Compass Point
A Weekly Collection of Data, Articles and Insights from the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute
A project of the Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Public Policy
L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs
Articles of Interest
State & Local Policy

Education Innovation Tour for McAuliffe Begins Outside Richmond
NBC 29 WVIR
August 31, 2015

The McAuliffe administration wants to hear from commonwealth citizens on how to improve Virginia schools.

Teachers and members of the community met at Bellwood Elementary School library in Chesterfield County Monday for the first of eight state-wide school round-table talks.

McAuliffe says strong schools play an important role in economic growth."I focus every day on building the new Virginia economy, how do we create new jobs? How do we diversify the economy?" McAuliffe added: "It's about making smart, strategic, innovative investments."

Norfolk gets $1.5M for schools with military children
ABC 13 WVEC
September 1, 2015

10 Norfolk schools with a significant number of students in military families will share $1.5 million in grants, First Lady of Virginia Dorothy McAuliffe announced Tuesday.

Mrs. McAuliffe was joined by Acting Superintendent Dr. Michael Thornton, Virginia Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security John Harvey, Mayor Paul Fraim, representatives of the Military Child Education Coalition and Navy officials at Camp Allen Elementary School to announce Operation Thrive: Moving Beyond Resilience.

The money will be used to increase the capacity of teachers and administrators to create school cultures that respond to the unique experiences and challenges of students connected to the military, officials said in a news release.

Demand for science, technology education increases
The News & Advance
August 31, 2015

Demand for specialized science and technology education from students, parents and companies has exploded in Region 2000 in recent years.

The city of Lynchburg in particular recently was named a TechHire community, one of just a few in the nation and the first in the state to train tech-sector workers to feed into local businesses.

The director of the Lynchburg Economic Development Office, Marjette Upshur, said of the program: "The concept is that the business community will drive each nanodegree program to meet their specific hiring needs."

Virginia Tech engineering education professors seek to find ways to reduce time spent studying for a degree
Augusta Free Press
August 30, 2015

As the costs of a college education continue to soar, and politicians scramble for ways to make the academic experience more economically feasible, two Virginia Tech engineering education professors are investigating helpful strategies for avoiding pitfalls that prolong completion times when pursuing doctoral degrees.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $1.28 million to Virginia Tech engineering education faculty members Stephanie Adams and Holly Matusovich to offer a Dissertation Institute to evaluate issues that could lead to shortening a student’s time to earn a doctoral degree.

Federal Policy


Report profiles opt out policies in all 50 states National Association of State Boards of Education
August 2015

States vary in how they respond to parents’ requests to opt children out of standardized testing. These
responses fall loosely into four categories: most states prohibit opt outs, others permit them, still others differentiate between opt
outs and refusals or permit opt outs with constraints, and some let local districts devise their own policies (see map).

Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia require all students to take state tests. Most of these encourage schools to counsel parents and students on the benefits of state testing and the potential consequences of nonparticipation.

Jeb Bush talks education at Miami school

Local 10.com

September 1, 2015

GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush made a stop at a Miami school Tuesday as part of his campaign trail.

The former Florida governor toured classes at Progresiva Presbyterian School before holding a town hall meeting with high school students.
It’s there that he talked about education and how, as governor, he fought to raise the graduation rate in the Sunshine State.

The complicated politics of national standards: Even more sources of opposition (Part 2 of 3)
Brookings Institute
August 27, 2015

In this post, I will identify and discuss even more sources of opposition to the standards.

Curriculum and culture wars

The crafting of new national standards also has reignited long-standing ideological debates about multiculturalism — how American literature and history should be taught, and whether the science curriculum should include reservations about evolution and global warning. Opponents of the Core cast it as a national curriculum that is ill-suited for a country with such religious, political, ethnic, and cultural diversity. Some conservatives are concerned that progressive educators are using the public schools to indoctrinate children with liberal social and economic values on such hot-button issues as homosexuality, abortion, sex education, and socialism.
Are High School Students Ready for College in Virginia?

The Virginia Department of Education recently trumpeted Virginia students' performance on the ACT college entrance exam.  We decided to see where Virginia stacks up compared to the rest of the nation. 

Graduating from high school is no guarantee that a student is ready for college.  A recent survey found that only 45% of high school juniors and seniors across the country feel positive about their college and career readiness. Even scoring well on college entrance exams like the ACT and SAT is not necessarily an indication of future performance, one reason that fewer colleges and universities are requiring the exams for admission. But average performance on the exams is still valid for bragging rights (at least if the news is positive) - the Virginia Department of Education trumpeted the state's 2015 average score in a press release last week

Virginia did better than the national average, but we thought we might take a look at the data via some map and graph visualizations.  You can look through all four slides by clicking on the image below or going here.  (The underlying data was downloaded from the ACT website.)


Comparing Virginia to other states provides positive news.  Some aspects of the in depth report on Virginia, however, contained other sobering details.  Only 41% of ACT test takers from Virginia met all four ACT benchmarks of college readiness (English Composition, Algebra, Social Science and Biology).  This beat the national average by 13%, but still means that if you believe the ACT tests are valid, half of those graduating from Virginia don't have greater than a 50% chance of getting a B in the associated college course. 

