Archives for the month of: July, 2016
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Tulsa: Gist Raises Salaries for Administrators, Not for Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
7

You may remember Deborah Gist, who was previously Superintendent of Schools in Rhode Island, where she approved the mass firing of all the staff at Central Falls High School and became a hero of the corporate reform movement. TIME magazine named her one of the most important people of 2010 for her “courage” in firing so many educators at once.

Gist is now superintendent of schools in Tulsa and a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. She recently announced a massive reorganization that involved firings, pay raises, pay cuts, but no pay raises for teachers.

Needless to say, teachers were not happy.

[Gist] said the district eliminated 175 jobs and created 73 new ones – some at higher, some at lower salaries – but, overall, the change, she said, will shift almost $4 million back into schools.

But the head of the teachers union, Patti Ferguson Palmer, complains about the priorities of the spending.

“The teachers are going to have extra students in their classrooms. We, of all people, get that people deserve more money when they take on more responsibility…When so many of these people were already making six figures, and they’re getting a raise…to someone making $32,000, $33,000, and their kids are on food stamps, it makes it look like they’re not appreciated,” she said.

The swing in salaries was, in some cases, more than $20,000 up and down.

Gist said no amount of saving on the administrative side would significantly change teachers’ salaries, but the changes made so far would make a dent in savings.

“In all these cases, it’s resulting many millions of dollars in savings for Tulsa Public Schools,” she said.

Categories Oklahoma, Teacher Pay

Laura Chapman: ESSA and the Degradation of Teacher Preparation

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
21

Laura Chapman, retired arts consultant, predicts that the new “Every Student Succeeds Act” is a blow against professional teacher preparation. It offers carte blanche to the new institutions created by entrepreneurs and charter operators. She posted the following comment:

The biggest player in making teacher preparation an “anything goes” job is our US Congress with the passage of ESSA.

TITLE II—PREPARING, TRAINING, AND RECRUITING HIGH-QUALITY TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS, OR OTHER SCHOOL LEADERS is not just a bad joke for a title. It is cynically misleading.

ESSA marginalizes higher education’s role in teacher preparation. Scholarship is not required to prepare teachers or to be a teachers, or principal, or other school leader. All you need to do is be a producer of test scores as measures of “academic” achievement. All you have to do is let our governors expand the charter industry to teacher education by setting up an “authorizing entity” to approve “teacher preparation academies” for prospective Teachers, Principals, and other School Leaders.

Here are a couple of sections of ESSA that show the perverse incentives for awarding a master’s degree in a chartered
TEACHER , PRINCIPAL , OR OTHER SCHOOL LEADER PREPARATION ACADEMY .—The term ‘teacher, principal, or other school leader preparation academy’ means a public or other nonprofit entity, which may be an institution of higher education or an organization affiliated with an institution of higher education, that establishes an academy that will prepare teachers, principals, or other school leaders to serve in highneeds schools (not defined) and that—
‘‘
(A) enters into an agreement with a State authorizer that specifies the goals expected of the academy, including—

‘‘(i) a requirement that prospective teachers, principals, or other school leaders who are enrolled in the academy receive a significant part of their training through clinical preparation that partners the prospective candidate with an effective teacher, principal, or other school leader, as determined by the State, respectively, with a demonstrated record of increasing student academic achievement, including for the subgroups of students…, while also receiving concurrent instruction from the academy in the content area (or areas) in which the prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader will become certified or licensed that links to the clinical preparation experience; ‘‘

(ii) the number of effective teachers, principals, or other school leaders, respectively, who will demonstrate success in increasing student academic achievement that the academy will prepare; and ‘‘

(iii) a requirement that the academy will award a certificate of completion (or degree, if the academy is affiliated with, an institution of higher education) to a teacher only after the teacher demonstrates that the teacher is an effective teacher, as determined by the State, with a demonstrated record of increasing student academic achievement either as a student teacher or teacher-of-record on an alternative certificate, license, or credential; ‘‘
(iv) a requirement that the academy will award a certificate of completion (or degree, if the academy is affiliated with an institution of higher education) to a principal or other school leader only after the principal or other school leader demonstrates a record of success in improving student performance; and

