Archives for the year of: 2015
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Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Education Excellence Condemns CTU Strike Threat

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
8

This statement was released by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, in response to the news about the CTU strike vote, approved by 96% of voting members. FEE was founded by Jeb Bush; he stepped aside when he decided to run for the GOP nomination. Patricia Levesque was former Governor Bush’s closest associate. It is interesting that she refers to the children of Chicago as “our children.” The FEE–which strongly advocates for charters, vouchers, and virtual classes and schools– has never issued a statement about the lack of resources for the Chicago public schools, the lack of libraries, social services, or about overcrowded classrooms. Nor did it issue a statement when Mayor Emanuel closed 50 public schools in a single day, which surely hurt many children.

 

 

CHICAGO FAMILIES WOULD BE CASUALTIES IN THREATENED TEACHERS UNION STRIKE

 

 

Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union membership voted to authorize setting a strike date if demands are not met by the State Board of Education. Patricia Levesque, CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, issued the following statement.

 

 

“The Chicago Teachers Union has used its political power to turn the city’s education system into a place where collectively bargained job protections, benefits and pensions are the priority, not the education of our children. It’s no wonder Chicago Public Schools is spiraling into insolvency.

 

 

“Rather than negotiate in good faith on permanent solutions, the union is desperately lashing out, blaming everyone else for a state of affairs it has been instrumental in creating. Under the guise of taking a stand for students, it is preparing for a strike that will abandon students in their classrooms.

 

 

“This union agenda punishes families and only will hasten the flight to charter schools, where parents can find better options and where thousands of children currently are on waiting lists. The question now becomes whether or not union leaders are interested in the education of children and the long-term survival of Chicago Public Schools, or whether they are interested in a self-serving agenda of maintaining power.”

 

 

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For more information, visit http://www.ExcelinEd.org.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Chicago, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions

BREAKING NEWS: 96% of Chicago Teachers Authorize a Strike!

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
9

Just in: The members of the Chicago Teachers Union authorized a strike, if a deal cannot be negotiated with the Chicago Public School board, which is controlled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It is ironic that the state law was changed a few years ago, under pressure from Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children, to make it more difficult for Chicago teachers to strike. The law says that the union must win the approval of 75% of its members. Edelman boasted that CTU would never get 75% to vote for a strike. He was wrong. The CTU proved him wrong in 2012, when it went on strike after a near-unanimous vote. And this week it proved him wrong again. Edelman spent millions on the state’s best lobbyists to hobble the union. He lost; millions wasted that could have been spent putting nurses, teachers of the arts, and a certified librarian in every public school in Chicago.

 

 

 

IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin

 

Chicago Teachers Union Details on Strike Authorization Vote: 96.5% of Educators Say “Yes”

 

CHICAGO – The Chicago Teachers Union released the following details regarding its recent strike authorization vote which was conducted over a three-day period December 9-11, 2015 in all schools where Chicago Teachers Union members are employed. The results indicate the following:

 

No. of Actual Votes: 22,678
No. of Eligible Voters: 24,752

 

Percentage of Members who Voted: 91.6 %
Percentage of Members who Voted ‘Yes’: 88%
No. of ‘Yes’ Votes: 21,782
Percentage of Members who Voted Yes: 96.05%

 
STATEMENT BY CTU VICE PRESIDENT JESSE SHARKEY

“Late last week Teachers, PSRPs, Clinicians—members of the CTU—voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. The actual result was just over 96% of those voting marked ‘Yes’ with a 92% turnout. Rahm, Forrest Claypool—Listen to what teachers and educators are trying to tell you: do not cut the schools anymore, do not make the layoffs that you have threatened; instead, respect educators and give us the tools we need to do our jobs. In particular:

 

(1) Improve the teaching and learning conditions by reducing standardized testing, eliminate time-sucking compliance paperwork, and restore professional respect and autonomy to teachers on matters like grades. These improvements cost nothing;

 

(2) Staff our schools at an adequate level. We deserve reasonable class sizes, instruction in art, music, science and technology, a library with a librarian, a nurse;

 

(3) and, Help our schools and our communities address the social crisis in large swaths of our city. While we do not expect the schools to fix homelessness, broken immigration policy, crisis-level unemployment, and racism, we must address the undeniable fact that these problems spill over into our schools and devastate the lives of our children. We have modest demands to address these problems—allow our counselors to counsel, approve restorative justice programs in targeted schools, help with translation and bilingual services.

