September Board of Ed: ESSA update

alas, there is no backup for this one
ah, but there is a PowerPoint...
Wulfson: plan approved last week, requirement to receive federal funding
"reflective of our high standards and our aspirations here"
"very collegial process...hard work of our staff but our colleagues at the Department of Education"
legal obligations of the law, but reflects our values and those of our school system
"accountability is just one small part of our state plan"

timeline for Board to fill in the blanks...complete the design of the system
Curtin: what has happened since the August update
two issues that came up since last presentation
mainly to set the timeline on coming back to Board with details
submitting plan without new test data
"now that we're going to be getting that data, we're going to do be doing some more sophisticated reporting"
reporting schedule on what 2017 reporting is going to look like
continuing discussion with US Ed over summer
final revisions submitted two weeks ago
plan approved last Thursday

US Ed never said an average scaled score could not be used "to us...they said it to another state, but they never said it to us"
Revised plan: "calculate an achievement value that illustrates the degree of proficiency demonstrated on each assessment. The achievement value will" represent a range of value
percent of range being covered by the scale
242 covers 52%
"there's a lot of technical detail in here"
"having some anchor to proficiency

Peyser: under old
"you could be in the 99% and be doing very poorly"
you got a 52% on your test, that may be highest score anyone got
Wulfson: at the end of the day, it will not effect how we level our schools
"on the one side we want to recognize our schools...not lose sight of proficiency"

and another issue:
have schools that are very small: Goshold has four students
"have typically leveled these schools as having 'insufficient data'"
US DoE says can't do that anymore
new plan: combine data starting in 2017 and in subsequent years until meet minimum N size
West asks how many?
Curtin: about 40, a lot of alternative high schools
West: if we have to focus on bottom five percent, it may be a number of these schools
Curtin: the only impact this should have on bottom five percent should be the denominator (more schools included)
Wulfson: right, something we need to pay more attention to is how to evaluate these schools, as it can be discouraging to them
also don't want to assume these kids can't learn

Don't know if you can read this...here are the accountability indicators #MaEdu #ESSA pic.twitter.com/Ydz4PPcGty

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 26, 2017

October-November: model accountability metrics using first round of Next Genreation MCAS results
December-January : Discuss future accountability system design, including weighting of indicators

Curtin: proposed weighting (as in August) are in plan as accepted placeholder until final discussed with Board

Upcoming accountability
one year reset on schools giving new MCAS grades 3-8
if less than 90% participation, level 3
persistently ow graduation rate (lower than 70%), level 3
Level 4 or 5 stay there
"ALL OTHER next generation MCAS schools, will not have PPI, will not" have a level

October 16 week released
October 23 discussion at Board (that's the night meeting)
and this is definitely going to need updating post-meeting...some things got dumped straight into Twitter...