18OELSN1 - Attachment A - Final.docx

75 Pleasant Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148-4906 Main Telephone: (781) 338-3000 TTY: N.E.T. Relay 1-800-439-2370

Alternate ID: 18OELSN1 COMMBUYS Document #: BD-18-1026-DOE02-DOE01-18440

Copyediting Services for Guidance on Indentifying, Assessing, and Supporting English Learners with Disabilities Project Attachment A

BID Scope of Services

Contents of Attachment A

· Background

· Purpose

· Scope of Services

· Deliverables

· Budget and Timeline

· Required Qualifications

· Preferred Qualifications

· Submission Requirements

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (the Department) is seeking a vendor to provide professional services to copyedit a technical document of approximately 45 pages containing approximately 12,800-words for an educational audience.

BACKGROUND

Identifying and meeting the unique linguistic, academic, behavioral, and social-emotional learning needs of English learners (ELs) is the responsibility of all educators. The purpose of this guidance document is to provide school districts with an overview of: the laws, regulations, and policies related to ELs with disabilities; research-based best practices for supporting ELs; the special education evaluation process for ELs; and instructional programming and progress monitoring of ELs with disabilities. Federal, ESE, and research-based, best-practice resources are included in this document to further support districts in their efforts to support learners.

Guidance on Indentifying, Assessing, and Supporting English Learners with Disabilities: This document clarifies what is currently expected of school districts in their identification, assessment, and instruction of ELs. Consideration was given to how federal and state law, policy, guidance, as well as local conditions and student need affect our practice.

PURPOSE

The Department is seeking a vendor to provide professional services to copyedit a technical document of approximately 45 pages containing approximately 12,800-words for an educational audience.

SCOPE OF SERVICES

In response to the need for copyediting of the Guidance on Indentifying, Assessing, and Supporting English Learners with Disabilities document, the Department seeks a vendor to proofread the approximately 12,800-words in the document and edit for compliance with its ESE Style Guide 2012 (updated, 2015). Formatting includes compliance and uniformity of text (including color), text within tables and figures (excluding non-editable images), in-text citations, footnotes, reference section, and appendices.

Documents will be provided in MS Word format.

Respondents must be able to work electronically on the documents and return all deliverables by the agreed upon date.

Respondents will be reviewed based on experience, availability and ease of process.

DELIVERABLES

The referenced material must be completed by August 25, 2017. Sections should be submitted to the Department for review on an ongoing basis as they are completed. Late submissions on the part of the vendor are not acceptable. In the event that there is a delay on the part of the Department, this date may be extended.

BUDGET

The maximum obligation for the project is $1,000 from approval to August 25. This is a deliverable-based contract, and all travel and other incidental costs must be included in the budget. ESE will pay invoices based on completion for actual work undertaken and completed prior to the invoice date.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Three years of experience as a copy editor

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelors’ or higher degree in English, Writing, or a closely related field Three to five years experience with editing technical documents for educational audiences Background in linguistics and English Learner education is helpful but not required

INQUIRIES

No phone calls regarding this BID will be accepted. If you have any questions, please send an email to snino@doe.mass.edu specify BID# 16RFQOELFK2 in the subject line. Questions must be submitted by Aug 3, 2017 by 5:00 PM EST and will be posted on or around August 4 by 5:00 PM EST. Questions will be posted to the COMMBUYS website: www.COMMBUYS.com, in same location as this BID.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Bidders must submit the following:

Responses should include the following:

· A narrative of no more than two single-spaced pages describing the services they will provide. This narrative should also describe the vendor’s qualifications to provide those services, including the required qualifications listed above. The narrative should also include the following:

· The ability to work within a limited timeframe

· Specific details on your process for proofreading and editing (e.g., the format in which you would require the materials, how they would be returned, process for answering questions, etc.)

· Specific policy that details the process for correcting edits that Department does not agree with upon submission

· The ability to meet onsite at the ESE office in Malden, MA, if the situation warrants

· Resumes of no more than two pages for each of the key personnel proposed to support the work

· Reference Letters from three clients for whom similar work has been conducted

· An all-inclusive deliverables-based budget

Responses MUST be uploaded (as one single document) to COMMBUYS no later than the bid opening date and time of August 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm. Responses not posted to COMMBUYS will not be considered for evaluation. Do not Email and/or mail responses to the department. BIDDERS IMPORTANT NOTE: When uploading your response on COMMBUYS please be sure to enter a $0 dollar amount and check off the “no charge”(Make sure “No Bid” is NOT selected) option, otherwise your upload will default to the No Bid option and the department will not be made aware of the upload. This step will ensure accuracy when the bid closes for review and the department awards the bid. Failure to follow this step may result in disqualification of your response due to the department not being properly notified of your response.

