Dear library colleagues, Please see the announcement below from Martin Ackley, Director of the Office of Public and Governmental Affairs for the Michigan Department of Education. This situation will impact your ability and the ability of your patrons to access the Michigan Online Resources for Educators (M.O.R.E.), part of the Michigan eLibrary at http://more.mel.org. Access to the other components of the Michigan eLibrary at http://mel.org should remain available. Additionally, access to the application interface for public library annual reporting as part of the state aid to public libraries should be available within the next week or so. Please bear with us as these issues are addressed going forward. Thank you. Nancy R. Robertson State Librarian Library of Michigan 702 West Kalamazoo, P.O. Box 30007 Lansing, MI 48909-7507 Ph: 517-373-9464 Email: robertsonn@michigan.gov<mailto:robertsonn@michigan.gov> URL: http://michigan.gov/libraryofmichigan Visit the Michigan eLibrary at http://mel.org<http://mel.org/> From: Ackley, Martin (MDE) Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 3:35 PM To: (MDE-ISD-Superintendents@listserv.michigan.gov<mailto:MDE-ISD-Superintendents@listserv.michigan.gov>); (MDE-LEA-SUPERINTENDENTS@LISTSERV.MICHIGAN.GOV<mailto:MDE-LEA-SUPERINTENDENTS@LISTSERV.MICHIGAN.GOV>); Principals (MDE-LEA-Principals@listserv.michigan.gov<mailto:MDE-LEA-Principals@listserv.michigan.gov>); (MDE-PSA-DIRECTORS@LISTSERV.MICHIGAN.GOV<mailto:MDE-PSA-DIRECTORS@LISTSERV.MICHIGAN.GOV>) Cc: MSPRA; Barbara Markle; Bill Miller; Brad Biladeau; Brian Broderick; Dan Quisenberry; David Hecker; David Martell; Flanagan, Mike (MDE); Gerald Peregord; Gretchen Dziasdosz; Kathy Hayes; Michael Boulus; Michael Hansen; Paul Liabenow; Ray Telman; Robert LeFevre; Sandra York; Steven Cook; Wendy Zdeb-Roper; William Mayes; Alicia Urbain ; Alissa Peltzman ; Amber Arellano ; Andy Solon ; Becky Rocho; Bob Emerson; Bob Kefgen; Brendan Ringlever ; Dan Schultz; Dave Michelson ; Dave Stafford ; David Ladd ; David Randels; David Schmidt; David Zulhke ; Debbie Squires ; Don Olendorf; Don Wotruba; Dusty Fancher; Ellen Hoekstra ; Emily Laidlaw; Erin Schor; Gary Naeyaert; Jamey Fitz; Jared Burkhart; Jennifer Smith; Jerry Johnson; Jerry Peregord; Jim Ballard; Kate McAuliffe; Kathy Cummins Merry ; Lauren English ; Len Wolfe; Lisa Hansknecht; Louise Somalski ; Manny Lentine; Matt Gillard; Matt Thomasevich; Michael Cohen ; Mike Pumford; Nancy Stanley; Nell Kuhnmuench; Peter Spadafore ; Sarah Hubbard; Sarah Winchell Lenhoff; Shelly Stahl; Wayne Kuipers Subject: Impact on Suspension of MDE Implementation of Common Core Importance: High Good afternoon, With no action being taken by the Michigan Senate by the October 1 beginning of the 2013-14 state fiscal year, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) has had to end all support for the local implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the Smarter Balanced Assessments. The Michigan legislature inserted language in the Fiscal Year 2013-14 budget that prohibited MDE from appropriating any funds for the implementation of the Common Core State Standards or the Smarter Balanced Assessments unless it received approval through an "affirmative action" by the legislature. The Michigan House of Representatives took its affirmative action through the adoption of House Concurrent Resolution 11 (HCR 11) last week. The state Senate has not taken any similar action. "While the Common Core remains Michigan's K-12 content standards and schools will continue to design their local curriculum around them, we are continuing to review the areas of our operations that are affected to comply with the state law, now that we can't provide assistance on the implementation of the Common Core or the Smarter Balanced Assessment," said State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, Director of the Michigan Department of Education. "This not only impacts local school buildings, but also how we re-tool our work and all of our external contracts," Flanagan said. "So much of what we have been doing with Common Core over the past three years has been ingrained in our work here at MDE." We are unclear yet as to MDE's ability to flow federal dollars through to local and intermediate school districts. We are clear, though, that MDE will not be able to process federal Title I Consolidated Applications, or keep open the Michigan Online Resource for Educators (M.O.R.E.) online portal for educators and students. One of the major impacts of this lack of action by the Senate is that the state is in violation of its federal flexibility waiver to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Michigan will revert back to the federal NCLB requirement that schools have between 89-93 percent of their students proficient in math and reading. Early calculations show only 2.6 percent of school buildings (89) and seven tiny local districts in Michigan meet those thresholds, thus, the rest will be deemed: Not Making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The federal waiver to NCLB required a state to adopt career- and college-ready standards and provide support to its local schools in implementing those standards. As is its Constitutional and statutory authority, Michigan's State Board of Education chose in 2010 to use the career- and college-ready aligned Common Core State Standards. The current federal flexibility waiver goes through 2013-14. MDE has been working on the renewal of that waiver, due to the U.S. Department of Education by the end of the year. All of that work on the renewal has ceased. If the state losing its federal NCLB waiver, the Bottom 5 percent schools will be determined by a previous data method resulting in identifying different schools and causing turmoil with schools never identified on the list and some schools coming off the list, missing legislative deadlines for identifying the Bottom 5 percent of schools and all other legislative deadlines for schools. This would cause the list of schools on the 2013 Bottom 5 percent list to be 6-12 months behind in their improvement requirements, any may impact the 2012 group, as well. Another implication of the prohibition of work by MDE means that local schools will lose the opportunity to participate in Smarter Balanced Assessment field testing if the state has to pull out of the Common Core, and accompanying assessment consortium work. The field testing would have given Michigan students the best chance to experience online testing that will measure the full breadth of career- and college-ready standards in a format that will prepare them for post-secondary success, according to MDE. Michigan will not be able to replicate this type of experience, and risks falling behind by years with regard to implementing the type of online, computer adaptive testing that the legislature has called for previously. This also means that schools will not have important student academic growth data aligned to career- and college-ready standards for the foreseeable future, to fuel all critical reform efforts such as educator evaluations; school rankings and comparisons; and effective targeting of resources for the lowest-performing schools. MDE also has requested the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget to take down the MDE website because the Common Core State Standards are integrally related throughout. "If we cannot expend funds on any information, or support and assistance to local schools, then we have to scrub our entire website and restore pages are they are deemed fit," Flanagan said. This is the immediate impact on the work we do here at MDE. We will continue to assess any further impact as situations may change. Martin Ackley, Director Office of Public and Governmental Affairs Michigan Department of Education Eating a healthy school breakfast provides students Fuel for Learning...and Health for Life. For information and resources on school breakfast go to www.michigan.gov/schoolnutrition<http://www.michigan.gov/schoolnutrition> and "click" on the School Breakfast Program link in the program information category.