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Houston: Voters Rejected a $4.4 Billion Bond Issue to Protest Mike Miles’ Arrogance

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2024 //
4

Houston’s public schools were taken over in 2023 by the state because one (1) high school was persistently getting low scores. One! That school happened to have a disproportionate number of students with disabilities, students who were English learners, students who were impoverished, as compared to other high schools in the district .

The Texas Education Agency engaged in a hostile takeover. Governor Abbott may have wanted to teach the blue district of Houston a lesson, and he did. His hand-picked State Commissioner imposed a new superintendent, Mike Miles, and replaced the elected school board. Houston lost democratic control of its schools.

Miles was a military man and a graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy, whose graduates were steeped in top-down methods and taught to ignore constituents. Miles was superintendent in Dallas, where he had a rocky three-year tenure. He then led a charter chain in Colorado.

Miles proceeded to impose a new lockstep curriculum and to fire administrators and principals who did not please him.

Members of the public complained bitterly about being disregarded, ignored, belittled. Miles plowed ahead.

New test scores came out, and the scores went up. Miles felt triumphant. See, he said, I was right! The Houston schools needed a leader who didn’t listen to the public.

But when Miles and the state’s puppet board put a $4.4 billion bond issue on the ballot last month, parents urged others not to vote for it. In the only place where parents had a say, they organized against the bond issue. It went down to a defeat.

On November 5, Houston voters rejected a proposed $4.4 billion bond that would pay for critical school construction, renovation and infrastructure projects, as well as safety and security improvements, by a wide margin, 58% to 42%. It appears most of those voting against the measure did so not in opposition to the bond itself, but out of deep distrust for Miles and the district’s leaders. For weeks the rallying cry repeated publicly by opponents, including the Texas Federation of Teachers, was simply “no trust, no bond.” 

Miles said it had nothing to do with him. But he was wrong. It was a referendum on his leadership. He lost.

Public education requires community engagement. It requires parent involvement. Committed parents will fight for their schools. They want to know who’s leading their schools, they want to be heard. Miles still doesn’t understand the importance of listening. He thinks that the goal of schooling is higher scores, regardless of how many people are alienated. He doesn’t understand the importance of building community. And without it, he failed.

It’s time to consign the Broad Academy philosophy of leadership to the dust bin of history. Districts don’t need military command and control. They need educators who have a clear vision of what education should be, who care about ALL students, and who understand how to build community.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Houston, Parents, Texas

Jeff Bryant: The Podcast That Was Killed–about State Takeover of Houston Schools

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2024 //
5

Jeff Bryant is a veteran journalist who covers education issues. He is the chief correspondent for Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He shared the following article with this blog.

What a Podcast Killed by Houston Public Media Reveals About the State Takeover of the City’s Schools

A podcast about the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which Houston Public Media (HPM) produced, promoted, and then quietly killed before it debuted, has been shared with Our Schools. “The Takeover,” hosted by Dominic Walsh, an award-winning public education journalist, examines the takeover, the state’s installation of a new board and a controversial superintendent Mike Miles, and the subsequent series of reforms Miles rolled out that have frustrated and angered teachers, parents, and students.

Our Schools has thoroughly examined the recordings to ensure their authenticity and is reporting on the contents of each episode so that readers are better informed about the consequences of the state takeover of Texas’s largest school district—the eighth-largest district in the nation. We have decided not to make the podcast public for legal reasons.

In four episodes of what was meant to be Season One of the podcast, Walsh covers events that took place in the school year 2023-2024, beginning with the secret ceremony in which Miles was sworn in to serve as superintendent in June 2023. Episode four culminates in March 2024 when public outrage forced Miles to back down on an evaluation plan that could have potentially resulted in half of the district’s principals losing their jobs, including some who lead the district’s top-rated schools.

Walsh ended the Season by questioning whether widespread public anger at policies implemented by Miles could endanger a school bond referendum that voters eventually decided on during the November 2024 election. That bond referendum was defeated, and the Houston Landing reported that Texas voters had never before rejected a proposed school bond measure “totaling $1 billion or more.” HPM called the defeat “an unofficial referendum of state takeover.”

Much of the airtime in “The Takeover” is taken up by interviews that are critical of what Miles has implemented, including those with parents, teachers, librarians, and students, many of whom bitterly complain about the new reforms. Walsh points out that state takeovers of local school districts almost never produce positive results, as numerous studies have shown.