In order to respond to this bid, please register on the COMMBUYS website. If you need assistance with registering please contact the COMMBUYS helpdesk at: COMMBUYS@state.ma.us or (888) 627-8283 or (617) 720-3197.

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ESE style guide sept 2015.pdf

ESE Style Guide

July 2012 edition*

*Incorporating changes to commissioner’s letter approval process from 9/24/15

Table of Contents

Introduction

Understanding Style Guide Entries

Usage

Punctuation

Formatting

Correspondence from the Commissioner

Common Errors (and How to Avoid Them)

More References

Where Do I Find…?

Web Content Standards Checklist: Required Standards

Web Content Standards Checklist: Recommended Standards

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 1 Last updated September 24, 2015

Introduction

Is special education capitalized? When is mathematics abbreviated as math? What should a legislative report look like? And what, exactly, is an em dash?

Welcome to the new edition of the Style Guide for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education! This guide answers these questions and more by codifying correct spelling, punctuation, and usage for common Department terminology and standard formatting and design for official documents.

Major updates in the new edition include:

• Reaffirming our commitment to ESE as the abbreviation for the agency’s name

• Adding guidance for the terminology associated with our approved NCLB waiver and removing terminology associated with the old system

• Clarifying acceptable usage for student subgroup labels and racial/ethnic groups

This guide covers the major usage issues common to the agency as a whole. For questions not covered here, the Department’s standard reference is the Chicago Manual of Style. Every center has its own copy, and one is always available in the Department research library on the 5th floor outside Carrie Conaway’s office. Individual centers may wish to add to these guidelines for terminology common in their own work, using the Chicago Manual as a guide.

Please send suggestions for improvements to future editions of the Style Guide to Carrie Conaway.

Understanding Style Guide Entries

Senator Abbreviation: Sen. Spell out on the first usage and in To: lines of memoranda, letters, etc. Specify state senator when the context may be unclear. See titles for rules on capitalization.

• To: Senator Robert Antonioni

• Senator Antonioni served in the legislature for many years.

The formatting of this guide is borrowed liberally from The Associated Press Stylebook, Basic Books, 2004.

Entry words are in boldface. These show the accepted form of the term in question or the topic of the entry.

Abbreviation: indicates the correct abbreviation.

Text explains usage.

Examples of correct and incorrect usage are in italics.

Bullets show examples of usage in context.

References to other entries are in boldface.

Usage

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 2 academic degrees Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, etc. but not in Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science, etc. People with doctorates hold a doctoral degree. Abbreviation:

forms include periods but no spaces (for example, B.S., A.B., Ph.D., Ed.D.). Abbreviations should only be used after a person’s name and should generally be avoided altogether in prose. Abbreviations are acceptable in signature lines, lists of names (such as a list of speakers at a conference), and so forth.

• Only a small fraction of the state’s entering ninth graders go on to earn a bachelor’s degree eight years later.

• Governor Patrick holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

• Governor Patrick holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University. (not has a B.A.)

• Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D.

academic subjects Use lowercase for all subject areas except for words that are proper nouns or adjectives (such as English and Chinese). Do not capitalize the word department unless you are using it as part of an official department title.

• The mathematics department at Brockton High School includes six teachers and a curriculum specialist.

• Teachers of English, Spanish, and art history convened for a discussion of literature about the artist Goya.

• Advisory group member Steven Rivkin is a member of the Amherst College Department of Economics.

• Advisory group member Steven Rivkin is a member of Amherst College’s economics department.

accountability and assistance level With the approval of our No Child Left Behind waiver in

February 2012, we will no longer be using the terms identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring to describe districts’ and schools’ accountability status. Instead, schools will be designated as Level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, and districts in general will be assigned the level of their lowest performing school. In the federal accountability system, Level 3 schools are also called Focus Schools and Level 4 and 5 schools are also called Priority Schools. Use underperforming and chronically underperforming only when referring specifically to state law or regulations.

• The Acton Public Schools are designated as a Level 1 school district.

• Statewide, 12 school districts were identified as Level 4 in 2011.

achievement gap The achievement gap is the difference in performance between two or more groups. (See proficiency gap for comparison.)

• Massachusetts has large achievement gaps between English language learners and native English speakers.

acronyms and abbreviations Organization names that will be used frequently within a document may be abbreviated to acronyms after the first usage in the main text. The acronym should be defined immediately after the actual organization name, using parentheses to set it off. Do not define an acronym in a headline or subhead; do so in the body of the text. Do not define an acronym for an organization if you are only going to use the organization’s name once or a few times in the text; just write it out each time.

• The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) was officially created on March 10, 2008.

• The Department of Public Health (DPH) is the largest state government agency in terms of employment.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 3

Adequate Yearly Progress This terminology has been discontinued as a result of our No Child Left Behind waiver. The concept has been replaced by the Progress and Performance Index.