There also are sobering, though too familiar, numbers on gaps in readiness by ethnicity (see page 22 of the report).  The bars on the right of the graph below indicate the percent of students who met all four ACT benchmarks of college readiness.  While 48% of White students and 57% of Asian students did so, only 11% of Black/African American students did the same.  (African-American's have a far higher probability of attending high-poverty schools in Virginia, providing one possible explanation.)



Alongside this focus on ACT scores, our Poll Snapshot this week looks at whether respondents in our most recent Commonwealth Education Poll feel that Virginia's high school students are ready for college.  Read below for more detail.

Finally, we're proud to present an excerpt of a special August Education Law newsletter, written by our summer legal research associate, Emily Smith, who recently started her second year at University of Richmond's Law School.  The topic of the brief is the legal limits schools face when managing off-campus communication over social media.  Dr. Vacca, our senior fellow, continues to edit the CEPI Education Law Newsletter, but in the coming year you'll see a range of guest experts. 

We hope you have a great week!

Sincerely,
CEPI
Poll Snapshot:  Perceptions of High School Graduates readiness for college, world of work

The public tends to be more optimistic than the ACT test results about high school graduates being ready for college. 

This past year we asked respondents whether they strongly or somewhat agreed (or strongly or somewhat disagreed) with the statement "today's high school graduate is:

  • ready for the world of work?
  • ready for college?

The results are summarized below and show that while a majority (64%) see high school graduates as being ready for college, an even stronger majority (70%) don't think high school grads are ready for the world of work. This doubtfulness about graduates' readiness for work is only more stark if we look at the strength of agreement or disagreement. Only 4% of respondents strongly agreed that high school grads were ready for the world of work, compared to 31% who strongly disagreed.

The youngest respondents (those aged 18-34) were the most likely to disagree that high school grads were ready. Fully 78% somewhat or strongly disagreed, compared to the rates of disagreement among those aged 35-44 (65%); 45-64 (63%) and 65+ (67%).

To read the full results of the 2015 poll, visit our website.

Education Law:  The Applicability of the Tinker Test to Off-Campus Cyber-Speech - Policy Implications

Excerpted from an upcoming special Ed Law Newsletter
By Emily E. Smith - Summer Legal Intern
Law Student, University of Richmond School of Law

"Suggestions for School Policies
It seems clear that a majority of circuits believe Tinker can be suitably applied to off-campus student speech. Thus, schools may prohibit off-campus student cyber-speech that “might reasonably [lead] school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” Wynar v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 728 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S. Ct. 733, 21 L. Ed. 2d 731 (1969)). However, there are other considerations school administrators must take into account before disciplining students for off-campus speech.

The Second Circuit’s “Foreseeability” Standard
The Second Circuit’s “foreseeability” standard, also embraced by the Fourth and Eight Circuits, first considers whether the student could reasonably foresee that the speech would reach the school before applying the substantial disruption or material interference test from Tinker.

Under this foreseeability analysis, school administrators should evaluate how the student shared the speech by considering factors such as: (a) whether the speech was posted on a public or private site; (b) whether it was sent to members of the community or the school system; and (c) whether it was accessed on school property. One must remember, however, that the fundamental issue is whether the student could have reasonably expected the speech to remain private, or whether it was reasonably foreseeable that the speech would reach the school’s campus. If the administrator finds that the speech passes the reasonable foreseeability test, the next step is Tinker’s substantial disruption or material interference standard.

Offensive Speech Aimed at School Employees
When evaluating offensive off-campus student cyber-speech aimed at school employees, school administrators should consider: (a) the degree to which the speech was seen by school and community members; (b) the believability of the speech; (c) whether the speech had an impact on the employee’s ability to perform their administrative duties; (d) the actual impact on school activities resulting from the speech; and (e) whether the employee’s fitness as a school administrator was brought into question.
None of these questions are dispositive, however, as seen in the Third Circuit’s Blue Mountain decision. J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain School District. 650 F.3d 915 (3rd Cir. 2011). Though the student’s fake MySpace profile parodying her middle-school principal created "general rumblings" at the school and disrupted one teacher’s class, the Third Circuit held that the profile was so outrageous in nature that no reasonable person would take it seriously. Id. at 922-23.

Thus, unless administrators can show that a student’s off-campus offensive speech aimed at a school employee actually caused a disruption in the school or would likely do so without administrative action, merely angering or embarrassing an employee is not enough to constitute a substantial or material disruption and warrant disciplinary action.

Offensive Speech Aimed at Students
When evaluating offensive off-campus student cyber-speech aimed at fellow students, school administrators should consider whether the speech: (a) was intended to be accessed by students at the school; (b) caused the targeted student to suffer increased bullying or harassment; (c) affected the targeted student’s school performance or participation in school activities; or (d) caused violent conflicts between students. If school administrators can show that the off-campus speech caused any of the above circumstances to occur, it is likely the school system would have strong grounds to impose disciplinary action."

To read the full newsletter, visit our website.