| Dear Coalition members, June was an important month for our Coalition, and this newsletter is full of good news and important updates and resources. Our membership has continued to grow and we have begun to engage on the local, state, and national level. On June 6th our Steering Committee met with staff from Tennessee Department of Education, including members from the Office of Accountability, as well as the Commissioner’s Chief of Staff to discuss the accountability framework in Tennessee under ESSA. We closed the month with an historic meeting with Secretary of Education John King and his staff, who joined us at Conexión Américas for an intimate Roundtable discussion about ESSA. Our Coalition members who participated in the meetings were well-prepared and passionate advocates who focused on substantive policy solutions. Additionally, eight members of our Coalition have been asked to serve on ESSA Working Groups with the Tennessee Department of Education. Finally, each month we will spotlight one of our partners who have received an advocacy sub-grant. This month we are excited to share more about the Knoxville Equity Alliance. Make sure to read about their inspiring work. It is equally critical to engage with the key education issues of the day at the local level. Many school board races across the state are in full swing, so attend forums, engage candidates, and make your voice heard. Our original goal when we started this Coalition was to have a greater impact education policy through our collective voice. This strategy is now bearing fruit, and through continued collaboration we will address one of the most important civil rights issues of our time – an excellent and equitable education for each and every child.
Paz y gracias,Gini Pupo-Walker
Senior Director of Education Policy & Strategic Growth
Conexión Américas
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Recognition of CoalitionTennessee Educational Equity Coalition leaders Gini Pupo-Walker of Conexión Américas, Gloria Sweet-Love of TN NAACP, and Phyllis Nichols of Knoxville Urban League discuss educational equity issues to be discussed with U.S. Secretary of Education John King during his ESSA roundtable at Casa Azafrán. Along with members of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition, Tennessee students were present during a meeting with Secretary John King to discuss how the new federal K-12 law should be implemented. Coalition members present at an ESSA roundtable meeting with Secretary of Education John King share concerns and suggestions on implementation of ESSA.
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Secretary of Education John King
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Coalition members met with Secretary King at Casa Azafrán | |
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This past Tuesday ten members of our Coalition, and two college students, met with Secretary of Education John King for an ESSA Roundtable. We addressed key pieces of the law that fall in our priorities as a Coalition, and members took turns highlighting strengths in ESSA and the Department of Education’s Draft Regulations, as well as requesting clarity or strengthening of rules that directly impact equity and access for students of color. We highlighted subgroup accountability and reporting, test participation rates, low-performing schools and subgroups, and EL accountability, proficiency, and reporting. We also had a lengthy discussion about increasing the number of diverse teachers, and addressing teacher equity across the state. Secretary King commended our preparation and passion, and mastery of the law and its implications for the students and families that we represent. He encouraged us to make our positions public whenever possible, and to weigh in on the Public Comment page of the Draft Regulations, and reach out to Senator Alexander to share with him our priorities and recommendations. Stay tuned for more information on that! We were extremely honored to host the Secretary, and recognize that the opportunity would not have presented itself had we not reached out to him as a broad statewide Coalition of diverse stakeholders.
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TN Department of Education:ESSA
In preparation for our June 6th meeting with the Tennessee Department of Education Office of Accountability staff, we were fortunate to partner with Ed Trust and NCLR, who prepared and conducted a webinar for our Steering Committee. This support, as well as our multiple calls in advance, prepared us for a substantive and meaningful discussion. The meeting lasted over three hours, and covered a broad range of topics.
The Department staff shared with us their current goals and thinking on accountability under ESSA. Their team is still in research mode, weighing the impact of the many decisions they will need to make. They hope to build upon many elements of the NCLB waiver, and were receptive to our feedback on ensuring there was strong subgroup accountability and transparency in reporting. We spent a great deal of time discussing the additional indicator of school quality in ESSA, on the English Learner accountability framework, and the identification, monitoring, and intervention of low-performing schools. We closed with a lengthy discussion of the new A-F grading system for schools, and our hopes that it would be aligned with the required ESSA ratings system. We have had positive feedback from the meeting, and as a result eight members of the Coalition have been asked to serve on the ESSA Working Groups that the State Department of Education will convene in the coming months.
The Tennessee State Department of Education has posted an online ESSA Feedback Form for stakeholders across the state. It will be open through August 15th. We have compiled suggested responses to each question and urge each of you to take time to provide feedback to the State. We know many different constituencies will do that, including teachers, principals, superintendents and others involved in the education debate. If we are to ensure equity frames much of the implementation, then we must exercise our collective voice as much as possible. Please find some time to read through our recommended responses, adjust them, edit them, add to them, but above all –engage! You can access the responses here.