Advanced Placement Abbreviation: AP. Always capitalized.

advisory council Use lowercase when referring generally to advisory councils; capitalize when referring to the official name of a particular council.

• The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has 16 advisory councils.

• Over half of the members of the Special Education Advisory Council are parents of children with disabilities.

a.m. Use lowercase, with periods and with a space after the time (e.g., 9 a.m., not 9a.m. or 9am).

Annual Progress and Performance Index Abbreviation: Annual PPI. See Progress and

Performance Index.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Abbreviation: Board or BESE. (Note that this is an exception to the Chicago Manual of Style’s guidelines on capitalization, which would not capitalize board.) Do not abbreviate as BOE.

• Currently the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is chaired by Maura Banta.

• The Board is one of only a few nationwide to include a voting student member.

bylaw Not by-law.

capitalization Avoid unnecessary capitalization and be consistent on capitalization practices within a document. Capitalize official and proper names of organizations and programs but not organization or program types used generically (see advisory council for an example).

Use title case (All Important Words Capitalized) for titles and top-level subheads of documents, reports, etc. Use sentence case for second-level and lower subheads. See the Chicago Manual of Style for usages not covered in this guide.

career/vocational and technical education Abbreviation: CVTE. Should not be hyphenated.

Avoid the usage vocational schools or vocational education, as this is just a subset of the realm of career/vocational and technical education.

• Many students participating in career/vocational and technical education enroll immediately in college after graduation.

Certificate of Mastery, Koplik Certificate of Mastery Should be spelled out and not abbreviated.

Certificate of Occupational Proficiency Abbreviation: C.O.P. (not COP).

certification See licensure.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 4 charter school Use lowercase unless referring to the formal, official title of a school.

• The Board is voting next week on whether to approve the applications of four new charter schools.

• The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School is located in Malden.

class References to a specific cohort as a class, such as the class of 2005, should be in lowercase.

• Students in the class of 2007 were 2 percentage points more likely to graduate in four years than those in the class of 2006.

commissioner See titles for full rules for capitalization. Specific examples follow.

• Commissioner Chester issued a statement.

• The commissioner issued a statement.

• Mitchell Chester, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, issued a statement.

• Mitchell Chester is the commissioner of elementary and secondary education.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Abbreviation: the Commonwealth. Capitalized. Massachusetts should be referred to as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, not the state of Massachusetts. State may substitute for Commonwealth in more general usages. See state.

• the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

• More than 80 percent of the Commonwealth’s students earn the Competency Determination on the first try.

• More than 80 percent of the state’s students earn the Competency Determination on the first try.

Competency Determination Abbreviation: CD. Capitalized.

• In the class of 2009, 87 percent of students received the Competency Determination on the first try.

Congress When referring to the U.S. Congress, Congress is always capitalized.

Congressman See Representative.

criteria, criterion The word criteria is the plural of the singular criterion. Therefore, parts of speech agreeing with criteria should be plural.

Cumulative Progress and Performance Index Abbreviation: Cumulative PPI. See Progress and

Performance Index.

curricula The correct plural of curriculum. Use when referring to more than one curriculum.

• The school’s curricula for both English language arts and mathematics were weak.

curriculum framework When referring to the general concept of a curriculum framework, use lowercase. When referring to a specific framework, capitalize as for proper nouns, italicize since it is a title, and consider including a date if there may be confusion over the version.

Note that framework is singular, not plural.

• Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework

• Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework

• The Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework is revised regularly.

• The curriculum frameworks are revised regularly. (plural here because this refers to them as a group)

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 5 data The word data is the plural of the singular datum. It is increasingly common, however, for dictionaries and style guidelines to permit the use of data as a singular term, much like information. The latest versions of the Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and American Heritage Dictionary approve of this usage, particularly in informal writing or technical documentation. In formal and scientific writing, the plural is often still preferred.

• Example of plural usage: Our data show substantial improvement in graduation rates this year.

• Example of singular usage: Our data shows substantial improvement in graduation rates this year.

data-driven, data-based In the world of education policy, these phrases usually modify nouns such as decisions or instruction and therefore should be hyphenated. See hyphen.

decimals Use no more than one numeral after the decimal point, preferably none, in tables, charts, and text. Too many places after the decimal creates a false sense of precision. Include a zero before the decimal when reporting numbers and percentages below 1 (e.g, 0.3, not .3).

• (preferable) In fiscal year 2008, 95 percent of the Department’s state budget went to local aid.

• In fiscal year 2008, 94.9 percent of the Department’s state budget went to local aid.

• Average ratings grew from 3.4 to 3.9, an increase of 0.5 points.

Department See Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

disabilities Students receiving special education services may be called students with disabilities;

this may be abbreviated as SWD after the first usage if the abbreviation is defined. See special education.

• Students with disabilities are less likely to graduate from high school on time.

