Highlights of the NASBE Board of Directors virtual meeting 1.1*

With Washington DC and the Mid-Atlantic bracing for an epic snowstorm, NASBE's first Board meeting of 2016 took place virtually, in lieu of the scheduled F2F meeting in Alexandria VA. This was my first meeting as newly elected Northeast Area Director (January 2016-December 2018). Taking the helm as NASBE's new President was Jim McNiece of Kansas City KS. Jim called the meeting to order at 11:00 AM. With a quorum present, Minutes and Agenda were quickly approved.

I. The Government Affairs Committee update was presented by Reg Leichty, Founding Partner at Foresight Law + Policy in Washington DC:

• Relevant issues before Congress, including:
• Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA);
• Targeted changes to Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) - to align standards more closely with HEA;
• Regulations for Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by the US Dept of Ed, which are due 12 months from now before a new administration takes office next January. NASBE is asking for clarity on process, guidance, and timeline.
• Major breakthrough: This week, the new Child Nutrition Act passed with bi-partisan support by the US Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee .

II. Executive Director Kris Amundson updated: programs & member services, personnel, budget, membership, 2016 Legislative Conference, and publications & webinars. With respect to programs & member services:

• With passage of ESSA, NASBE's 2016 work plan is very clearly to help state boards of education (SBEs) implement the law successfully.
• Briefings are planned for SBEs in several states and districts.
• To assist members with ESSA implementation, NASBE is planning at least one ESSA-themed webinar every month, covering both obstacles and opportunities for states under the new law, and as rulemaking becomes public, will dive deeper on the issues and specifics, as needed.
• Staff has identified several key areas to drill into to present via Policy Update or webinar:
• Designing an Accountability System
• Assessment
• Low Performing Schools
• Teacher Evaluation

In this way, SBEs can plan for how they might wish to address topics most efficiently, according to their agenda/meeting schedules. NASBE will focus its guidance to address items that are needed: fairly quickly, during the 16-17 school year ("soft launch"), and in the 17-18 school year (full implementation).

With respect to the 2016 Legislative Conference (LegCon):

• April 3-5 in Washington DC.
• Because today's meeting had to be reconsidered as a virtual meeting, several items will be taken up during LegCon (more on that to come).
• LegCon theme: "Now What - State Policy Under the Every Student Succeeds Act".

III. "Old Business": Jim and President-elect Jay Barth talked about realizing the goal of hosting at least two Regional Conference each year. Plans are already underway for a Southern Area Conference, perhaps as early as this spring in Jay's hometown of Little Rock AR. Further off on the horizon may be a Northeast Area Conference. (Stay tuned).

IV. "New Business": the Board voted to approve a resolution to honor Roseann Bentley. Roseann served on the Springfield (MO) School Board (1974-1983), Missouri State Board of Education (1983-1992), and as President of NASBE (1988-89). She was the first woman elected to the Missouri State Senate (1994-2002). Roseann is being honored in her hometown of Springfield by having a building named for her. This resolution expresses the Board's congratulations.

The meeting adjourned at 12:30 PM.

* This blog post (and future blog posts about NASBE Board meetings) is not an official NASBE record, but is intended as a relevant document to which members and the public may refer. ~ mas

How do you know if your school is "family friendly" and why does it matter?

How family friendly is your school? How do you know?

Sometimes it's really easy to overlook things that may be unintended barriers to family engagement because seeing them day after day can make them invisible to you. One way to address this is to have a welcoming walk-through of the building. How will families and community members engage with school leaders and staff in the process?

Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, & Davies suggest that even before families enter the school building, they're looking for signs that they will be welcomed:

• friendly signs (in all major languages spoken by families at the school) point out the entrance and say that families and visitors are welcome;

• parking spots for parents and visitors are clearly marked and are near (or at least not very far from) the entrance;

• school staff and parents greet visitors in a friendly way and ask if they can help;

• teachers, administrators, and other school staff go outside the building to greet and talk with parents.

Once inside the building, how welcoming is it? What do you see? What impressions do you come away with? And, once you have identified barriers, what's the process for removing them?

Some reflections on the Board's vote for a new statewide test

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little burned out on arguments about statewide assessments. I accept that we need them, but we’re spending way too much time on them just because students from other countries are "out-performing" students in the US on standardized tests.