 

Chicago Teachers Union members do not want to strike, but we do demand that you listen to us. Do not cut our schools, do not lay off educators or balance the budget on our backs.”

Categories Chicago, Unions

Carol Burris: Will Governor Cuomo Actually Change Anything?

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
33

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and former principal at South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island, New York, has subjected the report of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s task force to a close reading.

 

But not the kind of close reading where you forget about context and prior knowledge. She notes that Governor Cuomo has no intention of amending or repealing the law he pushed through last June, which requires that teachers are evaluated by test scores that count for 50% of the evaluation.

 

There is the elephant in the room–the evaluation of teachers by test scores. When it comes to the damage done by APPR, the report is strangely silent. It is as though the committee never heard a complaint on how evaluating teachers by test scores increased both anxiety and test prep. The only place where it is addressed is in Recommendation 21 that states that until a new set of standards are phased in, the results of Common Core 3-8 assessments should be advisory only. Cuomo immediately seized on the ambiguity of that statement and issued the following:

 

[Cuomo statement] “The Education Transformation Act of 2015 will remain in place, and no new legislation is required to implement the recommendations of the report, including recommendations regarding the transition period for consequences for students and teachers. During the transition, the 18 percent of teachers whose performance is measured, in part, by Common Core tests will use different local measures approved by the state, similar to the measures already being used by the majority of teachers.”

 

The Education Transformation Act was the bill Cuomo pushed through the legislature to raise the percentage of test scores in teacher evaluations to 50 percent. Like a teenage boy who doesn’t get that the relationship is over, Cuomo cannot let go of his APPR, even though more researchers agree that evaluating teachers by test student scores makes no sense.

 

And more ominously, she describes the new testing corporation that New York has contracted with for the next five years.

 

Truth be told, no matter what recommendations the report made, at least half of the horse is already out of the testing barn. The new direction in assessment was set with the July approval of a $44 million contract with Questar that locks the state in for five years. If parents are looking for relief from test-driven instruction, they will not find it with Questar. You can read about the company’s philosophy of continuous assessment-driven instruction here. Below is an excerpt:

 

…after every five minutes of individualized tablet-based instruction, students would be presented with a brief series of questions that adapt to their skill level, much as computer-adaptive tests operate today. After that assessment, the next set of instructional material would be customized according to these results. If a student needs to relearn some material, the software automatically adjusts and creates a custom learning plan on the fly. The student would then be reassessed and the cycle would continue…

 

The practice of adaptive, computer-based learning, known as Competency Based Education (CBE), is a reincarnation of two other failed reforms from the last century — Outcomes Based Instruction and Mastery Learning. As the tests roll out, Questar will be marketing their CBE modules for test prep, and schools desperate to increase scores will buy them.

 

Thus far, Governor Cuomo has gotten the press he wanted: banner headlines in the New York Daily News and Long Island’s Newsday, proclaiming prematurely that Common Core is dead. No, it is not. What happens next is up to the Governor.

 

The good news is that he has an outstanding educator advising him, Jere Hochman, former superintendent in Bedford, New York. Hopefully, Hochman will help the Governor understand how to get out of the hole he dug for himself and how to take concrete steps to remove the disruption and constant churn that the State Education Department and the Governor’s interventions have imposed on schools. It is time for some stability and sanity at the helm. At the moment, teachers and students see a battle for control of the wheel, and the ship is lurching from side to side. I won’t torture the analogy any more. But I do hope that Governor Cuomo listens to Jere Hochman’s advice and takes the task force report seriously.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Los Angeles Teacher: Give Rafe a Break!