• Students receiving special education services are less likely to graduate from high school on time.

districtwide Not district-wide.

dropout Noun. Not drop-out. Note that the verb form is to drop out, not to dropout.

Edwin The state technology system designed to provide curriculum, instruction, and data analysis tools to districts. Subsections of Edwin include Edwin Analytics and Edwin Teaching and Learning. Not EDWIN.

elementary school Use lowercase unless referring to the formal, official title of a school.

• Teachers in elementary schools tend to have less mathematics preparation than teachers in high schools.

• The Cheshire Elementary School is located in Cheshire, Massachusetts.

email Not e-mail, E-mail, or otherwise. This is an exception to the Chicago Manual of Style’s preferred usage of e-mail.

English language arts Abbreviation: ELA. When referring to English language arts as a general subject, use lowercase. When referring specifically to the MCAS English Language Arts tests, capitalize the first letter of each word.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 6

English language learner Abbreviation: ELL. Capitalize only the first word. ESE uses only the term English language learner, not limited English proficiency, to describe this student group.

• English language learners who arrive in the United States as teenagers often find it difficult to graduate from high school in four years.

EPIMS The official name is the Educator Personnel Information Management System.

ESE The only acceptable abbreviation of the agency’s name. See Massachusetts Department of

Elementary and Secondary Education.

ethnicity See race.

Expanded Learning Time Abbreviation: ELT. Not Extended Learning Time.

extracurricular Not extra-curricular.

federal Use lowercase if used in the general sense; capitalize if used as part of a proper noun.

• a federal mandate

• the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston fiscal year Abbreviation: FY. Generally write out in prose (with the year in full) and abbreviate in tables and charts (with FY and the last two digits of the year, e.g., FY09). If choosing to abbreviate, do not put a space between FY and the year. The same rules apply for federal fiscal year, abbreviated FFY. The fiscal year that runs from July 2007 through June 2008 is the 2008 fiscal year.

• Chapter 70 aid increased by $220 million in fiscal year 2008.

• Governor Patrick unveiled his FY09 budget in late January.

• The Reading First program saw substantial cuts in the federal fiscal year 2009 budget.

• The Reading First program saw substantial cuts in the FFY09 budget.

former English language learner Abbreviation: FELL or former ELL. This term describes students who were once English language learners but whose English proficiency is currently comparable to that of a native speaker and who have exited to non-Sheltered English Immersion education services within the last two years.

former limited English proficient/proficiency This term has been discontinued. See former

English language learner.

free or reduced-price lunch Not free/reduced price lunch, free or reduced price lunch, or free or reduced lunch. Often students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch are referred to as low income. See low income.

grade All of the following uses are acceptable: grade 10, 10th grade, tenth grade. Do not capitalize grade in these uses and use one form consistently within a document. When referring to an

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 7

MCAS test, use grade X MCAS test. (Note that this capitalization practice is a change from older guidance from the Student Assessment unit.) If grade is part of a compound adjective modifying a noun (e.g., tenth-grade students), it should be hyphenated.

• DIBELS is intended for use with students in kindergarten through grade 6.

• DIBELS is intended for use with students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

• Scores are improving on the grade 10 MCAS Mathematics test.

• All fifth-grade students should have their eyes examined by a doctor.

grade span Not gradespan or grade-span.

high needs students Defined as students who fall into at least one of the following categories:

low income students, English language learners, or students with disabilities. Note no hyphen, since high is an adverb modifying the adjective needs. Not high-needs students.

high school Use lowercase unless referring to the formal, official title of a school.

• Student representatives from 12 high schools participated in the forum.

• Students from Brockton High School participated in the forum.

house of representatives Abbreviation: house or House, with the appropriate capitalization for the context. See legislature.

Internet Not internet.

kindergarten Abbreviation: K. See pre-kindergarten.

legislature Capitalize when preceded by a state name or when implicitly referring to a single state’s legislature. Lowercase when used generically or in plural. (The same principles apply to house of representatives and senate.) Members of the Massachusetts Legislature may also be called members of the General Court.

• If the Board approves the proposed budget, the Department will submit it to the Legislature.

• No legislature has approved the amendment.

• To: Members of the General Court (e.g., in a letter or memorandum)

Level 1 school, Level 1 district, etc. Our state and federal accountability systems designate schools and districts as Level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. In this usage, Level should be capitalized, and the level should be indicated with a numeral rather than writing out the number. In the federal accountability system, Level 3 schools are also called Focus Schools and Level 4 and 5 schools are also called Priority Schools.

• Boston currently has 11 Level 4 schools.

• Springfield is a Level 4 district because it includes Level 4 schools.

licensure The Department refers to educators in Massachusetts as licensed, not certified. There are four types of license: Preliminary, Initial, Professional, and Temporary. All are capitalized.

