Can One Blogger Make a Difference? Hell, YES! Telling results!

Jack Markell and Mark Murphy succumb to

 reality, the TELL DELAWARE survey has

 been extended 10 days

http://www.telldelaware.org/http://www.telldelaware.org/
What a joke, they can’t get a response rate so they extend it to get more and more favorable responses.the survey is now officially bogus.
10 day extension= complete admission of fear and distrust in DOE
Looks like one blogger can make a difference.

reblogged from:  http://transparentchristina.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/jack-markell-and-mark-murphy-succumb-to-reality-the-tell-delaware-surgery-had-been-extended-10-days/

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DOE Releases Result of Data Coach/Wireless Gen. Survey

http://www.doe.k12.de.us/tleu_files/PLCSurveyReport_2012.pdf

Selected Highlights followed by SKEWED STATS, a C&E Math Game for the Right-brained:

• The Data Coach Project, first piloted and implemented in February 2011, provides professional learning community participants with the opportunity to receive coaching in data analysis concepts and skills related to their students’ performance. Wireless Generation (WG), the State of Delaware’s partner in the statewide Data Coach Project, deployed 29 Data Coaches across the state’s schools during the 2011-2012 school year. The Data Coach Project is implemented in one of two ways: Direct Facilitation, in which the WG coach facilitates each TADa PLC; or Coach-the-Coach (CtC), in which a district or school coach, trained by WG, facilitates the PLC. The implementation of professional learning communities is to be assessed through a variety of measures, including an annual PLC Participant Survey.
• The survey was sent electronically to all teachers in the state of Delaware, totaling 8800 teachers, specialists and administrators.  A total of 4848 surveys were collected from the teachers, specialists, and administrators participating in PLCs. That's a GRAND TOTAL of 53%!
• Survey responses were exported from Survey Monkey (online) into Stata data analysis software for analysis. The data were cleaned (for errors) and recoded (where necessary) in Stata and analyzed according to the survey’s key themes.
• Overall, the assessments of data coaches were positive and at least 70% of the teachers surveyed agreed that their data coach has the appropriate skills to facilitate their PLC, is responsive to the needs of their PLC, and responsive to teachers’ individual needs.
• Feedback indicated that the PLC work often seemed disconnected from the school’s mission or was a poor use of time since the teachers felt they already were skilled at using data to drive instructional practice. See "In Their Own Words" section.
• When teachers were asked what the majority of their PLC time should be focused around, Common Core implementation was included as part of their feedback. The TLEU has responded by training all Data Coaches in Common Core implementation for the 2012-2013 school year.

Let's play SKEWED STATISTICS for the Right-brained, RTTT Edition:

Wireless Generation hired and trained 29 Data Coaches.  50% of teachers responded to the survey via Survey Monkey.  70% of those 50% gave their data coaches high scores.  70% of 50% is 35% of all eligible respondents.  Just sayin'... But, let's keep swimming in the skewed stats. 70% of 29 is 20.3.

Based on skewed stats, Wireless Generation has supplied 8.7 data coaches who are under-performing and under-serving our teachers and students.

DOE contracted with WG for data coaches at a cost of $8.2 million.  Thus each data coach is worth about $282,758.62.

8.7 failing data coaches multiplied by their cost per unit $282,758.62 = approximately a $2.4 million negative ROI. $2.4 million washed down the drain.

And that's SS4RB - Race to the Trough Edition!

Thanks for playing Skewed Stats, a perfectly unscientific way of explaining what's between the lines.

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How to Win an Election? SuperPAC Edition

Yeah, okay, I was endorsed by the DSEA and the CEA.  Let's just get that out of the way.  I have a BA in English/Journalism, a couple of kids, a penchant for opening my mouth and inserting my foot, and a real desire to help kids - not adults - succeed.  For some reason, the union and their PAC, then the only game in town, felt I was what they were looking for in a candidate.  I took their $600 and put it to use - however I did it, or they did it, or whoever did it - I won the election based on my values and ideas.  In July 2009, while my children wreaked havoc, I was sworn in and put to work.  Of course, that was 2009. That was before... 

Race to the Trough...a Biden Bump into 1st round winnership...a dream deal for the green Gov with a blue print for education based upon a businessman's union-busting vision quest...


