in search of Polaris: on last night's Board of Ed meeting

 I'd like to be able to give you some sort of meaningful summary of last night's Board of Ed meeting on the DESE strategic plan (liveblog here), but it wasn't that sort of meeting.

Polaris? This is as close as we're getting around here...

Let's walk through some main points:

First, about this strategic plan

Commissioner Martinez is presenting to the Board a strategic plan, or at least priorities, for the Department for the next five years. This seems to be, from what was said, a two page document, which has not been shared with the public (or perhaps there is a longer document and the two pages was a summary).
I suspect that is what is pictured here, though of course one cannot read it: 

this is a screenshot of a slide from last night's meeting

Again, this is not a document that has been shared with the public in any way. Legally, of course, it's a public document, and one could go through the rigmarole of requesting it, but what I think matters more here is that it simply has not been shared. 
If you're going to present something as important as the priorities for the next five years of the Department that oversees the education of a million kids, it's just odd not to share it, early and widely, particularly when the discussion subsequently makes a lot of references to this coming from or being aligned with work "in the field." I think of everything that has been going on around this, it is this "the plan is not public and has not been shared" that I am finding most odd and concerning.

There's a significant split on the Board on two fronts:

1. About the plan itself: by my count, the Board is pretty evenly split on if what is here is what they think should happen. Criticisms included there being too much here to prioritize at once; there not being enough specificity about how things are going to happen; how this relates to the capacities of the Department.
This led to one of the more interesting interchanges of the night, where the Commissioner said that if there was disagreement with this direction, he would want to bring the Governor (and the Lieutenant Governor) into the conversation. The clear implication was that he has discussed this plan with the Governor, who approves of this direction.
However--and this relates to the next point--the Commissioner does not work for the Governor. The Commissioner works for this Board, which is split 50/50 on his plan.
The Board is appointed by the Governor, yes, but the only one of them who works for the Governor (and perhaps relevant: the only one who can actually be removed from the Board by the Governor) is the Secretary.
I do wish this would be more clearly spelled out for and by those directly involved.
It is also concerning that the Commissioner, when pressed, would take this line.

2. If the Board has authority over the strategic plan. The Commissioner is presenting this as "this is what we are going to do." Several members of the Board are taking it as a proposal, because (of course?) the Board sets the direction of the Department. Towards the end of the meeting, this led to Chair Craven talking at some length about the extensive powers of the Board.
During the meeting, at least one member affirmed that they will be putting it to a vote. However:

Some of this is already happening

Regulations stemming from legislation was always going to be a thing, so it isn't a surprise that the Department is working on regulations stemming from the literacy law, which will require that districts select their curriculum for literacy from a DESE-approved list. Note that 40% of districts in Massachusetts will either have to switch their early literacy curriculum or get a waiver. It would be good, by the way, if FORTY PERCENT of districts making a BIG (and possibly expensive) change ALL AT ONCE was seen as challenging by someone other than me.

What is a surprise is that the Commissioner decided--I guess?--that now 25%, as opposed to the prior 10% (which is what is written into federal law) of the lowest performing districts (by what I assume is the state accountability system, though, again, this isn't something that has been presented clearly) are now going to have interventions by the Department. This is being called Accelerating Achievement, and...that is I think all we know, save that it is already happening. 

That's a big change. It seems like a thing that someone should have talked about? Publicly? Where we could hear it? And possibly even give feedback?

Some of this involves expansion of or expansion of use of authority

This isn't entirely a surprise, as there have been elements of the Board that have been pushing for years for the Department to use more authorities than it has been. However, alongside the above, the list of this year's priorities--which again, I'm just taking from the PowerPoint because I haven't seen anything else--is work on the graduation requirements. 

The thing is, though, the Department doesn't have authority to set graduation requirements beyond what was the 10th grade MCAS, and now is the regulation that outlines the local provisions; that authority belongs to the school committees. There was some talk of MassCore and MyCAP and so forth, but again, those are not things that the Department can require.

Amusingly, one of the slides had writing regulation in response to new state laws for graduation on the list of priorities for the coming year. The Commissioner also said that "leadership," which is how generally the Speaker of the House and the Senate President together with relevant chairs, are supportive. That is the first I have heard of that (and generally one would hear it from them). But the timeline on the slides was not one that aligns with how the state legislature actually works. 

There was also more than one reference to curriculum selection beyond early literacy. It is only early literacy that the Department has any authority over. Anyone paying attention, however, could easily see that as a slippery slope that some would be eager to head down. The major sea change to Massachusetts that is having the state select curriculum does not appear to have been marked by (ahem) the field, but it is a huge philosophical change. If indeed we value our abilities to make choices closer to home, we may wish to begin to say so. 

The title, by the way, is a reference to the North Star, as those presenting kept talking about "setting a North Star" when it comes (I think?) setting new accountability goals, which (I think?) are also part of this proposal. This even led to an unfortunate reference to setting new "North Stars" (plural) which is particularly a troubling analogy, when one thinks of using more than one to navigate. Might I offer Ursa Minor as instead the analogy to use? 

As always, all of the above is simply me writing my way through this to sort it out and nothing further. I will say that I left the meeting more concerned than where I started, though.