• Mid-career professionals entering teaching typically apply first for a Preliminary license.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 8 limited English proficient This term has been discontinued. See English language learner.

low income Often students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch are referred to as low income.

The usage low income students does not include a hyphen because low is an adverb modifying the adjective income, but preferably, refer to students with low incomes or students from low-income families rather than low-income students, since it is the families and not the students that have low incomes. See free or reduced-price lunch and subgroup.

• The program targets schools with high percentages of low income students.

• (preferable) The program targets schools with high percentages of students from low income families.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Abbreviation: Department or ESE. All of the following uses are acceptable: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; Department (after the first full usage); and ESE (after the first full usage). Generally use the Department in Board memoranda, legislative reports, etc. Do not abbreviate as DESE or the older MADOE or DOE. (Note that the usage the Department is an exception to the Chicago Manual of Style’s capitalization guidelines.)

• The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is located in Malden.

• The Department selected 14 instructors, who will teach the course in pairs.

• ESE selected 14 instructors, who will teach the course in pairs.

MassCore Our state recommended high school program of studies for college and career readiness. Not MassCORE or MASSCore.

MassONE The official name is Massachusetts Online Network for Education.

mathematics Spell out completely (rather than abbreviating as math) and use lowercase.

Exception: Capitalize when referring to an MCAS Mathematics test, as that is its official name. See MCAS.

MCAS The official name is the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. Capitalize MCAS and the tested subject when referring to a specific test, but do not capitalize grade. (Note that this is a change from prior Student Assessment guidance.) Use test rather than assessment.

• Bob received a 240 on the grade 5 MCAS Mathematics test.

• Karen received a 240 on the grade 8 MCAS English Language Arts test.

• The MCAS tests cover English language arts, mathematics, science and technology/engineering, and history and social science.

MCAS performance levels On most tests, the levels are Advanced, Proficient, Needs Improvement, and Warning or Failing. The grade 3 English Language Arts test has a performance level of Above Proficient rather than Advanced. Warning applies to tests in grades 3 through 8, while Failing applies only to tests in high school. All performance levels are capitalized, and they are almost always italicized as well, especially in MCAS documentation and reports.

• Students who score below Proficient on any grade 10 test will need to complete an Educational Proficiency

Plan in order to graduate from high school.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 9 middle school Use lowercase unless referring to the formal, official title of a school.

MTEL The official name is the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure.

NAEP The official name is the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

numbers In most cases, spell out numbers under 10; use figures (numerals) for 10 and above. A few common exceptions: If the number is the first word in the sentence, spell it out, even when the number is a year, or rewrite the sentence to avoid the usage. If the sentence includes numbers both below and above 10, use figures for both. Always use figures with percentages. Note that there are many other exceptions; consult the Chicago Manual of Style for clarification. Also see numbers in tables (in the Formatting section) and percent.

• Only six school districts statewide had filed their applications on time.

• Eighty percent of students entering ninth grade in 2003 had graduated by 2007.

• Two thousand two marked the highest level of Chapter 70 funding. (but better: The highest funding level for

Chapter 70 was in 2002.)

• Many substantially separate special education classrooms have between 3 and 10 students.

• More than 8 percent of students failed a grade 10 MCAS test on the first try but later passed.

online Not on-line.

onsite Not on-site.

percent In text, preferred style is to spell out percent rather than using the % symbol. The % symbol is always acceptable in tables and charts. Always use figures (numerals), even if the percentage is less than 10 (6 percent, not six percent), except when the number is the first word in a sentence. Precede percentages smaller than 1 percent with a zero (0.6 percent, not .6 percent). In general, use no more than one numeral after the decimal point (e.g., 11.5 percent, not 11.54 percent); none (11 percent) is often preferable. Follow the same rules for percentage change, percent growth, etc.

• In Brockton, 13 percent of students are English language learners.

• The share of students graduating on time increased by 0.8 percent.

• The state saw a 3 percent decline in the number of students enrolling in college this year.

p.m. Use lowercase, with periods and with a space after the time (e.g., 9 p.m., not 9p.m. or 9pm).

pre-kindergarten Abbreviation: pre-K. Not prekindergarten.

preschool Not pre-school. (Incidentally, the reason pre-kindergarten is hyphenated but preschool is not is that hyphens should be omitted unless needed for clarity. Preschool is clear and easy to read, but prekindergarten would not be. See hyphen.)

professional development points Abbreviation: PDP, PDPs. Not capitalized.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 10 proficient Capitalize and italicize when referring to the MCAS performance level; use lowercase for general concept of proficiency. See MCAS performance levels.

• One of the Department’s objectives is to challenge all students to proficiency and beyond.

• More and more students score at Proficient or above each year.

proficiency gap The proficiency gap is the distance between a group’s current proficiency level and 100 percent proficiency. (See achievement gap for comparison.)

