What We Want To Hear From President Trump In His First State of the Union Address:
“In Education, there must be freedom; let’s ensure that parents have choices and children have every opportunity to succeed.”
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — “President Trump has a primetime opportunity to tell Congress that the watchwords in the field of education for the next four years are parental choice and freedom for children to attend a school that meets their needs,” Center of Education Reform (CER) Founder and CEO Jeanne Allen declared today.
CER, which has championed fundamental changes in the field of education since its founding a quarter century ago, has played a key role in the mainstream acceptance of education choice and the dramatic expansion of charter schools in the United States. Today, 43 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and private school choice options are available in 14 states. Several other states are poised to join them.
“The president’s greatest opportunity in his address before the joint session of Congress tomorrow is to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to advance the cause of true education reform,” Allen said.
“Universal adoption of educational opportunity will be a tremendous milestone,” Allen said, “but other forms of school choice are equally worthy of adoption, and high on the list of needed reforms are steps to expand access to efficient, sophisticated information technology in smaller towns and rural areas to increase families’ options for high quality education,” she added.
“Just as when Rural Electric Cooperatives brought electric power to those communities nearly a century ago, transforming rural America dramatically for the better, 21st Century communications can transform their lives and opportunities once again,” Allen said.
President Trump addresses Congress Tuesday evening at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time in the chamber of the House of Representatives.
Allen will be live-Tweeting during the president’s speech. Follow her @JeanneAllen.
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806 Technologies, Inc. Takes the Headache out of Compliance Measures for Auditors and Schools with New Title1Crate
Plano, TX — (ReleaseWire) — 02/15/2017 — On point and strategic, the new Title1Crate software update is released to school employees and auditors in dire need of a break. Once burdened by unending Title I document management, educators, program directors, campus leaders, and federal and state auditors can now up the ante on time-saving. Now, 806 Technologies, Inc. has not only assured access to Title I monitoring 24/7 in real-time, they’ve also expanded their special auditor component. Thanks to the update, it’s easier for an auditor, or state monitor, to confirm districts have correctly managed their Title I programs. How so?
Title I audits are facilitated with an auditor-level restricted access mode and full activity audit logs on tap. Title1Crate endeavors to keep all just as it should be. Some of the features that allows this are easy document upload and automated e-mail reminders that keep users ahead of deadlines. Other features include streamlined approval and verification tools that make it almost effortless to complete detail-oriented tasks. Fully customizable to meet district, state, and ESSA requirements, the newly-updated Title I compliance software organizes all projects and documentation into a central repository. The centralized system then equips users with multiple levels of secure access. This allows for the upload, review, and approval of documentation from multiple users on any campus in any given district. Moreover, approval and tracking of all documentation, document signing accountability, and automated emails keep everyone concerned on task.
Ross Laughter, CEO of 806 Technologies, Inc. said of the Title I audit software and its ability to mitigate administrative tasks, “This software was developed for educators, by educators. Thus, they’ve used their strategic knowledge to ensure workflows are fully-supported and efficient through automated steps everyone can use. District-level administrators stay ahead of deadlines. Principals save time. Auditors make use of transparency in a way they’ve never had access to before. It’s a win/win effort saving update we’re happy to roll out.”
Exceeding the federal document retention rules, Title1Crate automatically stores prior versions of files for up to seven years safely on AWS servers with redundant live and backup servers.
For more information about 806 Technologies, Inc. visit https://806technologies.com.
About 806 Technologies, Inc. Founded in 2007, 806 Technologies, Inc. provides the marketplace with the creation of user-friendly software designed to help educators and school leadership streamline the administrative process
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Fuel Education Creates Online and Blended Learning Program for California Career and Technical Education
Standards-aligned Career Readiness Pathwaysfor California provides students with 15+ career pathways in a variety of high-demand industry sectors, plus more than 100 other CTE courses
Herndon, Virginia, February 28, 2017 — To help California districts serve students interested in career and technical education (CTE) opportunities, Fuel Educationâ (FuelEdâ) is launching Career Readiness Pathways™ for California. FuelEd hand-selected courses to create 15+ pathways that align well to the California Department of Education (CDE) CTE model standards. The comprehensive online and blended learning program also features more than 100 CTE courses beyond the pathways courses, as well as other supporting services, to help students succeed in their career or college of choice. FuelEd’s program is designed to help support all 10 of the requirements for the Career Technical Education Incentive Grant program (CTEIG) set by the CDE, thus enabling districts to use various state funding to implement the program.
Career Readiness Pathways for California offers rigorous online courses and optional instruction for pathways in agriculture, technology, healthcare, hospitality, and more. The program’s flexible implementation options help meet each district’s individual needs, whether they are seeking to implement a CTE program that allows students to explore careers, trying to motivate and engage students at-risk of dropping out, or simply wanting to expand elective options for all their students. In addition to pathways courses, FuelEd offers more than 100 CTE courses, giving students the opportunity to prepare for a wide variety of industry certifications.
