The city DOE and United Federation of Teachers had spent weeks in closed door meetings trying to hammer out the details of a «meaningful teacher evaluation system» in order to qualify for up to $ 65 million in
federal funding in
School Improvement Grants over the next two years, which is
distributed by the state.
Federal funding must be fairly
distributed and it must be attached to firm, ambitious, and unequivocal demands for
improvements in achievement, high
school graduation rates, and gap closing.
Re: the US News article on top about ESSA: Chairwoman Foxx is right about the role of the
federal government in America's K - 12 education system; and families can continue to pressure educrats like Mr Botel by opting out, wherever and whenever possible, from their local state
schools until the
federal government gives up on the continuing mistake of its annual testing requirement in two subjects only, which has produced no significant
improvement in American education for 15 years now, but has cost us in lost opportunities, including time and energy that might have been devoted to non-tested subjects, including those in the broader curricula represented by the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which requires assessment — including but not limited to external final exams — in six subjects
distributed over at least five fields, an assessment approach that has been imitated by the world's leading educational jurisdictions, but is being discouraged by the ignorant Luddites in the the U.S. ED.
The Maine Department of Education will again apply for
federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funding that the Department would
distribute to help the state's most struggling
schools.