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Articles of Interest
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State & Local Policy
McAuliffe and GOP offer plan for $2.4 billion budget shortfall
The Washington Post
September 15, 2014
A gaping $2.4 billion hole in Virginia’s budget brought a rare moment of bipartisan unity to the Capitol on Monday as the Democratic governor and Republican legislative leaders unveiled a plan to tap the rainy-day fund and trim most state spending by 3 percent.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and budget leaders from the House and Senate announced that they had privately worked out a way to bring state spending in line with a revenue shortfall largely attributed to federal defense cuts.
Spending for K-12 education will be spared, but almost every other corner of state and local government will feel the pinch under the proposal. It will be up to state agencies and localities to determine how to make the cuts.
Va. educators debate falling English test scores
Richmond Times Dispatch
September 13, 2014
English test scores are falling in Virginia and elsewhere, and some educators and parents fear that the trend reflects societal changes that will be tough to overcome.
Children today read less in their free time, goes one widely accepted argument. Another, which garners more debate, is that they’re increasingly likely to text, tweet or post to Facebook rather than engage in conversation.
Federal Policy
Room for Debate: How to Diversify Teaching
The New York Times
September 11, 2014
The teaching profession is dominated by women: Three-quarters of all teachers in kindergarten through high school are female, and in elementary and middle schools, women account for more than 80 percent of the educators.
What’s more, more than 80 percent of America’s teachers are white, even though minority students are expected to outnumber white students in public schools for the first time this year.
How can the teaching profession become more diverse in terms of gender and race or ethnicity?
Making Top Colleges Less Aristocratic and More Meritocratic
The New York Times
September 12, 2014
Education is supposed to be America’s primary engine for social mobility, but growing economic inequality is vividly reflected in our nation’s top colleges. At the nation’s most selective 193 colleges and universities, affluent students (those from the richest socioeconomic quarter of the population) outnumber economically disadvantaged students (those from the bottom quarter) by 14 to 1.
To shine light on this issue, The New York Times recently published a new index of selective colleges, measuring their commitment to socioeconomic diversity. Some colleges, such as Amherst and Harvard, have made considerable progress in opening their doors to low-income students, while others have done less well.
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The end of accountability?
What do New York Times film critic A.O. Scott and our executive director, Dr. Bosher, have in common? This past weekend both shared their musings on the topic of accountability in our culture. Dr. Bosher reflects in his weekly editorial on the irony of the federal Department of Education, which mandates accountability in many aspects of our nation's education system, absolving itself of accountability for the contents of 9/11 commemoration teaching materials they have on their website.
Scott, in much longer piece, reflects on " The Death of Adulthood in American Culture," observes "In my main line of work as a film critic, I have watched over the past 15 years as the studios committed their vast financial and imaginative resources to the cultivation of franchises (some of them based on those same Y.A. novels) that advance an essentially juvenile vision of the world. . . What all of these shows grasp at, in one way or another, is that nobody knows how to be a grown-up anymore."
Linking both reflections is a focus on the absence of actors (real or fictional) who step forward and utter the famous phrase attributed to President Truman - "The buck stops here." Who takes responsibility for how things turn out is a familiar question in the world of education. As Education Week pointed out ten years ago, "accountability - the idea of holding schools, districts, educators, and students responsible for results - has become the most-recent watchword in education." Felix Lopez, writing all the way back in 1970 laid out a number of factors that create successful accountability systems, but also differentiated between responsibility and accountability. Responsibility, he noted "is an essential component of authority which cannot be delegated. It is the responsibility of a board of education to insure the effective education of the children in its community. Board members cannot pass this responsibility on to principals and to teachers. But they can hold teachers and principals accountable for the achievement of tangible educational effects provided they define clearly what effects they expect and furnish the resources needed to achieve them.”