(v) timelines for producing cohorts of graduates and conferring certificates of completion (or degrees, if the academy is affiliated with, an institution of higher education) from the academy; ‘‘

(B) does not have unnecessary restrictions on the methods the academy will use to train prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader candidates, including—
‘‘(i) obligating (or prohibiting) the academy’s faculty to hold advanced degrees or conduct academic research;
‘‘(ii) restrictions related to the academy’s physical infrastructure;
‘‘(iii) restrictions related to the number of course credits required as part of the program of study;
‘‘(iv) restrictions related to the undergraduate coursework completed by teachers teaching or working on alternative certificates, licenses, or credentials, as long as such teachers have successfully passed all relevant State-approved content area examinations; or
‘‘(v) restrictions related to obtaining accreditation from an accrediting body for purposes of becoming an academy; ‘‘

(C) limits admission to its program to prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader candidates who demonstrate strong potential to improve student academic achievement, based on a rigorous selection process that reviews a candidate’s prior academic achievement or record of professional accomplishment; and
‘
(D) results in a certificate of completion or degree that the State may, after reviewing the academy’s results in producing effective teachers, or principals, or other school leaders, respectively (as determined by the State) recognize as at least the equivalent of a master’s degree in education for the purposes of hiring, retention, compensation, and promotion in the State.”

These specification appear to come from the training models offered by the recently formed “Coalition” of charter teacher prep academies and programs well-funded by foundations. These programs have token or no ties to higher education. Charter residency programs are operated primarily to offer a “pipeline of talent” for charter schools. The new “Coalition” is a functioning as a lobby to keep students’ academic test scores as the measure of effective teaching and teacher preparation programs funded by ESSA. The Coalition includes Urban Teachers, Aspire Public Schools, Blue Engine, Boston Teacher Residency, Match Teacher Residency, National Center for Teacher Residencies, Relay Graduate School of Education (a darling of Bill Gates), Teach for America, and TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project).

In ESSA, Congress has expressed absolute contempt for professional preparation of teachers. They approved a law that insists on… “no restrictions” on faculty academic qualifications, “no restrictions” on where academies exist, “no restrictions” on course credits (including undergraduate and academy programs), and freedom to operate with no accreditation “as long as such teachers have successfully passed all relevant State-approved content area examinations.”

The law is conspicuously tilted to support high scores on academic tests as the measure of “effectiveness.” Effectiveness is not formally defined but in ESSA it is used 150 times

(5) “TEACHER RESIDENCY PROGRAM —The term ‘teacher residency program’ means a school-based teacher preparation program in which a prospective teacher— ‘‘

(A) for not less than 1 academic year, teaches alongside an effective teacher, as determined by the State or local educational agency, who is the teacher of record for the classroom;

‘‘(B) receives concurrent instruction during the residency year

‘‘(i) through courses that may be taught by local educational agency personnel or by faculty of the teacher preparation program; and

‘‘(ii) in the teaching of the content area in which the teacher will become certified or licensed; and

(C) acquires effective teaching skills, as demonstrated through completion of a residency program, or other measure determined by the State, which may include a teacher performance assessment.

As I read Part 5, the teacher residency program is ambiguous. A teacher residency is typically a paid full-time co-teacher position, with the novice having full responsibility for classes well before the end of the school year, including securing proofs of their ability to increase the academic achievement (test scores) of their students. Meanwhile most residencies also require job-specific coursework (in addition to the full-time residency) that will justify earning a master’s degree. However, Part C seems to permit a direct path into teaching by taking a state approved performance assessment such as edPTA.

I can vouch for one thing about ESSA. It is a patched together law which deserves and F for clarity, wisdom, and sound investment of tax dollars.

Title II of ESSA calls for a four-year appropriation totaling $11,079,417,150. That is a huge investment, given the estimated demand per year for about 160,000 new teachers to take the place of teachers who will retire in the next four years.

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Teacher Education

Jonathan Pelto: Who Are the Billionaires Determined to Privatize Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
34

Jonathan Pelto wrote an illuminating and informative post about the members of the “Billionaire Boys Club,” or should I say the “Billionaire Boys and Girls Club,” since Alice Walton, Laurene Powell Jobs, Penny Pritzker, and several other women belong.