Walsh has given ample time to takeover supporters on the podcast as well, including Miles; Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath, who appointed Miles; state-appointed Houston School Board President Audrey Momanaee; and Texas lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, who support the takeover. He also speaks about positive developments since the takeover began, including improved test scores in math and science.

Yet, while Walsh’s reporting can be described as balanced, he largely frames the takeover and the new reforms Miles has imposed as the latest iteration of the decades-long education reform movement that Walsh negatively characterizes as being “top-down.” He further points out that the reforms are overly reliant on standardized testing with punitive accountability measures that often lead to schools being closed, teachers and school principals being fired, and parents feeling alienated.

A request for comment was sent to HPM station manager Joshua Adams, but Our Schools is yet to receive a response.

Episode one of “The Takeover” is titled “School Reform, the Musical,” a reference to a musical skit Miles staged, and played the leading role in, to ease the district about his massive disruption efforts and to counter any criticisms. But the episode could easily have been called “Winners and Losers,” which is the theme Walsh keeps returning to while describing who gains in Miles’s new education system and who loses out.

The winners tend to be those school staff members who benefit from a tiered salary system Miles implemented and teachers who are comfortable with a centrally created and scripted curriculum. The losers? Parents who see their children’s favorite teachers being fired or leaving in frustration. Students who find the scripted curriculum less engaging. Librarians whose libraries are shuttered. Teachers who lament about losing their freedom to tailor instruction to students and miss the curriculum they felt most passionate about, like teaching the entire book in English Language Arts class.

A contrast Walsh repeatedly draws throughout the episode is Miles’s claims of knowing “the best way” to improve schools versus what Walsh observes as the “painful reality” on the ground when the reforms were rolled out.

Episode one, “School Reform, the Musical” states:“State installed superintendent Mike Miles says his plan will make schools better, raise test scores, and career readiness, especially in high poverty neighborhoods that need it the most. And who could argue with those goals. Everyone wants that. Right? But it’s complicated.”
—Dominic Walsh

In episode two, “The Law,” Walsh begins by examining the law that made the state takeover possible and delves into the “conflicting philosophies” over public education and the rampant inequity in the education system. His reporting reveals that the law, House Bill 1842, was mostly based on the low academic performance of just one school, which had started to improve just before the announcement of the takeover. Walsh questions whether the low performance in Houston schools might be due to a lack of resources and the rigid system Texas uses to assess its schools.

Another state law the episode considers—passed in 2017—was an attempt to incentivize school districts to partner with charter school management groups to operate their lowest-performing schools. This law kept the HISD and other districts with low-performing schools under constant pressure of being privatized. Walsh explains that Houston’s reform movement is based on strict accountability measures of schools, which were exported to the entire nation later on.

Episode two, “The Law” states:“This is a story about conflicting philosophies—deep-seated disagreements over the possibilities, potentials, and purpose of public education in a deeply unequal society.”
—Dominic Walsh

Episode three, “The Texas Miracle,” goes back to the 1990s to explore the origin of top-down education reform in Texas under then-Governor George W. Bush and the so-called Texas miracle that became the inspiration for the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2002 by then-President George W Bush. These policies were furthered under the Barack Obama presidential administration, and, in Houston, under the leadership of former superintendent Terry Grier from 2009 to 2016. He was rewarded with school improvement grant money by Obama, which he used to force changes in some of the very same schools Miles is focused on today.

However, Walsh speaks with education researcher Julian Vasquez Heilig, who was an employee of HISD’s Office of Research and Accountability from 1999-2001. He explains that the acclaimed progress resulting from the Texas miracle was a “mirage.” In another interview, education historian Jack Schneider says that the positive results, of what he calls the “bipartisan, neoliberal” policy of NCLB and similar laws, have never really been achieved.

Nevertheless, Walsh explains that the reform agenda spawned a host of reforms, to which Miles is devoted. In fact, as Walsh reports, the charter school network that Miles created and led, called the Third Future Schools, uses an education approach almost identical to what Miles is trying to implement for Houston’s public schools system. Walsh notes that Third Future Schools struggled to meet all the progress measures in another Texas school district when the company was contracted to transform a school. Walsh concludes, “If Miles can pull this off in Houston, it will be a first.”

