Archives for the month of: May, 2014
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Rhode Island Supreme Court Rejects Equality of School Funding: Sorry, Kids!

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2014 //
4

Almost sixty years to the day of the U.S. Supreme court’s historic Brown decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit against the stste’s inequitable funding system. The court said it was “deeply concerned” and acknowledged that the funding disparities hurt poor urban children most, but passed the buck. “Not our problem,” the court said.

Here is a summary from the Education Law Center.

RI SUPREME COURT IS “DEEPLY CONCERNED” BUT DENIES RELIEF TO SCHOOL CHILDREN

May 15, 2014

On May 3, 2014, the Rhode Island Supreme Court dismissed the fair school funding case, Woonsocket v. State. The Court concluded that conditions in the plaintiffs’ schools “make a strong case” against the current funding system. Nonetheless, the justices denied plaintiffs the chance to present their evidence in a trial on the merits of the case.

The Court wrote, “We emphasize that we are deeply concerned by the conditions of the schools in Pawtucket and Woonsocket as alleged by plaintiffs, as well as by the alleged predicaments of those municipalities regarding their inabilities to allocate the funding required to meet state mandates.　Installing a means of providing adequate educational opportunities to every child in the state is not only an admirable goal; it is ‘perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.'” (quoting the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education)

In its written opinion, the Court summarized plaintiffs’ allegations, which detail the state’s adoption of higher and higher standards while failing to align funding to those standards. Insufficient resources mean students do not have the opportunity to reach the standards, plaintiffs assert. More recently, the state went so far as to cap local taxing authority so that municipalities attempting to make up for state shortfalls were not allowed to do so, plaintiffs add.

The Court also quoted plaintiffs’ complaint with regard to the most recent funding formula adopted by the state in 2010, noting that the formula “fails to provide adequate resources to allow children, especially in poor, urban communities, to obtain a quality education [and] a reasonable opportunity to meet the [state’s] academic standards.” The Court summarized plaintiffs’ description of the dire state of school facilities, books, and supplies, and the low test scores that flow from the state’s allegedly inadequate funding.

The state defendants filed a motion to dismiss this case, and the Court explained that its decision on the motion depended on interpretation of the Rhode Island Constitution’s Education Clause, which states that:

“The diffusion of knowledge, as well as of virtue among the people, being essential to the preservation of their rights and liberties, it shall be the duty of the general assembly to promote public schools, and to adopt all means which they may deem necessary and proper to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.”

Although earlier precedent held that the Rhode Island General Assembly has exclusive authority over school funding, plaintiffs argued that repeal of a particular clause in the state constitution rendered that precedent irrelevant for the Woonsocket case. Plaintiffs also claimed that changes since the earlier precedent meant the state had replaced local control with state mandates. However, after an analysis of the impact of that repeal and other changes, the Supreme Court ruled that the General Assembly’s broad discretion in how it complies with the Education Clause was not impaired.

The Court indicates that the political branches could solve the problem of school funding without a court order by improving the states’ system. But the justices appear to ignore the General Assembly’s history of allocating inadequate funding for schools in low-wealth communities.

Based on that history and the current ruling, it appears that meaningful relief and educational opportunity will come to the students in under-resourced Rhode Island communities only if and when voters amend and strengthen the state constitution’s education clause. Only then will future plaintiffs with similar claims finally be granted their day in court. Some education advocates are proposing such an amendment.

Education Justice Press Contact:
Molly A. Hunter, Esq.
Director, Education Justice
email: mhunter@edlawcenter.org
voice: 973 624-1815 x19
http://www.edlawcenter.org
http://www.educationjustice.org

Categories Poverty, Rhode Island

The Mistake of the Southern Poverty Law Center

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2014 //
162

I think there are plenty of well meaning people on different sides of the Common Core issue. It serves no useful purpose to divide people into good guys and bad guys. This is one of those tangled questions where we do best to debate the pros and cons of the Common Core, without challenging the motives of those with whom we disagree.

