Wednesday, December 16, 2015

LD News Updates


LDA 53rd Annual International Conference
Bring family, friends and co-workers to the 2016 LDA Conference in Orlando, FL, for a time of learning and discovering how we can advocate and work together to create new opportunities for children and adults with learning disabilities.
FEBRUARY 15-18, 2016



The math and reading scores for students with disabilities on the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed little movement between 2015 and the last time the test was administered two years ago. Considering the NAEP score decreases seen for the overall student population, holding steady could be seen as a neutral or even positive result, especially because more students with disabilities took the test this year. Exclusion rates from the test, also known as the "nation's report card," have dropped significantly over the past two test administrations. But the lack of movement on scores means that students with disabilities gained no ground on closing the wide achievement gap between themselves and students who do not have disabilities.  READ MORE


In schools, the act of drawing is often pigeonholed to specific areas of academics and instruction. It is observed in lower elementary grades as a constant, but less and less as students progress through higher level grades. As writing begins, drawing use is often reduced as the printed word takes the place of the illustrated word. However, drawing needs to be emphasized in instructional methods, and drawing is an important tool for students with learning disabilities.  READ MORE 


Teaching children about the world requires access to a vast and varied resource bank. Prior to the digital age, teachers like me relied on limited primary source and dated secondary source materials. By the time a social science textbook arrived at the classroom, it was outdated. Open educational resources, however, changes the landscape of the classroom as teachers can access rich current materials of varied genres for students of all ages and abilities.  READ MORE


There is perhaps no more critical question for a disadvantaged student entering an advanced class, none more likely to rattle in the back of even the most gifted student's brain. And when coming from a teacher or student, it's also just one example of a "microaggression," an incident of everyday discrimination that students encounter that may contribute to lower performance and disengagement. But educators and researchers are fighting back, with efforts to both curb microaggressions and buffer students against them and help them cope.  READ MORE 


Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation's public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful. Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to "reduce over-testing" as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation's public elementary and secondary schools.  READ MORE


A strict requirement that schools keep up their spending on special education year to year may have unintended consequences, federal investigators say. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, states and schools in most cases must maintain or increase their funding for special education services each year. Those that do not meet the spending requirement known as maintenance of effort without obtaining an exemption from the U.S. Department of Education can lose out on federal dollars. The mandate has been in the spotlight in recent years as states struggled during the recession to keep up with their commitments from prior years.  READ MORE 


Many students with learning disabilities have attention and sensory processing issues that can be assisted and improved by occupational therapy. Occupational therapy focuses on functioning in daily life. In the school, the focus is on attention and performance of skills in the classroom. Educators have begun to realize the importance of the services offered by the therapist to assist a child in being ready to learn and remain on task.  READ MORE  


Michael Yudin, the assistant secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, writes: "Last year I learned about Jade, a dynamic 8th grader who struggled to learn to read when she was in elementary school. In recalling her challenges, Jade described trouble recognizing letters and difficulty linking them together to form sounds. She just couldn't read. The worst feeling in the world, Jade said, was starting to believe the names her classmates called her. For a long time Jade kept her struggle to herself, feeling alone, and like she had to find her own way to deal and cope with this challenge. Fortunately, Jade's family and teachers stepped in to help her get special education services."  READ MORE


States and districts should not feel reluctant to use the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia or dysgraphia when describing a particular child's learning needs, says guidance by the U.S. Department of Education. For those outside of the special education field, such guidance may seem obvious. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act names dyslexia as an example of a disability that would be included in the broader term "specific learning disabilities." About 40 percent of the students who are covered under the IDEA are classified as having a specific learning disability.  READ MORE 


On the first day of the new school year, the schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, stood in an elementary school classroom in Queens beaming at a hushed room full of fourth-grade children sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Please let your eyes close," said a small boy named Davinder, from his spot on the linoleum. Davinder gently struck a shallow bronze bowl. Gong! "Take three mindful breaths," he said, and the room fell silent. "Do you do personal visits?" Fariña asked after the exercise was over. "Like to offices?" In schools in New York City and in pockets around the country, the use of inward-looking practices like mindfulness and meditation is starting to grow. Though evidence is thin on how well they might work in the classroom, proponents say they can help students focus and cope with stress.  READ MORE 


