BESE okays delay of Common Core implementation
Reacting to an avalanche of complaints from the LFT, parents, school boards and others, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to stagger the implementation of Common Core standards, which will now not go into full effect until the 2025 school year. Previously, Common Core was slated to be fully operational by 2016.
Federation President Steve Monaghan, who for months has pushed the board to delay the controversial plan, expressed surprise at the action. Until recently, he said, there was a mindset in the education bureaucracy that was determined to implement the changes.
“A few weeks ago,” Monaghan said, “I thought there was no possibility other than full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes.”
A few of the changes that will be noticed immediately are:
- No Value Added Model data will be available in 2014 and 2015. New assessments won’t allow for baseline data during those years, upon which to base projected student growth. The one-third of teachers evaluated under the VAM will be judged based on the results of their Student Learning Targets instead during those years.
- Fourth graders may be allowed to pass to fifth grade even if they fail the end-of-year test.
- A transitional year on high school campuses will be available to eighth graders who fail the end-of-year test. They will take remedial classes along with credit classes.
- Third and fourth graders will not have to take high-stakes tests on computers yet. Computer tests in higher grades may be delayed for schools that do not have adequate technology.
School letter grades “tweaked” by board
BESE rejected a two-year moratorium on imposing letter grades on schools, but did agree to “tweak” the grading scheme so that schools do not appear to plunge academically as Common Core standards are phased in.
LFT President Steve Monaghan urged the board to accept the delay proposed by BESE Member Lottie Beebe of St. Martinville, saying that labeling a school with a single letter grade does not accurately reflect its status.
“You’re told absolutely nothing by a letter grade,” he said.
Superintendent of Education John White said that his idea is to “curve” the letter grades so that, during the transition to Common Core, the percentage of schools labeled with A, B, C, D and F will remain the same as it is now.
Some board members worried that if a few schools improve dramatically during the transition, others which hold steady will wind up with lower letter grades because of White’s curve. An amendment to the provision guaranteed that a school’s letter grade will not drop if its performance score remains the same or improves.
As Monaghan noted later, this was just another example of BESE and the department adjusting the scores to produce the results that they want the public to see.
VAM study decision put off until March
The board put off a decision on a study of the Value Added evaluation system until next March. BESE member Lottie Beebe had asked for the study of the VAM formula’s “validity and reliability” at the board’s October meeting. But a plan from the Department of Education presented this week consisted of a one-page proposal to hire a third-party evaluator to study the results of COMPASS, not the validity and reliability of the formula.
Board members said that changes to Common Core mean there will be no Value Added data available for the next two years, and there is no need to take immediate action on the study.
BESE delays decision on 8(g) funds
The board delayed until next March a decision on changing the way that funds from the 8(g) offshore oil settlement are distributed to schools. The delay was announced a day before State Treasurer John Kennedy released news that the fund enjoyed its best investment return ever in 2013.
The fund was established in 1986 to guide the use of $540 million received from a settlement with the U.S. government. A constitutional amendment guarantees that a portion of the fund can only be used for education programs in K-12 and higher education. This year the fund grew by $108 million, according to Kennedy.
The K-12 8(g) funds are distributed by BESE. The board heard a proposal to allocate a large portion of the funds as competitive grants, a practice that was abandoned years ago. The proposal under consideration would allow the State Department of Education to compete for some of the grants itself. Critics argued that the department would take money that is needed for early childhood education programs.
Changes to charter application process approved
A new rule adopted by BESE will allow charter schools whose application is rejected by local school boards to appeal the decision to the state board within one week. Under current rules, organizations denied a charter by a local board must wait to reapply to BESE a year later, in the next round of applications.