Archives for the year of: 2015
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Mike Klonsky: Can Rahm Hold On?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
21

As almost everyone reports, Chicago is on fire with outrage. The question, says Mike Klonsky, is whether Rahm will resign or will tough it out. 

 

His poll ratings are down below 20%. He said in the past that he couldn’t release the video of Laquan McDonald’s killing because of an ongoing investigation, but local reporters have found emails that contradict that story.

 

It just keeps getting worse, and there may be a teachers’ strike. The national media may say a teachers’ strike is all about greed, but parents in Chicago know that CTU will strike, if it does, to get libraries, the arts, smaller class sizes, and other things that their children are denied. It truly is about the students, and the parents know it. Teaching conditions are learning conditions.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Massachusetts: A Stunning Conflict of Interest

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
26

EduShyster was alerted by a confidential tip to the possibility that Jim Peyser, the State Secretary of  Education, remains a director of an organization that lobbies for more charter schools.

 

She checked public records and learned that Peyser is still listed as a director of “Families for Excellent Schools.” This is an organization of hedge fund managers, millionaires, and billionaires who lobby for privately managed charter schools.

 

“The Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself.As the Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself….

 

 

“But wait, there’s more
“If it sounds like our Secretary of Education has his hands full, both lobbying and being lobbied, consider that Father Peyser wears yet another cap these days. He is also the defendant in a class-action lawsuit vs. the state’s charter cap, defending the very cap that he is working feverishly, whilst wearing one of his other caps, to lift. The obvious question: how does he do it all? Followed by: what size hat does Peyser wear? Followed by: doesn’t Massachusetts have some kind, ANY kind of, conflict of interest law? Alas, I’m informed that its nearly as toothless as our public records law.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Massachusetts

Cuomo Vetoes Funding Bill for CUNY

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
6

Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of Néw York, reports that Givernor Cuomo vetoed an increase for CUNY. This affects the education of the city’s neediest students.

Dear Members,

We got the news at midnight last night that Governor Cuomo vetoed the Maintenance of Effort bill. We had been receiving signals for more than a month that there would be a veto, but we continued to press till the final night.

Governor Cuomo’s veto represents a decision not to invest in sustaining top-quality college education for the working people, the poor and the people of color in New York. His position is now absolutely clear.

Cuomo had the chance with this bill to take an action that had huge bipartisan support and that would have resonated not only in New York City but across the state. He deliberately refused that chance, despite his repeated claims of being a leader in progressive policy. He cannot be a progressive while systematically withholding funds from CUNY.

No doubt Cuomo ‘s defense–which will soon appear in the veto message–will be that the bill would take spending over the 2% cap he has imposed on any increases. But what is the justification for the 2% cap? Nothing. With State revenues up by 5.6% this year, there is no fiscal justification for imposing such a cap. It is simply austerity politics: the decision to transfer wealth from the many to the few and call it “necessity.” And like everything else in this country, austerity policy cannot be separated from the issue of race.

Austerity policy means that we in the faculty and staff have been subsidizing New York State as our salaries have not kept up with inflation, and that students have been forced to facilitate the State’s disinvestment in their education as they pay an ever-greater share of the costs. It means that CUNY and SUNY are prevented from making enhancements desperately needed after decades of fiscal starvation, and that endless tuition increases are demanded just to keep the universities afloat.

You, as PSC members, did an exceptional job of supporting this bill. The bill would not have been passed and sent to the Governor without our collective work. You mobilized to get thousands of messages from members, first to the Legislature and then to the Governor. You collected 40,000 postcards on the MOE from students. You traveled to Albany and organized here in the city.

And the bill’s sponsors, Assembly Member Deborah Glick and Senator Kenneth La Valle, deserve our thanks. They went beyond sponsorship to tenacious support.

The union’s work is not wasted. We have made it clear to Albany that the issue of CUNY funding has deep support and that it will not go away. We will not be stopped by one veto. The PSC already has in place our response to the veto and the next steps in our campaign. The fight will continue–and escalate.

With enough depth among our own membership and breadth among our allies, it is a fight we can win.

Barbara Bowen
President, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY
212-354-1252

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Higher Education, New York City

Chicago Students Protest School Lunches that Look Like “Prison Food”

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
27

Chicago students are threatening a one-day walkout on December 17 to protest the terrible school lunches they receive.

 

The fruit is bruised and moldy; the pizza looks as it was cooked three days ago. The kids are poor, but they don’t deserve to be fed food that is damaged goods. For some of these children, lunch may be the only meal they get. Why not serve them nutritious food? Mayor Emanuel runs the schools. He should be held accountable.