In the classroom, subjects are often presented as settled and complete. Teachers lecture students on the causes of World War I, say, or the nature of matter, as if no further questioning is needed because all the answers have been found. In turn, students regurgitate what they've been told, confident they've learned all the facts and unaware of the mysteries that remain unexplored. Without insight into the holes in our knowledge, students mistakenly believe that some subjects are closed. They lose humility and curiosity in the face of this conceit.  READ MORE


The pending departure of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the speaker of the House, seems to have lit a fire under negotiations on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In fact, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that it could actually "help" ESEA's chances if Boehner stuck around for a few more weeks. Aides for all four of the lawmakers that will be involved in crafting a "conference report" (that's Congress-speak for a compromise bill developed after both the House and Senate have passed competing versions) have been working very, very hard behind the scenes to reach agreement. The key lawmakers here are: Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Reps. John Kline, R-Minn., and Bobby Scott, D-Va.  READ MORE


Although most states mandate the use of individual learning plans for their high school students, according to a new study, school personnel in charge of ILPs don't get the training they need to optimize those efforts, and few schools track what happened to the student upon graduation to understand whether or not the ILP was effective. The survey was undertaken by the National Association for College Admission Counseling and Hobsons, a company that sells Naviance, a "college and career readiness" application. Similar studies were done by Hobsons in 2009 and 2011.  READ MORE 


If your child has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, one of your top priorities is finding a school that matches his learning style. It may seem like a scavenger hunt, but armed with the right tools, you can find the prize: a school that understands ADHD. The key to finding the right school is to start early and to do your research. If you know what to look for in a school — and the right questions to ask — you'll be up to the challenge. Here, we tell you everything you need to know to find the right school for your ADHD child. Consider it a little help with your homework.  READ MORE 


The U.S. Department of Education announced that it has given 17 additional states the greenlight on plans to bolster teacher quality and make sure that low-income kids get their fair share of effective teachers. The states are: Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. That's in addition to the 16 states approved last month.  READ MORE...  

Other Interesting News from AASEP:
ADHD May Have Different Effects on Brains of Boys and Girls
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) manifests itself differently in the brains of girls than in the brains of boys, new research suggests. The results may help scientists better understand how ADHD affects boys and girls in unique ways, the researchers said. "The findings showed differences in the white matter microstructure between boys and girls," said study co-author Lisa Jacobson, a pediatric neuropsychologist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, in Baltimore. White matter helps different regions of the brain communicate with each other. "These structural differences were associated with observed behavioral differences," Jacobson said. "Taken together, our findings provide preliminary evidence for unique differences in the brain's white matter structure and function between boys and girls with ADHD." To read more, click here.

Graduation Rates Rise For Students With Disabilities
The majority of states are reporting improvement in their graduation rates for students with disabilities. Preliminary data released this week by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that graduation rates for children with disabilities increased in 34 states for the 2013-2014 school year. At the same time, most states also saw their overall graduation rates rise, the agency said. "The hard work of America's educators, families, communities and students is paying off, particularly after several years of intense work by educators transitioning to new, higher standards," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. To read more, click here.

Mulitasking And The Human Brain: Prefrontal Cortex Determines Concentration Level During Multiple Activities
We are all guilty of doing it, and some of us pride ourselves for it. We text while we walk, send emails during lunch, and talk on the phone while we shop, making us self-proclaimedmultitasking masters. But how exactly does the brain choose what visual and auditory stimuli to suppress when it comes to performing these various tasks? According to a recent study published in the journal Nature, the brain's prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making and complex behaviors like planning, saves information sent to the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) in order to choose how much visual or auditory information to process at a single time. The study's results show how the brain uses the TRN " as a switchboard to control the amount of information the brain receives, limiting and filtering out sensory information that we don't want to pay attention to," said Dr. Michael Halassa, senior study investigator and neuroscientist, in the press release. To read more, click here.
Study Challenges Theory That Birth Order Determines Personality
Forget what you're heard about birth order determining your adult personality, a new study suggests. Birth order does not influence any of the "big five" personality traits -- extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness or openness to experience, said lead researcher Julia Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig in Germany. She and her colleagues reviewed data on more than 20,000 adults from the United States, Great Britain and Germany to arrive at their conclusions. Firstborns did score higher in intelligence, but Rohrer said she believes this stems more from social interactions within a family than from birth order. To read more, click here.