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
98

I received this letter from a teacher in Los Angeles. She has been following the heated exchanges on the blog about Rafe Esquith, the celebrated teacher and founder of the Hobart Shakespeareans who was fired by the LAUSD board. She decided it was time to set the record straight, as seen through the eyes of a teacher in LAUSD. Having heard from her before, I know she is for real. I am posting this not because I agree with it, but because I think readers will find much to discuss and debate. I make no judgment about whether Rafe is guilty or innocent. I don’t know. I am with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times on this one. The board warned against a rush to judgment when all the facts are not known.

 

 

The teacher writes:

 

I assume that most LAUSD teachers do not read this blog since working as a full time LAUSD teacher and having a life for one’s self after 3 p.m. is a task in itself. From the majority of the comments posted here, I just sense that these people are not or have not been LAUSD classroom teachers, and if so, it was a while back. Sadly, the climate on LAUSD campuses has changed since the teacher jail issue and since the popularity of technology, the use of emails, private or LAUSD emails, texting, social media and so on. I believe that when the LAUSD employee is on a LAUSD campus, there may not be an expectation of privacy concerning any technology, but I am not 100% certain. This exists on many work sites, not just LAUSD. You can only have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own home and that’s only if you are law abiding (not accessing illegal stuff online). Even if it’s on a privately owned cell or computer, your employer may be accessing what you do on that in order to track your behavior.

 
Now, what the employer does with any information he/she gathers from an employee’s information that can be found on a cell phone or computer is another story. That’s where there may be some kind of invasion of privacy, retaliation, etc… I am not a lawyer. I just have opinions.

 
If the publicized emails Rafe sent to students are authentic, and that’s IF they are, then Rafe may perhaps be guilty of some poor judgment, acting too silly with kids, and just, well, over stepping his boundaries a bit, but nothing severe enough to be terminated for.

 
One issue that I don’t read online concerning Rafe or teacher jail is this: students in many LAUSD schools can be called urban youth, inner city, at risk students, people of color, low income, struggling learners, Title One kids, or just, well, ghetto. What is not discussed is that some of these kids are CRAZY in the classroom and are not easy to educate. What I mean by CRAZY is that they have NO FILTER as to what comes out of their little, underage mouths. The students I taught knew ALL of the naughty words in two languages (but maybe needed help with spelling those words correctly!)

 
Over the years I heard kids talk about what they watch on TV, movies and the internet. They know about more naughty things that I didn’t even know existed until I was in high school, college and, well, I’m still learning.

 

Kids talked about grandma porn, watching footage of people defecating in each other’s mouths, beheadings (yes, real ones) that can be viewed online, they talked about the Jersey Shore TV show, South Park, Jackass, Sasha Baron Cohen, Dave Chappelle, etc… They knew about all of this material.

 
I was called “ugly” “bitch” and fill in the blank with any or all swear words insults you can think of by some of my students who were, by and large, a hoot to teach, but not so innocent in terms of language that they were very familiar with. I could not get kids to be held accountable for having a lighter or some contraband on their body because by the time they got searched by the dean of discipline, they had already keistered the item, yes, shoved it in their butt. They seemed to be experienced with doing that and I am talking about 9th graders. They talked about how to pass a drug test using someone else’s urine, how to steal cars, get away with rape.
I showed Schindler’s List, yes, that movie with the NUDITY (ooohhhh!) and year after year, a few students rooted for the Nazis even after I tried to explain to them that Nazis did not like Latinos.

 
Rafe is a tremendous loss to LAUSD and society.