 

The food is prepared by Aramark, a private company that also supplies food to prisons and has a contract to clean the Chicago schools. Ever since Aramark won the custodial contracts, leading to the layoffs of experienced custodians, principals have complained about dirty buildings.

 

A modest proposal: Why not invite the Chicago Board of Education–all of them–to eat lunch in a public school every day for a week? Do you think they would show up?

Categories Chicago, Students

Miami Herald: Florida Loses about $70 Million to Closed Charters

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
12

As Florida has learned, charters open and charters close, and the state is left holding the bill. The AP and Miami Herald reports that the state of Florida lost some $70 million on charters that later closed.

 

One of them was the charter opened by Jeb Bush in Liberty City when he was planning to run for governor. It closed after eight years, having received $1.1 million in state funding.

 

 

 

The story is repeated across the state: Charter schools, which are public schools run by private groups, have received more than $760 million from state taxpayers since 2000 according to an Associated Press analysis of state Department of Education records. Schools can use the money for construction costs, rent payments, buses and even property insurance.

 

More capital money has gone to charter schools in Miami-Dade than any other county: about $179 million.

 

Yet charter schools in 30 districts have wound up closing after receiving as much as $70 million combined in such funding, the AP’s analysis showed. In all, more than $7.5 million went to almost 20 Miami-Dade charter schools that eventually shut their doors.

 

Taxpayers usually can’t recover the capital money invested in those schools because most of it has been spent on rent or leasing costs. The Department of Education reported it has taken back just $133,000 in the last three years from schools that closed.

 

“That’s definitely a concern as a taxpayer,” said Jaime Torrens, chief facilities officer for Miami-Dade schools. “If a school closes, whatever property was built with these public dollars, it doesn’t come back to the public. It remains with the owner of property.”

 

There have been cases where the district recuperated equipment left behind after a charter school closed. When the School for Integrated Academics and Technology abruptly closed its doors last year — after receiving $1.9 in state capital funding — Miami-Dade recovered computers, smart boards and furniture. When that happens, the district usually redistributes the equipment to other charter schools.

 

Charter schools open, charter schools close. And taxpayer money disappears.

 

 

 

 

 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article49565370.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Steven Singer: What Will ESSA Do?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
7

Steven Singer, teacher in Pennsylvania, tries to figure out the meaning of ESSA. It was debated, passed, and signed. It is very long. What does the future hold?

 

Does it reduce the federal role in public schools? Maybe.

 

Does it destroy Common Core State Standards? Possibly.

 

Is it an improvement on previous policies? Potentially.

 

Will it enable an expansion of wretched charter schools and unqualified Teach for America recruits? Likely.

 

The problem is this – it’s an over 1,000 page document that’s been open to public review for only two weeks. Though it was publicly debated and passed in the House and Senate, it was finalized behind closed doors and altered according to secure hurried Congressional votes. As such, the final version is full of legal jargon, hidden compromise, new definitions and verbiage that is open to multiple meanings.

 

How one reader interprets the law may be exactly the opposite of how another construes it.

Take the much-touted contention that the ESSA reduces the federal role in public schools. Even under the most positive reading, there are limits to this freedom.

 

The document continues to mandate testing children each year in grades 3-8 and once in high school. It also mandates academic standards and accountability systems. However, what these look like is apparently open to the states.

 

For instance:
The Secretary [of Education] shall not have the authority to mandate, direct, control, coerce, or exercise any direction or supervision over any of the challenging State academic standards adopted or implemented by a State.
That seems pretty clear. The federal government will not be able to tell states what academic standards to adopt or how student test scores should be used in teacher evaluations.

 

But it also says that states will have to submit accountability plans to the Department of Education for approval. It says these accountability plans will have to weigh test scores more than any other factor. It says states will have to use “evidence-based interventions” in the schools where students get the lowest test scores.

 

That sounds an awful lot like the test-and-punish system we have now.

 

What if your state decides to take a different road and reject the high stakes bludgeon approach to accountability? In that case, some readers argue schools could lose Title I funds – money set aside to help educational institutions serving impoverished populations.

 

Will that actually happen? No one knows.

 

Singer admits that he doesn’t know how matters will shake out. There is much in the law that is open to interpretation. For sure, we must be grateful to buy NCLB.