Pelto writes:

The colossal and disastrous effort to privatize public education in the United States is alive and well thanks to a plethora of billionaires who, although they’d never send their own children to a public school, have decided that individually and collectively, they know what is best for the nation’s students, parents, teachers and public schools.

From New York City to Los Angeles and Washington State to Florida, the “billionaire boys club,” as Diane Ravitch, the country’s leading public education advocate, has dubbed them, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars via campaign contributions, Dark Money expenditures and their personal foundations to “fix” what they claim are the problems plaguing the country’s public schools.

These neo-gilded age philanthropists claim that the solution is for parents, teachers and education advocates to step aside so that the billionaires and their groupies can transform public education by creating privately owned and operated – but taxpayer funded – charter schools.

In addition, they pontificate that students learn best when schools are mandated to use the ill-conceived Common Core standards so classrooms become little more than Common Core testing factories and the teaching profession is opened up to those who haven’t been burdened by lengthy college based education programs designed to provide educators with the comprehensive skill sets necessary to work with and teach the broad range of children who attend the country’s public schools.

The billionaire’s proclaim that the solution to creating successful schools is really rather simple.

They say that public schools run best when they are run like a business…

Cut through their rhetoric and the billionaires want us to believe that by introducing competition and the concept of “profit” they can turnaround any school, no matter the challenges it or its students may face….

Privatization, they argue, will lead to greater efficiencies while opening up the public purse to those who have products that they seek to sell to our children and our public schools.

John Dewey famously wrote that what the best parent wants for his child is what we should want for all children, but the billionaires have flipped that sage advice on its head. They say, “My kids need small classes, experienced teachers, and beautiful schools, but your children don’t.”

Jon Pelto has an exhaustive list of the billionaires who are out to undermine public education.

He identifies them by name, by their net worth, and by their pet causes.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

A Cruel Hoax: Mississippi Honored for “Innovation”

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
16

The Education Commission for the States, a once reputable organization, recently decided to honor Mississippi with the 2016 Frank Newman Award for State Innovation.

Among other things, Mississippi was honored for expanding charter schools, prioritizing early literacy, and adopting an A-F grading system for schools (invented by Jeb Bush), which closely tracks the family incomes of students. Maybe Jeb Bush and Arne Duncan should have gotten the Frank Newman Award for Innovation. Mississippi was just going with the flow.

Unmentioned in the award was that the Governor and State Legislature of Mississippi fought successfully just a few months ago to block an increase in state funding for the public schools of Mississippi.

Also unmentioned is that Mississippi has adopted the strategy of not promoting third graders unless they pass a standardized test, which has no evidence of success. About 15% of students do not pass, although some will qualify for a “good cause exemption.” The law was amended this year to raise the bar and flunk more children.

The ECS statement says that Mississippi saw “historic gains” on NAEP at both 4th and 8th grades. But this is not true. The state registered no gains in eighth grade, in either mathematics or reading. There were gains in fourth grade, but Mississippi is nonetheless one of the lowest performing states in the nation.

What kind of standards does ECS have for making this award? Is the award meant to recognize states that refuse to fund their schools adequately and that enact legislation to privatize the public schools and to penalize students?

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Mississippi

Dana Goldstein: Hillary Changes Direction from Obama on Education Policy

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
32

Dana Goldstein, veteran education journalist, reports that Hillary Clinton is striking a very different note with teachers and their unions than Obama did.

Obama’s education policies were shaped to cut the power of unions and to reduce teachers’ job protections. His administration was openly hostile to public schools and teachers. In response to the hedge fund managers at Democrats for Education Reform, whose favorite he was, and to the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, the Obama administration invested heavily in privately managed charter schools and forced thousands of public schools to close, based on their test scores. The burden of school closings fell mainly on poor communities of color, which were destabilized by his punitive policies.

Goldstein says that Hillary is taking a very different tack:


Clinton’s speech to the NEA was notable both for what she said and, perhaps even more so, for what she didn’t say. She promised to expand access to child care and pre-K, pay teachers more, forgive their college debt, construct new school buildings, and bring computer science courses into K-12 education. While a brief mention of successful charter schools (most of which are not unionized) was met with scattered boos, for the most part the audience of activist teachers greeted Clinton ecstatically, chanting “Hillary, Hillary!”

