The Board of Ed meets in January: accountability

 and the backup is here

August Board of Elementary and Secondary Education : public comment and MCAS

 This is the "one on the MCAS" though note that updating the state's accountability regs is also on today's agenda, as is a bullying regulation change, and an update on the budget. Because this was not a regularly scheduled meeting, I will not be liveblogging it all, but will catch up later. 

Posting as we go once the meeting starts...jumping in mid-public testimony
Interesting: the livestream missed this, but as the first panel was being introduced, there was a member of the public yelling about "no child is safe" though it was unclear on exactly what.

Board of Ed: dyslexia

 Peyser: is reading a whole series of test numbers and I can't possibly follow this
it's also weird he's the lead on this? 

upshot is current screening doesn't identify students who need assistance in a timely manner
Peyser makes a motion to approve draft regulation
not in order; motion to send to public comment

Moriarty: very accessible document that speaks to best practices in all early education settings
Morton asks if other states have taken this on and done it successfully
Peyser notes that some states have enacting laws, in fact
Moriarty: "small facet" of states have enacted laws; cites Mississippi
Carris Livingstone: think this is really exciting, hopes state will continue to engage in work in early literacy
hears stories of learning issues that are not caught early, goes beyond literacy
noted disparities among students who are learning English as a second language; very important that students have reading materials in their first language
Morton thanks Peyser, seconds motion
Fernández: will this allow us to set goals?
Peyser: short answer is yes
Stewart hope that those who comment bring forward broader goals down the road, to really strengthen that piece

motion passes

Commissioner's goals for coming year

They're here
Riley says they fall under "recover" and "reimagine"
Morton asks about change in assessment
Riley needs to be more engaging, more collaborative, more reflective of outside of school
more coming
Moriarty "delighted" to see early literacy as one of the priorities

Hills: will you avail yourself of midyear assessments to see progress rather than just MCAS?
so does Hills just want to run districts directly? Does he know how poorly equipped the Department is to do that?
Hills: next mix of key objectives here, do you have the staffing you need?
Riley: believe in constant improvement

I'm noticing that there is literally no mention of the trauma of the past year, no mention of mental health supports, no mention of any of the "non-learning" parts of school

Stewart: don't want to let up on vocational admission issue
"to say that we're going to wait and see doesn't sit right with me"
Peyser just went piece by piece and dismissed concerns
Moriarty shouldn't comment without their being there (hm, they don't seem to apply that to Boston)
Hills effectively saying they should stay at their level 

Outfall from Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting

This week saw an unusual amount of attention to a passing comment at the Board of Ed--unusual in that I'm accustomed to few people noting what happens at those meetings at all, let alone the comments that are said in passing. 

The Globe (for all that it leaves some pieces out) does a good job describing this, so I'm going to quote their work:

In the meeting, prior to the vote, Moriarty, who previously served 13 years on the Holyoke School Committee, commented that while this year “there’s no getting away” from freezing the designations, the state’s accountability system is vitally important in districts like Lawrence and Holyoke that have been labeled chronically underperforming.

“That’s a period of time now that we’ve been unable to take the kinds of actions that are necessary because of the deep inequities that exist from one district to [the] next, and we know they can’t change themselves, ‘cause they never do,” Moriarty said.

“So if there’s any place where there needs to be a very serious conversation and a very serious intentionality about moving forward, it’s going to be in a revived accountability system that follows the end of this pandemic,” he added.

Lawrence Mayor Kendrys Vasquez demanded Moriarty's resignation in an interview Thursday, calling the remarks a dog whistle. Vasquez was joined by much of the City Council, some of the state delegation, and the city's Congresswoman Lori Trahan in a letter written by State Rep. Frank Moran saying the same on Friday:

Today, I joined members of the Lawrence State Delegation, the Lawrence City Council, the Lawrence School Committee, and Congresswoman Lori Trahan in calling for the immediate removal of Michael Moriarty as a member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, pic.twitter.com/abVGAjgTf2

— Rep. Frank Moran (@RepFrankMoran) April 23, 2021

 As best as I know, there's no mechanism by which a Board member can be fired, though I imagine the Governor can demand someone's resignation. 

There are two things that I think are key to keep in mind here. First, as the Globe itself notes, Moriarty was himself a member of the Holyoke School Committee for thirteen years; he was first elected in 1999. There is, thus, I'd argue, no "they" here, really. He was a member of the governance team in Holyoke for a good long time. 
Holyoke itself, of course, has a political leadership history reflecting ongoingly growing Latino population in a city that had white leadership for a long time. Moriarty himself also reflects that--as he frequently notes in meetings, he is a multi-generational Holyoke resident--and I think the "they" there thus is a tell.

