Clickbait

Last night around 10pm, I saw the following article post from the Boston Globe: "Two dozen Boston risk being declared underperforming." It opens as follows:

More than two dozen schools in Boston with low standardized test scores are at risk of being declared “underperforming” by the state, an action that can lead to the removal of principals and teachers, according to a School Department analysis.
The 26 schools are spread across nearly every neighborhood, from East Boston to West Roxbury. Officials are expected to learn the fate of each school when the state releases the latest round of MCAS data at the end of October.

It also says:

The analysis flagged 11 schools for being at the greatest risk of being declared underperforming because their MCAS scores rank very low in comparison to other schools statewide.

Now, if you pay close attention to what's been posted on here, you, too, are shaking your head at this article. The simple fact of the matter is the Board of Education voted that all schools taking the new MCAS would be held harmless with regard to test scores this year. This is a reset year; most schools simply are not going to get a new accountability level, because this is the first year of scores from the new MCAS. The only exceptions are schools that have low participation (by whole population or subgroup) which will go to Level 3 plus schools that already are Level 4 or 5.

Secondary schools, remember, still have the 10th graders taking the old version of the MCAS for now, so they could have changes made, but that is the minority of schools here mentioned.

Puzzled, I sent out some tweets:

.@GlobeVaznis I'm confused by this article: nowhere does it discuss the "hold harmless with regard to test scores" passed by the BoE #MAEdu https://t.co/i1Umrhg5Q6

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 18, 2017

(there's a thread there if you follow the link)
I also added this commentary:

New test.
Acting Commissioner.
Board vote on hold harmless with regard to test scores on new MCAS.
Lower budget.
This makes no sense. https://t.co/dCcJFg5hVB

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 18, 2017

I tagged in the Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang, and that elicited this response:

Tracy, you are right. Elementary schools are held harmless. MCAS data is from 2 years ago.

— Tommy Chang (@SuptChang) September 18, 2017

In piecing it together, it appears that this originated with the Boston School Committee receiving a report on their Level 3 schools at last week's meeting. You can find the presentation they saw here. Rather than an article which focused on what was and was not working at those schools--which is kind of supposed to be the entire point of this whole discussion--we instead saw an alarmist vision of state takeovers for something like a fifth of Boston Schools.

As a side note: at some point we should talk about the state's capacity at this point. I've mentioned this in passing before, but DESE is down lots of staff, particularly since Race to the Top ended. Level 4 and 5 schools take lots of staff hours to coordinate with districts. Also, Level 4 schools come with School Turnaround Grants, which now have to come out of Title I funds (there isn't a separate line for them). I'm not going to say DESE can't or won't declare more schools, but we shouldn't discount what it takes on the other end for them to do so. 

I sent out a recap this morning, since that was competing with the Emmys:

Ok, to recap for those who were NOT discussing school accountability levels at 10 pm last night (lucky you!): confusing @BostonGlobe article

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 18, 2017

You'll need to follow the thread there.
Later this morning, DESE sent out the following:

There will not be any new K-8 Level 4s this year due to next-gen test. (However, improvement work is still important!) #maedu

— Massachusetts K-12 (@MASchoolsK12) September 18, 2017

Thus as best as I can tell, what we have is a fairly straightforward School Committee report that turned into clickbait.

The problem, of course, is that this feeds into a whole bunch of other issues: there is MASSIVE parental mistrust of the planning of the Boston Public Schools, and every move is seen as leading to school closures or takovers. The state's having taken over three districts and a number of schools is seen as threatening by anyone with any school that isn't consistently Level 1. Lots of people find the accountability leveling confusing, and the past few years of switching tests and systems has only made that worse. And we don't have nearly enough press paying consistent attention to these sorts of issues, such that we can get clear, consistent reporting to people who care about these issues but don't do it full time.

Honestly, we deserve much better than this. There are lots of little pieces of blame to go around here, but I'm laying as much as I know at the Globe's door. The crux of what they printed today was untrue, alarmist, and actively harmful.