Episode three, “The Texas Miracle” states:

“In the eyes of some researchers, if we have learned anything from the past two decades of education policy, it’s that this type of top-down, test-based school reform does not work, largely because of what it misses. But others think Mike Miles may have finally cracked the code.”

—Dominic Walsh 

The Takeover’s final episode, “Reconciliation,” largely focuses on the behind-the-scenes players that will determine the fate of Houston schools. These include the state-appointed board that Miles answers to—it mostly functions as a rubber stamp for Miles’s reform agenda, according to critics—the Texas Education Agency that initiated the takeover, and Texas state lawmakers, including the legislature and Governor Gregg Abbott, who determine state education policy. In reporting on each of these entities, Walsh finds various “contradictions” that are hard to reconcile.

Walsh interviews Audrey Momanaee about the takeover board and questions how the effort can align with the “visions and values of community,” as she claims while delivering  “results,” like higher test scores and a narrowed curriculum, which don’t seem to be in line with the values of the local community. Walsh returns to this same contradiction in his interview with Morath in which Walsh notices how Morath’s emphasis on raising test scores clashes with his goal to raise “educated citizens.” Texas state lawmakers present an even starker contradiction, Walsh notes, as they pass laws that hold public schools to increasingly harsher accountability measures while attempting to pass a new voucher system that would redirect more education funding to private schools, which have no public accountability at all.

In the face of these contradictions, Walsh accuses leaders of the Houston takeover of “kind of operating as if they have blinders on” as they choose to ignore what education should be, instead, going for scripted curriculum, command and control managerial practices, and ever higher test scores. Walsh notes that Miles seems to waver from his agenda only when wealthier parents and representatives of the business community voice their dissatisfaction.

Episode four, “Reconciliation” states:

“How the state measures success, how it decides when to intervene, and when this takeover will end, is actually up in the air. In fact, the whole public education system in Texas is in flux.”

—Dominic Walsh

Why HPM decided to kill “The Takeover” before it had a chance to air is not immediately clear based on the content of the podcast.

According to a September 2024 article in the Texas Monthly, which called the decision to kill the podcast “head-scratching,” executives at the news organization pulled “The Takeover” the day before it was scheduled to debut when they learned that Walsh’s “long-term romantic relationship with an HISD teacher” presented, what they believed, was a “conflict of interest.” Through a series of public records requests, Texas Monthly reporters Michael Hardy and Forrest Wilder obtained copies of the podcast episodes and internal communications related to its cancellation.

In their investigation, Hardy and Wilder found “no evidence that HPM canceled the podcast because of external pressure, as some community members have speculated. No inaccuracies in Walsh’s reporting are identified in the internal communications we reviewed, and HPM executives did not respond to a question about whether they had identified any.”

Hardy and Wilder also note that “What constitutes a conflict of interest is a disputed subject among journalists.” They have interviewed experts on ethics in journalism who question HPM executives’ decision to cancel the podcast.

HPM still archives Walsh’s education reporting on its website, with no disclaimer. Walsh, however, no longer covers education and seems to be reporting on other beats for HPM.

But it’s hard not to sense the irony as Walsh signs off his reporting in “The Takeover” saying, “Whatever happens we will be here. Stay tuned.”

Categories Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Houston, Parents, State Takeover, Texas

Carl J. Petersen: Selecting a New Member for the Los Angeles School Board

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2024 //
6

The legendary Jackie Goldberg is retiring from the Los Angeles school board, which means there is an open seat. Carl J. Petersen, an LAUSD parent, sent questions to both candidates for the seat, but only one answered.

Petersen writes:

Karla Griego

LAUSD Board District 5 covers Northeast Los Angeles from East Hollywood to Eagle Rock and extends through Koreatown and Pico-Union to include much of Southeast L.A. (“SELA”) from Vernon to South Gate and also part of South LA. With its representative, Jackie Goldberg, taking a well-deserved retirement, a rare open-seat election is occurring in November.

As voters begin receiving their ballots, the two remaining candidates, Karla Griego and Graciela Ortiz, have been given one last opportunity to answer questions about issues facing the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Throughout the campaign, Ortiz has failed to answer questions sent to her as part of the LAUSD Candidate Forum series and this last set of questions were no different. Griego continued to participate and her answers to the first half of the questions can be found below:

  • According to the District, charter schools currently owe $3,003,768 in delinquent overallocation fees, some of this debt is several years old. How would you force the District to ensure that these debts are paid?

