Tag Archives: ISEE

2015 Idaho Education Reviewed, and 2016 Previewed: A Teacher’s Perspective.

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idahoMy glass ball didn’t do too bad of a job last year in predicting some major outcomes of the 2015 legislative session.

The major development of 2015, of course, related to the contentious tiered licensure and career ladder legislation designed to increase teacher pay while simultaneously deleting certain teacher protections in compromise for the pay bump.

While the tiered licensure plan fell through due to the nearly lockstep opposition of stakeholders, many of its components were instead simply shifted to the career ladder bill that ultimately passed.  As predicted, many measures seen potentially retaliatory to teachers such as the continued emphasis in utilizing the Danielson Model for teachers of all types (including Special Education, English Language Learners, Academy/At-Risk Teachers, etc) and Value Added Measures (VAM) are cemented under the law in determining a teacher’s rating.

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Update: Frankenstein (Schoolnet) Now a Whopping 61 Million Dollars – Still Not Working.

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20150323_082213“Poor management, poor decisions, and poor system functionality compounded themselves and prevented the goals for a statewide instructional management system from being realized,” said Director Rakesh Mohan of the Office of Performance Evaluations. “The net result is that the project has sunk costs of about $61 million, and the Department of Education and the Legislature are left with few options to consider when deciding the future of the program.”

Such was the scathing report issued by Rakesh Mohan, Director of Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations, to the legislature today on the current state of dysfunction regarding Schoolnet, Idaho’s Instructional Management System. Continue reading →

Update: Frankenstein (ISEE) Idaho’s Longitudinal Data System Will Receive Life Support

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Rakesh Mohan

Rakesh Mohan

Rakesh Mohan, Director of Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE), delivered a scathing report to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee today regarding Idaho’s longitudinal data system, (Idaho System of Educational Excellence).

In short, OPE’s conclusions highlighted a series of misteps, starting from the beginning of development, to the current status-quo of dysfunction millions of dollars and years after the program began.

I’ve reported in the past on both ISEE and its classroom companion, Schoolnet previously.  Those posts are worth taking a look at for some history and context of how we arrived at the current problems we have today here and here.  Note:  The report covered today was exclusive to ISEE, not Schoolnet (although a report is coming soon on Schoolnet as well).

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Update: Frankenstein, Idaho’s 40 Million Data Monster is Aliv…err…Dead?

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640px-Frankenstein's_monster_(Boris_Karloff)The J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation executive director, Roger Quarles, recently announced that the foundation will shift their philanthropic spending away from education and more towards community spending projects.

If anyone was shocked by this move, they shouldn’t have been; the foundation lost over 20 million dollars last year in an educational data tracking project they had no business involving themselves in.

Albertson blindly ignored the advice of the federal government warning against giving money to the ill-thought-out project up when the US Dept. Of Ed refused to issue Idaho a grant for a longitudinal data tracking system citing a myriad of problems with Idaho’s proposal.

Despite this warning, Albertson ponied up over 20 million dollars in cash for the project themselves…dollars that were so dysfunctionally spent the foundation is now refusing to give another dime to the project.

A little context here: See, a few months ago I took on the task of calculating the total cost of ISEE/Schoolnet, Idaho’s longitudinal student and teacher data tracking system.

Not only did a narrative of a taxpayer checkbook out of control quickly become apparent with the project bloating even the wildest projections of cost to develop (upwards of 42 million and counting), but an additional narrative of total dysfunction also emerged.

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