It bothers me that we've been angsting over these assessments for so long when there are many other areas in need of our attention and dollars. Plus, I’m more interested in the larger educational context that is our vision and our plan for learners. (I'm not going to call it "21st c learning" because, 2015...!)

Across the discussion of “how to do tests in Massachusetts", I’ve observed a tension between what, on the one hand, is essential for child/student well-being and learning and what, on the other hand, strikes us as essential for the future economy. I will argue that until and unless we are dedicated and accountable to child/student well-being, teaching and learning may have little relevance for many children, thus we contribute to a problem we're trying to solve while putting students at risk of being unprepared - not only for their role in the future economy, but for their lives. Education is more than a talent pipeline for employers, after all, it's an end in itself.*

Beleaguered by the political morass, teachers and learners are losing ground. The teacher/learner relationship is the most essential and everything Principals, District Leaders, School Committees - and State Boards of Education - do must be to support that primal relationship in the learning environment, and build capacity for that relationship to thrive for effective teaching and learning. 

We're seeing how education must be personalized for each student no matter who they are, where they live, what language they speak, or how they present. The skills and dispositions they must possess require a multi-dimensional approach of the kind not undertaken before in K-12 education. A lift of this magnitude requires resources in the form of educational and economic investment from federal, state, and local partners in government, as well as deep and sustained alignment with all components of our educational eco-system, including true partnership with families and communities.

To be truly effective (and more than a blunt instrument of accountability), assessment might be part of a wholly supported, integrated system that's realigned with structures not only for technology and education, but also organizational development and capacity, school climate and culture, budgets, and School Committee policies. Why place the standardized assessment ahead of our needs for high quality professional development, student-family-community engagement, social-emotional learning, and teaching and learning? How can we move forward with an assessment system that's not critically aligned with these in partnership with local districts?

We’re already working from a technology deficit because we lack effective technology in every classroom, in every school, in every district across the Commonwealth. Where that technology isn't present or aligned as part of a strategic framework for educational transformation, it hasn't been identified as a priority and/or committing scarce dollars is a reality. Some business and education leaders suggest that getting online assessments in place first will, therefore, leverage meeting our compelling technological needs.

This thinking isn't correct.

Technology is a part of realizing our vision for learning and student success, not apart from it. Partnering with districts to move toward digital learning environments is more than having the requisite test-taking technology. We're absent a grounding vision that not only supports the learning eco-system, but sustains it with time for learning, teaching, collaboration, and reflection.

Fewer than 25% of people living in communities are families with children in schools. Education, progressive in that it's always moving into the future, should be a source of pride in all communities. These are our schools, our children, our future and we all need a voice in shaping them.

The mission of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is to strengthen the Commonwealth's public education system so that every student is prepared to succeed in post-secondary education, compete in the global economy, and understand the rights and responsibilities of American citizens, and in so doing, to close all proficiency gaps.

How will the Board achieve its stated mission? How do we set up the right conditions for all learners and educators? It's not with a standardized test. Standardized tests have not driven us to higher achievement. They've driven us to higher test scores, but not to higher achievement.

And therein lies the rub.

Many children do very well by these tests, and will continue to do well with the new test, especially if they're white and from affluent families, but not all children and schools are well served by them. Poor children do much less well.

The decision the Board has made is tiny compared to its mission and to the other important things I've mentioned.

I agreed with 6 of my Board colleagues who voted (7-4) to support a two year "hold harmless" provision for districts while a new test is developed, but I prefer that we go further.**

Whether we're in a knowledge economy, an innovation economy, or a purpose-driven economy, learning is life-long. There's a lot to be done to prepare our students for life and the future, including knowing exactly what part assessments are to play to inform instruction and improve learning with their timely data and feedback to skilled, knowledgeable professionals with the people, financial, and technological resources to identify learning gaps, modify curriculum, and adjust instruction for whole child and student success.

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Notes, Quotes, Posts, tweets
* A reference to John Dewey's 1893 essay, "Self-Realization as the Moral Ideal". (The Philosophical Review, Vol. 2, No.6 (Nov., 1893), pp.652-664; Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review; DOI: 102307/2176020; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2176020). The embedded link in the above post should lead directly to page 660 of the journal - which provides the context for the oft quoted, "Education is not preparation for life but life itself."

** I support bill H.340 of Rep. Marjorie Decker's calling for a 3-year moratorium on the high-stakes punitive nature of testing in Massachusetts.

