Our office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE) is developing school report cards, per our city’s adoption of the Every Student Succeeds act (ESSA) . (See here for background information (and see OSSE’s official outline here).

Our city’s adoption of a plan for ESSA was to replace the prior rules of the No Child Left Behind law and provide a way in which our city’s public schools can be rated. At its February 21 meeting, our state board of education approved OSSE’s school report card plan (see here, at item X, for the approval and how the approval is delineated).

Now, OSSE wants your feedback on the design of these school report cards.

There are several ways in which you can give your feedback:

–An online survey.
–Hosting an engagement session.
–Signing up for email and text updates.

All of these options are available and explained in more detail on a website OSSE has dedicated to this purpose here.

Be sure to weigh in now, so that a private organization (see here at pages 6, 33, and 34) doesn’t take all the air out of this (supposedly public) discussion.

(Recall that it was only a few months ago that this same group wielded outsize influence in OSSE’s creation of the five-star rating system for our schools. Apparently, nothing says “public engagement” like a private group having a larger voice than the actual public with the public agency creating and overseeing policies for public schools.)

Note: the online survey is available only though May 4.