Board of Ed: assessment and accountability results

 Martinez: start from an asset-based perspective
there's a memo here but it doesn't have a lot

Board of Ed for September: opening comments

 I'm under the weather, so this one is coming to you remotely...

The agenda is here; the livestream is here. 

DESE has extended the embargo of  assessment and accountability results until 11 AM today.

The Board of Ed meets this week

 And it is MCAS and Accountability release week.

The agenda for the Board of Ed can be found here. The MCAS data will go up on the school and district profiles at 10 AM Tuesday. As a reminder, always check the accountability data, as it's much more complex than just the testing, which will inevitably grab the headlines. 

(Yes, that's why that whole section of the website will be offline starting at 3 tomorrow.)

In addition to the release of MCAS data and accountability status, the Board has some start-of-the-year housekeeping--election of the vice chair, introduction of the new student member, the appointment of subcommittees--plus something on the literacy law implementation, which expanded the Department's authorities on determining what curricula is used, a power that had belonged to school committees in Massachusetts until now. 

There's also an update on DESE's strategic plan. In one of the ongoingly places I find the relationship between the Commissioner and Board confusing, it appears the Commissioner is simply announcing it, not presenting it for approval, despite (I'd assume?) the Board being in charge of setting of goals and overall direction. 

Board of Ed for May: Opening comments

 The Board today is meeting at Hudson High School, the school of student member Isabella Chamberlain. The agenda is here; the livestream will go up here. 

chalking outside of Hudson High School today

There is a good chance this will start late. 

Board of Ed for January: student records

 memo on this is here 

no public comment received, so no presentation

again, this is just aligning with the change to competency determination, definition of "transcript"
use more inclusive language 

Board votes approval

Board of Ed for January: seal of biliteracy

 up for vote for change in regulations

this is coming back from public comment, the summary of which is here

DESE is proposing two additional changes in response to public comment; the proposed final regulations are here

Board of Ed: Commissioner's priorities

 The backup is here

Have met 2700 stakeholders and attended over 50 events
this marks six months on the job

October Board of Ed: proposed regulatory updates

Both of these are taking "competency determination" out of the language: in the Seal of Biliteracy and in student records. The request today is to send the proposed regulation changes out for public comment through December 5, with this back before the Board at their January meeting.

Seal of Biliteracy
remove CD; clarify and streamline procedures for notification; transcripts, and terminology; pathways to demonstrate English proficiency; support equitable access

seeing numbers of students completing Seal of Biliteracy growing

October Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: opening comments

The Board of Ed meets today at 9 AM. Their agenda can be found online here. 

As ye sow, so shall ye reap

 Yes, I post this, as always, in my personal and exasperated capacity.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: accountability and assessment

Martinez: results are mixed
no student group across the Commonwealth that is above pre-pandemic levels
"we always meet children where they're at"
foundational goal: regardless of what people's opinions are of where we were in 2019
"here in our Commonwealth, I seem advantages, I see alignment, I haven't seen in other parts of the country"
At the end it's about us coming together
"I'm fine having critical friends...there are no shortcuts in this work"
"the data will speak for itself"

this sheep has nothing to do with it,
but I thought we might need a sheep to get through this

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for September: opening comments

 The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets today for its regular September meeting. This is the first meeting with the new commissioner, Pedro Martinez.

The agenda can be found online here. The livestream will come up over here. I'll update once they start.

you'd never know that this was below the Revere Beach Parkway, would you?

It's a Board of Ed week

And you can find the agenda for tomorrow's regular meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education here. 

The big thing on the agenda is the annual release of school and district accountability data, 'though this message on the DESE School and District Profile page: 

...makes me think that we're probably getting some sort of a press event around noontime today. 

Let me give you my annual reminder here that Massachusetts state accountability is based on MANY THINGS beyond the MCAS, and anyone who makes MCAS the sole report they make--I'm looking here at you, Boston Globe, but I see school districts do this, too!--is not only not telling the whole story; they're misrepresenting what the state actually uses in measuring districts.

If someone has told you that the only thing we're focusing on is MCAS, that isn't DESE telling you that.

This will of course be new DESE Commissioner Martinez's first meeting, so it should be interesting to see how he interacts with the Board and with the DESE staff. Too often, in recent years, the permanent commissioner has left DESE staff out there on their own when facing the Board, which has both, in my view, been lousy leadership and not fair.

And speaking of leadership, the Board elects a Vice-Chair, and it will be interesting to see if they finally decide to start to move in the direction of the newer appointees. 

It appears from the posted topics of the chair and the commissioner that we're going to get two rounds on the 'are we teaching 9/11' thing, with--yes!--the Commissioner making reference to the actual state standards (someone is doing their job!). Both the Secretary and the Commissioner are updating on the recent state graduation council release of their Vision of a Graduate. I presume that this goes now to DESE and the Board, as they're the ones who have actual power to do anything with it.

There is also a vote proposed on the "let's clean this up" regulation changes on regional schools (which, no, do not have a single thing to do with admission to regional vokes).

There are also proposed adjustments on the conditions on the certificate of the Felix Virtual School.

I plan to be there and liveblog, as per usual. 

speaking of AI fails

 ...special mention this week to "roughly 1,400 essays" not receiving the correct scores from AI on MCAS this summer and apparently only being discovered when a teacher was reviewing the scores and essays once they came back to the district. 

While NBC 10 appears to be the only place reporting this, it doesn't feel as if anyone worked particularly hard to find critique; this isn't a "learning curve." This is "what on earth are we doing here; let's stop!"

Some of us remember who was in charge when we made this change and what he's doing now.

January Board of Ed: competency determination

 here is the backup

Curtin: today is "purely for discussion"

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for January: opening comments

 The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education holds their regular monthly meeting today in Everett. The agenda can be found here. There will be a livestream here.

We're awaiting a quorum in a Board meeting room that is overcapacity (they just started sending DESE folks to their desks to watch), and the press thinks the news today is cell phones. It is enough to make one despair. 

Updating as we go

Love it, hate it, read it: DESE on what happens now

 The blog post title swiped, as some may remember, from Worcester Magazine, which used it as a tag line for a number of years. You may not like what you're reading here, but we ignore the state governing body (which they are!) at our peril. 

I don't go to those meetings for my health.

If you were following yesterday's liveblogging or read the MASC update from Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting, you may have caught just how much of a muddle we've been left in through the passage of the ballot question removing the MCAS as the state's competency determination. 
And it took until now, but with articles in State House News Service, Commonwealth Beacon, Boston Herald, and MassLive, it appears that maybe now this may be becoming more widespread information. 

Am I going to say that I told you so? Yes, I am. 

As a reminder, here's what the passage of the ballot question has left us with as a state law: 

all slides are from Tuesday's presentation at the Board of Ed

The meetings where I agree with Marty West are few and far between, but his characterization of this as "a mess" is, as I said in my earlier post on this, absolutely correct. 

Board of Ed: competency determination

 anticipate bringing recommendations to Board in February

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.

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...