April Board of Ed: accountability reset

backup is here
Sagan: if we don't change the regs, all our talking will be meaningless since the Board said they wanted districts and schools held harmless with regard to test scores

MASBO Fall Institute : "Creating a Culture that Learns"

Karen Mapp, Harvard Graduate School of Ed (moderating)
Nina Zockoff Culbertson, Rennie Center
Dianne Kelly, Superintendent, Revere
Ventura Rodriguez, Director at DESE

Mapp: seeing family members "as co-creators and co-producers"

Kelly: "we live in a world where there is no stability"
support a "continuous state of change"
need partners to support ongoing changes
working with other districts for curriculum: "over half of kids who move out of district move among" five districts working together
collaborative leadership: "empowered teachers to do the work and embrace the change"
"narrative about public education in this country is disheartening"
leadership potential of teachers is not tapped
need to change the narrative

Rodriguez: works with Level 4 and 5 schools and districts, but level 3 as well "as districts are being more proactive to really step up"
organizations to bring in organizations "that may include academics, but may go beyond academics"
"yes, academic achievement is critical...but you have to support the whole child"
when working with Level 4 or 5, finance systems looking at impact "either aren't in place or aren't very strong"
"Tons of information on the profiles page" (on DESE's website)
live in a time of dimishing resources
"doing more with less"
Commissioner "interested in providing support" around that work but not providing more support?
Turnaround practices, published every year
districts and schools that are sustaining gains
supports around non-academic supports and family engagment
"if you have to make choices, what are we seeing in terms of practices" that are most successful
field guide coming "very practical, very hands on"

Zockoff Culbertson: strong element of partnership
schools are addressing needs academically, and non-academically
Schools are taking on these additional needs
external partners being brought in as co-collaboratives

How do we make these collaborations and partnerships work?
Kelly: making sure you're not partnering with those who are going to say "here's what we're going to do to your kids or your schools"
"what's specific to Revere"
Not what is canned off the shelf
meet family needs, while bringing families into the schools
"shared responsibility and ownership"
Rodriguez: ownership really important
Holyoke on "secondary redesign"
Zockoff Culbertson: how does it work on a day to day, week to week situation
having a partnership coordinator
making it seamless and making them part of the school
"without that, they seem to have less structure in how they integrate into the school community"

Q about coordination among five districts?
five business agents have been very involved in the work in terms of finances
do work of alignment once in terms of plans
decided to hire a coordinator to have five districts working together, was financed by state in a pilot program
business managers had to get together to figure out how that was going to work
teachers working together across districts to determine curriculum based on standards
working to have program assessed by outside agency to see how it is working

key strategies to lift up
Zockoff Culbertson: Burke in Boston has 62 partners
makes sure every partner builds a relationship with at least one student and every student has a relationship with one adult
partners buy into mission and vision
really have an "all hands on deck" approach
Rodriguez: data for vision and mission
opportunity to partner across different districts; sharing resources
some at DESE see themselves as "regulatory entrepreneurs"
Zockoff Culbertson: have to have teachers on board
opportunities for teachers to see how they partner with others

Question: is DESE supporting best business practices as well as best practices?
"a large part of the new work"
recognition from the department that we needed to support the work around sound business practices
shared resources is important; shared information and knowledge
"solutions are going to be locally generated"
"I know some of you are doing this already"

Question: partnering with parents
using time with parents to go over rules, rather than talk about goals for that year
can parents answer question about school year is about?
ask parents about their hopes and dreams for their child, what teachers should know about the children; inviting parents to be partners with us
generational challenges with schools: families that for generations have felt that they aren't wanted by schools
"one phone call, one packet home isn't going to do it"

Schools that dropped to Level 2 or 3 due to non-participation in testing.

I just pulled this together for work, but I thought others might be interested. 
A level 2 means they fell to or below 95% participation; a Level 3 means they fell to or below 90% participation. This is all in the accountability spreadsheet on column W.

(this is in DESE’s usual metro—charter—regional order):