Antibiotics Might Cause Weight Gain in Kids
Repeated antibiotic use is linked to greater weight gains in children, and it could affect their weight for the rest of their lives, a new study suggests. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore analyzed data from nearly 164,000 youngsters in the United States, and found that about 21 percent of them received seven or more prescriptions for antibiotics during childhood. At age 15, those who took antibiotics seven or more times at earlier ages weighed about 3 pounds more than those who took no antibiotics. This weight gain among those who frequently took antibiotics was likely underestimated due to lack of complete data, the researchers said. To read more, click here

Food For Thought..........
One never learns by success. Success is the plateau that one rests upon to take breath and look down from upon the straight and difficult path, but one does not climb upon a plateau
                                          Josephine Preston Peabody




Thursday, December 3, 2015

Update on S. 1177, the new No Child Left Behind (ESEA)

After over a 3 hour delay, the U.S. House at 7:21 PM voted 359 to 64 to approve the Conference Committee Report on S. 1177. All Democrats voting voted YES. You can get the vote at house.gov "Floor Proceedings" - Roll no. 664.

NOW S. 1177 MOVES TO THE U.S. SENATE. We need to call both of our U.S. Senators from each of our States and begin to teach staffers about Pay for Success.

We were able to educate the staff of many Representatives on Pay for Success as most were simply not aware of it. One Committee staffer who had actually worked on the Pay for Success language in S. 1177 finally admitted she had worked to keep Pay for Success out of the bill.

Most Committee staffers (whose job it is to defend the bill) were telling other staff that Pay for Success did NOT have anything to do with special education, that IDEA would have to be changed, that the definition of Pay for Success in S. 1177 would prevent another Utah, etc.  NONE OF THAT IS TRUE BUT IT KEPT SOME REPRESENTATIVES FROM MENTIONING PAY FOR SUCCESS DURING DEBATE OR ONE MINUTES.

THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORT ON S. 1177: (new law defining Pay for Success) PAY FOR SUCCESS INITIATIVE.
—The term ‘‘pay for success initiative’’ means a performance-based grant, contract, or cooperative agreement awarded by a public entity in which a commitment is made to pay for improved outcomes that result in social benefit and direct cost savings or cost avoidance to the public sector.
Such an initiative must include—
(1) a feasibility study on the initiative describing how the proposed intervention is based on evidence of effectiveness;
(2) a rigorous, third party evaluation that uses experimental or quasi-experimental design or other research methodologies that allow for the strongest possible causal inferences to determine whether the initiative has met its proposed outcomes;
(3) an annual, publicly available report on the progress of the initiative; and
(4) except as provided as under paragraph (2), a requirement that payments are made to the recipient of a grant contactor or cooperative agreement only when agreed upon outcomes are achieved.

Unfortunately NOTHING in this definition would have stopped what is happening in Utah and in Chicago. The Utah program was approved and implemented by a researcher at Utah State University.

As we just passed its 40th birthday, special education faces perhaps its greatest threat since the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was signed into law.

The new No Child Left Behind bill, S. 1177, as reported by the Conference Committee between the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House includes the permissive use of Federal funds by States AND by local school districts FOR Pay for Success.

Funded by Goldman Sachs, Pay for Success in Utah denied special education to over 99 percent of the students that were in the early childhood Pay for Success program.

Goldman Sachs has received a first payment of over $250,000 based on over 99 percent of students NOT being identified for special education.

Based on these results, Goldman Sachs may receive an over 100 percent return on its investment as it will receive yearly payments based on students continuing to NOT be identified for special education (multiple yearly payments for one student).

If special education is reduced to less than 1 percent of students, for all practical purposes it will cease to exist.

Goldman Sachs has also funded a Pay for Success program for the Chicago Public Schools based on paying Goldman $9,100 for each student, each year, NOT identified for special education, but results for Chicago from that program are not yet available.

Success is not the elimination of special education. Success is not failing to identify students as needing the specialized and individualized instruction required by IDEA.

