2018-19 School Year: Refining Our Work and Building a New Way Forward
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) serves over 400 school communities, more than 70,000 educators, and nearly 1 million K-12 public school students each year. We also oversee the education of more than 20,000 adult learners.
The 2018-19 school year saw us continue our efforts to support students, teachers, and schools. It was Commissioner Riley's first full school year at DESE, and he used it to develop and articulate his vision to spread deeper learning opportunities across the Commonwealth.
The 2019 annual report of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) is below, with opening letters from Board Chair Katherine Craven 
and Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley .
- Strengthen standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment
- Promote educator development
- Support social-emotional learning, health, and safety
FEATURE: Our Way Forward - Turn around the lowest performing districts and schools
- Enhance resource allocation and data use
1. Strengthen standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment
Massachusetts's learning standards are developed by educators and DESE and set high expectations for students and teachers. State assessments let districts know whether students have learned what they need to know and be able to do in grades 3-8 and 10.
Agency Highlights
- The Department launched CURATE (CUrriculum RAtings by TEachers), a teacher-led project that results in user-friendly reports about the quality and alignment of specific curricular materials. Districts can use CURATE reports as a way to focus and inform local decisions on selecting materials.
- The arts were front and center as the Board approved the 2019 Arts Framework, marking the first time in 20 years that the state's arts learning standards were refreshed. The new framework guides districts' programming in dance, music, theatre, media arts, and visual arts.
- Massachusetts became a partner state to OpenSciEd, a science curriculum development project launched by a consortium of experts in science education. The Department recruited six pilot districts that field tested units in 31 classrooms.
- Eighty-four districts participated in the first year of the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy program, awarding the State Seal to 1,177 graduating students. On a related note, DESE issued approximately $1 million to support implementation of bilingual education programs statewide.
- The Department administered the first next-generation grade 10 English language arts and math MCAS tests, which were designed to give students a clearer signal of whether they are on track for college and career readiness. The average scores in both English language arts (506) and math (505) were both in the Meeting Expectations category.
2. Promote educator development
DESE aims to ensure that all students have access to highly skilled educators by setting high standards for educators, evaluating educators based on those standards, and providing targeted professional development.
Agency Highlights
- The Department launched Influence 100 to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of superintendents in Massachusetts, create more culturally responsive districts and leaders across the state, and promote better outcomes for students. Influence 100 includes a fellowship program for qualified educators who desire to move into the superintendent role in the next five years and support for school districts to become more culturally responsive and diversify their educator workforce.
- In 2019, DESE updated the state's Model System for Educator Evaluation, creating a more streamlined approach to providing educators with meaningful feedback. The new version includes improved model performance rubrics, implementation strategies from districts, evaluator calibration resources, and thoughtful approaches to evidence collection.
- The Department launched the first cohort of InSPIRED Fellows, In-Service Professionals committed to Increasing the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of our teacher workforce by recruiting students and young adults into the teaching profession from target communities at the high school, community college and undergraduate levels.
- The Subject Matter Knowledge Guidelines for the Reading Specialist license were revised during the year to reflect up-to-date knowledge about best practices for literacy instruction. On a related note, DESE is updating all Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTELs) to reflect content from our updated Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.
3. Support social-emotional learning, health, and safety
We are committed to fostering safe, positive, healthy, culturally competent, and inclusive learning environments that address students' varied needs and improve educational outcomes for all.
Agency Highlights
- The Department updated the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) Blueprint and launched two new multi-year MTSS Academies: Social Emotional Learning/Mental Health and Systemic Student Support (S3).
- The Department intensified efforts to build capacity for local and state-level family engagement efforts, including but not limited to partnering with the Federation for Children with Special Needs and others to win a five-year competitive statewide family engagement centers grant that will help us implement a cross-agency, prenatal to post-12th grade family engagement framework. The grant will also help further piloting of Family Institutes for Student Success, which is modeled on the Parent Institute for Quality Education.
- The Department launched a grant program and professional development series to help schools and districts improve student access to behavioral and mental health services. Fifty-five districts are participating in at least one of the opportunities.
- The Department administered optional student surveys, Views of Climate and Learning (VOCAL), in grades 4, 5, 8, and 10. These surveys and accompanying guidance and resources are designed to build understanding of students' perspectives on three dimensions of school climate: engagement, safety, and environment. The data are intended as a conversation starter to engage all community members in creating the best possible environment for students. More than 80 percent of students in grades 4, 5, and 8 participated, as did 76 percent of 10th graders.
Feature: Our Way Forward
During the 2018-19 school year, Commissioner Riley conducted a listening tour in which he visited more than 100 schools and engaged in countless conversations with students and educators. His meetings around the state also gave him a chance to hear from parents, stakeholders, civic and legislative leaders, foundations, non-profit and business leaders, teachers unions, associations representing educational leaders, and concerned citizens regarding a variety of K-12 public education issues.
The listening tour culminated in a statewide educational conference, Kairos, which challenged participants to "unleash the creative force of our educators to create the conditions for engaging instruction that leads to students' deeper, applied learning." The Kairos conference demonstrated the Commissioner's hopes for our students and DESE's work ahead, a vision that he outlined in Our Way Forward 
. Our Way Forward includes the themes behind DESE's major education and public outreach campaigns: aMAzing Educators, Teach Mass, and Deeper Learning.
4. Turn around the lowest performing districts and schools
The state supports the Commonwealth's lowest performing schools and districts with evidence-based interventions to support rapid improvement for students, including improved instruction and student-specific supports.
Agency Highlights
- The Statewide System of Support aided 83 schools from 41 districts to create improvement plans, driving continuous efforts to best serve over 75,500 students.
- The Lawrence Alliance for Education Board completed their first year as receiver for the Lawrence Public Schools.
- Educators from 153 schools and 47 districts (representing 79,000 students) took part in Multi-Tiered System of Support academies to build their skills related to curriculum, instruction, intervention, and social/emotional supports.
- Based upon continuous improvement, William Ellery Channing Elementary School (in the Boston Public Schools) and John J. Duggan Middle/High School (part of the Springfield Empowerment Zone in the Springfield Public Schools) exited Underperforming Status. Both schools demonstrated substantial progress towards their improvement targets in 2019.
- The Massachusetts Tools for Schools website provides educators with concrete materials to implement the research-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports and turnaround practices.
- Two schools designated as Chronically Underperforming — the John Avery Parker School (in New Bedford Public Schools) and UP Academy Holland (part of the Boston Public Schools) — demonstrated notably positive outcomes during the 2018-2019 school year, with Parker performing at the 27th percentile and UP Academy Holland performing at the 30th percentile.
- We added to our video series on sustainable improvement with a video on South End Middle School in Springfield actively engaging and involving all school stakeholders and one on Morningside Community School in Pittsfield matching strategies to needs through root cause analysis.
5. Enhance resource allocation and data use
We aim to provide districts with data and tools that help decision makers allocate resources in ways that address student needs and support student success.
Agency Highlights
- The Department began the "Spending Blending" pilot program to explore ways in which districts can blend federal funding streams, affording them greater flexibilities in allocating resources to serve their at-risk students.
- Along with 20 district partners, we're developing an easy-to-use toolkit that districts and schools can use to evaluate their own programming. The "Program Evaluation Pilot" aims to build school and district capacity to answer the question of how do we know whether a program we've implemented is working?
- We finished building out our suite of tools for Planning for Success, DESE's recommended strategic planning and continuous improvement process. The process is designed to build district and school capacity and coherence while also building community understanding and support.
- Our federal grants team consolidated the two main special education entitlement grant applications into one, reducing duplication and effort on the part of nearly every district in the state.