Following eight years of federally driven closures and turnarounds of schools with low test scores, which have put union jobs at risk, it was music to the NEA’s ears when the presumptive Democratic nominee promised to end “the education wars” and “stop focusing only on quote, ‘failing schools.’ Let’s focus on all our great schools, too.” And in a big departure from the school-reform rhetoric of President Barack Obama, the only time Clinton referenced “accountability” was to refer not to getting rid of bad teachers, but to giving unions a bigger voice in education policy. “Advise me and hold me accountable,” she said. “Keep advocating for your students and your profession.”

This speech, the first big moment for K-12 education in this general election, signals a potentially meaningful shift in Democratic Party education politics. The Obama era has been, often, a painful one for teachers-union activists. Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007 as an ally of Democrats for Education Reform, a group of philanthropists (most with ties to the financial sector) who support weakening teachers’ tenure protections, evaluating teachers according to their students’ test scores, and increasing the number of public charter schools.

Obama held many positions with which teachers’ unions agreed, like helping teachers improve through peer mentorship programs and pushing states to embrace the Common Core national curriculum standards. Still, he represented a wing of the Democratic Party that thought unions held too much sway over education policy, and in 2008, the NEA chose not to endorse in the Democratic primary, while the other national teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers, endorsed Obama’s primary challenger, Hillary Clinton.*
As president, Obama followed through on his promises to union critics. He created a $4 billion program, Race to the Top, that tied federal education dollars to policies like evaluating teachers according to student test scores and weakening tenure protections, so underperforming teachers could more easily be fired.

Goldstein’s conclusion is premature:

It’s safe to say it is a new day for the Democratic Party on education policy. But here’s hoping that Clinton’s turn toward the unions doesn’t mean she lets go of some of the Obama administration’s more promising recent ideas.

It is too soon to say whether it is a new day for the Democratic policy on education policy. DFER has not gone away, nor have the billionaires who want to crush teachers, unions, and public schools.

And I wonder what the Obama administration’s “more promising recent ideas” are. I haven’t heard them. John King was known in New York for his zealous embrace of Common Core, high-stakes testing, opposition to opt out, and commitment to evaluating teachers by test scores. His brief tenure as Education Secretary does not show any disposition on his part to abandon those policies.

So, as the saying goes, time will tell. We should all give Hillary Clinton a chance to change direction. Heaven knows we can’t continue with the federal government making war on public schools and their teachers. If that’s what she means by ending the education wars, I am all for it.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Privatization, Testing

Ken Bernstein: What Happened When Trump Met with Republican Members of Congress

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2016 //
25

To get a measure of Donald Trump, read about his meetings with Republican members of the Senate and the House.

He insulted those who had not supported him. He threatened retaliation. He expressed ignorance of the Constitution. He was rude and crude. He was Donald Trump.

Categories Trump

Peter Greene: There is No Meaningful Difference Between a For-Profit Charter and a Non-Profit Charter

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2016 //
77

Throughout this presidential campaign, we have been treated (or subjected) to statements by both Democratic candidates Clinton and Sanders about charters: They don’t like “private charters” (Sanders) or “for-profit charters” (Clinton).

There are no “private charters.” All charters receive public funding. That’s what makes them so attractive to investors. That secure stream of government funding.

At the very least, we can be glad that Clinton is opposed to the for-profits, which rip off taxpayers and divert public funding to their stockholders and owners. Let’s hope that means she is prepared to cut off federal funding that goes to the scam artists of the charter world. No more 3-card Monte with public dollars.

But is there a difference between “for-profit charters” and “non-profit charters”?

Peter Greene says it is a distinction without a difference.

He writes:


In this scenario, I set up my non-profit school– and then I hire a profitable management company to run the school for me. The examples of this dodge are nearly endless, but let’s consider a classic. There’s the White hat management company that was being dragged into court way back in 2011. This particular type of arrangement was known as a “sweeps contract,’ in which the school turns over close to all of its public tax dollars and the company operates the school with that money– and keeps whatever they don’t spend. The White Hat story is particularly impressive, because the court decided that White Hat got to keep all of the materials and resources that it bought with the public tax dollars.

