Archives for the year of: 2013
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Connecticut: Yes, Democracy Matters

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
20

Hugh Bailey argues that fighting democracy is a losing battle.

He refers to the struggle over the future of the public schools of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which has involved an ongoing battle by the mayor to gain control of the schools (he lost a referendum when the public said no) and now involves a court battle to keep Paul Vallas as superintendent. He was hired, Bailey says, by an illegitimate board and given a contract to lock him into place. Now a court has ruled that he is not legally qualified to serve under state law.

Bailey points out:

“Like it or not, our system of laws is the one we have, and making exceptions for celebrity superintendents or anyone else is only going to bring trouble.

Speaking of Vallas, he needs to go. He’s leaving anyway. He’s had one foot out the door from the day he arrived. The notion that he — that anyone — can swoop in, make some changes, lock them into place and get out of town is farcical.

One judge has ruled against him already, and the state Supreme Court has proven it doesn’t look kindly on the whole “the rules don’t apply to us” routine when it comes to Bridgeport education.

That’s the peril of this strategy. The mayor of Bridgeport might believe democracy doesn’t work. He might even convince the governor. Clearly the state education commissioner is on board.

But those judges — they’re tougher to bring around. And without them on your side, all that hard work that went into enacting anti-democratic reforms takes you right back where you started.”

Public education is part of the fabric of democracy. It cannot be reformed by undemocratic means. When elites believe that they know best, and that their ideas are so good that they need not consult parents and teachers, they are doomed from the start.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers

Karen Francisco: How Failed Charter Schools Survive and Turn a Profit

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
20

In an earlier post, Karen Francisco (editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) lamented that failing charters escape accountability by turning into voucher schools or shopping for an authorizer with low standards. When challenged by a reader, Francisco explained what happened in Fort Wayne.

She wrote:

“In fact, the two failed Imagine Inc. charter schools in Fort Wayne are being converted to voucher schools. The local charter board has been dismissed, loans forgiven and Indiana taxpayers will continue to pay Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease. Instead of through the charter board, the tax dollars now will be funneled through low- and middle-income families to a religious organization and, in turn, to the REIT.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Indiana

An Eloquent and Incredibly Brave Child Speaks at the UN

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
10

Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was shot in the head by Taliban thugs who don’t want girls to be educated, spoke at the United Nations and was amazingly eloquent in calling for free, compulsory education for every child.

What an incredible and heroic young woman.

Some heard her and got goosebumps.

The attempt to murder her made her more courageous.

““Let us pick up our books and our pens,” Ms. Yousafzai told young leaders from 100 countries at the United Nations Youth Assembly in New York. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.”

The NY Times reports:

“Ms. Yousafzai, noting that she was proud to be wearing a shawl that had once belonged to Benazir Bhutto, spoke in a calm, self-assured voice as she delivered her first major speech since she was shot on the left side of her head Oct. 9 on her way home from school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

“In her speech, she recalled how the attackers had also shot her friends. “They thought that the bullets would silence us,” she said, “but they failed.”

She said:

“And then, out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same.”

Categories International

IMPACT Has No Impact

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
9

Long Island principal Carol Burris recently examined the effects of Michelle Rhee’s IMPACT program in DC.

It was started in 2009. By now they have enough data to identify all the great teachers, right?

They know enough to demonstrate whether three great teachers in a row closes the achievement gap, right?

But test scores in D.C. have been nearly flat since IMPACT was adopted.

The achievement gap in D.C.–for both blacks and whites, Hispanics and whites–remains the largest of any urban district tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

So what happens to Rhee’s favorite tale about three great teachers in a row?

Apparently IMPACT has neither identified them nor found enough to make a difference.

Instead, the teacher attrition rate has increased.

By now, only “great” teachers should be left standing.

But obviously it doesn’t work that way.

 

Categories Education Reform

Phony “Revival” of Arts Education in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
34

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education (co-founded by Superintendent John Deasy and some of the city’s wealthiest citizens) will contribute $750,000 to revive arts education in that city’s public schools. Teachers will receive training to integrate arts education into math, social studies, and other areas of the curriculum.

This is a sad response to the gutting of arts education in the LA schools.

Integrating the arts into other subjects is a ruse. Children need to sing and dance and learn to play musical instruments. They won’t do that in math class or history. Eliminating arts teachers is not the way to revive arts education.

Bear in mind that the district has cut funding for the arts by 41% since 2008 and currently devotes only 2% of elementary school time to the arts.

The story makes the following points:

“After five years of brutal cuts in arts education, Los Angeles Unified is gearing up to bring more music, dance, theater and visual arts into core academic classes under a three-year, $750,000 initiative to be announced Thursday by the Los Angeles nonprofit group funding the effort.”

And this:

“In October, the L.A. school board directed the district to craft a five-year “Arts at the Core” plan that would nearly double such funding to its 2007-08 level of $32 million. Among other things, the plan aims to restore some traveling arts teachers, who spread their time among multiple elementary schools; their numbers have been slashed by half to just over 200 last year.”