Andover: Sandborn Elem 3

Arlington: Ottoson Middle 2

              Arlington High 2

Bellingham: B.High 2

Boston: BTU School 2

              Manning 2

              Clap 2

              Boston Latin Academy 2

              Boston Latin School 2

              Tech Boston 2

Cambridge: King Open 2

Carlisle: Carlisle School 2
Cohasset: C Middle High 2

Edgartown: E. Academy 2
Gloucester: West Parish 2

Leverett: L. Elem 3

Ludlow: Baird Middle 3

Medford: M. High 2

Milton: M. High 2

New Bedford: Jireh Swift 3

Newton: Brown Middle 2

Scituate: Cushing Elem 3

              Hatherly Elem 3

              Jenkins Elem 2

Springfield: S. Public Day Middle 2

              South End Middle 2

              Balliet Middle 3

Ware: W. Jr Sr High 3

Worcester: Columbus Park 2

Excel Charter Acad 2

Four Rivers Charter 2

Hilltown Coop Charter 3

Martha’s Vineyard Charter 3

UP Acad Charter 2

Amherst: A. Regional Middle 3

Berkshire Hills: Middlebrook Reg Elem 3

Bridgewater-Raynham: B-R Regional 3

Concord-Carlisle: C-C Regional 2

Somerset-Berkley: S-B Reg High 2

S. Berkshire: Undermountain 3

DESE on test participation

From last week's Commissioner's update:

As a follow-up to the On the Desktop, ESE sent to superintendents on April 1, 2016,ESE would like to clarify a point about students' participation in statewide standardized tests. Massachusetts' accountability system is set up to encourage high participation rates (if it weren't, the school's results would not reflect school-wide achievement). If fewer than 95 percent of a school's students take the statewide assessment, the school cannot be designated a Level 1 school. If fewer than 90 percent of a school's students take the assessment, that school, regardless of its test scores, can earn a designation no higher than Level 3. This is true whether a district takes PARCC or MCAS. The state's policy of holding schools harmless based on PARCC results in 2015-16 does not apply to cases in which participation falls below 95 percent.This is a change from last year, which was considered unique as the state's first operational year of PARCC testing.

The degree to which this makes a difference in anyone's decision making will, of course, depend on what they think of the state accountability system, as I described last year and the year before. 

As I always say to parents who ask about or cite accountability levels: can you explain how they're calculated? 

Not with a bang but a whimper*

*T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"

Tonight the Worcester School Committee votes on the new superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools. While there's been some reporting, the analysis on this has been weak, with marked exceptions of Clive McFarlane and (provided you can roll your eyes over the intro), of all things, GoLocal.
The School Committee conducted all four interviews on a single night, held the meet and greets on a single night two days later, and are voting a week later.
Not a lot of time for consideration in there.
As I said before, though, it's less the rush and and much more the lack of perspective that's the real worry here. The Committee wants someone who "knows Worcester"--I heard this referred to as the "did you shop at Spag's" test. Fine. All four of your finalists pass that one with flying colors.
What else?
Last week, CPPAC heard that the budget gap is in the vicinity of $20 million. That isn't going to magically vanish, and, yes, that's the first order of business for the new superintendent. Important to note that the interim contract for Dr. Rodrigues is through July OR the appointment of a new superintendent. 
We're one school away from being a Level 3, not Level 4 district. That, however, depends on getting Burncoat Prep out of Level 4 status and nothing else sliding. Given the way that such decisions are made, the only thing standing between Worcester and a few more Level 4 schools is continued assurance in Malden that Worcester is making progress. With Dolores Gribouski's retirement, June Eressey's going back to retirement, and who knows what happening with Dr. Rodrigues, Worcester's just lost most of those who have been doing this work at the district level successfully (Mary Meade-Montaque being the exception). If you lose DESE's confidence, there's literally nothing preventing Malden from declaring other schools Level 4. If you can't turn those around with the dwindling resources they're extending, well, welcome to the receivership club.
And if you think the state isn't looking at Worcester, you haven't been paying attention.
The district has a settlement agreement with the federal Department of Justice regarding how we treat our kids. Worcester just completed the periodic Coordinated Program Review, which now needs to have all the loose ends tied to make sure we continue to receive grants and aren't violating civil rights laws. The district is under federal and state scrutiny on dozens of matters and ultimately all that falls to the superintendent.
And that doesn't of course get into the day-to-day management of an organization that employes 4000 people and is responsible for the well-being and education of 24,000 kids.

It isn't pretty. It isn't photogenic. But it is absolutely the superintendent's job.

I saw today some comments that "overwhelmingly" comments from constituents were favorable about the search and the candidates.
Overwhelmingly what I've heard from parents and others across the district was that there was no point in weighing in, as the decision had been made months ago. Thus the terrible turnout at the meet and greet. "Why bother?" is what I have heard over and over again.

