private schools," they said NO. And they said it regardless of how their state was voting otherwise. Every single county in Kentucky voted against vouchers. Nebraska voted no. In Colorado, where the effort was to amend the state constitution to include what they were calling school choice, it was also voted down. Here's some analysis in Forbes and in USA Today. Note that this is in keeping with what we have seen before, though: when vouchers are brought right to voters, they are unpopular. 
  
  
• California passed a large bond bill for school construction. As noted by the ballot measure's spokesperson, “People are seeing the need in real time. When you have a leaky roof, it only gets leakier.”
  
  
• Florida rejected a constitutional amendment to make school board elections partisan.
  
  
• North Carolina voted for Mo Green over Michele Morrow for their state superintendent.
  
  
• Houston voted down their school bond bill--which to be clear is not great!--because their state appointed receiver is so unpopular...which I get.
  

COMMISSIONER'S SEARCH INPUT

 It is being REALLY poorly publicized, but there is movement in the Commissioner's search AND IT IS TIME TO WEIGH IN!

1. There is now a survey. If you scroll down here, it is in multiple languages. Take it. Share it.
   
   
   
2. There are three public input sessions AND THEY ARE SOON: 
   
   
1. Saturday, November 9 (aka: the day after tomorrow)
   9- 11 AM
   Worcester State University (Eager Auditorium in the Sullivan Academic Center)
   
   
2. Tuesday, November 12 (next Tuesday)
   3:30 - 5 PM
   Bunker Hill Community College (Room C-202)
   
   
3. Thursday, November 14 (next Thursday)
   7 - 9 PM
   online: register here

It is always possible that if people complain, they'll add (these are too quick, poorly publicized, not enough places, and mostly lousy times), 'though I'd never count on it. At least take the survey! 

Quickly, two "what about education" reads this morning

 I'm at the annual joint MASC/MASS Conference this week, so I have very little time, but I did want to link to two "what about education" election reads this morning:

• In terms of the presidency, EdWeek updated overnight on that. UPDATE: here's K-12 Dive, Chalkbeat, and ABC News.
• There were lots of education issues on the ballot across the country, and Chalkbeat updated overnight on many of those. UPDATE: As The Hill notes, Republicans largely lost on ballot measures.