Charter Corporations should not be allowed to continue expanding while carrying outstanding debt to our district and our students. I would propose specific limits to their expansion and contract renewals until such debts are paid off.

  • After telling the LAUSD School Board for years that state law required the District to classify classrooms used to provide Special Education services as “empty” and are, therefore, available to be given away when providing space under PROP-39, the Director of the Charter School Division admitted this year that it was, instead, the policy of the district. As a result, some of our most vulnerable children were receiving these services in closets and stairwells. How should Jose Cole-Guitierez, Director of the Charter School Division, be held accountable for misleading the Board?

It is unconscionable that Charter corporations have deceived our districts’ decision-makers and that LAUSD has not yet held Charter companies accountable. In conjunction with the community schools model, schools should have the decision-making power to use their facilities to best benefit their students, and not be at risk of space being taken to expand or co-locate charters.

  • The LAUSD is required to have a Homeless Liaison for each school per the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act. What are the candidate’s positions on LAUSD partnering with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment Homelessness Liaisons in Neighborhood Councils to notify our constituents about homeless services for students and their parents at their schools?

LAUSD should at the very least have a homeless liaison in each school, and be in communication with existing partners so that our students and their families are aware of homeless services available to them. But we need to do more. With rising housing costs in Los Angeles, LAUSD has the responsibility– and the ability–to address homelessness in creative ways that offer vital services to our students. This includes using vacant lots to build housing for our students and their families and partnering with community based organizations, city and county offices to address the homelessness crisis.

  • What statement(s) from the opposing campaign team would like to address?

My opponent claims that it is not her place to evaluate the Superintendent, her boss. I disagree. I believe that as an educator, and as a School Board member, it will be my responsibility to hold the Superintendent accountable to the students we serve and to the many qualified employees of the District. We need to focus on funding services for our students, not new digital platforms that no one asked for. We need to focus on serving our special education population, not overtesting our kids. We need to focus on providing enrichment, arts education, and mental health services to our students, not selling our kids out to more privately-run charters. We need to evaluate his decisions every step of the way, and demand better.

  • Given the rhetoric around cutting wasteful spending, please provide one specific part of the budget where you believe waste exists and how would you make cuts that would not affect the classroom?

It seems that there are too many high paid administrators at the District and Local District levels as well as contracts with outside consultants, marketing and testing companies. One of those contracts, the recent AI Bot named Ed, whose company filed for bankruptcy, is an example of expenditures that were made at the top level without stakeholder input.

  • One of the basic jobs of a School Board Member is to hire and fire the Superintendent. How should a Superintendent be evaluated?

Evaluation should be based on progress towards goals which are predetermined by the school board. These goals should be informed by stakeholder input and priorities. Beyond progress toward academic achievement, graduation and attendance, goals should include school climate and culture, safety, wellness and progress toward improving the overall educational experience of all of our students. Data toward these goals should be collected throughout the Superintendent’s tenure, to provide guidance and opportunities to make changes and improvements on actions designated to achieve these goals.

  • Nurses need equipment and the proper size office to care for students. Have all school Administrators established a HIPAA compliant Health Office where the nurse has confidential work space to talk with students, parents, staff members, and doctors regarding students health needs, reporting abuse or neglect? Do they have a private area to do procedures, other than in a bathroom which is not appropriate to do give a Insulin Injection, or to do a Gastronomy Tube feeding or to put the tube back into a student in a space large enough and as sterile or clean as possible?

I support equipping our nurses with the resources and facilities necessary at all schools to provide safe and secure health services to our students.

  • Do Special Education Centers and special day classes have a place in the District’s continuum of services. If not, why? If yes, what will you do to ensure that families have an ability to choose them during the IEP process?

Special Ed Centers and Special Day Classes should have a place in the District’s continuum of services. Although it is part of the IEP meeting discussion, it is not necessarily one that is delved into deeply. Sometimes parents do not understand the difference between programs and placements. An action step toward making this conversation meaningful and collaborative with the whole IEP team, is to provide information to help parents be aware of their rights. They must also be encouraged and empowered to participate in the meetings. An accountability piece is adding space in the IEP document that records the conversation; holding local regional meetings at least 4 times a year that informs and supports parents’/caregivers’ understanding of the IEP process, their rights and engagement in the process. Furthermore, this meeting would also inform families and students what various Special Education Programs are offered in the LAUSD.