We simply cannot expect the general education teacher to do it all, to know it all, and to achieve academic excellence for each and every student.

Pretending we can eliminate disability, pretending that almost every student with a disability and their parents will benefit WITHOUT the legal rights of IDEA which are only granted when a student is identified for special education, is to turn us back over 40 years to the time before we had State laws and then the Federal law requiring special education for each and every student with a disability.

On December 2, the Illinois Alliance of Administrators of Special Education (IAASE) sent its members an email stating:

"Pay for Success as it currently exists in one other state will not be an allowed.

"Utah used a single measure (in this situation, the number of students who did not need special education after receiving early intervention services) to determine the success or failure of a program.

"The law will require the use of multiple measures of student success to determine if a funded program has been effective."

Unfortunately there is NOTHING in S. 1177 that would prevent any other school district from doing what has happened in Utah (the Utah process was approved and implemented by a researcher at Utah State University).

In my reading of the entire 1,059 page bill, there is NOTHING in S. 1177 requiring "multiple measures of student success".

IAASE (as do other special ed administrators) endorses Pay for Success:
"When implemented correctly, initiatives like Pay for Success could highlight outstanding and innovative programs that are evidence-based and that have helped to prevent students from falling behind."

"Students with disabilities deserve to have programming that has been shown to be effective in improving student achievement and this portion of the bill has the potential to create a new funding stream for such programs."

Of course there is NO data to support that Pay for Success is "effective in improving student achievement" or that Pay for Success is an "outstanding and innovative program" that is "evidence-based" or "helped to prevent students from falling behind."

WHICH NATIONAL DISABILITY AND SPECIAL EDUCATION GROUPS ENDORSED S. 1177?

Over 100 national organizations are member of CCD. Please see below what appears to be the statement of the members of CCD, but is in fact only the statement of the 5 people who signed the letter. CCD used to require that each individual organization sign on or not sign on to any CCD position, and ONLY those that signed on would be listed in any letter or communication from CCD. 

December 1, 2015 (on CCD letterhead)
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) is writing to thank you for your leadership and significant efforts to assure students with disabilities are fully included in S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

We believe the ESSA makes important strides to support all students in having the opportunity to receive a quality education.

On behalf of the six million students with disabilities attending public school across the nation we write to support final passage of the bill. 

CCD recognizes that the ESSA is the result of many compromises. As such, we urge you to remain diligent in your efforts to support the funding and regulatory processes necessary to ensure schools can follow through on the promise of ESSA which is: ‘to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps.’

As we all know and agree, every student with a disability deserves this opportunity.

CCD thanks you for your commitment to ensuring federal law continues to provide meaningful access to rigorous standards for all students and fully includes students with disabilities in state assessment and accountability systems.
[signed by 5 people representing Easter Seals, National Center for Learning Disabilities, Association of University Centers for Disability, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, and National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities]

~Beverley Holden Johns 

Monday, November 30, 2015

RTI dies: R.I.P. RTI

In March, 2013, Phi Delta Kappan ran a tombstone, R.I.P. RTI,
and an future Obituary announcing the death of Response to
Intervention (1982-2018) with an article:
"Seven ways to kill RTI."

The newspaper of the National Association of School Psychologists
had an article:
"RTI WILL Fail, Unless..."

On November 11, 2015, Education Week published an article:
"Study: RTI Practice Falls Short of Promise -
First Graders Who Were Identified for More Help Fell Further Behind"
(the largest National study ever done on RTI - 20,000 students in
13 States - documented the failure of RTI), and I believe published
its obituary. 

It turns out the reason RTI has failed is simple: instead of teaching
students, teachers and everyone else (in some schools every person
physically in the building is expected to contribute to RTI) are using a
huge variety of interventions on a student, changing them after failure,
again and again after more failure, testing and testing and testing,
and charting and charting and charting often using AIMSWEB, etc.

In other words everyone in RTI is very busy doing almost everything
EXCEPT spending almost every minute directly teaching.

These same results (academic achievement actually declining) were
detailed in a 2010 report, paid for by the Illinois State Board of Education
(using funds from a Federal grant), studying RTI in the 57 school buildings in
Illinois that had received the most assistance in implementing RTI.

