"Public comment by Gerald M. Eads II, Ph.D.


Race to the Top Assessment Meeting


Gerald Eads currently conducts research for the Professional Standards Commission, Georgia’s teacher certification agency. He has served as head of testing for the Virginia Department of Education, research faculty for the State Data & Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and assistant for policy research to the director at the Georgia Office of Educational Accountability. His doctoral training was in experimental and educational psychology and measurement. The opinions offered herein are entirely those of the author and do not represent the position of any agency."

1. Validity

The RT3 assessment executive summary notes that “the framework would focus on the design and quality of assessment systems and not accountability policies” yet it is the accountability policies which drive validity – and validity is at the very core of the issue of quality. The testing system you are considering must be validated for each of your purposes: instructional improvement, measuring school, principal, and teacher effectiveness, and predicting college “readiness.” It would behoove us, for example, to require state consortia to demonstrate that the testing system differentiates among teachers on meaningful dimensions. Just because “scores go up” does not mean in and of itself that anything of value changes – higher graduation rates, increased college success, lower unemployment rates, employment persistence, etc. Unless we can demonstrate externally referenced value, a testing system is nothing more than the proverbial boat _ _ that is to say, a hole in the water into which we pour money. Developing an assessment system without considering policy intent and implication is little different from building the atom bomb and refusing to address the consequences. Your Framework begins with policy validity issues, not the least of which is “Individual student achievement as measured against standards that build toward college and career readiness by the time of high school completion” – we cannot know that the tests

"In recent months, we have seen state departments of education and state legislatures scurry to make themselves eligible and better positioned to win a federal Race to the Top grant. From knocking down the firewalls between student performance data and teachers to smoothing the path for charter school expansion to adopting common core standards to just demonstrating a hospitable environment for education reform and change, states have been doing anything and everything to gain a better position for the Race.

Earlier this week, Michigan announced sweeping reforms to put them in line with the federal requirements. California is currently debating similar positions (with what seems like growing concerns). And we seem genuine changes in reform culture in states like Indiana, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and many others along the way. (Every state, that is, except for the Republic of Texas, which as of yesterday still hasn't committed to even pursuing RttT, despite the $250K it received from the Gates Foundation to prepare its application.)"

President Amavisca on the rough road for EGUSD

"2010 is expected to be one of the toughest years for the Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD).

The district must educate more than 62,000 students while facing a $42 million shortfall in a budget that will fund the schools beginning in July.

California’s budgetary woes still persist as the state is anticipating a projected $20 billion deficit and as the routine goes, public school districts must plan and adopt a budget based on guesses as to how much the state might fund them.

Entering this ordeal is the EGUSD’s board president for 2010, Jeanette Amavisca. Summer school was already slashed for the new year, and layoffs or position elimination is being considered for scores of teachers, counselors, librarians and vice principals."

"President Barack Obama yesterday announced more than $250 million in private investments to help attract and prepare new teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, collectively known as the “STEM” field, and to help improve instruction in those areas by practicing teachers.

The new commitments roughly double the amount the president first announced in November as part of his “Educate to Innovate” campaign for excellence in STEM education. (“Obama Backing STEM Education,” Dec. 2, 2009.)"

The campaign is described by the White House as a partnership that involves efforts not only from the federal government, but also from leading companies, foundations, nonprofit groups, and science and engineering societies to work with young people across the nation to excel in science and math.

The largest single commitment in yesterday’s announcement comes from the Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., and the Intel Foundation, which are planning a 10-year, $200 million effort to expand on work under way to improve math and science education, including through increased professional-development opportunities for teachers.

"The state Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday night to appoint two of its members to oversee four poorly performing school districts, two of them in Monterey County — Greenfield Union and Alisal Union."

A third Salinas Valley district, King City Union, was not among those that will receive a visit from state officials. Officials were unavailable to explain why late Wednesday night.

The two state trustees will meet with the districts' leadership and the state District Assistance and Intervention Team to help develop plans for improving academic performance, and will return to the board in March to report on the progress. The state board took action in Sacramento at a meeting broadcast on the state Department of Education Web site.

The state board moved away from issuing harsher sanctions — which included possible district takeover by the state — against the academically troubled districts in favor of working with them to solve problems, said Esperanza Zendejas, Alisal superintendent, who was present in Sacramento.

"It all comes back to parenting. Teens will always be teens, but parenting is becoming more and more challenging. We are not allowed to just 'squeak by' when it comes to parenting.

We need to be proactive and keep up to date on all sorts of things. Issues many parents didn't even think about 20 years ago!