  • There is a wide consensus that the IEP process has become increasingly adversarial. How will you ensure that parents are equal partners in guiding special education services?

Some of the first steps of action to remedy this, is to ensure that case carriers/teachers’ caseloads/class size is honored and respected. This way, teachers and case carriers can meet with family members to review the IEP process and meeting. Building relationships and respecting families/caregivers and approaching the IEP meeting from a place of compassion and understanding while centering the child’s needs, is critical to build trust. Meetings should include norms of collaboration that are agreed upon by the IEP team, which explicitly states that everyone on the team is an equal partner (although these norms exist, they are not always reviewed at IEP meetings.)

Additional responses from either candidate will be published as they are received. Griego’s previous participation in the LAUSD Candidate Forum Series can be found in the following articles: Special Education, PROP-39 Co-Locations, Student Safety, The Budget, Inclusion and Diversity, and Charter School Accountability.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Elections, Los Angeles, Parents, Special Education

ProPublica: Why Low-Income Parents in Arizona Are Not Using Vouchers

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2024 //
5

ProPublica published a story about which families benefit from Arizona’s universal voucher program. It is not low-income families.

The state’s so-called Education Savings Accounts (or Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) were enacted by the Legislature in 2011. Whatever they are called, they are vouchers, which violate Arizona’s Constitutional ban on public funds for religious schools. They initially contained restrictions as to which students qualified to receive a voucher. The usual claim for vouchers was that they would “save poor kids from failing public schools.” However, that never happened.

From the start, the Republicans in control wanted vouchers for all students, not just those from low-income families. Even though there was a state referendum in which voters overwhelmingly rejected voucher expansion in 2018, the Legislature ignored the vote and passed universal vouchers in 2022. Any student, whatever their family income, is entitled to use public money for tuition in a private or religious school or for home schooling.

The result: few students from low-income families use vouchers.

The article in ProPublica explains why.

Vouchers don’t cover the cost of most private schools.

Most private schools are not located in low-income neighborhoods.

Low-income families can’t afford the cost of transportation to and from private schools.

In Arizona, as in other states, most students who take vouchers were already enrolled in no public schools. Their parents can afford to pay the tuition. Now the state subsidizes them. And in many cases, the schools raise their tuition in response to the state subsidy.

Categories Arizona, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Failure, Funding, Parents, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Will Colorado Voters Be Wise Enough to Oppose This Ballot Measure?

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2024 //
6

Peter Greene examines a proposed amendment to the state constitution in Colorado and its whacko implications. He urges voters to say NO.

He writes:

While other states are stumbling over constitutional language that aims public dollars at public schools (e.g. South Carolina and Kentucky), voucher fans in Colorado have proposed a constitutional amendment that comes up for a vote soon. And it is a ridiculously ill-conceived and hastily crafted mess.

The language is simple enough– here’s the whole text, originally known as Initiative 138 and now as Amendment 40. 

SECTION 1. In the constitution of the state of Colorado, add section, 18 to article IX as follows: Section 18. Education – School Choice

(1) PURPOSE AND FINDINGS. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF COLORADO HEREBY FIND AND DECLARE THAT ALL CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS A QUALITY EDUCATION; THAT PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIRECT THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN; AND THAT SCHOOL CHOICE INCLUDES NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARTER, PRIVATE, AND HOME SCHOOLS, OPEN ENROLLMENT OPTIONS, AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION.

(2) EACH K-12 CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO SCHOOL CHOICE.

The proposal comes from Advance Colorado, a right wing anti-tax, let’s shrink government until we can drown it in the kitchen sink, kind of outfit. They’re headed up by Michael Fields, who previously headed up the Colorado chapter of the right wing Koch brothers astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, then became AFP’s national education policy leader. Then on to Colorado Rising Action where he kept his interest in education. Back in 2012-14 he spent two whole years as a Teacher For America product in a charter school. 

Advance Colorado was founded in 2020. Their leadership team also includes former state GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown.