And this:

“The ratio of middle school students to art teachers in the district is 413 to 1, compared with 68 to 1 in Beverly Hills Unified…”

Categories Arts Education, Los Angeles

Idaho Approves TFA for “Teacher Training”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
32

Idaho just recently approved Teach for America as a “state sanctioned vehicle for the preparation of teachers in Idaho.”

At first I thought this was an April Fools joke but it isn’t April.

The weakest aspect of TFA claims is its “preparation” of teachers in only five weeks. If that is all it takes, then teaching is not a profession but a job for temps.

Travis Manning, a high school English teacher in Idaho explains why this is a very bad idea.

Categories Idaho, Romney, Mitt, Teach for America TFA

Students Seeking Debt Relief Get Duped Instead

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
13

John Hechinger of Bloomberg News has unearthed the unsavory practices of the “debt relief” industry.

These are loan sharks that advertise that they will help people pay off their students loans, then charge them as much as $1,600 for services they could get for free from the government.

It is a good business, but it preys on uninformed people.

It is best to be informed, know your rights, contact your Congressman’s office to find out what is available before falling for these lures.

Categories Education Reform, Higher Education

Deasy Defies New L.A. Board Majority

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
28

When the Los Angeles school board prepared to elect a new president, Superintendent John Deasy let it be known that he might resign if Richard Vladovic won the election.

Vladovic won by 5-2. The two nay votes came from outgoing president Monica Garcia and her ally Tamar Galatzan.

Before the election, there were rumors that Vladovic was under investigation for verbally abusing board employees, and newspaper accounts suggested that Deasy was trying to derail his candidacy. That did not help their working relationship.

The new board passed a resolution endorsing class size reduction, a measure opposed by Deasy. Deasy favored a motion by Galatzan proposing more money for high-needs students, which was postponed by the board.

In a show of defiance, Deasy said he would comply with the resolution that was not passed because the board did not forbid him from doing it. Deasy opposes reduced class size because it will mean hiring more staff.

This is what he told the LA School Report (a pro-corporate reform newspaper):

“The Board voted down the directive to have me come and do it,” said Deasy, referring to Galatzan’s local spending resolution. “[But] they can’t stop me from doing it; we’re doing it anyway. If they had voted to prevent me from doing it… well they didn’t think of that.”

“The Superintendent explained that the future spending plan the Board ordered him to produce will comply with the Board-passed Kayser resolution regarding staffing (or as Deasy derisively called it, a “directive to hire every human being on the West Coast”) but will also include some form of the local spending plan he and Galaztan have been advocating.”

When the unions learned that Deasy would ignore the board vote, they wrote a letter to the board.

They raised the question about why Deasy intended to flout the authority of the board he works for.

With a number of strong wills converging, this will be worth watching.

Bottom line: How long will Deasy last as an employee of a board whose leadership he does not like or trust, and how long will the board tolerate insubordination by Deasy?

Categories Los Angeles

Indiana: “It’s the Money, Stupid”

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
41

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes that she is often asked to explain what a charter school is. She used to say that it was a publicly- funded school that is exempt from many state regulations in exchange for higher accountability.

But now she sees failing charter schools turn into voucher schools or go shopping for an authorizer with low or no standards.

She writes:

“If I’m feeling less charitable, I explain that charter schools are an effort to weaken and destroy teacher unions. Charter operators hire primarily young, inexperienced teachers; work them to death and then decline to renew their contracts when they should be giving them raises.”

But when she read about the bond investors’ conference this week, she realized that the driving force behind charters is not accountability, it’s not just union-busting, it’s profit.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Indiana

William Mathis: NCLB Reauthorization is a Bipartisan Disaster

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
10

William Mathis, a former school superintendent in Vermont, now associated with the National Education Policy Center, analyzed the proposed legislation of both Democrats and Republicans and finds that both parties have no understanding of the damage wrought by No Child Left Behind.

Washington insiders continue their hapless crusade to “reform” the schools by high-stakes testing and privatization. The Democrats want the federal government to do more of it, and the Republicans want the states to do it. Neither has a vision for the future.

Neither shows the slightest indication that they understand the real problems of American education, many of which have been inflicted by NCLB and Race to the Top.

So instead of ditching the failed policies of the past dozen years, both parties cling tenaciously to them.

He concludes:

“When Abraham Lincoln called on the mystic chords of memory, he drew upon those principles that bind us together. He drew upon the common good. At that time, equality was so embraced that it found Constitutional power and protection in the thirteenth amendment. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a wave of state Constitutional amendments enshrined public education because a functioning democracy demanded education and equality for all. In 1965, when we dreamed of a great society, we furthered our reach with the supportive help of the ESEA.

“Today, both Democrat and Republican versions of the reauthorization give vacant, distracted nods to these principles. They fail to ring with great purpose. They do not stir the soul. They are unlovely and parrot our social and economic strategies. In both they punish the poor, loudly proclaim liberty and
equality, and provide only the rhetoric of opportunities.”

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing
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