Remember, with help/hindrance of technology, doors have opened that have never been entered before. It is a new time, a new life, and a new road for parenting. The Internet is your new information highway, and all parents need this road map."

"ON AUGUST 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math.

One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor’s math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked.

The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a ZIP code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or"

Get the Report: New Research Reveals PreK-12 Educators Increasingly Value and Use Digital Media 

"Spurred by the prospect of grant funding from the federal Race to the Top competition, as well as money made available from other parts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more states are taking strides to link K-12 data systems with postsecondary agencies to develop a more holistic picture of each student.

But despite the emphasis among policy leaders on K-20 data systems, the progress that states have made toward that goal varies greatly, and many challenges—both technical and political—remain."

"Welcome. The Southern Education Foundation offers this site with easy-to-use information and analysis on the key issues of education in the American South.

Fairness and excellence are crucial challenges in Southern education. The South has America's lowest levels of education and income largely because children who need the most help to succeed in school often get the least support. In turn, America and the South need these children to succeed to meet the nation's growing economic imperatives.

Fairness and excellence also define SEF's mission. For almost 140 years, SEF has carried out strategic, innovative work to expand the benefits of education to all people. Today, SEF brings a sense of history and a cutting-edge perspective to our work. Please join us."

Get the Report: A New Diverse Majority: Students of Color in the South’s Public Schools

"Behind every good book is a writer with something to say and a talent for saying it.

Booksellers like Peter Keat know this. They make a living finding these people and making their voices more accessible on the shelves of bookstores.

But not all the great stories are written down.

Starting this month, Keat and his tiny staff at Time Tested Books are offering a series of monthly talks and lectures from Sacramento's living and breathing cultural icons, thinkers and experts — and people who have just led intriguing lives. The free series, which will be held every third Sunday, is called the Sacramento Living Library"

"There's been a concerted effort by the pro-charter crowd to 'educate' the public about the so-called publicness of charter schools. You'll regularly see 'charters' referred to as 'public charter schools' these days, and don't think this slight change in label was accidental. The variety, quality, and types of charter schools - from your blatantly for-profit EMOs like the Edison Schools, the assortment of no excuses charter chaingangs like KIPP, rather progressive versions like the Big Picture schools, 'mom and pop' charters started and run by legitimate teachers, and a number of other different types - makes this field more complicated than it first appears."

"The racial violence at South Philadelphia High School last month has drawn the official attention of yet another government agency.

The Mayor's Commission on Asian American Affairs yesterday expressed 'deep concern' over the Dec. 3 beatings of 30 Asian students by large groups of primarily African American pupils, and announced that it would monitor the situation at the school.

The advisory commission, which has no enforcement power, is at least the sixth authority to open an investigation, hold hearings, or focus an official eye on the school. They include the Philadelphia Police Department, the city and state Commissions on Human Relations, and Vietnam's deputy ambassador to the United States."

"The recent article by Chronicle reporter Ericka Mellon about how schools are dropping weekly spelling tests in favor of teaching methods that focus less on memorization and more on understanding why and how words are constructed has created quite a stir. The article prompted letters to the editor and an editorial supporting the more traditional approach.

Noah Webster, noted lexicographer, once wrote, “Spelling is the foundation of reading and the greatest ornament of writing.” Webster's quote so succinctly captures the importance of spelling instruction. Students' spellings provide insight as to how well students are connecting sounds to reliable patterns in the language. Students who have a sense of how the language works spell more accurately and use more sophisticated words. The trick is how to provide students with instruction that will lead to improved spelling."

"My Dec. 10 column about that Washington area troublesome but gifted child, future billionaire Warren Buffett, said our schools are never going to help such kids much. I said the gifted designation was often arbitrary and should be disposed of. Instead, we ought to find ways to let all kids explore their talents.

This produced a flood of comments on my blog. Many readers thought I was callous and daft. 'Unfortunately, eliminating the label generally means that the schools give up doing anything for advanced learners,' wrote a reader signing in as EduCrazy. Another commenter, CrimsonWife, said, 'if educators are fine with giving special attention and services to kids who are far out of the mainstream on the low end of the spectrum, why is it so controversial to provide specialized services to kids who are far out of the mainstream on the high end?"

"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama announced a $250 million initiative Wednesday to train math and science teachers and help meet his goal of pushing America's students from the middle to the top of the pack in those subjects in the next decade.

"An unusual day for Carolyn Graves is one when she doesn't arrive at work to find phone messages on her desk.

Graves is family service advocate for New Directions Early Head Start at the Neighborhood House in Wilmington's Southbridge section. Parents call nearly every day seeking a space in the program, the only one of its kind in the neighborhood. With admission comes child care and resources to help moms and dads achieve family goals, such as employment, job training and paying the bills on time.

