Specialty Pharmacy Update
After September 20, 2010, all members who now obtain specialty medications from PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions (PRxSS) will obtain them from CuraScript, the Express Scripts specialty pharmacy. We will continue managing specialty pharmacy drug programs and will continue to provide a dedicated account service team. Members will keep their existing ID cards and numbers, Customer Service phone numbers, drug lists and benefit designs. However, specialty pharmacy members and website users will experience some changes upon migration.

What Isn't Changing:
  - CuraScript order processing times are very similar to the member experience with PRxSS. Rather than targeting a turnaround time, CuraScript targets a required patient delivery date
  - PRxSS will transfer to CuraScript any prescriptions that have remaining refills on active prescriptions less than one year old. The member will be able to place the refill orders online or by phone
  - Members taking specialty medications should continue to use the same phone number (800-870-6419) and email address (specialtycustomerservice@express-scripts.com) they use today.
  - All customer service hours remain the same
  - Health plan-specific specialty drug lists remain the same.

What's Changing:
  - Existing specialty pharmacy customers may notice changes to the automated phone system.
  - The color and layout of paperwork in order packages from CuraScript will differ from what PRxSS used
  - Customers may notice that their prescriptions are being filled at any of the three main CuraScript facilities (Indianapolis, IN, Orlando, FL, or New Castle, DE), but prescriptions could also be filled by other, smaller CuraScript facilities
  - CuraScript will be the brand on all specialty pharmacy packages, label names and practice of pharmacy communication.
  - CuraScript will offer its CareLogic clinical programs to transitioning PRxSS patients; these programs include those that PRxSS offers today.

Web Experience
Members may access our website for specialty pharmacy information and online tools. If they currently use our website to access their health plan information, they can now review their specialty pharmacy information there as well. After September 20, though, when they view their pharmacy information through our website, they will be redirected to the Express Scripts website and may be asked to provide registration information. This information will be used to manage their pharmacy benefits and preferences for communication and privacy.
Through our website, members will be able to use many of the web enhancements listed below to help them better manage their specialty medications:
  - Review up to 18 months of prescription history
  - Schedule refills for certain specialty medications (some medications require the patient to call)
  - See when orders have shipped or are processing
  - Choose from a variety of payment methods
  - Set required delivery date for specialty medications
  - Order supply kits, if needed
  - View specialty and home delivery medications, if applicable, filled by Express Scripts on the same web page

The PRxSS website, precisionrxspecialtysolutions.com, will be retired after September 20, 2010. Those who visit precisionrxspecialtysolutions.com after that date will be re-directed to curascript.com.
Member communications
Beginning September 3, current PRxSS customers will be sent mailings, which include Frequently Asked Questions, to explain the transition.
Background
In late 2009, our parent company completed a deal to sell its NextRx pharmacy benefit management subsidiaries - including PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions, the specialty pharmacy - to Express Scripts, and subsequently entered into a contract with Express Scripts to provide certain operational and administrative support for our prescription drug plans. As a result, customers will gain the advantage of best-in-class programs from both organizations and integration of their medical and pharmacy benefits from leaders in their respective fields.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact your sales representative.

[Full Disclosure: I’m an independent marketing consultant who works with ASCD on communicating about their products and stirring up trouble whenever I can.]
Last week, all H E double-hockey-sticks broke loose in the education community when the Los Angeles Times announced that it was going to publish a series of articles called Grading the Teachers that would ostensibly show “how effective Los Angeles Unified School District teachers have been at improving their students' performance on standardized tests.” The article that followed the announcement went so far as to identify to the public individual teachers as being “effective” or “ineffective” based on an evaluation method known as “value added” analysis.

Although US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was fine with it, most people remotely related to education were not. Two prominent ASCD authors and commentators Diane Ravitch and Rick Hess, who often don’t see eye-to-eye on school policy-related matters, had no problem agreeing that the LAT’s public outing of teachers was out of line.

Ravitch criticized the LAT for using test scores alone as a basis for teacher evaluation, while Hess said the LAT’s treatment of teachers “confuses as much as it clarifies, puts more stress on primitive systems than they can bear, and promises to unnecessarily entangle a useful management tool in personalities and public reputations.”

A big problem with the LAT’s approach is that the value added methodology really doesn’t work for many reasons, as Daniel Willingham explains here.