Or consider North Carolina businessman Baker Mitchell, who set up some non-profit charter schools and promptly had them buy and lease everything– from desks to computers to teacher training to the buildings and the land– from companies belonging to Baker Mitchell. From Marian Wang’s 2014 profile:

To Mitchell, his schools are simply an example of the triumph of the free market. “People here think it’s unholy if you make a profit” from schools, he said in July, while attending a country-club luncheon to celebrate the legacy of free-market sage Milton Friedman.

Real estate grabs

All charter schools– even the non-profits– can get into the real estate business as a tasty sideline for providing a school-like product. Charter producers can find money to fund a building and then– voila– they own a tasty piece of real estate. Remember– thanks to some Clinton-era tax breaks, an investor in a charter school can double the original investment in just seven years!

In fact, there are real estate companies in the charter school business. And this can be a particularly terrible deal for the taxpayers. Bruce Baker lays out here how the public can pay for the same building twice– and end up not owning it. Read the whole thing– it’s absolutely astonishing.

Write a big fat check

If you have the giant cojones for it, you can just write yourself a big fat check with all those public taxpayer dollars. To use one of everyone’s favorite data points– Carmen farina is paid $200,000 to oversee 135,000 employees and 1.1 million students. Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy chain handles 9,000 students, for which Moskowitz is paid almost half a million dollars. And while Moskowitz gets plenty of attention, she is by no means unique….

And that’s just the profit issue

This is before we talk about every anti-democratic, school-destroying, segregation-spreading, education-failing, community-disrupting, and achievement-gap-increasing aspect of charter schools. As readers of this blog know, while charters can (and once were) a good thing, the modern charter movement has turned them into one of the most destructive forces in education today.

But we’re going to maintain focus

We’re going to stick to one point, and the point is this– to pretend that there is a substantive difference between profit and non-profit charter schools is either willfully ignorant or deliberately misleading. I’ve said it many times– a modern non-profit charter school is just a for-profit school with a good money-laundering plan.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

George Joseph: TFA Goes Global with Predictable (Elitist) Results

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2016 //
7

Investigative journalist George Joseph assesses the alarming transformation of Teach for America into Teach for All. The Ugly American has arrived to disrupt teaching and education, to provide jobs for young college graduates, and to put poorly trained “teachers” in front of kids who need good teachers.

He writes:

Since 2007, adaptations of Teach for America’s controversial model have been implemented in 40 countries, on every continent except Antarctica, thanks to Kopp’s Teach for All network. Though the organizations are financed through varying mixes of corporate, foundation, and state funding, there’s a remarkable continuity in the network’s so-called “Theory of Change,” regardless of national differences in teacher training, student enrollment, and infrastructure quality. Given the burgeoning presence of Teach for India in the nation’s troubled school system, the project of exporting the Teach for America model is being put to a high-profile test. If deemed successful, this model will be poised to deliver large portions of India’s education system—and, indeed, others all over the world—into the control of the private sector on a for-profit basis.

Joseph goes into detail about the workings of Teach for All in India (Teach for India), where the effort is led by an Indian woman who sounds very much like Wendy Kopp: privileged, smart, and alert to a great opportunity.

TFI, according to its official account, sprang to life after Shaheen Mistri, a prominent nonprofit leader in Mumbai, walked into the Manhattan office of Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp in 2007 and declared, “We have to start Teach for India, and I need your help!” Teach for America has become famous for tackling inequality in education by training young graduates from elite schools to teach in public schools for two years and then become advocates for “education reform”—a contested agenda that includes increasing the number of privately operated charter schools and limiting the power of teachers’ unions. TFA’s critics say that inexperienced teachers make educational inequality worse, and that the organization has become a Trojan horse for the private takeover of public-sector resources. And TFA’s recruiting numbers have dropped in recent years, as skepticism of the once-lauded organization grows.

In India, meanwhile, the education system is rife with problems even more daunting than in the United States. In 1966, during the country’s post- partition development period, the Kothari Commission declared that India needed to spend at least 6 percent of its GDP on education. Like most South Asian countries, it failed to come close to this figure. In recent years, despite India’s incredible economic growth, the most it has ever spent on education was 4.4 percent of its GDP, in 2000.

