Archives for the month of: February, 2014
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In Honor of Terry Stetson Wilson

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2014 //
4

Colleen Wood, parent leader in Florida, active in 50th No More, and board member of the Network for Public Education, here remembers a true champion of children and public education, Terry Stetson Wilson, who died suddenly a few days ago. Colleen asks that we all Tweet a comment to honor Terry’s good life and work for others. Write your words on Twitter, marked #ForTerry. For her dedication to our children and our society, I add her to our honor roll of heroes of American education.

Colleen writes:

“Relentless, persistent, and dedicated. That is what comes to mind when I think of Terry Stetson Wilson, a friend and fierce advocate for public school children in Florida. Terry unexpectedly passed away Monday evening leaving behind her husband, Tom, two adult children, Christopher and Linzy, dear friends, and countless beneficiaries of her advocacy.

Terry’s work began like many of us when she was first concerned with her own child’s school experience, and grew over time into what is now the Florida Gifted Network. If your child received gifted services in Florida, you can thank Terry Wilson.

When her own children graduated, Terry didn’t leave public education behind. The day she died a group of us were sitting together working on building a statewide coalition. We talked about needing to expand our group, and attract new supporters to public education when someone said we needed more people like Terry. People who stayed even after their own children were gone. She was a role model and inspiration to each of us.

Through her 30 years of advocacy, Terry fought for a high quality public education for every child, and became a staunch defender of teachers. She saw the onslaught against our public school teachers and knew it was not a battle they could win alone. When teacher merit pay was first proposed in Florida in a bill known as SB6, and many of us were upset, Terry wanted action. She always prodded us to do something.

And she did. Terry and a few others formed a Facebook group called Stop SB6. Within a month there were over 60,000 members. That group was a driving force behind the push for our Governor to veto the bill, but many people didn’t know Terry was behind it. She often flew under the radar, but her impact was far-reaching.

And if she met you, if she knew you cared about public education you were hooked. A day didn’t go by without an email, text or call about something you needed to do, and you needed to do it now. Funny thing is that after her death, we’re all learning that’s how Terry was in her whole life: from her family, to her friends, to her love of Florida and fishing. She wanted you to support you, help you, and get you to do something. Now.

In every fight in Florida, from parent trigger to school grades, her first question was, “What are we going to DO?”

We’ve been struggling with how to honor Terry, and then it occurred to us – what are we going to DO? What action are we going to take today to honor Terry and defend public education?

So that’s what we’re asking of you. #ForTerry what are you going to do today to support and defend public education? Share with all of us and #ForTerry who inspired you to this work.

In the words of our colleague, Ray Seaman, “That is perhaps one of the many things Terry taught all of us who had the pleasure of knowing and working with her. Tireless, impatient persistence is oftentimes the only way you get things done, and you never know who you’ll inspire by it.”

We will all have to be tireless, impatient, and persistent if we are to save our schools and our children. Terry inspired all of us to be just that, and we know she’ll inspire you to do something too. #ForTerry.

– Colleen Doherty Wood, parent advocate, 50thNoMore.org

Categories Florida, Honor Roll, Parent trigger, Parents, Students, Supporting public schools

Stephanie Simon: The Voc-Ed Backlash Against Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2014 //
128

Politico’s crack reporter Stephanie Simon discovered a growing backlash among states against the presumption in the Common Core that all students are college-bound.

She writes:

“Florida students no longer need chemistry, physics or Algebra II to graduate from high school. Texas just scrapped its Algebra II requirement. And Washington state has dropped its foreign language mandate.

“A standards rebellion — or in the eyes of the opponents, the dumbing down of America — is sweeping red states and blue, promoted by both Republicans and Democrats. President Barack Obama has called for a rigorous college-prep curriculum for all students. States, however, are responding with defiance: They’re letting teens study welding instead of Spanish, take greenhouse management in place of physics and learn car repair instead of muddling over imaginary numbers.