The amendment has also drawn support from House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who is also a “fellow” with Advance Colorado. The actual filing came from Fields and Suzanne Taheri, a former official with the Secretary of State’s Office, a former candidate, and former Arapahoe County GOP chair.

Why does Colorado, a state that has long offered many forms of school choice, even need this? Supporters of the amendment are arguing that they are trying to enshrine and protect choice, just in case those naughty Democrats tried to roll it back some day (Colorado’s Dems once tossed out the pro-choice, not-really-Democrats Democrats for Education Reform). And though they aren’t saying this part out loud, the amendment would be a great set-up for school vouchers.

The language proposed is, however, strictly bananapants. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who would most regret passing this amendment would be those who support it.

Let’s say I want to send my low-achieving, non-Christian child to a top-level Christian school. Let’s further presume that I can’t afford even a fraction of the tuition cost. Does this amendment mean that the school has to accept them, and that the state has to foot the entire tuition bill? Wouldn’t any answer other than yes be denying my constitutional to equal opportunity to access a quality education and my constitutional right to direct my child’s education? Does this mean that to have full access the state must also transport my child anywhere I want them to go to school?

What if East Egg Academy has far more applicants than it has capacity? Must it scratch its entire admissions policy and use a lottery instead? 

The major obstacles to school choice are not state policies. The major obstacles are, and have always been, cost, location, and the school’s own discriminatory policies. Virtually all voucher policies are set up to protect those discriminatory policies. Wouldn’t an amendment like this require those to be wiped out? 

Wouldn’t this language amount to a state takeover of all charter and private schools? 

And that’s not all. Wouldn’t this amendment also allow parents to intrude into every classroom. If I have a constitutional right to direct my child’s education, does that not mean that I can tell my child’s science teacher to stop teaching evolution? Or start teaching evolution? Can I demand a different approach to teaching American history? How about prepositions? And how will a classroom teacher even function if every child in the classroom comes with a parent who has a constitutional right to direct their education?

You can say that’s silly, that “obviously” that’s not what the amendment means. But that’s what it says, at least until some series of bureaucrats and courts decide what exactly “direct the education of their children” means.

Kevin Welner (National Education Policy Center)has it exactly right— “It’s really a ‘full employment for lawyers’ act.”

Supporters say this doesn’t establish a right to public funding of private schools, and I suppose they’re sort of correct in the sense that this does not so much establish a right to public funding of private schools so much as it establishes an obligation for public funding of private schools as well as obliterating private school autonomy. Unless, of course, some judge steps in to find that the language doesn’t mean what it says, which is, I suppose, not impossible.

Nobody on any side of the school choice debate should be voting for this amendment. It’s exactly the kind of lawmaking you get from people who have wrapped meaning in particular rhetoric for so long that they have forgotten that the words of their rhetoric have actual meanings outside the meanings that they have habitually assigned them. Here’s hoping the people of Colorado avoid this really bad idea. 

Categories Colorado, Education Industry, Elections, Parents, Privatization, Propaganda, Republicans, Vouchers

Robert Reich: The GOP Voted Against Protecting IVF

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2024 //
2

You may recall that Trump said during his debate with VP Harris that he would be a champion for IVF. He said he would not only protect I F but require insurance companies to cover the cost.

He forgot to tell his Senate allies.

They voted down a bill to protect IVF.

The vote on Tuesday was 51 in favor and 44 opposed, with Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joining with Democrats in support. Sen. JD Vance didn’t vote.  Without 60 votes to break a filibuster, the bill was dead.

IVF is In Vitro Fertilization, which enables many families to have children. It’s miraculous and there’s no reason to ban it.

Robert Reich tweeted a list of some of the GOP senators who voted NO:

All nine Republican senators running for reelection just voted against the Right to IVF Act:

John Barrasso
Marsha Blackburn
Kevin Cramer
Ted Cruz
Deb Fischer
Josh Hawley
Pete Ricketts
Rick Scott
Roger Wicker

(JD Vance missed today’s vote)

So much for the party of “freedom.”

Categories Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Parents, Republicans

Do Parents Always Know What’s Best for Their Children? NO.

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2024 //
24

Over recent years, we have heard again and again that parents always know what’s best for their child. And so we have vouchers and home-schooling because “parents always know what’s best for their child.”

No, they don’t.

Read this story and ask yourself whether this parent knew what was best for her child.