Willingham also has a nifty animated video on YouTube that is probably the most easily digestible analysis of the many flaws with value added evaluation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uONqxysWEk8&feature=player_embedded

Despite these misgivings with value added measurements of teachers’ performance, other states appear to be moving ahead with this approach. Part of the reason for this is that the federal government is requiring these types of evaluations in order to qualify for competitive grants such as Race to the Top. So the pressure will continue to build to evaluate teachers based on student test scores, at least in part.

ASCD has been looking at teacher evaluation for years. Ten years ago, two giants in the field Charlotte Danielson and Thomas McGreal wrote Teacher Evaluation for Professional Practice which emphasizes the role of professional development in teacher evaluation. In their third chapter, they explain that an effective teacher evaluation system has “three essential elements:”
”• A coherent definition of the domain of teaching (the ‘What?’), including decisions concerning the standard for acceptable performance (‘How good is good enough?’).
• Techniques and procedures for assessing all aspects of teaching (the ‘How?’).
• Trained evaluators who can make consistent judgments about performance, based on evidence of the teaching as manifested in the procedures.”

Four years later, ASCD published Linking Teacher Evaluation and Student Learning by Pamela D. Tucker and James H. Stronge. Their take is that teacher evaluations, in order to be effective, really need to include “objective data” of student learning, which could include test scores. They look at four different types of evaluation systems that incorporate objective data, including student work samples, standards-based criteria, student goal setting, and yes, value-added assessment. But Tucker and Stronge also point out that
”Accountability should be thought of as a collective responsibility for supporting learning by parents, principals, superintendents, school board members, and teachers, to say nothing of the students themselves. Holding teachers accountable for student achievement without recognition of the roles played by these other partners in the educational process is patently unfair and can amount to scapegoating.”
(emphasis not added)

So, safe to say that these ASCD authors wouldn’t approve of what happened in LA either.

Will the type of incident that happened in LA likely occur again? No doubt, the pressure to implement widespread teacher evaluations isn’t going to go away. But until there’s more clarity about how to do it, these types of public humiliations should not be repeated. And before there are more of these kinds of incidents, educators can develop approaches to teacher evaluation that are more fair and effective. What do you think?

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/social-emotional-learning-tips-school-starts

From a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) point of view, the most important consideration at the start of the new school year is to create positive feelings and optimism about school. This has many practical implications for both educators and parents.

Here are seven ideas to keep in mind:

Number One
Make a special effort to greet children in a positive and uplifting way at the start of school. Create a festive atmosphere, not a "get down to business" factory atmosphere.

Number Two
Highlight all the good and exciting things that will be happening at the beginning of the school year, as well as throughout the year.

Number Three
Give students a chance to share good memories about the summer, what they are looking forward to for the new school year, and something about themselves that they would like classmates to know. Time spent helping the students in a class bond in positive ways will bring large dividend later in the year as students work together in pairs, teams, and groups.

Number Four
Allow students to have input into setting the rules for the classroom, in terms of both "do's" and "don'ts."

Number Five
Give students an opportunity each day to reflect on what they are learning. Ask them to keep a journal and write down, at the end of the day, three things they are taking with them from the school day. Have them keep daily journals in one or some or all subject areas where, at the end of a class period or unit or project, they write down three things they are taking away from that unit of work.

Number Six
Parents, the parallel of all these apply to you. Keep the first days of school very positive. Allow time for routines to kick in. Don't get upset if your child is running late, or forgets things. Make it clear that you understand and expect by the end of the first week of school, routines will be set and work well. Ask your child for suggestions about ways to modify the routines that are not going well.

Also, after school, ask your child to share the best parts of the school day. Later, ask your child what they are looking forward to most the next day. Please note the words, "best" and "most." These are relative terms, so there will be a "best" part of a bad day and something to look forward to "most" even where the day is dreaded. In that way, you keep the focus positive. Remember, school is much more than classes. Asking about hallways, announcements, and things other than academic classes may garner special conversations.

Number Seven
Teachers and parents should share what the school is doing around social-emotional and character development, health, and such key areas as prevention of harassment, intimidation, and bullying. Parents, if you are not given this information proactively, seek it out. Teachers, your best hope for continuity and reinforcement of school messages out of school is if parents know what it is that their children are being taught!