“The backlash stems, in part, from anger over the Common Core, a set of standards that Obama has promoted as a way to guide students through a demanding college-prep curriculum from kindergarten through high school. But it’s more than that. It’s pushback against the idea that all students must be ready for college — even if they have no interest in going.

“Manufacturing associations, trade groups and farm lobbies have fueled the resentment at universal college prep, arguing that it’s elitist, that it demeans blue-collar workers — and, not incidentally, that it’s cutting off their pipeline of new workers.

“We need pipefitters and welders just as much as we need folks who want to pursue a four-year degree,” said Rebecca Park, legislative counsel for the Michigan Farm Bureau, which wants more vocational classes to count as science and math.”

Many people–especially policymakers and financiers who went to Ivy League colleges–would like to believe that all students are college-bound. But their beliefs are contradicted by reality when it turns out that a substantial number of youngsters would rather work than go to college, and that there are many jobs that pay well, don’t require college, and can’t be outsourced. Ideally, people should be able to get as much higher education as they want and need, but the biggest obstacle is the cost. It is easier to raise the bar higher and higher than to do something significant about lowering the cost of college. How about free community colleges(again), where people can get higher education without assuming unreasonable debt?

Categories Common Core

NC Charter is Living Proof of Need for Regulation and Oversight

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2014 //
17

Charter school advocates predict the great benefits that flow from deregulation, freedom from oversight.

For more than 20 years, they have boasted that great education benefits would flow from the removal of state supervision: The deal, they said, was give us freedom and hold us accountable.

While the charter industry boasts of its successes, no one has kept track of the number of charter schools that have failed or been engaged in fraud, nepotism, and corruption; it is not a small number.

Here is another sad story, where millions of public funds were lavished on a charter, and things turned out poorly.

Two women in Charlotte, North Carolina, had a dream of turning their small private school into a charter school.

And this is what happened:

For years they’d been trying to turn their small private school, StudentFirst Academy, into a charter that would reach more students. It had won praise from such leaders as then-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory and then-Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Cannon, and recently earned state approval for a $3 million startup budget to become a public school.

Handford and Moss talked about a school where impoverished children would flourish in small classes led by master teachers. There would be arts and athletics, healthy meals and Latin classes.

“It is all about opening our doors to an academic wonderland that’s being funded by the government,” Handford said.

Less than four months after StudentFirst charter school opened, those dreams collapsed amid allegations of mismanagement, nepotism and financial irregularities. Overdue bills had the school on the brink of bankruptcy. Students were going without textbooks, losing teachers and taking long naps during the day, consultants reported.

The school’s board of directors fired Handford and Moss, who are now suing the board they once recruited.

It is not clear who is right and who is wrong.

What is clear is that this idea needed regulation, supervision, and oversight, like public schools.

Deregulation has its down side.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/08/4674732/charter-school-dreams-fade-in.html#.Uvu-0hZEDap#storylink=cpy

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, North Carolina, Privatization

BREAKING NEWS: Louisiana Judge Throws Out Teacher Tenure Law

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
6

A judge tossed out a significant part of Governor Bobby Jindal’s law denying due process for teachers. The judge said the teacher did not have a fair hearing.

GOOD NEWS!

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Teacher Tenure

Chalkbeat: NYC Charter Principal Has a Long History of Faking His Résumé

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
19

Chalkbeat reports that the principal of a NYC charter school has gone from one position to the next, touting fake credentials.

Despite the fact that he had been forced out of other schools, despite the fact that he made numerous other unsubstantiated claims about jobs he had held, he was hired to run a charter for transfer students, a school for students at risk of not graduating.

His résumé is impressive:

“He claimed to have been a senior adviser to Barack Obama as a senator and a consultant to Hillary Rodham Clinton. He said he had served as a deputy chief of staff for Carrie Meek, then a U.S. Representative. He claimed to have a doctoral degree. And he said he was the principal of a school in Washington, D.C. where he was actually a teacher….”

