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State to unveil education plan

Accountability, educator support part of initiative

Kessler

MARQUETTE — Upper Peninsula teachers recently learned more about how the Michigan Department of Education will execute the Every Student Succeeds Act at a forum held in Sault Ste. Marie and broadcast via live video feed across the region.

ESSA was signed by President Obama on Dec. 10, 2015, to replace the former federal education act commonly known as No Child Left Behind, which was enacted in 2001.

ESSA is the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Michigan’s ESSA action teams have been meeting since early June seeking feedback on topics such as transparency in reporting, school accountability and educator support.

MDE Deputy Superintendent of Educator, Student and School Supports Venessa Keesler said ESSA allows states to develop their own educational system based on evidence, while still ensuring that they set high standards for education.

“There’s a focus on empowering state and local decision makers that maybe wasn’t there with NCLB,” Keesler said Thursday during the forum.

Forums, which began in late November, are being held across the state throughout the first two weeks of December. In Marquette, the video broadcast from Sault Ste. Marie was shown live at the Marquette Alger Regional Educational Service Agency. Virginia Paulson, Negaunee Public Schools Board of Education trustee, was the sole person in attendance at the Marquette location. It is unknown how many educators attended in other locations.

Educators also have the opportunity to correspond with the MDE electronically.

Keesler said MDE is utilizing ESSA as an opportunity to focus on state Superintendent Brian Whiston’s plan to move Michigan from a being a bottom-third performing state in the nation to become a top 10 education state in 10 years.

“We didn’t design it to fit federal regulations; we designed it to fit Michigan’s goals,” Keesler said.

Keesler said the state is employing a targeted approach that requires less reporting with a focus on the whole child.

The whole child approach, according to the Association for Supervision Development, is a process that allows educators, families, community members and policy makers to focus on keeping students healthy, safe, challenged, supported and engaged.

The final ESSA regulations released by the U.S. Department of Education are designed to ensure that parents and stakeholders have access to “clear and robust information about how their students and schools are doing, so they can engage meaningfully in their local education systems,” an MDE press release states.

According to the release, ESSA maintains the NCLB expectation that there will be accountability and action to effect positive change in the nation’s lowest-performing schools, where groups of students are not making progress, and where graduation rates are low over extended periods of time.

“States may design their own report cards that include key information such as student achievement, graduation rates, and other critical indicators of school quality, climate and safety,” the press release states.

Keesler said one possible outcome of Michigan’s ESSA implementation is that schools will receive letter grades ranging from A through F.

Schools that receive a D or an F grade would warrant MDE intervention if the plan is implemented.

While school district assessment and accountability are an important part of ESSA, Keesler said, the support provided to educators also plays a major role in successful education.

“ESSA gives us a lot of opportunity to be more cohesive for the whole child. It does give us the chance to move beyond assessment accountability, not only on test scores, but think about other types of needs,” Keesler said. “It gives us a chance to change our assessment accountability systems the way we need to, to support 10 in 10 and how we leverage educators as supports.”

Keesler said MDE will use ESSA as a catalyst to focus on educator supports as well as a viable partnership model — which involves working with independent school districts, education preparation organizations, foundations and other departments.

“Basically a partnership model is just working with districts in partnership with the ISDs, education prep organizations, foundations, other departments to craft across the whole spectrum of the whole child needs for students in the district, and to craft solutions that really get into that support,” Keesler said.

Michigan’s education system has grappled with how to deal with poverty when employing the whole child approach, both in reporting and support systems for students and educators.

“We know there is a correlation between lower income and lower socio-economic status and achievement. It’s an actual link not just a measurement thing, it’s not just a testing thing, it’s that poor, disadvantaged students have lower outcomes in school and in life,” Keesler said.

Keesler said recognizing that poverty contributes to how individual students and school districts perform on assessments is only the beginning.

“Simply labeling it over and over again will not change anything about the student situation, that’s not the answer,” Keesler said “The real solution is to think and change the way we support districts and schools.”

Keesler said ESSA is overall a positive change for states and educators, because the law recognizes the importance of the experience within the classroom.

“I think in NCLB sometimes it was like here is the assessment and accountability and here are educators — as if those were disperate things. And really for a child in the classroom, the most important thing to them is the educator, the support and the training that that person has,” Keesler said. “If we are going to focus on the whole child, if we are going to focus on the partnership model, we need partners.”

Keesler said she expects MDE to have Michigan’s plan written by Jan. 1.

The final U.S. Department of Education regulations allow states to choose from two submission dates in 2017 for their final education plan submissions: April 3 or Sept. 18.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242.

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