The essence of SEL is to be sure that the adults dealing with children understand that the gateway to learning is through children's social and emotional skills and experiences. Opening that gateway at the start of the school year will lead to a smoother path during all subsequent days.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/08/students-to-get-a-voice-on-teacher-performance-under-new-state-law.html
August 26, 2010 | 12:48 pm | LA Times
ACSD SmartBrief

High school students will get a chance to say what they think of their teachers under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SB 1422, which was opposed by the California Teachers Assn., allows the student government at high schools to develop a survey of student opinions about their classes and "teacher effectiveness." Teachers may then circulate the surveys to the students in their classes to get feedback.

Under the bill, the survey results would only be shared with the teacher whose class is surveyed: Administrators would not see the surveys and the results would not go into the teachers’ personnel files.

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said the goal of her bill is to provide a way for teachers to incorporate student feedback into their teaching methods and curriculum. The proposal was the top priority of the California Assn. of Student Councils, she said.
"The students said. 'We want a voice in evaluating the people who teach us,''' Romero said after the bill was signed Wednesday. Schwarzenegger wants to go further in evaluating teachers, said spokesman Matt Connelly, who added, "This bill is a small step in the right direction when it comes to looking at teacher effectiveness in our schools.’’

-- Patrick McGreevy
Twitter: @latpoliticsca
Facebook: latimes

By Erik Robelen on August 25, 2010 2:57 PM
Education Week
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2010/08/stem_education_to_get_big_boos.html

The winning states in the federal Race to the Top competition announced yesterday have wide-ranging agendas to improve schooling, and there's lots to examine in their applications, but I wanted to quickly highlight what looks to be a strong emphasis on STEM education.

(For an excellent overview and analysis of the results, check out this EdWeek story.)

Virtually every winning state application (plus the District of Columbia) included substantive plans to advance their work in improving education in the STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—fields.

For example:

• North Carolina will use Race to the Top funding to support the development of a small set of "exemplary high schools, each focused on a STEM theme, such as biotechnology or aerospace, tied to the economic development of the region." These will serve as "anchor schools" in networks of STEM-themed schools, providing exemplary curriculum, serving as residency sites for participants in regional leadership academies, and serving as test beds for innovative practices in STEM education.

• Maryland will use some of its award money to help develop elementary STEM standards and a corresponding elementary STEM teaching certificate. The state department of education will also establish a partnership with the Maryland Business Roundtable to support educator effectiveness and student engagement in delivering STEM instruction. The idea is to link up teachers, principals, and students with industry experts and the resources of their workplaces.

• Ohio, considered one of the leaders in STEM education, aims to expand its work, including by enhancing the capacity of STEM schools to offer support services to low-achieving schools, strengthening and spreading its STEM-oriented early-college high schools, and accelerating the capacity of existing STEM schools to serve as field sites for professional development field sites.

• Florida will hire 20 STEM coordinators who will be "strategically assigned" to persistently low-performing schools and will work with school-site math and science coaches assigned by districts. The state will create a competitive program for rural district consortia to build and implement model high school STEM programs for gifted and talented students. Also, a state advisory group will work to produce a Florida STEM plan by this December that will include strategies to increase enrollment in STEM curricula, increase student-achievement goals in math and science, and boost the percentage of Floridians who are STEM "literate."

• Rhode Island will recruit organizations to support the creation of STEM focused, high-performing charter or in-district schools. Also, it will leverage money from the Race to the Top to help struggling schools through the use of environmental-science programs that involve partnerships with community groups and informal education providers. It will also identify and train "STEM distinguished educators" to help support turnaround teams for low-performing schools and develop master teachers.

To be sure, STEM education has become a high priority in many states. In addition, the issue was identified as a "competitive preference priority" by the U.S. Department of Education in evaluating state applications for the Race to the Top. Despite the fancy title, that priority delivered a state only 15 points, out of a possible 500. In any case, as my quick (and not exhaustive) sampling indicates, the winning state applications include some very concrete plans to boost STEM education.

But don't just take my word for it. Check out the applications for yourself.

Also, here's my quick analysis of the two winners from the first round of the Race to the Top competition in March—Tennessee and Delaware—and their plans for STEM education.

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