Second, of course, there's the question of just what it is that we're doing with the receivership districts, and how any decisions there are tied up in a now-Commissioner who regards this as his road to success. Lawrence has shifted to a receivership board in 2017, and there's been not a whisper of next steps, despite it having now been in receivership since 2012. Holyoke has recently had another round of upheaval around its receiver. Southbridge--don't forget Southbridge!--has also has unevenness in leadership. 

The state decided that the only way to "fix" the districts was to remove their democracy. It did this in districts that are majority students of color. As I noted in another context this week, generally remarks about needing less democracy raise red flags. For some reason, they seem not to with school districts.

They should. 

Two new additions to the Board of Ed (and one at least you should be concerned about)

Governor Baker announced his two new appointments to the Board of Ed yesterday.
The easy joke here for Sherlockians is Baker literally appointed Moriarity to the School Committee, and he's not the one we should be worried about. 

Michael Moriarity is a lawyer from Holyoke who currently is executive director of the Olde Holyoke Development Corporation. He taught social studies in junior high before attending law school. He served 13 years on the Holyoke School Committee (he's a Holyoke High alum.) and was a 2012 member of the MASC All-State School Committee.  He's a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and headed Holyoke's Campaign for Grade Level Reading. He was blogging for awhile, but he hasn't recently.

Professor Roland Fryer is an economics professor at Harvard, with a compelling personal background; he heads the Education Innovation Laboratory (which the Broad Foundation helped start), which (among much else) was involved in a "turnaround" at one of Springfield's high schools until they abruptly pulled out with the following explanation:

EdLabs said its decision to pull out of Springfield had nothing to do with the district but with the state — and the inability to work in a larger set of schools.
 “We are proud of the work that Springfield Public Schools has done with EdLabs and of the accomplishments in Springfield schools,” said June Daniel, executive director at EdLabs.

The Globe article from which the quote comes was discussing the lack of success these external providers had with actually turning around schools.
I have been unable to find anything more about EdLabs suddenly pulling out of Springfield.

The front page of EdLabs claims "Schools alone have the power to overcome the learning obstacles of children in poverty and to close the racial achievement gap." He has released studies on such subjects as pay for performance for students and applying charter models to public education in general. Professor Baker analyzed a number of those last studies in 2012 and came to this conclusion:

Setting aside the exceptionally poor documentation behind any of the marginal expenditure or cost estimates provided in each and every one of these studies, throughout his various attempts to downplay the importance of financial resources for improving student outcomes, Roland Fryer and colleagues have made a compelling case for spending between 20 and 60% more on public schooling in poor urban contexts including New York City and Houston, TX.

emphasis in the original. What's particularly troubling is Fryer's assertion in the past that he found no correlation between school effectiveness and inputs like school spending, teacher certification or advanced degrees, or class size. To quote Baker on this:

Let’s be really clear here – simply testing the correlation between spending and an outcome measure – comparing higher and lower spending schools and their outcomes to see if the higher spending schools have higher effectiveness measures – WOULD TELL US LITTLE OR NOTHING, EVEN IF THE DATA WERE ACCURATE, PRECISE AND WELL DOCUMENTED. Which, by the way, they are not.

And I urge you to go read that post, because you know it's going to impact what is said at the Board of Ed.
Baker also questions Fryer's work on loss aversion (in rewarding teachers for higher student test scores) here.
Fryer has also done research on "acting white" and its possible impact on children of color; you can read his own words here; note that this argument ends up pointing back towards having segregated schools.
In 2012, Fryer gave a lecture regarding his work at EdLabs. He had this to say about standardized tests:

I haven't figured out why no one has tried a two-tiered system for standardized testing. So, I live in Concord, Massachusetts which is a wonderful suburb of Boston -- my wife and I just moved there -- and I actually don't want a lot of standardized testing in Concord because it will crowd out my kids learning Shakespeare and those types of things I never really read. However, in the schools that are failing, we really do need standardized tests because at least we know where they are and that's really, really important. Just because we don't test them doesn't mean they're not failing. And so I would actually say if schools are high-performing suburban schools or high-performing schools ought to be able to say, 'You know what? 90 percent passed the test in 2008, let's not take the test for 2 or 3 years so that we can focus on different and more holistic types of instruction'. For schools that are in the bottom, I think they ought to test those kids every day.

The Board of Ed next meets on Tuesday.