'Most of our parents are low-income, and we look at getting them employment if they are not employed and what we can do to empower them to be self-sufficient,' Graves said. 'The teachers take care of the child, and I take care of the family.'"

"Democrats and Republicans agreed that the chances of success for many of the ambitious education proposals floated Wednesday by Gov. Jim Gibbons range from slim all the way to none. But that wasn’t necessarily the point.

Gibbons’ plan — which reads like the wish list of a conservative education reformer — appears aimed at exciting the conservative Republican base, while offering a way to cut the state budget.

It certainly has put his political opponents on the defensive."

"When the family budget started feeling the recession's pinch last year, Angela Allyn and her photographer husband, Matt Dinnerstein, pulled their three kids out of Chicago-area private schools and enrolled them in Evanston, Ill., public schools.

It has been a challenging transition: Maya, 16, now a high school sophomore, 'doesn't like crowds — and her high school is as big as a small college,' her mother says. Though Maya is learning a lot in the 'amazing' science program, she's also hoping to leave the crowds behind by doubling up on coursework, graduating by the end of junior year 'and then going and doing interesting things,' Allyn says. Her younger children face their own challenges, from bullying to sheer boredom.

The transition also has been an education for Maya's parents, who say they had 'no choice' in the struggling economy but to switch to public schools."

"Is the Obama Administration going to side with school reformers, or will it reward state and local teachers union affiliates that defend the status quo? This is a question states are asking as they prepare their applications for $4.35 billion in Race to the Top competitive grants. Some guidance from Education Secretary Arne Duncan would be helpful.

Teachers unions in Minnesota and Florida are currently threatening to withhold support for their state Race to the Top applications, which are due later this month. So is the school boards association in Louisiana. This matters because the Administration has placed a premium on states garnering 'local school district support' in order to win a grant. Not having union buy-in isn't fatal, but it definitely hurts a state's chances of getting federal funds."

"Children should use Google and Yahoo to improve their essays, according to the official exams watchdog."

"ATLANTA — The South has become the first region in the country where more than half of public school students are poor and more than half are members of minorities, according to a new report."


The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change.

The new numbers, from the 2008-9 school year, are a milestone for the South, “the only section of the United States where racial slavery, white supremacy and racial segregation of schools were enforced through law and social custom,” said the report, to be released on Thursday by the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit group based here that supports education improvement in the region. But the numbers also herald the future of the country as a whole, as minority students are expected to exceed 50 percent of public school enrollment by 2020 and the share of students poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches is on the rise in every state.

"FORTY YEARS ago, I changed schools. On the South Side of Chicago, my school had few books, 40 children in a classroom (most of us poor), teachers whose role was mainly to keep order, and police at every intersection of the halls. The school I changed to was a private New England prep school with small classes, longer school days, teachers with the latitude to innovate and experiment, and high expectations of each child."

"The state House of Representatives passed a sweeping education bill just after midnight that aims to overhaul the state’s worst schools and expand charter schools, capping off a marathon session that began early yesterday afternoon."

"Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.

There are several ways of measuring happiness in countries, all inexact, but this pearl of Central America does stunningly well by whatever system is used. For example, the World Database of Happiness, compiled by a Dutch sociologist on the basis of answers to surveys by Gallup and others, lists Costa Rica in the top spot out of 148 nations."

"Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to save money by privatizing prisons and the wisdom of linking the funding of universities and corrections facilities present formidable obstacles in Sacramento."

Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento - At the center of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech Wednesday was a proposal that outside of Sacramento might seem like common sense: Mandate that the state invest more dollars each year in its public universities than in locking people up in prison.

But to many inside the Capitol, that idea appears all but unattainable.

The plan -- and the reaction to it -- highlights the disconnect between the priorities of voters and the reality of the state's shattered finances and a policymaking process that often seems byzantine.

"In concept, it absolutely makes sense to everyone," said Thad Kousser, visiting professor of political science at Stanford University. But "when you look at the trade-offs that the state might face to get there, it gets a lot harder."

The proposal for a constitutional change that would require more spending on higher education than prisons was the key headline as Schwarzenegger delivered his final State of the State speech, in which he also asked legislators to approve a jobs creation program and urged them to join him in pushing for increased funding from Washington.

"For the second time in six months, a promi nent researcher has put New York City's public charter schools under a microscope and found that, overall, they're outperforming the city's traditional public schools.