• Our new accountability system focuses on halving the proficiency gap by 2017.

program Only capitalize names of specific programs, not kinds of programs (e.g., special education and regular education in lowercase but Connecting Activities in capitals). Only capitalize the word program itself if it is part of the official title of the program (e.g., National School Lunch Program but Title I program).

Progress and Performance Index Abbreviation: PPI. The Progress and Performance Index is a metric that combines information about student achievement, growth, and graduation and dropout rates into a single number between 0 and 100 and serves as a primary basis for accountability designations for Levels 1 and 2. Each district, school, and subgroup is assigned an Annual PPI based on two consecutive years of data and a Cumulative PPI based on at least three Annual PPIs.

• The new Progress and Performance Index allows ESE to include more than just achievement on MCAS in accountability designations.

race Starting in the 2005–06 school year, the Department’s system for collecting data on student race and ethnicity changed. The racial and ethnic groups for which we now most commonly report data are listed below. These are aggregated from a much more complex set of racial and ethnic categories collected by SIMS and EPIMS. See the Race and Ethnicity Data Collection FAQ at http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/data/guides/race_faq.html.

Use the official terms below to refer to these groups when reporting student data collected by the Department. When referring to racial or ethnic groups more generally, black may substitute for African American/Black but should be in lowercase, as should white. See subgroup for the official names of the subgroups measured for accountability purposes.

Official name Acceptable abbreviation for charts and tables*

African American/Black (or “African American or Black”)

African Amer./Black or Afr. Amer./Black

American Indian or Alaskan Native Amer. Ind. or Alaska Nat.

Asian Asian Hispanic or Latino Hispanic/Latino Multi-race, non-Hispanic or Latino Multi-race, Non-Hisp./Lat.

Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Nat. Haw. or Pacif. Isl.

White White

* It is acceptable to deviate from these abbreviations for space or clarity considerations, so long as the order of group names remains the same and the meaning is clear.

http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/data/guides/race_faq.html

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 11

• This year’s MCAS tests showed substantial improvement for Asian students in all grade levels.

• A recent study showed that black students are more likely than whites to be taught by an educator teaching out of field.

Representative Abbreviation: Rep. Spell out on the first usage and in To: lines of memoranda, letters, etc. Specify state representative when the context may be unclear. Members of the U.S.

House of Representatives may also be called Congressman. See titles for rules on capitalization.

• To: Representative Patricia Haddad

• To: Representatives Patricia Haddad and Geraldine Creedon school year Abbreviation: SY. Not schoolyear. The school year that runs from fall 2007 through spring 2008 is the 2008 school year. Generally write out in prose (with the year in full) and abbreviate in tables and charts (with SY and the last two digits of the year, e.g., SY09). If choosing to abbreviate, do not put a space between SY and the year.

schoolwide Not school-wide.

seasons The seasons are winter, spring, summer, and fall (or autumn). Do not capitalize.

• The fall 2008 report will be issued in October.

• The report will be issued in the spring.

senate See legislature.

Senator Abbreviation: Sen. Spell out on the first usage and in To: lines of memoranda, letters, etc.

Specify state senator when the context may be unclear. See titles for rules on capitalization.

• To: Senator Robert Antonioni

• Senator Antonioni served in the legislature for many years.

sheltered English immersion Abbreviation: SEI.

significant difference Reserve use of the term significant difference for situations in which there is a measured, statistically significant difference between groups. If no statistical tests have been performed, use a synonym such as substantial, large, considerable, sizeable, etc.

special education This term should be used to refer to special education programs and should not be abbreviated as SPED, SpEd, etc. The students in those programs should be referred to as students with disabilities, which may be abbreviated SWD after the first usage.

staff The collective noun staff may be either singular or plural, depending on context, though most commonly it is used in the singular.

• Our staff has commented on the draft. (implies a collective unit)

• Our staff have commented on the report. (implies several individual people from the staff were involved; if that is the intent, it is often clearer to write, e.g., Our staff members have commented on the report.)

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 12 standards-based In the world of education policy, this phrase usually modifies a noun such as reform and therefore should be hyphenated. See hyphen.

state Lowercase in all state of usages, but note that Massachusetts should be referred to as the

Commonwealth (not the state) of Massachusetts. Capitalize when state is part of the full and proper name of a governmental body. Spell out the whole name of states when standing alone; preferably also spell out when following a city name. If you must abbreviate, use the U.S. Postal Service abbreviations; see https://www.usps.com/ship/official-abbreviations.htm for the official list. See Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

• the State Ethics Commission

• the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

• Residents of Massachusetts pay sales tax; residents of New Hampshire do not.

• The New England states’ capitals are: Montpelier, Vermont; Concord, New Hampshire; Augusta, Maine;

Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts.

State House The building downtown on Beacon Street with the shiny gold dome is the State

House, not the state house. Exception: press releases and other materials for the media, which should follow the AP style guide of Statehouse.

statewide Not state-wide.