I wish I had saved the many stories of this kind that I have read over the past decade. Thank God, they don’t happen every day but they do happen.

Whenever I write about abusive parents like the one in this horrific story, I get inundated by angry letters from advocates for parents’ rights, especially homeschoolers. Let ’em write.

The state should have had someone to look after this boy. They should have had the authority to take the child away from his mother, who hated him, to save his life.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Cruelty, New Hampshire, Parents

“All-Charter No More!”: New Orleans Opens Its First Traditional Public School in 20 Years

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2024 //
10

You remember, I hope, the saga of the New Orleans Public Schools District: Abandoned by white families, underfunded by a overwhelmingly white Legislature and Dtate School Board, the public schools were segregated and held in low regard. Then came Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which severely damaged most of the schools; the students scattered. The state stepped in and created the Recovery School District, whose job was to get the schools rebuilt and reopened under new management. To get rid of the union, the entire teaching staff (mostly Black) was fired, and teachers were allowed to reapply for their jobs.

When school opened again, most of them were privately managed charter schools, many of the newly hired teachers came from Teach for America, and the district for a time enjoyed a large infusion of funds from the federal government and large foundations, all committed to the success of the charter model.

The Hechinger Report tells the story of a new school that opened this fall. For the first time in two decades, it is a district-run public school instead of a charter school.

Be skeptical of claims about dramatic improvements in student outcomes when comparing pre-Katrina to the present. The enrollment in 2004 was nearly 70,000, and is now about 40,000.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Louisiana, New Orleans, Parents, Privatization

New York Times Portrays Trump’s and Vance’s Incoherence re Child care Costs

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2024 //
17

The big story in the mass media and blogs over the past two days was the way Trump answered a question in an appearance in New York City about whether he would do anything to make child care affordable; he was asked to be specific. He gave a long (two minute) reply that was meandering and incoherent. He seemed to say that the money that the U.S. will collect from tariffs will be so huge that it will wipe out the national deficit and make everything possible, including the cost of child care, assuming that tariffs would produce revenue instead of raising consumer prices. He didn’t answer the question.

Meanwhile, in another setting, JD Vance was asked about child care. He responded that parents could ask grandparents or other relatives to help out; and he suggested lowering the certification requirements for child care providers.

The New York Times must have realized, based on the keen interest in this story, that its original reporting was inadequate. At 4:42 pm EST, the Times published a story by Michael C. Bender about what happened. With this article, The New York Times squelched persistent rumors that it was not reporting on Trump’s mental acuity.

This was the headline:

Trump and Vance Took Questions on Child Care. Their Non-Answers Said a Lot.

The former president and his running mate gave nearly equally confusing answers when asked separately this week how they would make child care more affordable.

But instead of a crisp, camera-ready reply from a seasoned three-time presidential candidate, Mr. Trump unspooled two of the most puzzling minutes of his campaign.

His answer was a jolting journey through disjointed logic about how the size of his tariffs would take care of all the nation’s children, which only raised a new, more complicated question about why he remains unable to provide straightforward answers about policies he would prioritize in a second term.

“Well, I would do that,” he said when asked if he would commit to supporting legislation to make child care more affordable, and how he would seek to do so.

“And we’re sitting down — you know, I was somebody — we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue,” Mr. Trump continued, referring to the pair’s previous push for paid family leave and expanding the child tax credit. “It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that — because the child care is, child care, it’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.

“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care.”

Mr. Trump has long portrayed himself as the nation’s economist-in-chief, a rich businessman-turned-politician now focused on increasing the wealth of everyday Americans.

He has spent two years campaigning against rising prices for Americans, from housing to food to, yes, child care. At times, he has spoken briefly about instituting “baby bonuses” for parents of newborns, and he has said that he would consider expanding the child tax credit but has not said by how much.

Mr. Trump’s rambling answer handed Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign an opportunity to press one of its central messages: that Mr. Trump is so out-of-touch with normal problems facing most Americans that he cannot be expected to find the solutions.

“He’s always been profoundly discursive, but this one is instructive,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “He immediately referenced the Rubio-Ivanka effort, which is actually the right answer. He just wasn’t involved or engaged in the details. So beyond that, he just pivots to a stream of consciousness about what he knows and cares about.”

Just a day earlier, on Wednesday, Senator JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, responded to a similar question about child care with a nearly equally confusing answer at an event in Mesa, Ariz.

