Educator Effectiveness

Teachers' Top Three from ESE - September 29, 2016

1. In the News: Tackling the Presidential Campaign in Class
   On Harvard Graduate School of Education's Usable Knowledge website, Leah Shafer writes about ways to build lessons around this year's presidential campaign in a way that will engage students as citizens. See "Civics in Uncivil Times."

2. Buzz: Assessment and Accountability Results
   Congratulations to the many educators who work in one of the Commonwealth's 49 Commendation Schools. (The list of schools is in a spreadsheet named "2016 Lists of School and District Accountability Levels.", on Accountability, Partnerships and Targeted Assistance webpage.) Congrats, too, to all the educators whose work helped turnaround three Level 4 schools that moved out of that status this year: Bentley Academy Horace Mann Charter School in Salem, Spark Academy in Lawrence, and William N. DeBerry Elementary School in Springfield. The Department thanks everyone for their steadfast work, especially during this time of transition to the next-generation MCAS.

3. Get Involved: Licensure Regulations Survey
   The Department is in the process of developing a series of proposals aimed at streamlining and simplifying the licensure and license renewal process for educators. The majority of the ideas in the survey were topics discussed and recommended by the Working Group for Streamlining Educator Licensure Regulations & Policies, which includes representatives from K-12 and higher education, unions, and private special education schools.

   Please provide ESE with helpful feedback by taking the survey before Wednesday, October 12, 2016. Individual responses will be kept confidential, and results will only be reported in the aggregate.

   The Department will review the survey results as part of the process to determine what proposals should go forward. Currently, it is likely that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education would receive proposals at the December 20, 2016 Board meeting and send the proposals out for public comment.