If you can remember way back to Ruth Ann Minner, before we knew about the private jets and the secret land deals, there was that story in the News Journal about some boat guy's disappointment (no, not capano, totally wrong boat guy) b/c his foundation didn't get enough money from the state budget.  Oh yeah, Vision 2012-15-Foundation.  They asked Ruth Ann to fund it and she didn't fully ante-up and they weren't so happy.  So Ruth Ann's term comes to an end, and state treasurer Jack Markell sails past the shoe-in Lt. Gov. in an upset to take the helm.


The Jack.  He's here and he's got friends that have a score to settle.  Recession hits and the first thing to go are the Minner Units - reading specialists? Taste that revenge.  Kids don't need to read.  They need to be obedient workers.  Balancing the state budget will be done on the backs of our school children as education funding is raided again and again to keep the general fund stocked.  And all of this is neither here nor there until a handful of local school board members, independent of each other, vote against signing an MOU with the state that would require districts to spin gold from hay or give up the first born of every tax payer. Ouch! 

Now, those board members, they never had a chance.  They knew they would lose the vote. (I knew I couldn't stop the freight train from coming, but I refused to vote to de-stabilize my schools with reforms that lacked longitudinal data supporting their success - damn! When did the stay-at-home momma get her smart on? Even DSEA Signed off on the MOU!) But, they certainly couldn't have realized that they were charting a course to become public enemy Number One!


So the Trough really does two things - it promotes these turnaround models that don't have longitudinal data behind them and it gives birth to a new industry, the eduformers, your basic deal of the day consultant run amok.  You know the kind - they used to sell cars, then cell phones, then mortgages.  Now they know how to fix your persistantly low-achieving school.  They've never done it before?  But, they've studied how it was done it in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Chicago and for a gross sum of your Trough money, they can apply those models to your schools and 1..2..3... Magic... So the carpetbaggers descend on Delaware, promised room at the inn by the well-connected and well-to-do.


Just one problem - Race to the Top, PZ, Vision (which finally found it's home in the Gov's mansion) can't silence those dissenting board members.  I suppose when you don't get paid for your voluntary civil service, there's really no reason to go along to get along.  And two years into the fray, those board members are starting to bring others into the light. All that Trough money hasn't funnelled into the classroom and it was never supposed to. That funding was to pay the consultants and the data coaches, the experts on school reform.  The Trough Team sold this plan to US DOE with great assurances that the state had 100 % buy-in.  Only that was a lie. And now the public is actually starting to listen and ask questions.


SO, IF YOU'RE A VISION-ARY SKIPPER IN DELAWARE AND OWNING THE GOVERNORSHIP AND THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATIONSHIP IS NOT ENOUGH "SHIP" FOR YOU - YOU BUY SCHOOLBOARDSMANSHIP.  AND HOW DO YOU DO THAT?  YOU HIRE THE SAME FIRM THAT HELPED SPRINT OBAMA INTO THE WHITE HOUSE - WWW.NEWPARTNERS.COM - TO RUN YOUR SUPER PAC.  FOR THOSE WHO ARE WONDERFING HOW I KNOW THIS?  I ASKED GREG HARRIS, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF VOICES 4 DELAWARE EDUCATION AND VOICES 4 DELAWARE EDUCATION ACTION FUND LAST WEEK. THANKS GREG, I REALLY APPRECIATE THAT YOU TOOK THE TIME TO TALK WITH ME.  I WON'T HOLD IT AGAINST YOU THAT YOU WORK FOR BUNCH OF SELFISH, MISGUIDED, GRUDGE-HOLDING BLOWHARDS WHO COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WHAT PARENTS WANT AND MORE ABOUT WHAT BETTER SUPPPORTS THEIR BOTTOM LINE.


Stunning isn't it?  Do you think the people that branded Obama come cheap?  Not.  This is Delaware.  These are school board members.  Are the businessmen, round tables, foundations, and chambers that afraid of a stay-at-home mom and a couple of other independent thinkers that they need to bring in the Obama guns?  What's wrong with this picture? 


I hate to tell you Skip, but I think your ship is taking on water... 

development & finance

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Check Out Transparent Christina! Awesome find for those who disdain the insanity of standardized testing!

http://transparentchristina.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/welcome-to-the-opt-out-of-standardized-tests-site-netde/

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DOE Subverts Parents' Rights!

   WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

11 Business Days until school starts.  11 Business days until you put your kids on school buses or drive them into their choice schools. 11 days and you have no idea how your school stacks up on the failure/success scale because the Department of Education is withholding AYP ratings from you and your school board.

The policy on face value is to withhold the findings until they have been thoroughly vetted.  That's DOE's excuse.  It's the national excuse for DOEs through-out the US. 

HERE'S YOUR PROBLEM, PARENTS:
You and I don't know how our schools rate.  Under NCLB, we have the right to transfer our children to a higher performing school if our feeder school does not make adequate progress, but we can't do this until we know which schools made AYP. Delaware DOE will release the AYP rankings on FRIDAY, AUGUST 26th.  Our students will report back to school the following MONDAY, AUGUST 29th.  Your child may start their school year in a failing school and then endure a transfer and transition to a new higher performing school if you desire to move your student to that higher performing school. Imagine the complications if the nearest higher performing school is in another district - inter-district transfers? Oh, my!

DELAWARE's DOE IS SUBVERTING YOUR RIGHTS UNDER NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.  This wretched policy must go. DOE needs to be held to a higher standard that ensures these rankings are released early enough in the summer for you to make educated decisions regarding your child before the school year starts.

Parents, what are you going to do to protect your rights?  First, don't fall for "The Excuse." Parents in other states aren't.  They are asking questions and demanding change. Second, consider "friending" the Deputy Sec. of Education and ask him to change the policy.  For important links, visit:  http://transparentchristina.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/doe-now-providing-preliminary-ayp-reports-to-subordinate-employees-of-school-boards-while-excluding-the-schoold-boards-netde/

Georgia released AYP results in July.  Unhappy parents criticize DOE for late release:  http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/07/21/do-ayp-transfers-create-solutions-for-kids-or-new-problems-for-schools/

Oregon DOE releases  AYP in early August: http://www.lakeoswegoreview.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=131300831058681700

North Carolina releases preliminary AYP results in July: http://www.whiteville.com/articles/2011/07/28/news/doc4e2d995c95f04061558291.txt

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Jeopardy!

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Rep. Longhurst Dishes Pencader, Feeds Students to the Dogs

Rep. Longhurst responds to a constituent:

-----Original Message-----

From: Longhurst Valerie (LegHall)
To:
Sent: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 11:51 am
Subject: RE: Pencader Charter
XXXXX,

Thank you for your email and expressing your concern. I’ve been involved with the Pencader Charter School since the inception. Over the years I have received many complaints and followed up on many issues surrounding the school. I feel for the students especially the ones who will be graduating this year. This is a very unfortunate situation that everyone in Legislative Hall has been discussing. We passed a key piece of legislation last week that would protect students from the failures of Charter Schools by moving the date of closure to enable students to find alternative schooling. I know it is too late for the Pencader students but hopefully we can correct this type of situation in the future.

As for Pencader, I just started receiving emails in the last two weeks. I’ve discussed the matter with the Governor and Sec. Lowery. This is a very unfortunate situation but Pencader must come up with the financing before and show it still maintains financial support. This is an issue that I can not help with. I’ve voiced my concern to Sec. Lowery and as had the other Legislators. I will continue to keep the conversation going but can not make any promises. I hope that you can understand that I was asked to get involved too late in the process. Again, please know that I am concerned for the students and this isn’t a matter I take lightly.

Please stay in touch as I will also.

Valerie J. Longhurst
House Majority Whip – State of Delaware

11 Winchester Court
Bear, DE 19702
Dover: 302-744-4351 Fax: 302-739-2313
Wilmington: 302-577-8475 Fax: 302-577-6701
E-mail: Valerie.Longhurst@state.de.us
House Democratic website: www.DeHouseDems.com http://www.dehousedems.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Delaware-House-Democratic-Caucus/

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Will Rep. Kenton Stand for Pencader?

Kenton's Response to a constituent -

Per Rep. Kenton-

The State Legislature will be in session. Therefore the likely hood of my being able to attend is questionable. Thank you for your email and invitation. I wish you and your students all the best and continued success in the future.
Harvey

Margaret Moore Dean
Legislative Assistant/House Minority Caucus

Legislative Hall
Dover, Delaware 19903
Telephone: 302-744-4267
Fax: 302-739-2773
Email address: Margaret.Moore-Dean@state.de.us

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