The results have been predictably appalling. According to the Right to Education Forum, in the 2013–14 school year, India had 568,000 teaching positions vacant, and only 22 percent of working teachers had ever received in- service training. This massive shortage means that as of 2015, more than half of Indian public schools were unable to comply with the 2009 Right to Education Act’s mandatory class-size ratios (no more than 30 students to one teacher in elementary schools and 35 in secondary schools). Further, a whopping 91,018 Indian public schools function with just one teacher. Also, more than 50 percent of Indian public schools lack handwashing facilities; 15 percent lack girls’ toilets; and nearly 25 percent don’t have libraries. As in many developing countries, these failures fuel the problem of teacher absenteeism in India.

Like TFA founder Kopp, a Princeton graduate who realized that a career in finance was not for her, Mistri began her forays into educational reform from the outside looking in. Every bit the “global citizen,” Mistri describes her privileged upbringing, including traveling first class from “sandy coves on Greek islands” to “the Austrian countryside,” in her book on TFI’s founding. After a year at Tufts University, she experienced her epiphany while sitting in a taxicab on a family vacation in Mumbai. “Three children ran up to my window, smiling and begging, and in that moment I had a flash of introspection,” Mistri writes. “I suddenly knew that my life would have more meaning if I stayed in India. I saw potential in that fleeting moment—in the children at my open window and in myself.”

Will Teach for India solve the massive problems of Indian education? Or will they relieve the government of any need to encourage a teaching profession that is committed to careers in teaching?

Categories International, Teach for America

Dennis Ian on Teach for America Corps Members as Camp Counselors

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2016 //
17

Dennis Ian, a regular reader and commenter on the blog, writes here about Teach for America:


Teach for America … little more than camp counselors without the pine trees on their shirts.

Imagine for a moment the instant promotion of butchers to surgeons … or deck builders to bridge engineers. Imagine Cub Scout troop leaders as military generals … or menu makers as the next classic authors.

Like any job, teaching is layered with misconceptions … and it’s further distorted by Hollywood fantasies.

Everyone is so seduced by Hollywood and tv-land that they actually think they could sail right into a classroom and every kid would sing the theme song of “To Sir, with Love”. And the world would cry because of their greatness.

Everyone seems to see that “To Sir, With Love” guy winning over the thuggery class and becoming a revered legend overnight. Or that Mr. Chips who seems to sweat wisdom … because he’s so over-supplied with it. Were that the case, I would have hung in the position until I was a hundred and my wisdom ran dry.. But it’s not.

Teaching is lots of stuff few imagine … and lots of hours even fewer acknowledge. It’s not a job you get very good at very quickly either … even with the best preparation. It’s not all knowledge either … it’s technique and personality and polishing a persona and perfecting a delivery … as well as knowing your subject inside out … and keeping current in the ever changing field.

It’s about intuition. And listening to that intuition. And acting on it with confidence mortared over years.

It’s about love … all sorts of love.

There’s easy love …for those kids that just joy you day-in-and-day-out. They’re great students, great kids … with great personalities and great everything.

Then there’s that hard love … for the kid with the green snot and the girl with the matted hair … and unpleasant aroma. Or for the boy who’s an accomplished bully at age 13 … and thinks this is his lot in life. Then there’s the broken child … who seems already to have quit life. And the loud, annoying sort … who’s probably masking a world of hurt. What about the invisibles? … the kids who practice invisibility because their daily ambition is to go unrecognized and un-included … for whatever dark reason. Prying them out of their darkness can take months … if it ever really happens.

There’s lots more to describe, but it’s unnecessary. What is necessary is to imagine engaging all of these kids in the right way day after day … and then seeing to it that they make educational progress as well. Making sure they’re prepared for the next level … the next challenges. Oh … and you lug all of this stuff around in your head and your heart … all the time.

And then, just to make this all even more interesting, weave in the mundane that actually captures most of your time … never-ending grading that snatches away your Sundays, faculty and department meetings, parent confabs, planning, gathering things you need and resources you want. Colleague exchanges and innovative thinking. Blend in some school politics and the usual work-place agita … and maybe some deep intrigue at times. Oh, and don’t forget your family … those folks you bump into when you’re half dressed. They want a piece of you, too.