STEM Stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Use as an abbreviation only after writing out the full phrase on the first usage.

SIMS The official name is the Student Information Management System.

students with disabilities Abbreviation: SWD. This term may refer either specifically to students receiving special education services (i.e., students with Individual Education Plans) or more broadly to any students with disabilities.

subgroup Subgroup refers to the official subgroups of students we report for accountability purposes. The term subgroup is in lowercase. Capitalize the subgroups in tables; use lowercase in text. Official subgroups for Massachusetts follow. They vary slightly from those listed in race because NCLB requires that states report accountability data for their the “major racial and ethnic groups,” and some of the race categories do not comprise major racial and ethnic groups in this state. Some subgroup names may be shortened; use the table under the race entry for guidelines.

• African American or Black

• American Indian or Alaskan Native

• Asian

• English language learners or former English language learners

• high needs

• Hispanic or Latino

• low income

• multi-race, non-Hispanic or Latino

• Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander https://www.usps.com/ship/official-abbreviations.htm

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 13

• students with disabilities

• white

• Our No Child Left Behind waiver established a new student accountability group: high needs students.

titles Capitalize formal titles appearing before, but not after, a person’s name. If a person’s title includes the name of an official program, the program should be capitalized. General references to positions should be in lowercase. Titles in signatures are capitalized. See capitalization and Chicago Manual of Style sections 8.21 to 8.35 for more explanation and examples.

• Commissioner Chester issued a statement.

• The commissioner issued a statement.

• Mitchell Chester, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, issued a statement.

• Mitchell Chester is the commissioner of elementary and secondary education.

• Valian Norris is the director of human resources. Keith Westrich is the director of the Connecting Activities program. (or, the director of Connecting Activities)

• Director of Human Resources Valian Norris announced the launch of a new employee wellness program.

• Patricia Haddad, representative from Somerset, is the chair of the Joint Committee on Education.

• Representative Patricia Haddad is the chair of the Joint Committee on Education. Rep. Haddad has served in this capacity for many years. (or, The representative has served…)

• Bob Bickerton, Senior Associate Commissioner (in a signature line)

TIMSS The official name is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.

United States Spell out when used as a noun. Use the abbreviation U.S. (with periods and no spaces) when used as an adjective.

• The United States is the third most populous country in the world.

• The U.S. Department of Education has a budget of about $68 billion.

U.S. Department of Education May be referred to as the U.S. Department of Education, ED, or

USED. Do not refer to it as USDOE or USDE; that is the U.S. Department of Energy.

versus Spell out in ordinary usage; use v. for court cases.

• It came down to his story versus hers.

• Hancock v. Driscoll was decided in 2005.

vocational technical See career/vocational and technical education.

website Not Web site or Website. (Note that is an exception to the Chicago Manual of Style’s preferred usage of Web site.) Capitalize Web when referring to the World Wide Web.

Punctuation

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 14 ampersand (&) References to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in prose should write out the and.

apostrophe Use an apostrophe to indicate possession or omitted letters (contractions). In most

(but by no means all) cases, form the possessive of a singular noun by adding ‘s; form the possessive of a plural noun by adding only an apostrophe. A good rule of thumb is to include the s after the apostrophe if you would pronounce the s when speaking and to exclude it when you would not. Do not use an apostrophe in pronouns (such as its) or with plurals of letters or numbers. See Chicago Manual of Style sections 7.17 to 7.30 for more detail.

• Chairman Reville’s memorandum indicated that the Department should take action quickly.

• Commissioner Chester’s opinion is that the policy has been effective.

• Students’ scores will be available in the fall.

• The children’s choir will perform at noon. (note that children takes an s after the apostrophe even though it is plural, following the rule of thumb of using the s when it would be pronounced if spoken)

• I’m certain he’ll get back to you soon. (but note that contractions are not appropriate for official documents)

• A GPA of 4.0 on a 4.0 scale indicates that the student earned all As.

• Bill Clinton was president throughout most of the 1990s. (‘90s is acceptable only in informal usage)

• She graduated from high school in 1990, so she is now in her 30s.

colon Use a colon to introduce a list or for emphasis. Capitalize the word immediately following the colon if it begins a complete sentence.

• To teach in a public school, teachers must hold one of four license types: Initial, Preliminary, Professional, or

Temporary.

• Instructional services are the programmatic core of education: the part of expenditures most directly tied to actually educating students.

• Even districts whose health insurance spending has grown at less than average rates have experienced growth in this category: Only 60 districts saw their health insurance spending grow by less than 50 percent.

commas between phrases and sentences Use a comma when connecting two complete sentences with a conjunction such as and, but, or or. Do not use a comma when connecting two phrases. Note that however is not a conjunction, so it should be preceded by a semicolon, not a comma, in a compound sentence (but many would argue that one should not begin sentences with however in the first place).