No doubt, there are some who seek to make profit or who are troubled by Bill Gates’ overwhelming investment in the CCSS. It would be easy to come up with a list of dubious motives for the CCSS, but our national discussion should deal with consequential issues, such as the quality of the standards, whether they are appropriate for students of different age groups, and how they are likely to narrow or increase these gaps among different student groups.

Among the most one sided treatments of CCSS is that of the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is a group that is usually very grounded in its criticisms.

Unfortunately, SPLC chose to paint opposition to the CC as Tea Party and/or rightwing extremists who want to destroy public education. This is odd indeed because the critics and supporters of CC are strange bedfellows.

Jeb Bush, who does not like public education but loves vouchers and charters, is one of the most outspoken supporters of the CC , as is Michelle Rhee, and others on the right. The Chicago Teachers Union just voted unanimously against the CC. CTU is not an enemy of public education

More thinking is needed, less name calling.

Categories Common Core

Will Congress Commemorate the Brown Decision by Reviving a Dual School System?

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2014 //
49

Congress is considering new charter legislation, awarding more money to the charter sector, which will operate with minimal accountability or transparency.

The bill has already passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan majority and now moves to the Senate.

Make no mistake: on the 60th anniversary of the Brown decision, Congress is set to expand a dual school system. One sector, privately managed, may choose its students, exclude those who might pull down its test scores, and kick out those it doesn’t want. The other sector–the public schools–must take in all students, even those kicked out by the charters.

One sector–the charter sector–may enroll no students with profound disabilities, while the public schools are required by federal law to accept them all. The charter sector may accept only half as many English language learners, while the public schools are required to accept them all. Some charter schools push out children who are behavior problems, the public schools must take them all.

This is a dual school system, one bound by laws, the other deregulated. One free to select the “winners, ” the other bound to accept all.

Will federally-funded charters be allowed to operate for profit, as many charters do? Will they pay their executives exorbitant salaries, of more than $400,000, as some charters do? Will they be exempt from nepotism laws, as many charters are? Will charter leaders be allowed to hire their relatives or give them contracts? Will they be exempt from conflict of interest and self-dealing laws, as they are in some states? Will members of the board be permitted to win profitable contracts from the board?

The growth of the charter sector has been driven by a strange coalition. Charters are supported by wealthy hedge fund managers who give generously to individual charters and to charter chains; they fund political candidates who support charters. Charters are supported enthusiastically by the Obama administration, which endorses the privatization of public schools. Charters are a favorite of conservative groups like ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) and rightwing governors. Charters receive millions from some of the nation’s wealthiest foundations, including the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.

This odd coalition doesn’t seem to care that it is reversing the Brown decision of 1954. The fact that charters are highly segregated does not trouble them. The fact that charters undermine public education, an institution that is basic to our democracy, does not trouble them.

The federal courts bore the historic burden of dismantling the long-established institution of legally-enforced racial segregation. Sadly, as new justices were appointed, the federal courts abandoned that role. The U.S. Department of Education too abandoned its once strong dedication to eliminating segregation and ignored its return. Both parties lost interest in integration. Imagine if the Obama administration had dedicated its $5 billion in Race to the Top funds as rewards for districts that increased racial integration. Instead, it initiated a pursuit of higher test scores, and dismissed segregation as yesterday’s issue.

Once there was a dream that American children could live and learn together. That was Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. The charter movement says that dream is over, if it ever existed, and that the democratic dream of equal educational opportunity for all in common schools controlled by local communities is history, a relic of the past, replaced by the 21st century reality of a dual school system, separate and unequal.

Should we acquiesce in a social arrangement that we know is wrong? Should we celebrate the official approval of segregated schools? Should we hail Congress for bending to the new realities of segregation and academic apartheid? Should we cheer Congressional support for privately-managed schools that get public funds but are not subject to the same requirements of accountability and transparency as public schools?

The 60th anniversary of the Brown decision is a time to recall how far short we have fallen from our ideals. And a time to plan for the day when we can reclaim them and build the America we want for our children and grandchildren.