A couple of the "Seven ways to kill RTI": #4 Searching for quick fixes;
#5 Believing that commercially produced intervention programs, rather
than highly trained, knowledgeable educators, can improve reading.

Quotes from "RTI WILL Fail, Unless...":
"RTI represents the best venue for school psychologists to implement
desired roles since the calls for role change and expansion started
over 50 years ago."

"It now almost seems unfortunate that RTI was institutionalized in
special education regulations."

"Are we attempting to identify children who are truly learning disabled?
[that is the ONLY use of RTI included in IDEA 2004]
If so then RTI is ALMOST INDEFENSIBLE because labeling a child
with a disability due to a lack of adequate response to effective
interventions is basing a diagnosis on prognosis." (emphasis added)

"A child who fails to respond to intervention is identified as LD
because the non-responsiveness predicts a continued lack of
adequate response and, therefore, must be manifesting a 
disability."

"This represents the same high inference logic as current diagnostic
approaches such as the discrepancy model or identifying processing
deficits."

"If one accept this, then using RTI data to diagnose a disability is
using data that leads to treatments with assumed outcomes, and it
is the failure to achieve those outcomes that results in the diagnoses."

"Gerber (2005) stated that the RTI approach
does nothing to inform us about learning disabilities."

So RTI (also known as MTSS - Multi-Tiered System of Support) 
may have died, but we should all be aware that nothing
ever really dies in education or special education, not even 
Facilitated Communication.

Bev Johns

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Reducing Special Education by 99 Percent


We are used to grandiose claims in special education and in education generally.


Now, in Utah, Goldman Sachs Pay for Success claims a success rate of over 99 percent - reducing the need for
special education by over 99 percent.

PAY FOR SUCCESS IS NOW IN BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE ESEA BILLS.

On July 16, 2015, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) issued a news release stating:
  • The Every Child Achieves Act, as passed by the Senate HELP Committee, includes language that would make Pay for Success initiatives an allowable use of funds through Title I, Part D (Prevention and Intervention Programs for Children and Youth Who are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk) and Title IV, which funds programs addressing student health and safety.
  • On February 26, 2015, the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to H.R. 5, the Student Success Act, that would make Pay for Success initiatives an allowable use of state and local funds in Title II and in the Teacher and School Leader Flexible Grant, supporting states and school districts in improving student outcomes and saving resources by training and supporting educators.
Please read the following excerpts from the New York Times article on Pay for Success in Utah:

Among the 110 students who had been expected to need special education had they not attended preschool, only one actually required it this year....
 
Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah and Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, lauded the outcome on Wednesday as a victory for public-private partnerships.

It is also a public relations victory for Goldman, which has been trying to reform its reputation as an institution focused solely on the bottom line....
 
The $4.6 million put up by Goldman— and the $2.4 million invested by the Pritzker Family Foundation — went toward expanding an existing preschool program for poor children in Salt Lake County.

The program had already been shown to decrease the need for special education, but it had not been able to expand to meet all of the demand.

The Goldman money — which is more of a loan than a bond — allowed another 595 3- and 4-year-olds to attend preschool last year, in addition to the 2,400 or so other children who were already enrolled.

Of those new students, tests indicated that without preschool, 110 were likely to need special education.

This year, teachers determined that 109 of those pupils did not need special services.

For each one of them, Goldman and its partner got about $2,500, and will receive that each year, through the six grade, that the students avoid special education, with the amount decreasing in the years after that.

The State of Utah, and some local private charities, are still paying 95 percent of what it would have cost for the special education. But Mr. Roman, at the Urban Institute, said the state would reap significant other savings if the students continued to avoid special education, which is generally associated with higher levels of truancy, juvenile crime and other problems.

Bev Johns

Monday, October 12, 2015

State Office of Education Operating Database to Track Individuals Without Authority

Reprinted with permission from LDACA: LA


COMMON CORE   Education without Representation

State Office of Education Operating Database to Track Individuals Without Authority  

The following letter is reposted with permission from Libertas Institute, a Utah-based conservative think-tank.  It was given to members of the Utah legislature two weeks ago.

It concerns the State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) which was implemented in Utah –and in every state, thanks to federal bribery– just a few years ago.