“From Feb. 2009 to June 2010, Thomas worked as a program director for Phase 4 Learning Center, a nonprofit that operates alternative education centers in Pennsylvania. The company’s CEO, Terrie Suica-Reed, said that Thomas’s deception while working for her company “was enough that he had to be released from all duties and all association with Phase 4.”
“I would listen to the warning signs,” Suica-Reed said.

In New York City, Thomas served as a “principal-in-residence” for New Visions for Public Schools from March to June 2011. The nonprofit then tapped Thomas to be the principal of its first high school, the New Visions Charter High School for the Humanities.
New Visions spokesman Tim Farrell said that Thomas was a part of the school’s “start-up team” but left before it opened that fall, and would not comment further on his departure.

The article suggests that charters may have to e more careful about hiring principals.

Of course, when public funds flow to unregulated schools that are not required to comply with state law governing credentials and qualifications, problems will arise.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City, Principals

Breaking News: NC Court Halts Voucher PlAn

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
24

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/02/21/breaking-court-halts-north-carolina-school-voucher-plan/

Categories North Carolina

Why Is the US DOE Supporting Gulen Movement?

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
53

We understand that Arne Duncan prefers privately managed charter schools to public schools, but why is he supporting the Gulen Movement?

Is it because it is the largest charter chain in the US, with nearly 150 charters, all led by Turkish men?

Politico.com writes:

“GULEN INSTITUTE LANDS HIGH-PROFILE SPEAKER: Ken Bedell, a senior advisor in the Education Department, spoke Wednesday at a conference about educating low-income students sponsored by the Gulen Institute. The Institute, based at the University of Houston, is tied to a reclusive Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who emigrated to rural Pennsylvania in the late 1990s after suspicion arose in Turkey that he was involved in a plot to overthrow the secular Turkish government. Despite his seclusion, Gulen has been very much in the news of late: His followers in Turkey are believed to have instigated a corruption investigation that now threatens to bring down the current Turkish government.

—In the United States: Gulen is believed to have inspired the founding of more than 100 charter schools run by a loose affiliation of Turkish-American educators. They have sparked concern in some communities. In December, the FBI raided one such school in Louisiana. The Education Department declined to comment on the decision to have Bedell address the conference. A senior adviser with the department’s Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Center, Bedell spoke on the role of government agencies and non-governmental groups in the education of disadvantaged youth.”

Many people have wondered why the US looks to another country to run so many schools and why the Gulen movement.

Check out this website.

Categories Charter Schools

Peter Greene: Why We Need Data Walls for Everyone

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
42

Peter Greene here rages against data walls, until he realizes that everyone should be subject to the se public shaming so they too can feel humiliated and outraged.

He writes;

“Suddenly I get it. Data walls aren’t just an indefensible abuse of children. They aren’t just a way to make school a bit more hostile and unpleasant, a way to shame and bully the most fragile members of our society. They’re also a way to acclimate children to a brave new world where inBloom et al track their data from cradle to grave and make it available to all sorts of folks. Where privacy is a commodity that only the rich can afford.

“Data walls are deeply and profoundly wrong. There is no excusable reason on God’s Green Earth for them to exist. They may represent a small battle in the larger reformy stuff war, but they are a direct assault on our students, and they should stop, now, today.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Data and Data Mining, Privacy and Privacy Rights

Major Study: College Admission Tests Matter Less Than HS Grades

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
49

A major new study finds that college entrance tests matter less than high school grades. Indeed, the rise of the test-tutoring industry has increased the significance of family income as a predictor of scores on the ACT And SAT. Tutors can earn hundreds of dollars PER HOUR to prepare young scions for the tests.

Here is the press release about the study by William Hiss, former head of admissions at Bates College:

FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for further information:
Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773 / cell (239) 699-0468
for release Tuesday, February 18, 2014

TEST-OPTIONAL ADMISSIONS ADVOCATES APPLAUD NEW STUDY:
RESEARCH FINDS ELIMINATING ACT/SAT SCORE REQUIREMENTS
PROMOTES EQUITY AND ACADEMIC QUALITY

A major study released today shows that ACT/SAT-optional schools increase campus diversity without harming academic performance. Defining Promise: Optional Standardized Testing Policies in American College and University Admissions analyzed the records of 123,000 students at 33 institutions.