"Why bother?" isn't what a school district needs to be hearing from parents and community members.
Yet that is just where this superintendent search has left us.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

2015 Accountability Levels: everything's made up, but the points matter

It's time once again for the release of the Massachusetts statewide accountability levels!
The big news for Worcester yesterday is that Burncoat Prep, in its first year that it was eligible to do so, left Level 4 status. It should be noted that both of our previous Level 4 schools, Chandler Elementary and Union Hill, are Level 1 this year for closing achievement gaps. Elm Park remains Level 4 (it was always going to, as turnaround plans are for three years).
Statewide, the big news was that Madison Park Vocational in Boston has been declared Level 4; that, despite having a turnaround plan already.

You can find all of the school levels on this list from DESE. Schools have to have a PPI) of 75 or higher for both their entire student population and their subgroups in order to be Level 1. (You don't have to have all high scores to be Level 1, just break 75 on both.) Slip on either, or on any subgroups, and you're Level 2.
This gets a little weird when the state starts trumpeting districts that are all Level 1 and 2, as it did yesterday. A subgroup has to have 25 students to "count." Thus a school that has (for example) 23 ELL students doesn't have an ELL subgroup. Likewise with any such subgroup. Beyond the myriad of other ways in which this system is stacked, this is another one in which a few kids in your student population can change all the results.
This gets even more odd when it comes to Level 3 this year. Level 3 schools are the bottom 20% of schools in the state. Because there will always be a bottom 20%, for every school that goes up a level, one must come down a level. However, schools that took the PARCC this past year were held harmless--they could not slip a level down. Thus the only schools that newly fell into Level 3 were schools that took the MCAS, and their chances of doing so (since they weren't--I hate using this verb but it is sadly accurate--competing against all schools, but only against those taking MCAS) were proportionally that much greater.
And note that this will be even more the case this coming year, assuming that more schools switch to PARCC: only MCAS schools can fall, so proportionally more MCAS schools will fall.

Last year, I ran through the way in which Level 4 schools are declared, pointing out that this isn't based on lowest test scores, lowest PPI, or any such thing, but solely at the Commissioner's discretion. It took some digging, since they've moved these charts over to the Executive Office of Education's website* (which is kind of a mess, to be kind), but I found the spreadsheet that lays this all out again. If you remember from last year, this is the data that rank orders schools based on their combined PPI's (the full student body and the subgroups). This year, the column with the percentile rankings is column O. Thus the following is based off sorting by column O.
First, there are 309 schools that have "insufficient data" to have a percentile ranking. This includes all of the early childhood centers (if you only teach kids in grade 2 and younger, you don't have test data), but it also includes a good number of full elementary schools and high schools, and it has a mix of schools that took MCAS and took PARCC. I don't know what that means.
But again, the schools that are lowest in percentages are not the ones that are, or are being declared, Level 4. There are schools that are at 1%; Madison Park is at 2%. And again, that isn't a one-year thing; PPI is based on multiple years of data.
No doubt we'll hear on Tuesday that the Commissioner has been "very concerned" and probably "for some time" on Madison Park; note that Southbridge is also on the agenda, and the lowest percentage any Southbridge school has is a 3 (there are 28 schools that are 1's and 2's).

All of which is to say, again: this isn't a clean, statistical system. That was true of Level 4's and 5's already; it's now true even of Level 3's.
And that makes it pretty important that under the Every Student Succeeds Act that President Obama signed today, states are only required to do something (and what is left fairly vague) for their bottom 5% of schools.
It's time for Massachusetts to change the law.


________________________
*to find it: EoE website>>Departments and Boards>>Board of Elementary and Secondary Education>>A-Z Programs and Topics>>Accountability>>Reports>>Accountability Lists, Materials, and Tools>>Lists (which is the 2015 Excel spreadsheet)
Really. You don't want to know how long it took me to find that.

The Senate version of the charter (zombie) bill (S2262) is out [edited]

You can find the bill here. Details below.
First, up, the bits that are the same, or virtually so, to the House bill (my write-up on that here and here):

• The "challenge" language, allowing the Commissioner to declare some Level 3 schools "challenge schools" and require a turnaround plan, as is done with Level 4 schools, is in. So far as I can tell, this is a way of the Commissioner essentially getting to declare new Level 4 schools without accompanying it with funding (as the declaration of Level 4's isn't mathmatical, anyway; the only difference here is that Level 4 presupposes that state funding will follow). The cap on all the state intervention schools is 4%, just as in the House language.
• All that business with giving fiscal power to school receivers in Level 5 districts, without public oversight or school committee approval, is in. 
• The charter cap is raised to 23% of spending in the bottom 10% of districts, just as in the House language, if the expansion is for alternative education OR all kids are thrown into the charter lottery. Also, no more than 120 charter schools statewide; none in towns of less than 30,000, and charters must have a rolling backfill of empty seats.