I’m certain that five week preparation period offered by the Teach for America leadership is gonna arm those greenhorn teachers to the max. However, I’am certain of much more.

Here’s the real ugly underbelly of Teach for America … and the ill-prepared idealists they let loose on lots of youngsters: the schools that take them on are almost always the poorest of the poor … because authentic teachers will not take on that challenge without proper compensation. These are the children most in need of real teachers … with real preparation … ready to change lives and manage all that such an effort entails.

Please don’t dismiss the compensation issue. The public needs to understand that the same rewards that motivate others in varied professions also applies to teachers. They are not undisguised priests or ministers. They’re family men and women with all of life’s aspirations and obligations. If society wants the best-of-the-best in the most challenging circumstances, then this society should do what is done all across the world of work … pay the deserving salaries.

To foist these ill-prepared teachers on the most disadvantaged children seems like an over-costly outrage in order to soothe some young idealist’s commitment to mankind. These young learners need our most seasoned professionals … even if the cost exceeds the usual. There is no greater long term cost to a society than a child ill-educated for the complexities of this intricate world.

Teach for America is yet another “feel good” folly that’s become so voguey among those smugly satisfied with easy imagery rather than hard reality.

Denis Ian


Categories Teach for America

Michigan: How to Kill a School District by Reforming It

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2016 //
16

This alarming article describes the destruction of the Highland Park, Michigan, school district.

Once a thriving community, Highland Park suffered as the automobile industry declined. Its schools declined as the community became poorer and blacker.

The Highland Park district is more than 90% black. That makes it just right for a state takeover because it does not have political power. So, get ready for the “civil rights movement of our time” to step in, take charge of the schools, and kill off the district.

Governor Rick Snyder thought he knew how to fix the ills of Highland Park: He appointed an emergency manager to set its financial house in order in 2012. The emergency manager was an accountant. He also had spent some time working for White Hat, the for-profit charter company in Ohio, which has perfected the extraction of funds from public money for private gain.

The first emergency manager was gone in a few months, and a new one was installed.

Instability and churn were the watchwords of the districts that Governor Synder took over.

In all, the Highland Park School District has had five emergency managers at the helm over the 4 1/2 years it has been under state control.

Still, Highland Park’s public school system continued to disintegrate, finally reaching the point today where it barely exists at all.

For anyone seeking a measuring stick to assess the job done by the district’s emergency managers and the for-profit charter school company hired to run Highland Park schools, the most telling statistic may be this:

At the time of the takeover, the district had 969 students. Today, that number, according to the state’s school data web site, is 311 — a drop of nearly 70 percent. Moreover, all of the students attend the district’s last remaining school, which serves both elementary and middle school students.

The state takeover was complicated:

Operating under a paradigm similar to the new system created for Detroit Public Schools, there are two public school districts operating side-by-side in Highland Park.

One is the “old” district, known as the School District of the City of Highland Park.

That district is overseen by an elected school board that has virtually no power and nothing to do with governing the education provided to the city’s children.

The “old” district exists only to pay accumulated debt.

Just how much is owed?

School board members have been asking for that number. But, according to the state of Michigan, no one — including the emergency manager put in place by Snyder to ensure the debt gets paid off — can say exactly what it really is, because legally required financial audits haven’t been filed for the past two years.

A second, “new” district was created in 2012 by Joyce Parker, the second of five EMs appointed by Snyder to control education in Highland Park. This new district, unencumbered by the debt being paid off by the “old” district, was supposed to flourish because all per-pupil state funding was, ostensibly, able to go toward education and not toward satisfying the demands of bondholders.

However, in 2014, Michigan Radio reported that the new district was already facing a deficit of about $600,000, a shortfall attributed in large part to a continued decline in enrollment.

This new district — known as the Highland Park Public School Academy System — is operated by The Leona Group, a private, for-profit charter school management company with a checkered past.

The entire district was handed over to a for-profit charter chain. No more public education. Families are fleeing. Soon there won’t be a district.

Michigan has perfected a formula for destroying an entire school district.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Michigan, Privatization
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