“This landmark research shows that test-optional plans promote both equity and excellence,” said Robert Schaeffer, Public Education Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). “More colleges and universities now have the data to support dropping ACT/SAT requirements.”

FairTest leads the movement to de-emphasize admissions test scores. The group’s website lists more than 800 test-optional four-year schools (http://fairtest.org/university/optional). The database includes more than 150 institutions ranked in the top tiers of their respective categories.

Among the key findings of today’s report:

– Students admitted without regard to their ACT or SAT scores do as well academically as those entering under regular criteria.

– Test-optional admission is particularly valuable for first-generation, minority, immigrant, rural students and learning-disabled students.

– High school grades are much stronger predictors of undergraduate performance than are test scores.

– Standardized testing limits the pool of applicants who would be successful in college.

– Test score requirements for “merit” scholarships block access for many talented students.

The schools analyzed include private colleges, public universities, minority serving institutions and art institutes. William Hiss, former head of admissions at Bates College was the project’s primary investigator. The study is online at:

http://www.nacacnet.org/media-center/PressRoom/2014/Pages/BillHiss.aspx .

– – 3 0 – –
– A timeline of schools de-emphasizing ACT/SAT scores over the past decade and a list of top-ranked test-optional institutions are available on request.

Categories Higher Education, Testing

“A Sea of Red”: A Néw Model of Unionism

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
8

In September 2012, the Chicago Teachets Union went out on strike to protest the conditions of teaching And learning in the schools. Surprisingly, the strike was supported by parents, who understood that the teachers were fighting for their children. More than 90% of CTU’s members supported the strike, outwitting the pernicious efforts by Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children to make a strike impossible by persuading the legislature to raise the threshold to 75% of members.

In this report, CTU explains its paradigm of unionism as “social organizing,” and contrasts it to an older, less valuable approach which it calls “service-model unionism:”

Here is an excerpt:

“The social-organizing model of unionism adopted by the CTU in the run up to the strike of 2012 played a crucial role in the success of the labor action.

“Broadly speaking there are two different types or poles of unionism operating in the US labor movement at this time – service unions and social-organizing unions. Service unionism, the most common model of unionism in the contemporary US labor movement, is characterized by the union providing a bundle of services to its membership (such as contract language, grievance proceedings, pay raises, and benefits) in a manner akin to how a business provides services to its customers. The leadership and staff of service model unions are the active agent and the rank and file membership are most often passive spectators in the activities of the union. Service model unions take a reactive stance towards management as union officers solve problems for members in response to complaints, concerns or issues that arise. The rhythm of union activity orbits around grievances, arbitrations, and contract deadlines. The key players in the union are the leadership, paid staff, lawyers and lobbyists. Decision- making is top-down and issues of importance are circumscribed by contract lan- guage. The de facto slogan of service model unionism is “If it’s not in the contract, it’s not our concern.”

“In contrast to service model unionism, social-organizing unionism sees unions as a social movement where the bonds of solidarity within the rank and file provide the foundation from which concerted collective action emanates. In the social-organizing model of unionism the leadership, staff and bureaucracy still exist, but their role is to organize, energize and activate the rank and file for collective action. Social- organizing model unions seek to set their own agenda in dealing with management. Social-organizing unions see organizing as a method to run contract campaigns and contract campaigns as a method to organize the rank and file; they are two sides of the same coin. Grievances, arbitrations and contracts are still key moments in the rhythm of the union, but the unity of the membership, and solidarity actions (often pre-grievance) take their place alongside the more officious features of unionism. In social-organizing unions, membership is active and decision-making is inclusive and consciously strives to expand democratic voice. Crucially, social-organizing unions see the contract, the membership and the union as embedded in a context that in- cludes the wider economy, the political system and culture. Therefore they actively engage the political process in order to fight for the conditions of their membership.”

Categories Chicago, Unions
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