Categories Charter Schools, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit

Community Groups File Civil Rights Complaints Against Destruction of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2014 //
10

Grassroots community groups in Néw Orleans, Newark, and Chicago filed complaints of violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the Justice Department and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. They seek an investigation of racially discriminatory school closings in their communities.

They wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary Arne Duncan:

“Journey for Justice is a coalition of grassroots organizations in twenty-two cities across the country. The coalition has come together because, across our communities, education “reformers” and privatizers are targeting neighborhood schools filled with children of color, and leaving behind devastation. By stealth, seizure, and sabotage, these corporate profiteers are closing and privatizing our schools, keeping public education for children of color, not only separate, not only unequal, but increasingly not public at all.

“Adding insult to injury, the perpetrators of this injustice have cloaked themselves in the language of the Civil Rights Movement. But too many of the charter and privately-managed schools that have multiplied as replacements for our beloved neighborhood schools are test prep mills that promote prison-like environments, and seem to be geared at keeping young people of color controlled, undereducated, and dehumanized. Children of color are not collateral damage. Our communities are not collateral damage.

“Thus, we stand in solidarity, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization in Chicago, Coalition for Community Schools and Conscious Concerned Citizens Controlling Community Changes in New Orleans, New Jersey’s Parents Unified for Local School Education in Newark, and Journey for Justice member organizations across the country, to shed light on the racial injustice of school closings.

“Neighborhood schools are the hearts of our communities, and the harm caused by just one school closure is deep and devastating. This is death by a thousand cuts.”

There is deep irony and sadness in the fact that these community groups are appealing for justice even as the nation commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision striking down legal segregation.

There is deep irony and sadness in the fact that these complaints are filed to the administration of the nation’s first black president.

There is deep irony and sadness in the fact that these complaints are directed at the policies not of racist governors but of the Obama administration itself.

Secretary Duncan has encouraged and funded the school closings that are at the heart of the complaints. He has applauded and funded the privatization of schools in black communities. He openly admires the “no excuses” charter schools that emphasize control over education and that teach strict conformity to arbitrary rules, not the habits of mind and dispositions of a free people.

In effect, the Obama administration is being asked to overrule its own education policies. How sad. How ironic.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, New Orleans, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Rally to Save Public Education, Saturday, MAY 17, 2 pm, New York City [DATE Fixed]

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
23

Taking Back OUR Schools Rally & March – NYC Metro

May 17 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

On the steps of City Hall

“Declaration, Protest, Successes, and Call to Action”

Calling all NYC Metro Area community activists, the “voices of resistance”, families, students, civil rights advocates, voters, immigrant families, policymakers and legislators, union members, teachers, faith leaders, and all communities that believe in a good public education for all!

Join us in a march and rally seeking to create & sustain a public school system that provides a fully funded, equitable, community-based education for every child. This means that decisions about our children’s schooling would be made democratically by families and professional educators, free of corporate and political intervention.

Featuring a Message from Diane Ravitch

Speaking will be: Mark Naison, Brian Jones, Carol Burris, Jeannette Deutermann, Leonie Haimson, Joe Rella, Jose Vilson, NYC student “J”, Marla Kilfoyle, Melissa Tomlinson, Monty Neill, Dao Tran, Ken Mitchell, Daiyu Suzuki, Akinlabi Mackall, Muba Yarofulani, Rosie Frascella, Stephanie Rivera, Bianca Tanis, Lisa Winter.

Entertaining will be: Terry Moore and Friends, Raging Grannies, Jeremy Dudley, and The Rude Mechanical Orchesta.