 
If you view the Hobart documentary online, you see that he was more than a teacher. He was a dad, uncle, friend. If a dad or an uncle tickles a fifth grade child is that the behavior of a pedophile???? If a dad or an uncle makes comments regarding a pubescent girl and her “hotness” is that pedophilia or may it just be embarrassing for the child? Borderline inappropriate. Insensitive, sloppy, but not criminal, Not politically correct for 2015 but then what is? Some girls would not like that attention at that age or any age except from their boyfriend, husband, etc…

 
Some of Rafe’s students come from Korean backgrounds where a spanking may not be out of the question on child discipline, in some cases. Rafe joked about spanking. A young girl may not understand the darker, sexual, naughty side of a comment like that but Rafe seemed to be one BIG GOOF with the students. He loosened them up in order to get them to act in theater class.

 
I taught theater for LAUSD. The students I had, showed the personality of a wet mop while reading their lines. These are kids who have not been exposed by their own families to music, theater, or athletic activities outside of school, generally speaking. Rafe tried to break them from their shyness, their shells, to free them up.

 
Rafe may have deserved a talking to, a slap on the wrist for some of these emails that are taken out of context. Some of the emails show a tone of Rafe coming off as a “sugar daddy” with students. Rafe is an older gentleman, harmless, a ham, creative. He wanted his students to succeed more than ANYTHING, to excel, to thrive and compete. He is not perfect nor is anyone. Think of a few of your favorite teachers. Were they infallible Mother Theresas? I learned so much from a few teachers who were faarrrr from perfect! But that’s another essay to write.

 
Besides that I have witnessed numerous male teachers shower certain, pretty students with flirtatious toned banter, and these men still have their teaching jobs, and two male teachers at one school where I worked were rumored to have married their female students. Please, what actionable crime did Rafe commit?

 
Some girls in LAUSD high schools and even middle school dress like they are going to a red light district, for example, they wear low rise jeans where the tushie spills out when they sit to reveal thong underwear, skin tight white t-shirts with black bra, you name it, they wear it. I had some 17 year old students talk in class about how they buy each other vibrators for their birthdays. This was a few years back, before teacher jail was talked about, but if a LAUSD classroom teacher even speaks the word “vibrator” in a class, that grounds for termination right there. End of story.

 
America is a FAKE puritanical country. If fact, our society is so not in touch with its own bipolarness full of smut peddling and acting, like we can’t say “naked” in a classroom, however, I wouldn’t have it any other way (except someone please pull the curtain on the whole Khardashian clan). I wouldn’t want to live in a “real” puritanical country, would you? Our American princess Kim K. got started on the fame track with a sex video and shoots to international stardom.

 

In contrast, Rafe, tirelessly worked for decades to give kids a chance at realizing their dreams, gets vilified and tarred and feathered for having an eye for a pretty girl, being sloppy and over-exaggerated in emails (and a little bit inappropriate), and spoke the word “naked”? Something seems wrong. Where was the due process??? Oh yeah. It’s LAUSD, a school district that seems to be shutting down, snuffing out teachers who don’t show up ten minutes before class starts and teach to tests that these students don’t understand. LAUSD teachers don’t speak up on behalf of a co-worker when they KNOW the district is railroading them out of their career, in fact, they mostly all aid the district. By the way people, it’s teachers and administrators who send a teacher to teacher jail—not students. Just a rumor I may have heard. Rafe will be missed by so many but many teachers on campus nowadays will be forgotten like unwashed gym clothes left in a locker.

Categories Los Angeles, Teachers

TFA Creates Rapid Response Unit to Rebut Critics Like Gary Rubinstein

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
28

This is an unintentionally hilarious story. Teach for America has created a rapid response unit to reply to critics and protect their brand. 

 

Instead of listening to thoughtful critics like Gary Rubinstein, they plan to spend half a million or more to dispute him. Hey, Gary, you are scaring them!

 

A nonprofit group has begun a public relations campaign to defend Teach for America against critics of the program that places newly minted college graduates in teaching jobs in some of the country’s most challenging classrooms.

