The Race to the Top grant set aside a smaller amount toward improving state assessments, and Secretary Duncan announced this week that two consortia of states will receive $330 million to develop better assessments than their states currently have. These new tests will be designed to give teachers more frequent feedback of student progress, move beyond bubble tests to more varied and challenging questions, and will be aligned to the common core standards that 36 states have adopted thus far.

9/1/10

Office of Educational Accountability and Assessment
Michigan Department of Education
P.O. Box 30008
Lansing, MI 48909

RE: MI-SAAS Comments

To Whom It May Concern:

MASSP has been asked by State Farm Insurance to join them in promoting legislation to amend the Graduated Drivers License Novice 2 status. They seek three amendments to the current law. See below.

On Wed., August 31st we began surveying our members. Within twenty-four hours, two-hundred three had taken the survey. The results are below.

We communicated with the State Farm lobbyist we would like to join the coalition but had concerns that had to be met before we would join.

The survey is still up.

Graduation rates are an important part of accountability calculations, including AYP, school accreditation status, and Persistently Lowest Achieving and statewide Top to Bottom ranking lists. If you have not already done so, please take advantage of the opportunity to review and potentially appeal your graduation rate data for the 2010 school year. The Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) opened its annual review window on July 14, 2010, and will keep it open until September 28, 2010.

Michigan Schools CPR/AED Drill Weeks November 10 through 14, 2010 & February 7 through 11, 2011: If CPR/AED training can be correlated to "practice or rehearsal", a medical emergency drill can best be correlated to a "scrimmage" or "dress rehearsal". One difference with the drill is we hope that a real situation never arises where we would have to "play a game", "perform a concert", or have "opening night". The most important difference is the gravity of the situation. For an athlete, musician, or actor the stakes are usually wins or losses / good or bad reviews.