Board of Ed for October: graduation standards

There is this memo which isn't particularly revelatory, but then there is a large PowerPoint that is not online. As the memo says:

The agency is currently developing guidance and tools to support districts towards full implementation of the proposed graduation framework. 

I am again going to point out that "fully implementing" a "proposed framework" that has yet to go through a legislative process makes no sense.

"the agency setting conditions to change practices in the field" is the theme of this year, says Commissioner Martinez

introducing MyCap and MassCore
And then hearing from researchers

regulations that the Department will bring forward for discussion next month on what?

"clarification" says Woo, that regulations proposed next month will set up requirements for what schools "must offer," not what individual students must complete

Weaponizing what's left of the Department of Education

 

trans colored heart on a sidewalk at Smith College
photo by Kate Hobbs

If you follow me on any social media platform other than this one, you've probably caught my ire that the U.S. Department of Education has now started a (well-publicized) investigation into my alma mater, Smith College for, they say, admitting men. Smith is the largest historically women's college in the country; the college started admitting women who are trans in 2015 (after an uproar over not doing so). The admission policy specifically says Smith:

considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith.

To read this week

Smith College Palm House

• The former principal deputy under secretary at the US Department of Education explains what the Department, the "least understood and most efficient cabinet agency," actually does.
  
  
• Excellent coverage from The Hechinger Report on Ryan Walter's one man crusade in Oklahoma. This particularly does a nice job of talking to practicing Christians who don't want it to be the state religion. 
  
  
• AI is still completely and massively failing to give accurate information. 
  
  
• Students at Department of Defense schools around the globe are continuing to protest.
  
  
• I really appreciated Jim McDermott's ode to what universities can do.

October Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting: opening comments

 The agenda is here; livestream is here

My notes from last night are here

and the meeting has started, but there is no sound on the broadcast...