“The CDE created the CTE model standards to help ensure every student who graduates from a California high school is prepared to enter college and pursue a career,” said Gregg Levin, General Manager at FuelEd. “By aligning our Career Readiness Pathways program to these standards, FuelEd is making it more cost effective and efficient for California districts to provide meaningful CTE programming to their students.”
Career Readiness Pathways for California also offers supporting services:
- FuelEd’s California-certified CTE teachers are available as an optional, cost-effective way to staff all or part of a district’s CTE program.
- Districts can take advantage of the program’s National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) exam preparation to help students prepare for the three ACT WorkKeys® assessments.
- Students can use the Career Exploration component to match their skills and interests to related careers, prepare resumes, and research job fields and colleges—all of which is available in English and Spanish.
- Districts and schools have the ability to create their own Career and Technical Student Organizations through FuelEd’s partnership with SkillsUSA® thus helping students develop the critical, non-academic skills needed to thrive in the workplace.
Whether establishing a new CTE program or enhancing an existing one, FuelEd’s Career Readiness Pathways for California provides districts with the features and flexibility to address California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant (CTEIG) requirements, seek funding under the Perkins Act, and offer A–G-approved courses. For the 2017–2018 A–G approval window, 65 FuelEd Online Courses were approved bringing FuelEd’s total number of A-G approved courses to 170. Of those 170 courses, 36 are CTE courses included in the pathways program.
To learn more about Career Readiness Pathways for California, visit fueleducation.com/californiacte.
About Fuel Education
Fuel Educationâ partners with school districts to fuel personalized learning and transform the education experience inside and outside the classroom. The company provides innovative solutions for pre-K through 12th grade that empower districts to implement successful online and blended learning programs. Its open, easy-to-use Personalized Learning Platform, PEAK™, enables teachers to customize courses using their own content, FuelEd courses and titles, third-party content, and open educational resources. Fuel Education serves more than 2,000 school districts, offering one of the industry’s largest catalogs of K–12 digital curriculum, certified instruction, professional development, and educational services. To learn more, visit fueleducation.com and Twitter.
©2017 Fuel Education LLC. All rights reserved. Fuel Education, FuelEd, and Career Readiness Pathways are trademarks of Fuel Education LLC or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready® Receives Positive Review in The Twentieth Mental Measurements Yearbook Published by the Buros Center for Testing
Independent, third-party review commends online reading and mathematics program’s design, execution, and test items
NORTH BILLERICA, Mass., February 28, 2017—Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready® recently received a positive review in The Twentieth Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) published by the Buros Center for Testing, an independent, nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the science and practice of testing and assessment. According to the MMY review, “The i-Ready K–12 Diagnostic and K–8 Instruction is well designed and executed. The heart of the program–the pool of test items–is superb.”
The Buros Center for Testing shares its expertise in assessment-related endeavors by providing critical appraisals of tests and descriptive information, offering psychometric consultation services, and developing deeper understanding of testing and assessment practices. Housed within the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Buros Center is recognized as the world’s premier test review center, as well as a provider of outreach efforts related to improving testing, assessment, and measurement practices through consultation and education, with special emphases in psychology and education. The cornerstone of its publishing activities is the MMY series, which is published every three years and includes timely, consumer-oriented test reviews that provide evaluative information to promote and encourage informed test selection.
To be reviewed in the MMY a test must be commercially available, be published in the English language, and be new, revised, or widely used since it last appeared in the MMY series. Beginning in The Fourteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook, tests also must include sufficient documentation supporting their technical quality to meet criteria for review.
“This positive, independent review of i-Ready further validates the power of our program,” said Rob Waldron, CEO of Curriculum Associates. “With more than 4.3 million student users throughout the country, i-Ready helps educators to identify students’ strengths and areas in need of improvement, offer individualized instruction, and monitor progress to improve learning outcomes.”
In addition to the positive review by the Buros Center for Testing, Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready Diagnostic for reading and mathematics received near-perfect ratings in the Academic Progress Monitoring Tool category by the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) at the American Institutes for Research in 2016. NCII is a nationally recognized organization designed to support data-based individualization in reading, mathematics, and behavior for students with severe and persistent learning and/or behavioral needs.
To learn more about the Buros Center for Testing, visit http://buros.org/. To view the i-Ready Diagnostic ratings on the NCII website, visit http://www.intensiveintervention.org/chart/progress-monitoring.
About i-Ready
Built to address the rigor of the new standards, i-Ready helps students make real gains. i-Ready collects a broad spectrum of rich data on student abilities that identifies areas where a student is struggling, measures growth across a student’s career, supports teacher-led differentiated instruction, and provides a personalized instructional path within a single online solution.
i-Ready is currently being used this school year by approximately 10 percent of all K–8 students nationwide, serving more than 4.3 million students across all 50 states. Additionally, more than 1 million students use the program every school day.
To learn more about i-Ready, visit www.i-Ready.com.
About Curriculum Associates
Founded in 1969, Curriculum Associates, LLC designs research-based print and online instructional materials, screens and assessments, and data management tools. The company’s products and outstanding customer service provide teachers and administrators with the resources necessary for teaching diverse student populations and fostering learning for all students.
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