• Practice tests are available online, and they can be downloaded for free.

• Practice tests are available online and can be downloaded for free.

• Practice tests are available online; however, they cost $10 apiece. (but better: Practice tests are available online;

they cost $10 apiece, however.)

commas in dates See examples.

• On May 19, 2008, Mitchell Chester became the commissioner of elementary and secondary education.

• David Driscoll retired in August 2007.

• Today is Friday, March 7, 2008. (note: not March 7th; use –nth forms only when the date numeral stands alone, e.g., Today is the seventh.)

• I am writing in response to your February 12, 2007, letter.

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 15 commas in lists The Chicago Manual of Style recommends using a comma after every item in a list, including one immediately before the final and. This is now generally accepted practice in the United States because it makes complex groupings within lists clearer to the reader.

Complex groupings may warrant semicolons rather than commas as separators, especially when items in the list themselves include commas (see semicolons). Please use this style in official Department documents such as Board memos and legislative reports. Exception:

press releases and other materials for the media, which should follow the AP style guide of omitting the final comma.

• Graduation rates are especially low for low income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.

• Industries that employ a disproportionate share of STEM workers include professional and technical services, healthcare, information, and finance and insurance.

commas in numbers Use commas in all numbers of 1,000 or more.

dash There are two kinds of dashes: the en dash (–) and the em dash (—), so named because historically, their length was the same as the typeset widths of the letters n and m, respectively. The en dash is most commonly used to connect numerals or compound phrases and often substitutes for the word to. The em dash, often just called a dash, is used when a long break or pause is desired. The em dash may sometimes substitute for a semicolon in connecting two sentences together.

To create an en dash, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL - minus key. To create an em dash, use the shortcut CTRL - ALT - minus key. (The minus key is in the upper-right-hand corner of the number pad on the keyboard.) Note that there are no spaces before or after either kind of dash.

• Students in grades 3–8 and grade 10 participate in the MCAS program.

• Most districts saw their Chapter 70 allocations increase in the 2007–08 school year.

• The Portland–Boston train leaves at 7 a.m.

• Three-quarters of the increase—$1.3 million—was supported by a grant from the Legislature.

ellipsis Used to indicate missing words in the middle of a block of quoted text. (When the omitted words come at the beginning of the quoted sentence, an ellipsis is not necessary.)

Create an ellipsis with three periods in a row. The AutoCorrect feature in Microsoft Word will automatically reformat the three periods into the correct spacing for an ellipsis. If the ellipsis ends a sentence, add a fourth period. See the Chicago Manual of Style sections 11.51 to

11.71 for more details; we use the three-or-four-dot method.

• In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln stated, “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation…dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

• In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln stated that the new nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” (note: no ellipsis was needed because the omitted words are at the beginning of the sentence)

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Page 16 hyphen Use hyphens to join two adjectives modifying a noun and when necessary to avoid misunderstanding. Do not hyphenate adverbs to adjectives.1 Often words that are hyphenated when they precede a noun are not hyphenated when they follow the noun. Use an en dash, not a hyphen, for ranges of numbers; see dash for more explanation.

• The 12-year-old students… (but, The students were 12 years old.)

• The co-op (versus the coop)

• Standards-based reform is a hallmark of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act.

• Fifteen school cafeterias are piloting a program to serve locally grown food. (not locally-grown)

• The United States is the third most populous country in the world. (no hyphens are required because third and most are acting as adverbs modifying the adjective populous)

• Many foreign students enrolled in adult basic education have less than an eighth-grade education. (but, Many foreign students enrolled in adult basic education have completed less than eighth grade.)

parentheses Use to denote less relevant or explanatory material, acronyms or abbreviations of previously defined terms, or explanations of unfamiliar terms and foreign phrases. Include the period (or other punctuation demarcating the end of a sentence) inside the parentheses if the entire sentence is in parentheses; otherwise the period follows.

• Spending on instructional materials and equipment (such as textbooks and computers) has declined.

• The state has seen rapid increases in the number of non-native English speakers (up by 26,000 since 1997).

• Robert Frost remains America's favorite poet. (We remember him from Kennedy's inauguration.)

quotation marks Use to denote quoted text, and sparingly otherwise. In contexts other than direct quotes, it is almost always preferable to omit them. When closing quotation marks, put periods or commas inside the quotes. Question marks and exclamation points go outside the quotation marks unless they belong with the quoted matter. Colons and semicolons always go outside the quotes. See Chicago Manual of Style section 6.8 and 6.9.

• The commissioner said, “I’m proud of the accomplishments of all our staff.”

• The commissioner said that he is “proud of the accomplishments of all our staff.”

• Who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you”?

• The minister said, “Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

semicolons Use semicolons to clarify a series of items or to…