May Board of Ed: educator licensure

 Tutwiler: one additional change from public comment

Claire Abbott: permanently offer alternatives to the MTEL 
new endorsement in media arts
change to "comprehensive health"
bilingual as alternative to SEI endorsement
increased flexibility for 12 credit option
all emergency license extension beyond June 30, 2027

Liz Bennett: "robust set of public comment" mostly through survey tool
mostly supportive of proposed revisions
LEADS Act is separate and distinct
"working to build out these proposed alternative licensure pathways"
plan to bring proposed regulation to Board in upcoming school year

one change to expand list of CTE licenses that are prerequisite for Media Arts endorsement

Craven: have never seen this level of detail in public comment feedback

Stewart: can you say more about emergency license?
Devine (this is going over things that already happened but aren't happening anymore)

have seen real shifts in number of teachers on emergency licenses; assume shift to regular licenses

Hills: guidance for when you might not use alternative assessments
Abbott: don't have a target on a percentage
"really want to be sure that if you're interested in becoming a teacher, you have options"
"that's really the goal"
did see a higher number of emergency license teachers accessing the alternative during the pilot
as researchers noted, population of those accessing alternatives may shift over time
Hills: "just throwing in my two cents" like the idea of expanding ways of having teachers
"not just because we have a supply-side issue" but it's a good process

ROLL CALL: 9 in favor, Tutwiler abstain

May Board of Ed: vocational admission

Tutwiler: never been about casting aspersions on career-tech leaders or educators

Methuen High School auditorium

"has been about advancing values that reflect that every student" warrants a chance to pursue access

recommending one minor change to the middle school access, and three substantive changes to the weighted lottery
heard "loud and clear" the demand for more seats

Special meeting of the Board of Ed: voke admissions (part I)

 The agenda is here; the livestream is going to go up here.

Meeting opened by Vice Chair Hills (with an amazing amount of noise behind him)
Johnston opens by saying it will be looking at the impact of the last engineering change
quotes “Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.” (W. Edwards Deming)

Tonight's agenda:

Moving right along: Board of Ed membership

Periodically, I am asked about the length of terms of the current Board of Ed members, particularly given that we have a largely Baker-appointed Board and an ostensibly more education-friendly Governor now. While the state does have this chart, it's not fully updated, has weirdly set everything to June expiration dates (which isn't in state law), and has more than one ending date just plain wrong.

I did the first version of this post in 2017, with an update in January of last year.

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 

September Board of Ed in Sum

crossposted from MASC 

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education held their regular monthly meeting in Malden. The meeting agenda can be found here. 

Prior to the meeting, two new members of the Board were sworn in: Amanda Fernandez, who replaces Penny Noyce, and Martin West, who replaces Roland Fryer. James Morton was also sworn in for a second term. Fernandez is the founder and CEO of Latinos for Education. West is on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Chair Paul Sagan participated in the meeting remotely via video from Budapest; the meeting was chaired by Vice Chair James Morton.

Sagan on Commissioner's search

Step one has been completed: a search firm has been hired
Korn Ferry has been retained
lead Rosa-Lyn Morris, a former teacher through Teach for America (she also did work with NCTQ), father a former state school chief
next to create a job description
each Board member will be interviewed on that
have asked that they go out and solicit input from the field
Teachers union, principals, superintendents association, business groups
no, he did not mention school committees or parents
preliminary screening committee with appointed advisors
need in preliminary period for confidentiality
will reach out to at least 150 to 200 candidates..."not just obvious people apply"
preliminary committee start sorting in November
Sagan not ready yet to decide on preliminary subcommittee
Stewart "it surprises me that we've already selected a search firm"
"have not authorized or signed off on authority"
Sagan "a routine matter that the chair could do on its own"
Stewart: "not clear on what the Board's role on this will be...going to be updated on a monthly basis...fairly accelerated schedule"
most important work that the Board does
need for public confidence in process
Sagan points back to getting in touch with Department with questions
Stewart: what actions will be taken prior to the October meeting?
Sagan: one on one interviews with Board members
hope to have job description for October meeting
Stewart: search subcommittee: appointed by October?
Sagan: that's my intention
Stewart pointing, rightly, to the amount of power that Sagan has essentially seized in this process

If you're interested in who is doing what on testing

For gr. 3-8, Wulfson: roughly 1/3 of districts are sticking w/MCAS (which will incl a bit of #PARCC) #MAEdu

— Mary Ann Stewart (@MAStewartMA) January 13, 2016

From Mary Ann Stewart in an assessment subcommittee for the Board of Ed

Also, you might remember that Worcester is doing all paper for the schools that take PARCC this spring, due to the discrepancy in scores of the paper and computer versions from last year (aka: the kids who took it on the computer did noticably poorer). This research from a writing research project on fourth graders is notable: writing on a computer widened the achievement gap.

Congratulations, Mary Ann!

Mary Ann Stewart, formerly of the Lexington School Committee, now of the Mass Board of Ed, was elected to the National Association of State Boards of Education Board of Directors! Congratulations, Mary Ann!
Mary Ann not only GETS IT: she's also on Twitter and blogs so you can go see for yourself!