 

The new campaign, called Corps Knowledge, is an offshoot of the New York Campaign for Achievement Now (NYCAN), a network that supports public charter schools and school choice and wants to weaken teacher tenure laws.

 

Derrell Bradford, NYCAN’s executive director, said the campaign aims to counter attacks on Teach for America’s image, which some people loyal to the program think has been damaged by “a few disgruntled alumni” and other critics.

 

Several TFA alumni have written negatively about their experiences, saying that TFA’s five-week training session did not adequately prepare them for teaching in struggling schools and that the two-year commitment that TFA requires adds to the teacher churn in high-needs schools.

 

So, TFA chooses not to listen to its alumni who say they were ill-prepared by five weeks of training for the challenges of the classroom.

 

And TFA thinks that its two-year commitment does not add to teacher churn in high-need schools.

 

Why would anyone spend $500,000-$1,000,000 to say that these criticisms are wrong? Why not think about it? Does TFA believe that a recent college graduate with five weeks of training should be responsible for children with disabilities? Do they think no special training is necessary? Are they saying that people who earn an M.A. or a doctorate in special education have wasted their time?

 

Does TFA ever reflect on its constant boasting? Does TFA ever feel a little bit ashamed of claiming that any TFA recruit is superior to an experienced teacher? Do their recruits have nothing to learn?

 

Has TFA ever wondered why its stars promote charters and vouchers and high-stakes teacher evaluations? It appears that TFA dislikes public schools and teachers who make a career of teaching. Why do they like VAM? Is it because TFA teachers don’t hang around long enough to get a VAM rating? Why are they opposed to teacher tenure? Is this a by-product of their low opinion of experienced teachers or are they just thinking of themselves, knowing they will never stay around long enough to acquire tenure?

 

Instead of mounting an expensive campaign to refute Gary Rubinstein, they should talk to him. He is one of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful and considerate people I have ever met. He also has a great sense of humor. If TFA listened to him, I bet they would learn a lot. At the very least, they should try to find out why one of the original members of TFA has become a critic. They will never know unless they listen.

 

 

Categories Teach for America

Gary Rubinstein, TFA Critic, Will Attend the 25th Anniversary of TFA

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
20

Gary Rubinstein, the most thoughtful of Teach for America’s critical alums, plans to attend the 25th anniversary of Teach for America. Gary’s blog has punctured the illusions of TFA and other corporate reformers again and again. Will he be shunned? Will anyone speak to him?

 

When I read Gary’s post, my first reaction was that the party would be “a conclave of losers,” considering how many of the TFA stars have faded or failed or disappeared into obscurity.  Not to mention the fact that TFA has not–in its 25 years–closed the achievement gap in any district or turned any district into a paragon of excellence. “One day,” the TFA slogan (“one day all children will have an excellent education”) seems as far away as ever.

 

But what a meeting it will be!

 

Gary writes:

 

 

Of the 200 speakers listed so far, there is only one ‘reform critic’ I see, Los Angeles Board President Steve Zimmer. Then there are about 150 people I’ve never heard of, but who are mostly from different ed companies or charter schools, and then there are about 50 A and B list ‘reformers’ and charter leaders. These include Jeremy Beard (YES Prep), Karolyn Belcher (President of TNTP), RiShawn Biddle (Dropout Nation), Tim Daly (Former President of TNTP), Mike Feinberg (KIPP), Heather Harding (former VP of research at TFA, now with Gates), Kevin Huffman (former Tennessee Education commissioner and former husband of Michelle Rhee), Michael Johnston (State senator in Colorado who got a teacher evaluation law passed where 50% of the evaluation is based on value-added), John King (current acting Secretary of Education), Dave Levin (KIPP), Kira Orange Jones (New Orleans Board Member), Paymon Rouhanifard (Camden Schools Superintendent), Alexander Russo (Writer and reform cheerleader), Hannah Skandera (secretary of education for New Mexico), Preston Smith (CEO Rocketship Charter schools), John White (State Superintendent of Louisiana), Joe Williams (DFER and now Walton). Not yet on the speakers page, but listed on some of the panels are Joel Klein (Amplify and former chancellor in NYC), John Deasy (Former head of Los Angeles Schools), Jon Schnur (Architect of Race To The Top), Chris ‘Citizen’ Stewart (blogger who I’ve sparred with on Twitter), and, of course, Michelle Rhee (StudentsFirst and star of Waiting For Superman).