This week awareness of this focus on accountability was renewed by news articles in Shenandoah, Fairfax, Henrico and Suffolk counties that highlighted how school systems plan to deal with a surge to 30% in the ratio of schools accredited with warning or not accredited (follow the link to see the Virginia DOE's definitions and benchmarks). The uptick is due, in large part, to new and harder standards put into place last year.
Some academic research has found evidence that test-based accountability systems do improve student performance while others have argued that accountability systems should include more than just tests.
Our poll snapshot this week looks more closely at the breakdown of public opinion on whether SOLs help keep schools accountable.
Finally, we also share an excerpt from our Ed Law expert, Dr. Richard Vacca, on legal factors weighed in supervisory accountability.
Sincerely,
CEPI
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Poll Snapshot: Accountability for Schools
As noted last week, opinion is divided on whether SOL tests have helped or hurt student performance. But a solid majority (62%) of respondents to our 2014 poll agree either strongly (25%) or somewhat (37%) that SOL tests hold schools accountable for student achievement.
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But what insights exist if we delve into some of the demographic breakdowns?
Regional differences: agreement with the statement that tests hold schools accountable for student acheivement was highest in the Tidewater and West regions (68% and 66% respectively) and lowest in Northwest Virginia (50%) with Northern Virginia and South Central falling between (61% and 60%). The Tidewater area stood out even more strongly because 36% or respondents strongly agreed with the statement, compared to 20-23% in the other four regions.
Lack of Gender difference: men and women showed essentially the same exact level of agreement (62%), a notable result since women are much more likely to agree that SOL tests put too much pressure on students.
Parents of school students similar to non-parents: as with gender, there was not significant difference in agreement between respondents who were the parent of a public school student vs. those who were not - 63% of parents agreed vs. 62% of non-parents.
Income: the percentage in agreement with the statement was higher among lower income groups. For those with family income less than $50,000 per year, agreement was 65% while it declined to 61% among those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 and only 55% among those with incomes above $100,000.
Lack of partisan gap: Finally, both 64% of self-identified Democrats and 63% of self-identified Republicans agreed with the statement. Independents, at 59%, were somewhat less in agreement, though 30% agreed strongly, compared to 26% and 24% who strong agreed among Republicans and Democrats respectively.
(To read the full results of the poll, visit our website. Question 11c is the question reported above - topline results are on pages 31; crosstabs are on page 53.)
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Accountability in Supervision
Excerpted from CEPI's Ed Law Newsletter of November 2013
written by Dr. Richard Vacca.
" Allegations of Negligent Supervision and Retention
A corollary to selecting and placing employees is the obligation of school administrators and supervisors to continually monitor the educational environment. As a general rule the legal responsibility to administer and supervise the school environment falls directly on the shoulders of the building principal. Where an employee (new or continuing) fails to provide the services for which he/she was hired, or in some way poses a threat of harm to students, school principals are expected to take immediate and appropriate action. To put it another way, while the school principal did not make the initial hiring decision, he/she is obligated to provide appropriate and sustained supervision of the school’s environment and to recommend appropriate action where the employee engages in inappropriate behavior. Was the employee’s harmful act foreseeable? And, if so, was immediate and appropriate action taken to prevent harm to the student? Given evidence of inappropriate, harmful behavior, why was this employee retained?
In cases involving employee-on-student sexual harassment, where allegations of negligent hiring and/or negligent supervision, and/or negligent retention are alleged, the judicial analysis often searches for acts of gross negligence, deliberate indifference, and/or reckless or substantial lack of concern to determine whether or not school officials failed to take reasonable actions to stop the situation and to prevent acts of future harassment. Henderson v. Walled Lake Consolidated Schools (6th Cir. 2006) As a general rule public school officials have been held liable for the actions of an employee where deliberate indifference is shown. Franklin v. Gwinnett (1992) See also, Shaul v. Cherry Valley-Springfield School District (2nd Cir. 2004) where the court emphasized the need for school officials to take “immediate and appropriate action.”"
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