Superintendent’s State Board Report for April 2008
Ed Dennis, Deputy Superintendent
1. Dropout Report
Lead Office: Assessment and Information Services (for data collection and report)
Oregon’s statewide dropout rate for the 2006-07 school year was 4.4%, up slightly from last year’s 4.1%. Oregon defines a dropout as a student in grades 9-12 who withdraws from school without receiving a high school diploma, GED, modified diploma, or transferring to another school.
Dropout rates increased for all subgroups except Hispanic students:
Asian 3.2%
Native American 7.0%
African American 7.4%
Hispanic 7.9%
White 3.6%
Total 4.4%
Even with the increases in the Oregon’s dropout rate, it continues to be significantly lower than the very high dropout rates of the mid-1990’s. A decade ago, the statewide dropout rate stood at 7%, and the Hispanic rate was about 18%. The African American rate was nearly 12% and the Native American rate about 10%.
2. Superintendent Castillo’s Op-Ed in Oregonian on External Evaluations of Oregon Education
Lead Office: Superintendent’s Office
The Oregonian ran a piece from Superintendent Castillo last week. The submission was in response to a critique of educators responses to recent national reports that identified weaknesses (according to their methodology) in education technology, preparation for education professionals and various other economic and funding related issues.
Superintendent Castillo’s message was supportive of educators and asked everyone to review these national reports in order to identify insights that might be useful. She also named several specific initiatives that if implemented would assist in many of the areas that the national reports identified as areas for improvement in Oregon. ODE staff are busy working on the Quality Counts and Technology Counts reports, looking for opportunities to implement changes suggested in the reports.
3. Special Ed Report Cards
Lead Office: Student Learning and Partnerships in cooperation with Assessment and Information Services
This is the second year of a statewide public reporting requirement for early childhood and school age special education programs under IDEA 2004. The report card shows performance for each district against a set of statewide targets. The targets were set by a statewide stakeholder group representing various fields of interest. This year the report card included items in addition to last year’s of graduation, drop out, discipline and placement. The new indicators included results of a parent survey, compliance with federal timelines, secondary transition outcomes, and disproportionate representation in special education by disability and race. This report is the beginning of a way to measure progress and improvement in special education across the state.
4. Accounting Theft and the plea deal
Lead Office: Finance and Administration
A former accounting director for the Oregon Department of Education pleaded guilty to stealing $925,000 of federal school funds from June 2006 through June 2007. The FBI has helped us recover $750,000 so far. The plea agreement requires full restitution and the former employee has agreed to forfeit his house and other assets to satisfy the agreement.
5. Community/School Partnership Recognition
Lead Office: Superintendent’s Office, Public Affairs Team
This is the third year that Castillo has recognized Outstanding Community/School Partnerships, and each one was selected based on its dedicated mission, diverse participants and partnerships, sustainable funding, meaningful programs, and attainable goals.
The 2008 Outstanding Community/School Partnership Award Recipients are:
• Clackamas County Head Start and Gladstone School District for their Hats Off to Reading program
• Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and Siletz Valley Schools for their Siletz Tribal Community School Partnership
• Dental Health Solutions for Children and Salem-Keizer School District for their Salem Keizer School District~Dental Health Solutions for Children program (DHS/C Program)
• Lincoln City Community and Lincoln City Schools for their Backpack Food Program
• Metropolitan Family Service, Stand for Children, and North Clackamas School District for the North Clackamas After School Task Force
• Salem Chamber of Commerce, Keizer Chamber of Commerce, and Salem-Keizer Public Schools for their Ready to Learn-Ready to Work program
• Winston Area Community and Winston-Dillard School District for their Winston Area Community Partnership (WACP)
6. Closing The Achievement Gap or Celebrating Student Success Banquet
Lead Office: Superintendent’s Office
Join us at the Banquetfor dinner and an evening of awards, videos and recognition for 16 Oregon schools making progress in closing the achievement gap.
The 4th annual Celebrating Student Success Banquet
Friday May 9th 6-8pm doors open at 5 with pre-event entertainment
Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Ballroom, Portland
10 tables will be reserved for ODE employees, State Board members and their guests. To register, email Crystal Weber, , with the name(s) of those attending and your meal choices. Registration closes May 1st.