But there are some fairly significant differences:

• Charter school spending cannot go up if the state doesn't fully fund charter reimbursement. You might remember that this is what blew up the original bill. 
• The Board of Ed is required to set up procedures and guidelines for revoking charters, and the charter cannot be renewed unless the charter school "has provided models for replication and best practices to the commissioner and to other public schools in the district where the charter school is located."
• A charter school's charter can only be renewed if its hanging onto kids; the three year attrition rate has to be lower than the sending district's rate or the stability rate greater than the sending district's rate. 
• The bill sets up a commission to report on the "effacy of charter school funding" in Massachusetts, which has to report out by January 1, 2016. I'd say this is a public calling-into-question of the current funding system. For once, it also includes school committee representation, too!
• [edit] The Senate version does NOT include the House language requiring the mandatory sale or rental of unused public school space to charter schools. (Thanks!)
• While the House bill set up a commission to study charter school transportation, the Senate bill flat out reworks it: transportation must be provided on "similar conditions" as those of the sending district. Any limitations on transportation that the district applies to its own students, also apply to the charter; note that this includes transportation for districtwide specialized programs (should the charter have any such beyond college prep programs). If the district and charter school cannot agree on start times, the district is responsible for only 50% of the cost of transportation. The district is only responsible for paying for transporation on days when both the district and the charter school are in session (no extra days). For charter schools (like Abby Kelley Foster in Worcester) that make their own transportation arrangements, they must abide by the above, or the district does not have to pay for the transportation at all. 

If you see anything I've missed, I'd be interested. 

The Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday. And the clock is ticking on the Legislative session. 

I see the spin is "will not impact Worcester"

Here's how H4091 will.

It does impact the Worcester Public Schools in a number of ways: 

1. Those Level 3 schools that the Commissioner can designate as "challenge" schools, thus requiring an expensive (unfunded), time-consuming, and disruptive process that could require teachers to reapply for their jobs--that will hit Worcester. And having a school designated as "challenge" will absolutely scare away parents.

2. Any increase in the charter cap lowers the amount of reimbursement that every system in the state gets for its schools, including Worcester, currently at 63% of reimbursement. 

3. The lowest ten percent, yes, currently does not include Worcester. However, given that the system that decides which schools are is anything but scientific, it could be.  

And that's just off the top of my head. 

H 4091 passes the House

I regret to inform you that H 4091 passed the House yesterday, with the only amendment being one that allows for extracurricular activities of one set of schools to be used by students of the other (charter/public).
I am particularly saddened by the 'yes' votes of Worcester Representatives Jim O'Day, Dan Donahue, and John Mahoney, which are votes to allow the Commissioner to push "turnaround" status on our Level 3 schools (by declaring them "challenge" schools; and note that this is most of the schools in Worcester), to take up to 23% of public school budgets and send them to charters (not Worcester now, but no guarantees about later), to allow districts in receivership to use private funds for a two track teacher pay system, and to allow those districts to pass budgets without public transparency.
I can't explain it otherwise. This is an anti-public education vote.
Thank you to Rep. Keefe for her 'no' vote. The 'no' votes may have been in the minority yesterday, but they were right.
I think Rep. Denise Provost of Somerville said it best:

"this whole charter school debate would benefit from a big dose of democracy" Rep. Provost #H4091
— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) May 21, 2014

...because what we saw yesterday certainly wasn't.

Declaring Level 4's: "Where everything's made up and the points don't matter"

Title courtesy, of course, of Whose Line Is It, Anyway?
Since we're talking about possibly expanding which schools the state gets to make decisions around, let's take a look at how we're determining which schools the state gets to intervene in now, shall we?