 

Many of the sessions also have a ‘reform’ slant. There’s a session called ‘Becoming an Education Influencer on Twitter’ that I think I’d be an ideal candidate to be on. But instead of me there’s ‘Dropout Nation’s’ RiShawn Biddle and Alexander Russo.

 

There’s one called “Alumni Trailblazers’ Perspectives on the Path to One Day in Our Lifetime.” The panelists are the queen reformer Michelle Rhee, the prince, Louisiana Education Commissioner (for now) John White, and KIPP founders Mike Feinberg, and Dave Levin.

 

Joel Klein is moderating a panel called ‘What Will It Take To Reach One Day?’ and on the panel are Kevin Huffman and Kira Orange Jones.

 

One with an intriguing title is “What should we do when the whole school fails?” It is moderated by the husband of TFA CEO Elisa Villanueva-Beard, Jeremy Beard, who has apparently left his post at Houston Independent School District leading their failed turnaround program ‘Apollo 20’ and is now the head of YES Prep Charter Schools in Houston. On this panel is Chris ‘Citizen’ Stewart, who has been known to accuse me of being a racist from time to time. This panel also has the one and only ‘reform critic’ that I know of, Steve Zimmer, who is the head of the school board in Los Angeles.

 

Michael Johnston is on a bunch of panels. One is called ‘What Works and What Doesn’t in Education Policy” I think he is an expert on the latter as his horrific ‘accountability’ plan in Colorado where 50% of teacher evaluation is based on value-added scores has accomplished absolutely nothing in terms of test score increases. On that panel is ‘Chief For Change’ Hannah Skandera, New Mexico Secretary of Education , and Jon Schnur, ‘architect’ of Race To The Top.

 

Perhaps the craziest session is called ‘Exploring the Role of Joel Klein as Mentor and Role Model: A Case Study.’ The CEO of TFA, Elisa Villanueva-Beard is actually the moderator on this one. Most of the people who Klein mentored are no longer in power, the most recent to be forced out was Cami Anderson in Newark. I’m hoping that John White in Louisiana will be out by then and then there will be a full turnover of the Klein mentees.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teach for America

The Wanton Destruction of the Public Sector in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
9

In 2010, Republicans swept control of the Legislature in North Carolina for the first time in a century. Two years later, a Republican governor was elected. Since then, the Republicans have sought to shred any safety net for anyone who needed it.

 

In this post, Chris Fitzsimon details the determined and successful efforts of the Republican majority to destroy public education and every other public institution in the state, turning the clock back many decades.

 

He writes:

 

With all three branches of government securely under their control, the ideological shift left few areas of state policy untouched. People who were already struggling have been hurt the most — low-wage workers, single mothers, people of color and immigrants. Vital life supports, such as child care subsidies, pre-K programs, unemployment insurance and food stamps, have been slashed.

 
And there’s been more than a loss of basic benefits. People living on the margins have been demonized in the last five years too, blamed for their struggles, penalized for their inability to find jobs that don’t exist, and cruelly stereotyped for political gain. The folks now in charge of Raleigh haven’t just made government smaller, they have also made it meaner.

 

Most of the money they saved from slashing safety net programs hasn’t been reinvested in education or job training or infrastructure. Instead, even as tax revenue has risen as the state recovers from the Great Recession, the savings have been given to corporations and the wealthy in a series of massive tax breaks.