Mr. Vance, like Mr. Trump, acknowledged that the issue of affordable child care was “such an important question.” But his initial answer was that parents should get help from grandparents or aunts and uncles.

“Maybe Grandma and Grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” Mr. Vance said.

But many parents cannot rely on help from relatives — and many relatives are not in a position to help with someone else’s children. Mr. Vance seemed to acknowledge that conundrum, and pivoted to calling for fewer regulations on child-care providers, falsely saying that child-care specialists were required to have “a six-year college degree.”

“Americans are much poorer because they’re paying out the wazoo for day care,” Mr. Vance said. “Empower working families. Empower people who want to do these things for a living, and that’s what you’ve got to do.”

Mr. Trump’s answer offered little additional clarity.

The former president seemed to outline a theory that his tariffs would result in such prosperity that the nation could wipe out its $6 trillion spending deficit and pay for additional benefits, like reducing child-care costs.

“As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday.

But Mr. Trump’s answer ignored that most economists say that the burden of tariffs are largely shouldered by middle-class consumers in the form of higher costs. Left unsaid was that he spent twice as much borrowed money during his term in the White House as President Biden has, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Ms. Harris has called for restoring and expanding a child tax credit and proposed a new $6,000 benefit for parents of newborns. Her child tax credit proposal would increase the maximum to $3,600 per child, up from $2,000 now.

Joseph Costello, a Harris campaign spokesman, said in a statement that the tariffs Mr. Trump is proposing as part of his “‘plan’ for making child care more affordable” would raise costs on middle-class families. “The American people deserve a president who will actually cut costs for them, like Vice President Harris’s plan to bring back a $3,600 child tax credit for working families and an expanded $6,000 tax cut for families with newborn children.”

Thursday was not the first time that Mr. Trump has punted on the question of child-care costs.

In his debate with Mr. Biden this year, before the president dropped out of the race, the moderators asked Mr. Trump twice about what he would do to help with the affordability of child care.

In his first answer, Mr. Trump went off on a series of tangents related to earlier debate topics, defending his firing of retired Gen. John Kelly as his chief of staff, denying that he had called soldiers who had died in war “suckers” and “losers,” boasting about his firing “a lot of the top people at the F.B.I.,” accusing Mr. Biden of wanting “open borders” and denouncing him as “the worst president.”

Given an additional minute to address child-care costs, the topic of the question, Mr. Trump did not mention the word once.

“Just so you understand, we have polling,” Mr. Trump began. “We have other things that do — they rate him the worst because what he’s done is so bad. And they rate me, yes, I’ll show you. I will show you. And they rate me one of the best, OK?”

Categories Childhood, Elections, Funding, Parents, Trump, Vance, J.D.

Georgia: Father of Teenage Shooter Arrested and Charged

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2024 //
50

Parents have parental rights, and they also have parental responsibilities. One surely is to keep your guns, if you have them, locked up. Colin Gray didn’t do that. Instead, he gave his teenage son an AR-15 type weapon for Christmas in 2023. This was after the FBI had questioned father and son about online threats to shootup the boy’s school. The father insisted that he kept his hunting guns in a safe place, and the boy denied having any thought of harming anyone.

Georgia police arrested Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old boy who admitted bringing an assault weapon to school and murdering four people, including two students and two teachers. The father faces multiple charges that could land him in prison for life.

If police and courts make it customary and standard to hold parents accountable for their children, especially when they allow them to obtain deadly weapons, such expectations might have a deterrent effect.

The Washington Post reported:

Before Thursday’s announcement, the teen’s grandfather, Charles Polhamus, said he wanted Colin Gray charged along with his son.
“If he didn’t have a damn gun,” Polhamus said, “he wouldn’t have gone and killed anybody….”


The charges come just months after a mother and father in Michigan became the first parents of a school shooter ever convicted of involuntary manslaughter, a less severe crime than second-degree murder. Investigators found that, in November 2021, James and Jennifer Crumbley had bought their 15-year-old son a gun, didn’t lock it up and ignored blatant warning signs before he opened fire at Oxford High in Michigan, killing four students. In separate trials, each was found guilty and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison, the maximum allowed.

Parental rights, parental responsibility.

Categories Accountability, Guns, Parents
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