 

But he finds another lesson:

 

Education needs [to be] reformed. We need to repeal the bogus policies that have been championed by the 1% and their lapdog lawmakers. We need to get rid of test-based accountability. We need to trash high stakes testing, Common Core, value added measures, charter schools and a host of other pernicious policies. We need to initiate a real anti-poverty program dedicated to attacking the actual problem with our schools – inequality of resources.

 

But more than any of that, we need to reform our government.

 

We need to find a better way to make our laws. The process that shat out this ESSA must go.

 

Think about it. No Child Left Behind was an abject failure by any metric you want to use. It didn’t close achievement gaps – it increased them. And the major policy of this law – annual standardized testing – remains intact in the reauthorization!

 

There has been massive public outcry against annual testing. Parents are leading an exponentially growing civil disobedience movement shielding their children from even taking these assessments. Everyone seems to agree that we test kids too much – even President “I’ll-veto-any-bill-that-deletes-testing” Obama.

 

Yet our legislators did next to nothing to fix this problem.

 

Instead preference was given to lobbyists and corporatists interested in making a buck off funding set aside to educate children. The focus was on smaller government – not better government. These aren’t mutually exclusive, but they aren’t exactly one-and-the-same, either.

 

This can’t continue if we are to keep pretending we have a representative Democracy. The voice of lobbyists must not be louder than voters. Money must be barred from the legislative process. Demagoguery must not overshadow the public good. We need transparency and accountability for those making our laws.

 

Until that happens, we will never have a sound and just education policy, because we don’t have a sound and just government.

 

Categories Education Reform

OECD Study: Heavy Computer Use in Class Associated with Lower Scores

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
46

 

Now that the titans of the tech industry, in alliance with the U.S. Department of Education, are committed to increasing the use of technology and ignoring the loss and shortage of teachers, they would be well-advised to read this OECD study.

 

It found that students who use computers in school moderately perform better than those who use computers rarely. Those who use computers heavily perform worse than both of the other groups, even after demographics and social background are taken into account. A heavy investment in technology has no appreciable effect on academic performance.

Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates should read this study. They both promote “personalized education,” which means every child using a computer with his/her own adaptive testing. This is machine-testing, not personalized education.

 

At the very least, this study should give pause as entrepreneurs push harder to invest in technology and discount the importance of teachers and human interaction between students and teachers.

Personalized education should involve interactions between two persons,not interaction between a student and a computer. That’s impersonated education.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, International, Technology, Computers

Ohio: Where Theft of Public Money is OK

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
16

Bill Phillis, former deputy Commissioner of Education in Ihio, runs the Equity and Adequacy Coalition.

Highway robbery is legal in the Ohio charter industry

The charter industry has been largely deregulated from the beginning. The charter promoters and operators have had unrestrained freedom to use public money recklessly and dumb down educational opportunities for children. This industry is not a part of the common school system but it is a bloated parasite extracting valuable resources from the public system.

It is legal or not illegal in Ohio’s charter industry:

For a for-profit charter school company to hold title to real estate, furniture, equipment and other tangible assets that were purchased with public money
For a charter school board to pay a company allied with their for-profit management company $700,000 per year rent to house 150 students
For a charter school of 600 students to pay $185,000 in year for marketing and promotion

For an online charter school operator to siphon off funds set aside to educate students to operate other private companies that personally benefit the charter operator

For a charter operation to help subsidize a worldwide religious movement

For charter school board members to serve without being a citizen of the United States

For non-profit charter sponsors and charter school boards to pay outrageously high salaries and benefits that would not be tolerated in the public common school system

For a person with no training or experience in education to operate a charter school

For the presence of nepotism and contractual relationships that would not be tolerated in the public common school system

For a charter operator to buy legislation via obscene levels of political contributions

For charters to spend unlimited amounts of funds on marketing and promotion

For charter operators to operate in the dark and be shielded from public exposure regarding illegal activities
The list goes on and on…

Children in public school districts are being robbed of educational opportunities by the transfer of more than $7 billion from districts to the failed charter industry over the past 15 years; yet, state officials allow this fraud on the public to go on and on and on.

Under pressure from the public, the 131st General Assembly passed legislation that will rein in some of the abuse now authorized by law. But big money from the charter industry, ineptitude of the Ohio Department of Education and the $71 million federal grant to expand charters will work together to fatten this failed industry.

The only hope is for the public common school community and advocates to band together to demand the end of this debacle that has utterly failed.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Charter Schools, Ohio, Privatization

David Berliner: Why It is Wrong to Evaluate Teachers by Student Test Scores

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
12

David Berliner is one of our most distinguished educational researchers. He has received numerous honors for his studies of education. He is currently Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University.

