Commissioner's Update
November 15, 2007

Dear Superintendents and Leaders of Charter Schools and Collaboratives:

In this Update I have two announcements and five items for your review.

Student Assessment Updates

John and Abigail Adams Scholarships

I am pleased to announce that 16,976 students in the class of 2008 have been named recipients of the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship. An Adams Scholarship entitles the recipient to a four-year tuition waiver at a Massachusetts state college or university.

To be eligible, students must earn a performance level of Proficient or higher on one grade 10 MCAS test (English or Mathematics) and Advanced on the other, and have a combined score that places the student in the top 25 percent of students district wide.

The Adams Scholarship is the state's largest merit-based tuition waiver program, and supplements the $93 million in state financial aid administered each year to Massachusetts residents. The scholarship was signed into law in 2004 as part of then-Governor Romney's Legacy of Learning initiative.

Vocational Technical Competency Tracking System (VTCTS)

Phase I implementation training of the Vocational Technical Competency Tracking System (VTCTS) is complete. VTCTS is a Web-based system that assists teachers in monitoring student progress toward mastery of standards in the Massachusetts Vocational Technical Education (VTE) Frameworks. Vocational-Technical school administrators from 51 schools participated in a two-hour training session and lead teachers designated by their superintendents or principals participated in an all-day training session. The trained lead teachers are now training and supporting teachers to implement VTCTS in their schools.

To assist schools in using the system, the Department has created a dedicated telephone number and a dedicated e-mail address for VTCTS users. Lead teachers function as the liaison between teachers in their schools and VTCTS support personnel.

The Department is currently planning training for Phase II implementation of the VTCTS. This training is tentatively planned for late December or January. Notification will be sent to schools that participated in Phase I training.

For more information, please contact the Office of Student Assessment at 781-338-3625 or send an e-mail to vtcts@doe.mass.edu.

ELAR Will Now Gather Education History Information

ELAR, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's online educator licensure system, will now ask educators to enter their education history when they log in. This improvement is part of an effort, along with EPIMS (Education Personnel Information Management System), to enable Massachusetts to comply fully with the No Child Left Behind Act by accurately reporting on highly qualified teachers.

The EPIMS data also will be used to perform a greatly needed analysis on our educator workforce that over time will identify high need areas, evaluate current educational preparation and related practices, and assist districts with their recruiting efforts.

Educators returning to ELAR who do not have their education history in their profile will be prompted to enter this information before continuing in their ELAR session; they will be given an opportunity to log out if they do not have the time to complete their educational history in that session. Educators applying for their first time will now find that " education history" is one of the fields they are required to complete, i.e., education history is now mandatory .

Items Posted at www.doe.mass.edu:

1. Notice of Public Comment for the Emergency\Proposed Amendments to 603 CMR 41.00: Regional School Districts
   [ No longer available ]
2. Continued Collaboration between the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Ministry of Education and Culture in Spain
3. Grants for Arts, Humanities, and Interpretive Sciences in Schools
4. International Education Week Activities
5. National Missing Children's Day Poster Contest for 5th Graders

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Nellhaus
Acting Commissioner of Education