If you pass a test, didn't you learn something?

Sustaining Improvements in Urban Schools

You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
~ Toni Morrison, from Song of Solomon

So much of our work depends on taking time away from students to be the best teachers possible.
~ The JLV

Is Education broken? - @stevewheeler interviews @AudreyWatters http://t.co/y5xHc2NyZv

— Edumorfosis (@edumorfosis) October 15, 2015

NASBE15 Pre-Conference :: Student Data Privacy :: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 :: 1:00 PM*

Pre-test: Can you identify what the following acronyms stand for?

• SOPIPA

• PII

• SBEs

• FERPA

• COPPA

• PI

• PPRA

• SEAs

• PTAC

Presenters

State Law and Policy Trends:
Rachel Anderson, Senior Associate, Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign

Amelia Vance, Director of Education Data & Technology, NASBE

Common Pitfalls of Contracting with Education Technology Providers:
Michael Hawes, Statistical Privacy Advisor, US Department of Education

Security 101:
Jim Siegl, Technology Architect, Fairfax County Public Schools

Overcoming Policy Hurdles to Help Kids Succeed:
Elizabeth Laird, Lousiana Deartment of Education

Federal Data Privacy Legislation Panel:
Reg Leichty, Moderator, Founding Partner, Foresight Law + Policy
Jon Bernstein, President, Bernstein Strategy Group
Paige Kowalski, Vice-President of Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign
Kobie Pruitt, Education Policy Manager, The Future of Privacy Forum
Mark Schneiderman, Vice President for Government Affairs, School Messenger
Elana Zeide, Privacy Research Fellow, NYU Information Law Institute

State Boards of Education (SBEs) have some authority over education data privacy (Here's what's posted on MA/DESE website - remind me to follow up on any further BESE authority).

School as we know it is changing:

• Technology and information needs are evolving faster than policies.

• There's a lack of communication with parents and the public about the value of educational data.

• Talking about privacy can be challenging.

• How do we address the personal nature of privacy?

Since September 2015, 187 Bills on student data privacy have been introduced in 47 states; legislative themes include:

Thirty-three states have passed student data privacy laws since 2013. Laws prior to 2014 gave State Education Agencies (SEAs) and SBEs^ authority to:

• Rule-making

• Override authority

• Adopt & implement privacy policies

• Provide a public data inventory

• Appoint Chief Privacy Officer

• Review potential new data elements to be collected/linked/shared

• Ensure role based access to data

• Notify parents of rights

• Create a data security review team

• Provide oversight of vendor contracts

[^ Again - noted for follow-up with DESE]

Rachel Anderson:

• One thing Congress doesn't do is work from scratch

• Congress is attempting to use/update FERPA for student data privacy issues - - it's complex because the law was written in 1974 and it has a hard time fitting into today's educational context:

• 1974 student "educational records" could be locked in filing cabinet with a key...that's out of touch with 2015

• There's no "educational record" now, there is "student data"

Jim Siegl:

• There's a trade-off between what's useful and convenient for teachers in the classroom and a rigid system for "protection"

• Biggest risks to security are the mistakes made by people with access to data in systems every day (as opposed to "data breaches")

• How is your district handling educator training of day-to-day data?

• Ongoing staff training is a must - anyone handling student data should be trained in

• how to use data, and
• how to protect data

Elizabeth Laird:

• Welcome to Privacy-pa-looza!
• Louisiana schools struggle with strict privacy law
• Louisiana is the only state with criminal penalties
• Time for a longitudinal data system
• Lousiana's plan to protect student privacy

Take-aways on student data privacy:

• SBEs have been collecting student/school data for 100 years

• Technology and data can sound abstract
• the philosophy of "protection of data" at the intersection of "education" makes it a challenging issue

• Need to consider state and federal interaction
• How to consider investing scarce public resources to student data privacy?

• What is the appropriate federal role?
• The "role of consent" in some of the federal bills is an "over-correction" > > > must strike a balance between "privacy" and data's "value"

• The potential for over-reach; must consider the role of technology in education and the consequence of passing draconian legislation, lest it become too burdensome for educators

• Still...laws are not enough - we need leadership from the education community to build trust and best practices.