So, let's back up a step: all schools each year get a CPI (Composite Performance Index) for the entire school and for "high need students." If you'd like to know more about how this is calculated, you can go through the state's presentation here. The short version is that it takes four years of data (if we have them) on MCAS scores and (where applicable) dropout and graduation rates, crunches the numbers, and scales them against where schools and districts "should" be. This new system came in with our No Child Left Behind waiver; if it makes your head spin, you're not alone.
Once there is a CPI for every school in the state, the state can make a list of all of the schools in the state, like this. That gives you not only each school's "level" but also the CPI for both the school and the high needs group and the school's percentile. That same information is on this spreadsheet, and, because it's a spreadsheet, one can sort by column.
If 95% of your kids are tested, and you're hitting 75 or higher on your number crunching, you're called a Level 1. Just about everyone else is Level 2.

Now, according to the 2010 Act Relative to the Achievement Gap, Level 3 schools are the lowest 20% of schools (either by school or by subgroup) in the state; the regulations also include not improving on graduation rate or having less than 90% of kids participating in your testing. So, when you line up all of the schools in the state in rank order, and draw a line at the bottom 1/5, that's your Level 3's.
But what makes a Level 4?
Beyond their having to be in Level 3 status, the only other restriction the state law makes on Level 4 and 5 schools is that they can make up no more than 4% of the schools in the state at any one time (per section 3).
So which schools fall from 3 to 4?
The state, in their explanation of the classification of Level 3 schools (that's a PDF) says this:

The state’s lowest achieving, least improving Level 3 schools are candidates for classification into Level 4 at the discretion of the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education. A Level 4 school may be classified into Level 5 by the Commissioner on behalf of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education if it fails to improve; or if district conditions make it unlikely that the school will make significant improvement without a Level 5 designation.

(emphasis added) 
"...at the discretion of the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education."

Now, as someone who's been following this all since it was actually just in a bill being rushed through the Legislature to get Race to the Top money, I had the notion that Level 4's would of course be the lowest 4% of schools in the state.
When you take the list of schools and sort them by their percentage in the state*, though, Level 4's aren't the lowest in the state. Nor, at this point, are the lowest all Level 5's. Right now, there are 13 schools that are the bottom 1% within their school type--note that the state rounds to the nearest whole number--and that includes one Level 5, one Level 3, and the rest Level 4's.
It gets even weirder if you move up. There is a Level 5 as high as the 15th percentile within its school type; a Level 4 as high as the 10th percentile.

It would be easy to dismiss this as this year's report, but those scores are calculated off of four years of information: it is by its nature a report that is designed not to be terribly volatile. And while there are some assumptions one can make--not wanting to overwhelm any one community, for example--there certainly are choices that were made on which schools would be declared Level 4 and which would not, and those decisions were not mathematical ones.

I say this not to criticize the Commissioner. An enormous degree of importance is placed on these standings, however, and the most critical ones, the ones that do the most damage to a school's image, the ones that cause the most angst in and about districts are the ones that are not based simply on a calculation (however flawed those might be). They're chosen.

So when we're making assumptions and drawing conclusions about what the levels mean, let's keep that in mind.

*That's this chart sorted by column U. 

More on the zombie education bill

I took some more time on the zombie education bill  (H.3984) filed last week by Rep. Peisch, and I have a few more thoughts (in addition to my first post on this here):

I ran through this so fast last time that I didn't take the time to point out: guess who gets to pick the Level 3 "challenge" schools that need turnaround plans? The Commissioner!

Now, there may be those in the Commonwealth under the impression that Commissioner Chester needs even more power over local schools, but I have yet to meet them. Meaning no disrespect at all to the Commissioner, the removal of authority from local districts has not had great results, and I think that the Board of Education has been coming to that realization; the Commissioner was closely questioned at their last meeting as to what differences there were between the Level 4 plans, that had apparently failed, and the Level 5 plans for the same schools that were being proposed. Having the state determine that yet another group of schools needs yet more state intervention is not a good recipe for success.

And here is the bit that I think few people realize: while we like to think that the declarations of underperforming and such are all very scientific and mathematical...they aren't. And I was going to go into this here, but frankly, it needs its own post, which will be coming up next.

The big thing on the Level 4 schools, though, which I am sure no one wants to talk about, was the funding. The reason we don't have more Level 4 schools is funding: extended day (which was required), additional training, more staffing, and the other things that we were required in one way or another to do don't come free, and the state has a tough time requiring them if they don't add funding. It seems as though "challenge" schools, these...shall we call them "Level 3.5" schools?...will need to do these additional things, go through the upheaval and such, and without any funding.