This confirmation couldn't come at a more appropriate time. Last month, the state Board of Regents proposed a package of education reforms aimed at winning New York $700 million in desperately needed funding from the federal Race to the Top. A key recommendation was lifting the artificial cap on charters."

"Shile she heralded much of Governor Schwarzenegger's vision in his last State of the State address Wednesday morning -- Assembly Speaker Karen Bass had some concerns about his proposals to stimulate California's economy.

Rather than extend another tax credit for home buyers, Bass would like to see a measure that would help struggling homeowners, something '...that will help more families avoid foreclosure, that helps stabilize our housing market and I believe that's a win for the economy and for the budget.'"

"Valerie Purnell, 51, of Sacramento, has been appointed assistant vice chancellor of federal relations for the California Community Colleges. Since 2008, she has served as owner of Purnell Partnerships, a consulting and advocacy firm. Previously, Purnell served the University of California’s Office of the President as associate director of state governmental affairs for from 2000 to 2007 and assistant director from 1994 to 2000. She worked for Children Now as director of external affairs 1993 to 1994 and director of political and legislative affairs from 1989 to 1992. Purnell was a law associate and health care advocate for Public Advocates, Inc. in 1989. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $103,608. Purnell is a Democrat."

"A battle between Los Angeles Unified and charter groups could be decided today when the State Board of Education is expected to rule whether charters statewide can take complete control of educating their special needs students.

Publicly funded and independently run charters have argued that they should control special education funding, as they do for their general education student population. They accuse large school districts like LAUSD of controlling federal special education dollars and obstructing charters from getting their fair share.

But L.A. Unified officials say charters traditionally cherry pick special education students with less severe disabilities and leave LAUSD with severely disabled students who are more expensive to teach."

"The message that the Legislature and governor are trying to send by raising the dropout age to 18 from 16 is on target: Students need to get a full education to have a chance at meeting the demands of the 21st-century work force. Unfortunately, the educational cart has been put before the horse.

When students want to drop out, they usually are indicating that traditional schools aren't engaging them. To make an increase in the dropout age work, the state and local school districts need to help at-risk students by developing a solid network of alternative education in the middle and high schools.

Without enough alternative schools, early dropouts will continue to be a problem. After all, raising the dropout age gets short-circuited by the lame-brained legislative loophole of allowing a parent to write an excuse note that lets a child drop out of school before 18.

Historically, a significant portion of the dropout population comes from problem-ridden homes, yet"

"By now everyone in the community should know that California schools are in a financial pickle. The state deficit has for the past two years been a disaster for public schools, and attempts to balance school budgets include such choices as issuing layoff notices, cutting programs and general downsizing. The process for cuts has been poorly explained, and poorly understood in many communities.

For years the conventional budget process in San Diego City Schools has been to examine the prior year’s budget, identify the shortage of income from that year to the current year, and have the board select cuts in the amount needed.

In some cases staff was able to find places where budgets were inflated by unfilled positions, or places where staff over-budgeted funds in anticipation"

"SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vowed to pry more dollars from the federal government, which he said took more than it gave, but left details on how to close a $19.9 billion state budget gap until later this week.

In a state of the state speech, the governor said creating jobs was the top priority for his last year in office and proposed spending $500 million in worker training funded by part of the budget which is in surplus."

"Redford Union school officials are willing and anxious to participate in the Race to the Top program and qualify for some of the $400 million in federal funding available for Michigan.

But Redford Union teachers — following the lead of state Michigan Education Association officials — have thus far declined to sign the memo of understanding required as a first step.

Race to the Top is a federal program that provides for $100 billion nationwide to encourage and reward school districts committed to improving student achievement. Governor Jennifer Granholm on Monday signed legislation enabling state districts to compete for part of Michigan's share ($400 million)."

"Education needs to be a priority in California, according to the governor, but local officials are cautious to celebrate the statement before the budget plan is revealed Friday.

It’s all about priorities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in his annual State of the State yesterday. And California needs to prioritize education despite facing a $20 billion deficit. The ideas drew optimism from local education leaders but also generated questions about making those priorities a reality.

“Because our future economic well-being is so dependent upon education, I will protect education funding in this budget. And we can no longer afford to cut higher education either. The priorities have become out of whack over the years,” Schwarzenegger said.

Prioritizing education was welcomed by local officials, however all wondered how funding it could be achieved."

"California lawmakers have given parents of children in the state's lowest-performing schools sweeping new authority to improve their kids' education. But whether the new laws will lead to substantive reforms in many struggling schools depends on how many parents take advantage of their new powers.

The Senate approved the Race to the Top package of bills Wednesday, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger began his State of the State speech promising to sign them into law."