 

Thanks to the anemic budgets of the last five years, North Carolina now spends almost 6 percent less on state services than in 2008 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

 

Now the folks in charge are pushing to lock in the woeful recession-era level of public investment by adding arbitrary spending limits to the state constitution in the misnamed Taxpayer Bill of Rights. In Colorado, the only state that has adopted it, it has been a disaster.

 

Nowhere have the cuts hit harder than in public schools, where rankings in teacher pay and per-pupil funding have spiraled toward the bottom of the 50 states.

 

Once recognized across the country for its commitment to public education, North Carolina now is making headlines for how much of it is being dismantled, with teachers fleeing to other states because of low salaries and the culture of animosity and disrespect from state leaders.

 

The meanness is evident here too. The nationally recognized Teaching Fellows program has been abolished, even as the state struggles to recruit bright students into the profession, merely because of its ties to prominent Democrats like former Gov. Jim Hunt.

 

Low-income kids and their families are the biggest losers in the attacks on public schools, but there are winners in the ideological assault: new for-profit companies that run charter schools, private and religious academies that now receive taxpayer funding and sketchy online institutions that are raking in state dollars.

The new ruling class in Raleigh, while professing a commitment to reduce the scope of government, increased its role in people’s personal lives and health care decisions, interfered with local issues in communities across the state, and pushed to resume executions even as two men were freed from prison, one from death row, after serving for more than 30 years for a murder they did not commit.

 

They made it harder for some people to vote but easier for many people to get a gun and take it into more places — bars, restaurants, parks and playgrounds. They have systematically rolled back important environmental protections, undeterred by the massive coal ash spill into the Dan River in 2014, the worst environmental disaster in the state’s history.

 

The radical transformation of North Carolina has prompted a passionate response in protest, as thousands have marched in Raleigh and across the state in the NAACP-led Moral Monday movement.

 

For all these reasons, the Network for Public Education will hold its third annual conference in Raleigh on April 16-17. Our keynote speakers include the leader of the Moral Mondays movement, Rev. Dr. William Barber. There is some scholarship money available for teachers and student activists.

 

Join us to speak out against the destruction of public education and the denial of basic human rights, in North Carolina and across the nation.

 

 

Categories Closing schools, Network for Public Education, North Carolina, Supporting public schools

Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday: Remembering When He Fought Racism

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2015 //
14

Scott Simon of NPR told a lovely story about Frank Sinatra.

 

It happened in Gary, Indiana, in 1945. The high school was opening up to admit black students, and the white students were planning a walkout.

 

Heart-throb Frank Sinatra was invited to the high school. He gave the kids a talking-to. He told them the names he was called when he was a kid growing up in Hoboken.

 

And he sang “The House I Live In,” which is about prejudice.

 

Here are the lyrics of one stanza:

 

“The house I live in, a plot of earth, a street
The grocer and the butcher, and the people that I meet
The children in the playground, the faces that I see
All races and religions, that’s America to me”
– Words by Lewis Allan, Music by Earl Robinson

 

My source: reader Karen Wolfe directed me to 4LAKids, written by parent Scott Folsom. Scroll down to find the story and the lyrics.

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Wall Street Journal Calls on Justice Department to Investigate Rahm Emanuel

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2015 //
12

The Wall Street Journal published a biting editorial today, calling on the Justice Department to investigate Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s role in the suppression of the video of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. The shooting, almost a year ago, was taped by police video cameras but the city refused to release the video until ordered to do so by a judge. The title of the editorial: “The Chicago Fire.” Protestors will not be ameliorated by a half-hearted investigation that protects the mayor from scrutiny.

 

 

 

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that the Justice Department will investigate whether Chicago police “engaged in a pattern or practice of violation of the Constitution or federal law.” We hope Justice will also investigate whether Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city officials prevented the release of a videotape of the shooting for political reasons.

 

In October 2014 officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald multiple times. Though a police car’s dashcam recorded the confrontation, the videotape was kept from public view until a judge ordered its release in a lawsuit. City officials, who had likely seen the video, echoed the police line of self-defense that now seems suspect.