Participating groups:

Alliance for Quality Education – BATS – Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence (BNYEE) – Change The Stakes – Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats – Children Are More Than Test Scores – Class Size Matters – The Coalition for Educational Justice CEJ – Coalition for Public Education-Communities United New Jersey -Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action at Manhattanville College – EDU4 – FairTest- iCOPE–Hudson Valley Against Common Core -Lace to the Top – Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn– LI Opt Out – MORE –NAACP MID Manhattan-Network for Public Education-Newark Students Union-New Caucus of Newark- New Jersey Education Association (NJEA)- New York Allies for Public Education – NY PRINCIPALS .ORG – NY Student Union –NYCORE – Parents Across America – Parent Leadership Project-Parent Voices NY- Parents to Improve School Transportation – Port Jeff Station Teachers Association– Radical Women -Reclaiming the Conversation on Education – Save Our Schools (SOS) – Save Our Schools-NJ –S.E.E.D.S. (SEEDSWORK) – Stop Common Core in New York State – Students Not Scores LI –Students United for Public Education (SUPE) – Teachers United – Time Out from Testing-UFT-United Opt Out National-Ya Ya Network-

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Categories New York City, Resistance

Your Chance to See “Rise Above the Mark” in Chicago!

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
17

The marvelous film, created by educators, “Rise Above the Mark,” will be shown at Mary Gage Peterson Elementary School, 5510 N. Christiana Ave, Chicago on Thursday May 29th at 4:30 pm and 7:00 pm.

Following each viewing there will be a panel discussion about the challenges raised and any action steps we can take. Please help us spread the word. Thank you!

“Rise Above the Mark” was made by public school educators in West Lafayette, Indiana. It includes interviews with experts from across the nation and shows the damage done by the corporate reform movement.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Arizona State Superintendent: More Money for Vouchers and Charters than for Public School Kids

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
7

Arizona’s public schools are among the most severely underfunded schools in the nation.

Arizona has the misfortune of having a state superintendent who doesn’t like public education.

If it was up to John Huppenthal, he would give everyone a voucher and shut down public education.

As it happens, students who go to charter schools get more funding than those in public s hools.

Vouchers were supposed to save money by costing less, but Huppenthal wants to give them more money.

When you read articles about Arizona by local blogger David Safier like this one, you are reminded what charters and vouchers are really about.

They are not about “saving poor kids from failing schools,” because they don’t.

They are not about improving education by competition, because they don’t.

They are not about helping disabled kids get better services in voucher schools, because that’s just the Carmel’s nose under the tent to get vouchers legitimized.

They are not about accountability in exchange for results, because they are not accountable and they don’t produce results unless they skim.

They are not about saving money, because they eventually demand the same or more than public schools.

So what are they about?

Privatization.

Getting government to abandon responsibility for public education and equal opportunity.

Greed.

And all the other possibilities that privatization, deregulation, and lack of oversight make possible, like nepotism, fraud, and corruption.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Vouchers

Pearson: We Need Better PR

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
57

Pearson, the multi-billion British publisher, plans to launch a new PR offensive to push back against the anti-testing and anti-Common Core groundswell. Pearson has been steadily buying up every aspect of American education: it recently won the contract to adminster the Common Core test called PARCC, which is worth at least $1 billion; states using Pearson tests buy Pearson textbooks; Pearson bought the GED; Pearson owns the online EdTPA, to evaluate teachers as they finish their training; Pearson owns virtual charter schools called Connections Academy; Pearson owns a curriculum aligned with Common Core.

This interview appeared on politico.com:

PEARSON TO PUMP UP THE P.R.: Pearson CEO John Fallon came by the POLITICO office to talk about a whole range of issues – and to make a pledge: His team is going to be more active, he said, in fighting back against the anti-testing, anti-Common Core movement that has swept through a number of states. Rather than see the opposition “as threats to our traditional business,” Fallon said, the company is trying to forge common ground.”We’re all in the business of trying to improve educational outcomes,” he said.

– Fallon said Pearson will step up its social media presence and will also make more of an effort to engage with teachers unions, talk to parents and generally “be very transparent about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it … We’re willing to be held accountable.”

– Asked how he would grade Pearson’s public outreach so far, Fallon demurred. “You probably wouldn’t grade us very highly at the moment – which is probably fair,” he said. “We’re going to try to be more proactive.”

– Don Kilburn, President of Pearson North America, also weighed in. He said he expected Pearson’s sales to pick up after a couple of rough years crimped by tight state budgets for both K-12 and higher education. The company has reorganized and now has a “much cleaner mission and structure” which is expected to propel faster growth, he said.