 

This video is a presentation that he made at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Australia. He explains why standardized tests are a terrible basis for teacher evaluation because the tests primarily reflect student demographics, not teacher quality.

 

Please set aside the time to watch and listen to this important presentation by one of our great scholars.

Categories Accountability, Testing

New York: The Opt Out Will Continue

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2015 //
32

This just in from the group that led New York’s historic opt out movement. One of every five students did not take the state tests last spring, over 220,000 students.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 15, 2015
More information contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education http://www.nysape.org

Parents Will Continue to Opt Out Until Ed Law Repealed &
Real Change Seen in the Classrooms

The Governor’s Common Core Task Force released a list of recommendations last Thursday, Dec. 10th. The recommendations while a reflection of the parent and educator voices around the state do not alone restore trust in Albany. How the recommendations and other issues get addressed is the key and parents are watching this very closely.

Until there is a halt of the Common Core standards, repeal of the Education Transformation Act, major changes to the state tests, a reduction of unnecessary testing, protection of data privacy, and local control restored, parents will continue to Opt Out in large numbers.

The recommendations deliberately state that Governor Cuomo’s ‘signature’ legislation that enforces many of these harmful policies doesn’t need to be touched. On the contrary, this law is the prescriptive blueprint to these harmful policies that was passed by the legislature as part of the budget last spring.

One of the recommendations to put a 4-year moratorium on evaluating teachers based on the flawed Common Core state tests was officially voted into emergency regulations by the Board of Regents at today’s board meeting. Until the law is repealed, this moratorium does not reduce testing it actually does the opposite, increases testing and further puts a strain on school districts’ budgets to comply.

NYSAPE is calling on parents to Opt Out of state tests and any local tests that are linked to this corrupt and invalid evaluation system that clearly doesn’t provide value for the students, educators, or schools.

“The task force recommendations have opened the door to change. Much of these harmful policies came in through our legislature when they passed the Education Transformation Act against the will of the people they serve. Our State Assembly and Senate must now reverse this harmful legislation so that changes will be meaningful and substantial. Parents will be vigilant in following these changes every step of the way. We will continue to refuse to allow our children to participate in this system until ALL harmful reforms are removed from our classrooms,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Long Island public school parent and founder of Long Island Opt Out.

“Until specific laws and policies regarding standards, student assessment, teacher evaluation and school ranking are changed, parents will continue to boycott any system that ties high-stakes to standardized assessments.” Chris Cerrone, Erie County public school parent, educator, and school board member.

Jamaal Bowman, Bronx public school parent and middle school principal said, “Although I consider the task force recommendations to be a step in the right direction, it is merely a single step. At this point, there is too much uncertainty to get excited about where we are headed in our public schools. Until we know how the recommendations will be implemented, and by whom, and until the law tying teacher evaluations to test scores is revised or repealed, we will not be able to move forward and properly meet the holistic needs of our children.”

“How the Common Core, testing, and other education policies are revamped to be in the best interest of the children will be watched very closely by parents. I will not be opting my children into any unnecessary tests including local assessments that do not provide important feedback for my children,” said Lisa Rudley, Westchester County public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE.

“While there is much talk of high standards, there is little discussion of the non-curricular resources required to ensure that all students can succeed in the face of poverty and lack of adequate funding. It is disappointing that the task force failed to raise the question, if disadvantaged students were struggling prior to the implementation of the Common Core, how will simply raising the bar increase student achievement,” said Bianca Tanis, Ulster County public school parent, Rethinking Testing member and educator.

“After so much time and money has been wasted in forced implementation of flawed policy, students and educators of New York have been hurt and trust has been broken. We must repeal the APPR imposed by politicians who did not understand the domain. Scholars in schools of education and professional educators should design the best systems to achieve goals for public education,” said Katie Zahedi, Dutchess County, principal.

Marla Kilfoyle, Long Island public school parent, educator and BATS’ executive director said, “Teachers and parents do not trust NYSED, the ‘Tisch’ Regents’ majority, the legislature, or the Governor to be in charge of education. What they have done to our public education system and to our children is unconscionable. I have been an educator in NY for over 25 years and the mass destruction their policies have caused will take years to repair.”

NYSAPE, a grassroots organization with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state, is calling on parents to continue to opt out by refusing high-stakes testing for the 2015-16 school year. Go to http://www.nysape.org for more details on how to affect changes in education policies.

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Categories New York, Opt Out, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations
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