The following resources focus on the educational climate and betterment of those serving the K–12 educational community.
Reports on Safe2Tell CO Tip Line Increase in 2018 Safe2Tell Colorado, a tip line for students to report threats and more, has received an increase of reports in 2018. This includes 55 reports of a planned school attack. (Fox31 Denver KVDR)
KIDS Coaches Available to Assist Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS) coaches are available to help teachers, administrators, and districts with additional training and technical support. KIDS coaches provide a range of services, including one-on-one technical assistance calls and visits, group coaching sessions, classroom walkthroughs, overview meetings, and support in interpreting and using data to improve classroom instruction. The new “Find Your KIDS Coach” interactive map will help districts easily identify their KIDS coaches.
The States Leading campaign will highlight and celebrate the progress states are making to improve education for all students across the country. Through social media, weekly email updates and events, the campaign will feature innovative state policies and share stories of the promising practices underway in classrooms today.
Analysis: Four Ways State Ed Reformers Are Keeping Up the Fight for Better Schools Under ESSA Suzanne Tacheny Kubach, executive director of the PIE (Policy Innovators in Education) Network, describes the importance of state-level advocates in the rollout of ESSA. (The 74)
When Do States Share Assessment Data? Just one state delivers final results to educators in the spring; nine others provide preliminary results. (THE Journal)
As the Education Department Approves 11 Education Plans, a Closer Look at Federal Feedback to States Seventeen states received good news from the U.S. Department of Education this week: an extension on the deadline for their updated ESSA plans. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. (74 Million)
Meeting the Promise of Continuous Improvement While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for continuous improvement, a recent report from AdvancED offers insights into what successful schools do well and where all schools, even the highest-performing ones, need to improve.
New ESSA Resources In response to several states asking for assistance interpreting ESSA-related items, we recently released two new reports: High School Diploma Options explains three pathways outside of a regular high school diploma that meet the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate requirement, and Funding Transparency Under ESSA concentrates on the new requirement to report per-pupil expenditures for each school and district in the state. For more context around changes under ESSA, see the 50-State Comparison: States’ School Accountability Systems, which looks at state accountability systems as described in statute and how they’re changing in state ESSA plans.
ISBE Superintendent Defends Budget, Storyteller Request The Illinois State Board of Education is supposed to spend more government dollars on the neediest schools, according to a new funding plan. This week, lawmakers pushed back against the agency’s proposed price tag. (NPR Illinois Education Desk)
The Next Educational Equity Battleground: Little-Noticed ESSA Provision to Allow Parents to See Whether Districts Fund Schools Fairly When Congress updated federal education law in 2015, it included a little-noticed, bipartisan provision that requires states to report per-pupil spending at the school level. The Every Student Succeeds Act provision goes into effect in the 2018–19 school year. (The 74)
Curriculum earns highest-ever rating from EdReports Illustrative Mathematics 6-8 Math received the highest EdReports designation, Meets Expectations, in all three review categories. This curriculum is available free as OER under the Creative Commons license CC BY.
States Leading for Equity: Promising Practices Advancing the Equity This document provides a brief overview of practices and policies states are currently engaging in to provide more equitable education for students. The report highlights positive examples and progress made against the 10 equity commitments. States Leading for Equity represents a milestone on the journey to achieve educational equity for every child and recognizes difficult work that remains. State chiefs understand that the journey toward equity is just beginning and this document marks a celebration of positive starts along that path.
Understanding the Nuances of the School Discipline Debate This Ed Note blog post looks at both sides of the debate around school discipline, and comes from Alyssa Rafa.
43 States Include More Than K12 Test Scores on Report Cards, but Work Remains Some 43 states have now added measures that go beyond test scores—such as chronic absences, discipline rates and course offerings—to offer a wider view of how a school is performing and what programs are available to students. (District Administration)