Categories Common Core, Pearson

GOOD NEWS: NC Court Overturns State Law Ending Tenure

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
46

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood ruled that the state’s effort to eliminate teacher tenure was unconstitutional.

“Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood ruled this morning that the state’s repeal of teacher tenure, also known as “career status,” and the 25 percent contract system that would award temporary employment contracts to those who relinquish their tenure, are both unconstitutional. Hobgood issued a permanent injunction.

“It’s a great day for teachers in North Carolina,” said Rodney Ellis, President of the North Carolina Association of Educators, following Hobgood’s ruling.

– See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/05/16/breaking-court-rules-that-repeal-of-teacher-tenure-25-contracts-unconstitutional/#sthash.LmEaN7Ii.dpuf

Categories North Carolina, Teacher Tenure

Laura Chapman: Gates and Arne Love Big Data

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2014 //
24

Reader Laura Chapmam reminds us that the corporate-government combine wants Big Data. The demise of inBloom is only one stop in a long journey that invokes hundreds of millions of dollars and a foundational belief that what can be measure matters most:

Chapman writes:

The bare bones infrastructure for data-mongering was expanding in 1990, jump-started by a concerted effort to standardize vocabularies to characterize public education–think almanac–but expanded to fit the architecture of computer and information retrieval programs.
In tandem (as usual) Gates and USDE poured massive amounts of money into data-mongering starting in 2005, this intended to link student and teacher data in a continuum from birth to college and beyond.

Gates conjured the program called Teacher Student Data Link (TSDL), one facet of a data gathering campaign funded at $390,493,545 between 2005 and mid-May 2011 by the Gates’ Foundation.

This campaign envisions the link between teacher and student data serving eight purposes: 1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful, 2. Determine characteristics of effective educators, 3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers, 4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs, 5. Evaluate professional development programs, 6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning, 7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and 8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation. See http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/about

The TSDL system is intended to ensure that all courses are based on standards, and that all responsibilities for learning are assigned to one or more “teachers of record” in charge of a student or class. A teacher of record has a unique identifier (think barcode) for an entire career in teaching. A record is generated whenever a teacher of record has some specified proportion of responsibility for “a student’s learning activities” identified by the performance measures for a particular standard, subject, and grade level.

In addition to the eight purposes noted above, the TSDL system aims to have ”period-by-period tracking of teachers and students every day; including tests, quizzes, projects, homework, classroom participation, or other forms of day-to-day assessments and progress measures”—a level of accountability (I call it surveillance) that is said to be comparable to business practices (TSDL, 2011, “Key Components”).

This system will keep current and longitudinal data on teachers and individual students, schools, districts, states, and educators ranging from principals to higher education faculty. The aim is to determine the “best value” investments in education and monitor outcomes, taking into account as many demographic factors as possible, including health records for preschoolers. In Bloom may be dead but there are data-warehouses supported in part by Gates committed to that vision of data mining ( e.g. Battelle for Kids in Ohio).

On the federal side we have The Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program, authorized under Title II, Educational Technical Assistance of the ‘‘Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 H. R. 3801.” The first grants were made in 2005, the same year that the Gates’ Foundation started the parallel Data Quality Campaign.

See http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/
Achieve promoted, and still promotes, the Data Quality Campaign with a special focus on getting state policy makers to track individual students’ progress from pre-K to graduation and to use that data “to improve outcomes.” The program is being extended to teacher education with college programs measured by the test scores their graduates produce when they enter classrooms. See http://aacte.org/index.php?/Media-Center/AACTE-in-the-News/administration-pushes-teacher-prep-accountability.html.

In Bloom may be dead but all this other work is still in motion.

I think it wise to listen to some experts on Big Data. “We are more susceptible than we may think to the ‘dictatorship of data’—that is, letting the data govern us in ways that may do as much harm as good. The threat is that we will let our-selves be mindlessly bound by the output of our analyses even when we have reasonable grounds for suspecting something is amiss.

Or that we will attribute a degree of truth to data which it does not deserve.” Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & Kenneth Cukier. (2013). Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 166.

Categories Data and Data Mining, Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates
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