Suggested foundational elements of a state data privacy and security policy to include:

• Statement of the policy/law's purposes - - To include talking about both the VALUE of educational data and the importance of PROTECTING that data)

• Select the person/s in charge - - Who will answer people's questions? Who creates policy and guidance? Who enforces the state's laws?

• Transparency plan - - In the absence of being transparent...anything that can be said will be said...SBEs haven't been good at communicating the VALUE of educational data and the importance of PROTECTING that data. It can (and should) be simple.
• Explain the "who, what, where, why, and when" of data collection.
• Make the data easy to find and understand.
• Give details for those who want to read them.

• Limiting vendor use of data - - Limit data use for non-educational purposes. Check contract provisions for data use and storage. Define who has signing authority on contracts. Beware of "click-wrap" agreements.

• Statewide data privacy & security plan - - Have a comprehensive plan to address privacy, and also address administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Ongoing staff training and methods of encryption.

• Ongoing staff training - - Anyone who handles student data should be trained in: How to use data and how to protect data

Pre-test answers:

• SOPIPA: Student Online Personal Information Protection Act. A California law, the first state law to comprehensively address student privacy. Effective January 1, 2016

• PII: Personally Identifiable Information

• SBEs: State Boards of Education

• FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (of 1974!) A federal law designed to protect the privacy of student "educational records". Established the rights of students to inspect and review their educational records.

• COPPA: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act - a federal law designed to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13

• PI: Personal Information

• PPRA: Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. A federal law that affords certain rights to parents of minor students with regard to surveys that ask questions of a personal nature.

• SEAs: State Education Agencies

• PTAC: Privacy Technical Assistance Center - provides guidance and best practices.

* I found the presentations and panel discussion to be an excellent complement to the morning visit to Halstead Academy.

NASBE :: Data Privacy Resources

There's more in the Storify

- - -

Materials from the Session available online:

NASBE :: Comparison of 2015 Federal Education Data Privacy Bills

Why Does Student Data Matter?

10 Things We Would Lose Without Data

Student Data Principles

10 Steps Every District Should Take Today

Parsing Student Privacy: Creating a Parent-Focused Framework for Conversation

Is Student Privacy Erased as Classrooms Turn Digital?

Parental Support for Technology and Data Use in Schools

A Parents' Guide to Student Data Privacy

Student Privacy Pledge (with statements from NSBA, CCSSO, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), National PTA, more)

Time to Bring Public Policy and Social Media Together for Progress

I've had a great summer, much of it spent off the grid unplugged from email, tapping into social media for fun. It's been great connecting on a more personal level with family and friends in real time talking, laughing, crying, sharing, hugging.

Thinking back to when Facebook arrived on the scene in February 2004: I was slow to adopt. I signed up eventually and connected to family and local friends. When Twitter followed in March 2006, I decided I was not going to try to keep up with yet another platform. Not so for businesses, corporations, institutions, and the like. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook opened up a whole new world of marketing strategy for them.

"We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it." ~ Erik Qualman

After being accepted in 2011 into a 6-month program for women interested in pursuing political office, I was introduced to Twitter and quickly grew to enjoy it. I set myself up on LinkedIn later that same year and leaned into the idea of using Facebook as a way to connect with folks on a range of issues, too. This video gives a snapshot of social media at the time:



Gone are the questions asking if social media is here to stay. Clearly they are, though how kids and adults are using social media today has changed dramatically.

Consider a PEW study published earlier this year that provides an overview on American teens and their use of technology and social media. One finding showed that 92% of teens were online everyday, with 24% online "almost constantly".

So much has changed - and is changing - across our media-saturated landscape. Schools and individual teachers are working to bring media literacy to students, but media literacy is not broadly implemented in our public schools and media literacy is rarely part of the public debate on education. Still, more and more politicians and policymakers are getting on twitter and facebook to connect to their stakeholders and constituents.

I'm a member of the national advisory council for Media Literacy Now. We want our elected representatives and policymakers to engage with us on social media. As more and more elected people are engaging stakeholders and constituents through Twitter and Facebook, we can connect with them in meaningful ways to impact awareness of the urgent need for media literacy education and other key public policy issues of our time.