Each SLDS runs according to federal specs and is interoperable.  Thus, the fifty SLDS systems function together as a “de facto” federal stalking system on children, college students, and the members of the U.S. workforce.  Every state’s “voluntary” SLDS feeds its data about citizens to the federal EdFacts data exchange.

Libertas Institute points out that SLDS was created and is being used without voter approval or representation; there was no legislative knowledge or debate, and there has been no effort to promote parental knowledge or to acquire parental/student consent for this massive, lifelong data mining project.

Action step:  after you read this letter, please contact your legislators (here is contact info for Utah legislators, the governor and  D.C. legislators)   to put them on the task of creating, at the very least, an immediate, definite, parental-opt-out bill.
 ————————————————————————–

September 28, 2015
To: Members of the Administrative Rules Review Committee

Senators and Representatives,

The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) will be in your meeting tomorrow, among other things, to explain the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS)—a large database that stores a lengthy list of data points on each child in Utah’s public schools. We are concerned with how this database was set up and how it’s being used; as we are unable to attend the meeting, we wish to briefly outline key concerns for your consideration.

We allege that USOE created, and now operates, this database without any legislative authorization or oversight. Further, the federal funding USOE has obtained in order to build and operate the database has required them to make certain policy commitments, as you’ll see below, that exceed their authority and circumvented any public discussion on the matter.

This letter outlines three actions of which you should be aware:
1. The “Four Assurances” promised by Governor Huntsman
2. A grant received by USOE to build the federally compliant SLDS
3. The 2015 grant announced just last week to further develop and utilize the SLDS

The “Four Assurances” promised by Governor Huntsman
On April 15, 2009, Governor Jon Huntsman signed an Application for Initial Funding under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program, submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of this application was to obtain federal “stimulus” dollars; here is the explanation from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE):

The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) program is a new one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Of the amount appropriated, the U. S. Department of Education will award governors approximately $48.6 billion by formula under the SFSF program in exchange for a commitment to advance essential education reforms…

Without legislative authorization or guarantee, the Governor made four assurances to the USDOE—a required step in order to receive any many. Those assurances were as follows:
1. The State of Utah will take actions to “improve teacher effectiveness” and “address inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers between high- and low-poverty schools”
2. The State of Utah will “establish a longitudinal data system”
3. The State will –
1. Enhance the quality of the academic assessments it administers…
2. Comply with the requirements… related to the inclusion of children with disabilities and limited English proficient students in State assessments, the development of valid and reliable assessments for those students, and the provision of accommodations that enable their participation in State assessments; (Inclusion Assurance) and
3. Take steps to improve State academic content standards and student academic achievement standards consistent with section 6401(e)(1)(A)(ii) of the America COMPETES Act. (Improving Standards Assurance)
4. The State will ensure compliance with the requirements of section 1116(b)(7)(C)(iv) and section 1116(b)(8)(B) of the ESEA with respect to schools identified under these sections. (Supporting Struggling Schools Assurance)

Thus, without any legislation to back it up, the federal government was promised significant policy reforms in the state: common education standards (“Common Core”), new assessments, teacher evaluations, school grading, and a comprehensive data collection system.

All of this was done in pursuit of money; less than a year later, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that Utah had been showered with $741,979,396 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Utah lawmakers—and thus the public at large—were left out of the loop.

A grant received by USOE to build the federally compliant SLDS
Under the same Recovery (“stimulus”) Act, USOE was given a grant of $9.6 million to create the Utah Data Alliance—a longitudinal database that was fully compliant with USDOE requirements. While data systems had obviously existed previous to this grant, this one was geared, as USOE wrote, primarily towards satisfying questions and requirements “asked by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), SLDS grants program; the ARRA, Race to the Top (RttT); and the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) assurances”—all federal mandates tied to funding USOE desired.

The Utah legislature did not authorize the creation of the SLDS, to our knowledge. The only
statutory references we have been able to identify refer to the already-existing database. For example, Senate Bill 82 in 2013 (which passed and was signed into law) had this language:
(e) “Utah Student Record Store” means a repository of student data collected from LEAs as part of the state’s longitudinal data system that is:
(i) managed by the Utah State Office of Education;
(ii) cloud-based; and
(iii) accessible via a web browser to authorized LEA users.
(2) (a) The State Board of Education shall use the robust, comprehensive data collection system maintained by the Utah State Onnce of Education…According to USOE, a statewide longitudinal database—mostly complaint with federal standards—had been in operation since 2005.

