Online Panel for Achievement Level Setting

As you probably know, Kansas is not using the Smarter Balanced assessments as it had originally planned to do. Instead it is developing its own tests through CETE at KU. I expect our tests to be similar, however, so being a reviewer for the Smarter Balanced assessments could give you valuable insight into the kinds of things your students will be expected to do, and it will give you a chance to give feedback on the level of rigor and fairness of the questions. It is a short-term commitment of under three hours over a three-day window (and you choose which three days). If this is something you might be interested in doing, visit the Online Panel registration page.

NEA grant money could fund your great idea!

If our own Foundation's Prize Patrol didn't bring you a big check this week, you have another option! The next deadline for an NEA Student Achievement grant or a Learning and Leadership grant is October 15.

At both of these sites, you can see examples of the kinds of projects that have been funded in the past. On the Grants to Educators tab, there is a Featured Grantees link as well as a Grantee Archive which is searchable by subject or keyword. The grants are for $2000 or $5000.

Student Achievement grants: This program provides grants to improve the academic achievement of students in U.S. public schools and public higher education institutions in any subject area(s). The proposed work should engage students in critical thinking and problem solving that deepen their knowledge of standards-based subject matter. The work should also improve students’ habits of inquiry, self-directed learning, and critical reflection.

Grant funds may be used for resource materials, supplies, equipment, transportation, technology, or scholars-in-residence. Although some funds may be used to support the professional development necessary to implement the project, the majority of grant funds must be spent on materials or educational experiences for students: http://www.neafoundation.org/pages/nea-student-achievement-grants/.

Learning and Leadership grants: Grants to individuals fund participation in high-quality professional development experiences, such as summer institutes or action research; or grants to groups fund collegial study, including study groups, action research, lesson study, or mentoring experiences for faculty or staff new to an assignment.

All professional development must improve practice, curriculum, and student achievement. "One-shot" professional growth experiences, such as attending a national conference or engaging a professional speaker, are discouraged. Decisions regarding the content of the professional growth activities must be based upon an assessment of student work undertaken with colleagues, and must be integrated into the institutional planning process. Grant funds may be used for fees, travel expenses, books, or other materials that enable applicants to learn subject matter, instructional approaches, and skills. Recipients are required to exercise professional leadership by sharing their new learning with their colleagues. http://www.neafoundation.org/pages/learning-leadership-grants/.

Now teachers are trolls?  Let the governor know that this kind of bullying is unacceptable.

But even more important than contacting the governor's office:  Talk to your friends and relatives about this issue and about public education funding!  If all they know about the situation is what they hear in Brownback's ads, then they know nothing, because those ads are so full of lies and misinformation.

Here are some facts:

1) Statewide, the number of K-12 teachers has gone down by 265 since 2010.

2) In the schools of USD 453, the number of teachers has decreased by more than 5% since 2012-13.

3) In his first budget, Brownback made the largest ever one-time cuts to public education in the state's history ($232 per pupil over 2 years) and declared them to be "a victory for Kansas."

4) The only reason the Kansas legislature addressed the issue of schools that are underfunded in the last legislative cycle is that the State Supreme Court ordered them to do so.  They addressed only the issue of schools that are underfunded because their local property taxes can't make up the difference, and they did so by cutting weighted funding for at-risk children.

5) Our Kansas public schools are now being funded at lower-than-recession-era levels! According to one study, when inflation is taken into account, Kansas appropriated $950 less per pupil in 2013 than in 2008.  

Please start a conversation to counteract the misinformation people are seeing on television!

More information and links to newspaper articles about the misleading information can be found at Fact Check.

P.S. While some ads, like Leadership, Not Experiments, Republicans Endorse Davis for Governor and Brownback's Failed Experiment, are airing in Wichita and Topeka markets, we're not seeing them here, which is another reason to use word of mouth!  Talk it up!