* * *
Posts, Podcasts, tweets

• Educational Software Gets Attention from State Politicians
• ISTE: Standardized curriculum for teaching tech skills
• 9 things we learned about phones from a teenager
• Growing up Digital: 3 truths for the adults
• A Parent's Guide to All that "EdTech" in Your Kid's Classroom

Should apps be part of a library’s story time? Ask @mediatrician: http://t.co/qpvRT2r27a #BackToSchool

— CtrMediaChildHealth (@cmch_boston) September 2, 2015

Tips for an online age: What not to share http://t.co/JYnTEtDlso @MBrodeur via @BostonGlobe

— MediaLiteracyNow.org (@MediaLitNow) September 1, 2015

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Addendum: cross-posted September 9 on Media Literacy Now blog

Back to School

#My3Words

I'll admit to being more than a little misty-eyed when I saw our youngest head off for the first day of school for this year. She works hard and has faced many academic challenges in her K-12 experience thus far, showing resilience and strength of character in facing them. She follows two older brothers, now college grads, and though she is still on the journey, in many ways just beginning, I couldn't be more proud.

We know families play essential roles in student success, beginning with their critical role in children's school readiness. Children depend on all of us to support their development everywhere they learn: at home, in PreK programs, in school, afterschool programs, in faith-based institutions, in community-based programs and activities. Engagement is continuous across a child’s life and entails enduring commitment -- but changing parent roles -- as children mature into young adulthood.

Researchers describe effective family involvement as a shared responsibility, meaning that schools and other community agencies and organizations are committed to reaching out to engage families in meaningful ways in which families are committed to actively supporting their child's learning and development. The strongest research evidence indicates that parental beliefs, attitudes, values, and child-rearing practices, as well as home–school communication, are linked to student success.

The Parent and Community Education and Involvement Advisory Council (PCEI) to the Commissioner and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has created a set of Family, School, and Community Partnership Fundamentals in Massachusetts. The Fundamentals describe six guidelines schools can use to plan, benchmark, and calculate effective school, family, and community involvement policies and practices. They support high expectations for such partnerships with the goal that coordinated, comprehensive, and systematic supports will create opportunities for all students to achieve academic proficiency and beyond.

The Department's 2015 Strategic Plan includes a goal for supporting students' social-emotional health through the use of the Fundamentals incorporating "engagement strategies into ESE grants, policies, services, and resources from across state agencies and stakeholders, and to strengthen and expand the Department's capacity of educators to support family and community engagement."

Engagement is intentional and integral when it acknowledges the child at the center of schools, families, and communities, and is focused on student learning and development that impact student skills, grades, achievement, health, safety, discipline, and other attitudes and behaviors, as well as to develop students' talent in art, music, technology, and other areas. 

Families not only play a critical role in a child's school readiness but in their decision to pursue higher education. Effective partnership is essential regardless of parents' level of education, country of origin, or socioeconomic status. It's a complementary role through collaboration with schools, educators, and community organizations that establish meaningful relationships for student success.

School Leaders @Social Media

More and more people are using platforms like twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn to engage, inform, educate, and network.

• I set up my facebook page early in October 2011 in anticipation of my 2012 re-election to the Lexington School Committee (feel free to visit and "Like"...)

• I joined twitter in February 2011 (tweets at right...). If one thinks of twitter as a microblog, then this blog elaborates on thoughts, ideas, and scenes I have tweeted about.

• I beefed up my LinkedIn profile after attending a women's leadership conference - I've tried to maintain and build connections ever since.

So, it was with interest that I responded to a query sent to American School Board Journal subscribers last year about using social media - and would I be interested in talking to someone from ASBJ about it?

A small part of my conversation with ASBJ senior editor Lawrence Hardy is featured in the February edition of ASBJ and may be accessed HERE. I was pleased to contribute to the topic and agree that there is a tremendous opportunity to positively promote the work of schools and districts - and to engage with the international community on important education and humanitarian issues of our time.

The Blog

I'm involved in a number of issue advocacy groups: Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts (PDM), Massachusetts PTA (non-partisan), Progressive Massachusetts (Progressive Mass), League of Women Voters/Lexington (non-partisan), and others.

I decided to start this blog to write about what's going on with the various groups and campaigns. If you're interested in what's posted here, consider adding your email to the "follow by email" button at right. You'll get the blog updates and new posts automatically.

To learn more about me, follow me on twitter @MAStewartMA, check out my vizify profile and School Committee website.

I invite your comments, questions, or any feedback you wish to share. Use the contact form at right.