So while this keeps the 4% cap on schools getting state intervention ("challenge, underperforming, or chronically underperfoming," or the new Level 3, plus Level 4 and 5), you're looking at some big push without funding to support it.

And, they will no doubt be in districts that are getting hit by the expansion of the charter cap, as well, so they will have greater concentration of high need students with even less funding.

In digging through the language (and particularly the replacement language), I also found the following:

• This bill is preparing the groundwork for PARCC: in several places, the language "or any successor statewide assessment system approved by the board under section 1I of this chapter” is added after "MCAS."

• The turnarounds of these Level 3.5 "challenge" schools can require all teachers to reapply for their positions.

• The turnaround of these schools allows for funding by private foundations, including to increase salaries at that school.

• The budget of "chronically underperforming" schools are to be available to the school's receiver (if appointed) without further vote of the School Committee. Good-bye quarterly reports! Further, such a school may accept and expend grants received without public acceptance of the School Committee or approval of the superintendent. Good-bye public transparency! (that's section 16, if you're keeping track)

• Additionally, in Level 5 districts, the Commissioner can have the Secretary of Administration and Finance appoint a "chief procurement officer," which would seem to subvert the financing, procurement, and distribution structure of the district. While Level 5 districts can be under a state receiver, this was explicit in anything previously.

• The bill dabbles into the MSBA's authority as well, saying that any building for which MSBA has provided funding that is taken out of education use are still okay (and can still be reimbursed) as long as the building is returned to use as a school building within two years (under current law, it could do this, but it doesn't have to). 

• Charter schools can wiggle around the current 18% cap of a district's Net School Spending if they throw all kids in the district in a lottery OR they're creating an alternative program. Same problem as ever with these, though: no teeth, no enforcement. That can raise the charter cap in districts to 23% of a school district's net school spending.

I would also note the following:
State Auditor Suzanne Bump is due to come out with a report on charter schools later this spring (no one's clear on exactly when). We don't know what it's going to say yet, but moving ahead on any action around creating more or expanding those we have is silly when a comprehensive report is on the horizon. The Legislature should absolutely not move ahead of the auditor's report.

This bill remains in House Ways and Means. I would urge you to contact your state senator and state representative if any or all of the above concern you.

It's the zombie education bill!

It's not dead yet!

Rep. Alice Peisch filed a substitute education bill this morning for the bill that came out (without being recommended) last night. It's now in House Ways & Means. Summary of the bill (from State House News):

According to a bill summary, Peisch's bill (H 3984) authorizes the education
commissioner to designate a subset of Level 3 schools as "challenge
schools," which include schools that score in the lowest performing 20
percent statewide that are most likely to be designated as underperforming
(Level 4). "Challenge schools" would be required to develop two-year
turnaround plans, similar to the turnaround plans required for
underperforming (Level 4) and chronically underperforming (Level 5) schools.

The bill also maintains the statewide cap on the total number of charter
schools that can operate at any given time, which is 72 Commonwealth and 48
Horace Mann charter schools.

The legislation lifts the current spending cap on charter school tuition in
the lowest performing 10 percent of districts from 18 percent to 23 percent
of net school spending, if the charter meets certain criteria, including an
"opt-out" lottery process, or the charter school is specifically designed to
serve at-risk student and/or dropouts.

In the "opt-out" lottery process all students would be eligible to attend
the charter school under the district's assignment policy without any
required application process for the school. Parents of students selected
for admission through the opt-out lottery process may choose not to accept
the admission offer.

You can read the whole bill here.
Having skimmed it, here's a few thoughts:

• I don't want to do a turnaround process and stakeholder group for every Level 3 school in the district. I know that it would be an enormous time and energy sink, and I don't think that it would be a productive process for the schools or for the district. (And I know that this is somehow supposed to be the sweetener for school committee members; it didn't work for this one.)
• The language around backfilling, open lotteries, and such are only for expanded or new charters. It doesn't fix the very real problems of those already in existence. 
• There is no language around financing at all, which is the purview of the Legislature, most particularly that of the House.
• Lifting the spending on charters to 23% of--let's be honest here--city education spending is nightmarish. That's close to a fourth of our budget, gone, to schools that do not, will not, and are not being required to serve all of our kids.

It's a bad bill. Vote it down.