7. 2008Celebrating Student SuccessCTAG schools
Lead Office: Superintendent’s Office
Selected schools made it through a data screen that identified schools where student subpopulations (minority groups, students with limited English, special education students, etc) made significant progress compared to the comparison groups (white students, English speaking students, non-special education, etc.). Student cohorts were analyzed using data from 2003-04 through 2006-07. A team reviewed the data and examined both school to state comparisons and within school comparisons. Statewide report card and AYP data was also analyzed. Schools demonstrating the strongest subpopulation growth (and hence the most progress in closing the achievement gap) were invited to submit an application for review.
The 2008 Celebrating Student Success Champion Schools are:
* Boise-Eliot School, Portland Public Schools
* Centennial Elementary, Springfield School District
* Gilbert Park Elementary, David Douglas School District
* Grant Community School, Salem-Keizer School District
* McLoughlin High School, Milton-Freewater Unified School District
* Merrill Elementary, Klamath County School District
The 2008 Celebrating Student Success Rising Star Schools are:
* Davis Elementary, Reynolds School District
* Hosford Middle School, Portland Public Schools
* Lincoln Elementary, Woodburn School District
* McNary Heights Elementary, Umatilla School District
* Oaklea Middle School, Junction City School District
* Talent Elementary, Phoenix-Talent School District
The 2008 Continuing Success Schools are:
* Forest Grove High School, Forest Grove School District
* Keizer Elementary, Salem-Keizer School District
* Metzger Elementary, Tigard-Tualatin School District
* Nellie Muir Elementary, Woodburn School District
8. Paperwork Reduction/Data Collection Process Improvement Taskforce
Lead Office:
ODE and COSA are hosting a ad hoc group of district level data owners and state officials to look for ways to reduce paperwork and make better sense of mandates. Several insights have already been shared that once implemented will result in changes in the way that ODE and districts do business. These changes may lead to reductions in workload. Other suggestions that will lead to changes will make the data collection and verification work more smooth and organized.
9. Budgeting to Results
Lead Office: Finance and Administration in cooperation with all offices
Agency staff have engaged for months in an inclusive process to develop a prioritized list of the areas of greatest need for the Department. It is time to get feedback from the State Board and from Superintendent Castillo on the work done thus far. Later in your agenda we will cover this topic in more detail.
10. Agency Budget Allocations
Lead Office: Finance and Administration in cooperation with all offices
Over the past several months we have made budget adjustments to reflect the latest information and assumptions that we have. This process has created obvious challenges for our team as we attempt to complete the work that is in front of us.
11. Scaling Up Initiatives
Office Lead: Student Learning and Partnerships, with OAIS and the Superintendent’s Office contributing
Oregon is competing for one of six spots for federal support for a grant focused on learning how to scale up successful initiatives and how to integrate them together with others as well.
12. OregonVirtualSchool District Weekly Stats Report: Mar 31 - Apr 6 2008
Office Lead: Superintendent’s office, Public Affairs Team
Pageloads / 2,232 / 7,616 / 4,077 / 3,940 / 4,145 / 1,659 / 907 / 24,576 / 3,511
Unique Visitors / 187 / 658 / 735 / 550 / 801 / 174 / 95 / 3,200 / 457
First Time Visitors / 149 / 571 / 654 / 450 / 649 / 117 / 53 / 2,643 / 378
Returning Visitors / 38 / 87 / 81 / 100 / 152 / 57 / 42 / 557 / 80
OVSD has 300 registered teachers working with the content and applications
13. Quality Education Commission on Best Practices panels and the High School diploma panel?
Lead Office: Superintendent’s, Policy Office with cooperation from Analysis and Reporting
Through the efforts of Lynn Lundquist and Sen. Frank Morse, the Quality Education Commission received an infusion of state funds to support the work of the commission. The commission decided to link its research efforts to two critical questions: what are the practices present in high performing schools and what are the cost factors present in the implementation of the Oregon Diploma? Two statewide stakeholder panels are underway looking at these questions. The Best Practices Panel has established 5 regional groups looking at exemplary schools in various parts of the state. The Diploma panel is developing a paper on the implications of the new diploma for high schools. This information will be reviewed by the Cost Panel and will become part of the report for the coming session.
14. PSAT Feedback from Some School Districts.
Lead Office:Assessment and Information Services
Following the 2007 legislature’s decision to pay for 10th grade assessments for every student in Oregon some districts have expressed concerns that the testing is onerous or that if they are not allowed to continue to use another vendor they will lose valuable data and need to retrain staff for a assessment product that they are not committed to.Staff are working with districts to clarify what the law does and what it does not require.