You can also sign-up to receive TN DOE ESSA updates here.
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Sub-grantee Spotlight of the Month:
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Conexión Américas is pleased to invest in the launch of the Knoxville Equity Alliance. The Knoxville Area Urban Leagie, along with Centro Hispano, Project Grad, the City of Knoxville and Knox County Schools will form the Knoxville Equity Alliance in order to advance a shared policy agenda.
“Our purpose for establishing The Knoxville Equity Alliance is to align people of good will to work together to achieve equity and excellence for students who have experienced significant disparities in achieving that goal,” says Phyllis Nichols, President and CEO of the Knoxville Area Urban League.
One of their primary areas of focus is to address systemic disparities in discipline and suspension in Knox County Schools. Building upon the model of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition, their project includes training to build the capacity of each organization to develop and use their advocacy voice, create a shared vision for change, and building a strong and effective coalition. The Alliance will conduct a series of forums and town halls to engage the local community on existing data and primary concerns, as well as inform them on key policy levers that impact outcomes for students in Knox County Schools. Learn more about the sub-grant work of the Knoxville Equity Alliance here.
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The CRDC is a survey of all public schools and school districts, and measures student access to courses, programs, instructional and other staff, resources, along with school climate factors such as student discipline, bullying, and harrassment. CRDC data is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, English learner status, and disabilty.
In the fall of 2016, the U.S. Department of Education will release public data for individual schools, school districts and states via their website at ocrdata.ed.gov. The full CRDC data file may be downloaded here now. Snapshot of the Civil Rights Data Collection First Look Teacher and Staffing Equity- 11% of black students, 9% of Latino students, and 7% of American Indian or Alaska Native students attend schools where more than 20% of teachers are in their first year of teaching, compared to 5% of white students and 4% of Asian students.
- Nearly 800,000 students are enrolled in schools where more than 20% of teachers have not met all state certification or licensure requirements.
College and Career Readiness- Black and Latino students have less access to high-level math and science courses. For example, 33% of high schools with high black and Latino student enrollment offer calculus, compared to 56% of high schools with low black and Latino student enrollment.
- English learners are 11% of students in schools offering GATE programs, but less than 3% of GATE students nationwide.
School Discipline- Black K-12 students are 3.8 times as likely to recieve one or more out-of-school-suspensions as white students.
- American Indian or Alaska Native, Latino, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and multiracial boys represent 15% of K-12 students but 19% of K-12 students recieving one or more out-of-school-suspensions.
Chronic Absenteeism- Nationwide, more than 6.5 million students, or 13% of all students, are chronically absent (absent 15 or more school days during the school year). More than 3 million high school students, or 18% of all high school students are chronically absent.
- 20% of all English learner high school students are chronically absent.
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| Contribute to the newsletter
To submit announcements, information, resources, recommended readings or events to be added to the next newsletter please send all information to: edequity@conamericas.com
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| Recommended Readings The Atlantic Secretary of Education John King discusses his view on the value of diversity in classroom, and how diverse interactions prepare students for a diverse workforce.
Brookings A study conducted at American University examines the question of what policy levers are available to university administrators and policy makers that might increase student engagement with advising and mentoring programs. The study examines an innovative peer-advising program and its effect on student's persistence at the university, as well as factors that promote student engagement. Education Trust Education Week The Education Week spotlight is collection of seven articles with insights on: what ESSA might mean for interim assessments, test accomodations for students with disabilities, the opt-out movement and testing mandates, and creating assessments that have purpose.
Excelencia In Education The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2015 - Hispanic Students provides a snapshot of academic performance for Latino high school students graduating in 2015 who took the ACT college readiness assessment. This brief offers recommendations for policy and practice that policymakers and schools can implement to increase Latino college and career readiness.
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| Important Dates July 5th 3:00pm ET - The Leadership Conference, ESSA Learning for Action Webinar #2: Draft Accountabilty Regulations. To join the webinar please RSVP to Jordyn Bussey, Bussey@civilrights.org.
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| Community Calendar The community calendar will include events occuring around the state sponsored or led by Coalition members. To submit an event to be included in the following edition of the newsletter, please send event date, duration, a short summary, and best point of contact to: edequity@conamericas.com
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