 

The episode has roiled Chicago. On Wednesday an emotional Mayor Emanuel tried to defuse the tension by issuing a public apology and acknowledging the problems with a police force that embraces a culture of silence. “I should have given voice to the public’s growing suspicions, distrust and anger,” Mr. Emanuel said. “My voice is supposed to be their voice.” Protesters demanded his resignation.

 

According to the Better Government Association, the city has spent more than $521 million over 10 years defending and settling excessive-force lawsuits against the Police Department. Between 2010 and 2014 the police killed 70 people, the most of any big city. Since 2007 the city’s Independent Police Review Authority has investigated almost 400 shootings and categorized only one as unjustified….

 

In DNAInfo Chicago, columnist Mark Konkol reported last week that Mr. Emanuel’s corporation counsel Stephen Patton blocked police reforms pushed by former police chief Garry McCarthy, whom Mr. Emanuel appointed in 2011. Mr. McCarthy wanted to give the police chief the power to discipline or fire officers accused of misconduct or of keeping a “code of silence” and to make misconduct investigations more transparent….

 

 

While Justice investigates the cops, the answers about the role of City Hall are most likely to come from the investigation by the U.S. Attorney, who has been looking into the case since not long after the shooting. The failure to release a video for political reasons may not be a crime, but City Hall’s complicity in any cover-up will leave lasting scars. Mr. Emanuel will have to answer for the consequences.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

North Carolina: Important Discussion of Wrecking Ball Crew Trying to Demolish Public Education

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2015 //
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North Carolina was once the most progressive state in the South. Under the leadership of Governor Jim Hunt, it enacted many progressive programs for education and invested in public education, both K-12 and higher education.

But Tea Party Republicans took control of the legislature in 2010, and a Republican governor was elected in 2012, the first time in a century that Republicans controlled the state. Since taking power, the Republicans have slashed the budget for public education at all levels. They have enacted a law to authorize charter schools, including for-profit charters. They enacted a voucher law. They welcomed for-profit virtual schools. They have set out to shrink government and diminish the public sector. Per-student spending is now near the lowest in the nation, as are teacher salaries. The legislature has gone after teachers’ tenure and benefits. It shut down a five-year career teaching preparation program at the University of North Carolina, called the North Carolina Teaching Fellows, yet allocated almost the same amount of money to pay for Teach for America recruits, who will come and go.

This webinar should address these issues and more.

It should be of special interest to members of the Network for Public Education who intend to participate in our annual conference at Raleigh, NC, on April 16-17. Please visit our website and register. 

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Register For Our Upcoming Webinar

North Carolina Voters and the Value of Public Education,

2015 Survey Highlights

December 15, 2015, 2-3 pm EST

North Carolina Voters and the Value of Public Education, 2015 Survey Highlights

Leslie Winner, Executive Director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, shares the findings from their 2015 statewide survey of voters perceptions of public education.  The results show that North Carolina voters strongly value local public schools, support greater investments in overall funding and want more investment in teachers. The most recent survey shows great concern that state education policy and funding are undermining the public’s desire to ensure that each child is challenged to grow and is prepared for success in college, career and life.  Learn about tools for communicating the value of and advocating for public education!
Register here.
We are also excited to be soft-launching our new Southern Education Network, an online forum and virtual network created for you — advocates, organizers, students, parents, educators — who are working to support public education in the American South.  We’re providing this forum as a means for you to find resources, connect with others, dialogue about issues you’re facing and strategies you’re using, and to get support in the work to achieve education justice. 
The site is free to join, and by signing up as a member, you gain access to an online forum and a member directory, where you can search and connect with others. 
Over the coming months, you’ll see us add resources and additional information to the site.  As you check out the site during this initial launch phase, we’d love to get your feedback so that we can keep improving  the site and making it as user-friendly and efficient as possible.  We look forward to continuing to work with you in new ways.
Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers
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