The 2015 grant announced just last week to further develop and utilize the SLDS
On September 17, 2015, the Institute of Education Sciences—a project housed within the U.S.
Department of Education—announced that Utah was awarded a grant under the Statewide Longitudinal Data System Grant Program in the amount of _____AMOUNT______, along
with potential continuation grants to provide more funding in the years ahead.

USOE’s application for this grant , obtained through an open records request, sheds light on the alarming nature of this project. In order to suggest legislative authorization for the SLDS and Utah Data Alliance, USOE argues that “The Utah State Legislature awarded UDA partners [individual state agencies] ongoing appropriations to support sustainability of the original infrastructure (e.g., database, researchers, technicians, project director, and technical contracts), which demonstrates the state’s commitment to the work and mission of the UDA data warehouse.” In other words, narrow appropriations for data projects in state agencies is being interpreted as blanket authority for, and support of, the overall SLDS project. We feel this a misguided and unreasonable inference. Further, USDOE’s Request for Applications document specifies that “a successful data system rests upon a governance structure involving both State and local stakeholders in the system’s design and implementation.” However, USOE’s application admits that only “A memorandum of understanding governs the partnership. A governance plan documents the policies of the partnership and is continuously updated and refined to address emerging governance issues.” An MOU, which can continuously evolve free from vetted processes and public input, is insufficient to govern the requirements of such a large database—one that has significant privacy and security implications.

There are many disconcerting statements and policy priorities outlined in USOE’s application, but our main concern here is that the real “stakeholders” have been completely left out of the loop. From information we have gathered, the State Board of Education was unaware of this grant application. No vote was taken on the issue. No legislative authorization was given to compile this information on every child, make the information available to state government agencies (including “individual-level data in the UDA data warehouse”), or provide data to third parties. Most importantly, the true stakeholders are almost totally unaware that this database even exists; Utah law recognizes that “the state’s role is secondary and supportive to the primary role of a parent.”

You may be aware that Libertas Institute organized a lawsuit late last year against the State Board of Education over its rushed adoption of Common Core, done in to obtain federal money under the Race to the Top grant. (A hearing is scheduled in a few weeks.) We feel that a pattern exists within USOE, whereby education policy is dictated not with input from parents and teachers, or even legislators or the State Board of Education, but by USOE’s seemingly insatiable appetite for federal grants, which inevitably come with significant strings.

If “strings” are to exist, then they must be openly discussed, debated, and authorized—not agreed upon behind closed doors with the unscrutinized stroke of a pen. You as legislators have been circumvented and deemed largely irrelevant on this issue. Significant education policies are being adopted and implemented without public input. We encourage you to take an active interest in this issue and bring transparency and scrutiny to USOE grant applications and the policies that necessarily follow.

Sincerely,

Connor Boyack
President, Libertas Institute
785 E. 200 S., Suite 2, Lehi, UT 84043
801.901.0310
LibertasUtah.org

DOCUMENT SOURCES
1  Application for Initial Funding under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program, http://
www2.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/stateapps/ut-sub.pdf
“State Fiscal Stabilization Fund,” U.S. Department of Education, March 7, 2009, http://
2  www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/factsheet/stabilization-fund.html
“UTAH STUDENT RECORDS EXCHANGE,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/pdf/
Utahabstract.pdf
“INFORMATION RELATED TO FY15 GRANTS,” http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/
grant_information.asp
“Enhancing Utah Data Alliance College and Career and Evaluation and Research Capabilities
5  through Web Technology,” http://libertasutah.org/drop/slds_2015.pdf

Related

Posted October 9, 2015 by Christel Swasey in How the Common Core Initiative Hurts Kids, Teachers, and Taxpayers
Tagged with All states have one, Data Privacy Matters, federal bribe, get rid of the federal slds interoperability, get rid of the state longitudinal database systems, hurtful to children, Libertas Institute, Open Letter, slds, State Longitudinal Database System, USOE operates database without permission, Utah Board of Education, Utah Legislature, Utah Office of Education, We need an opt out bill for SLDS

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