A reader sent me this photograph of a wall facing Dr. Steve Perry’s school in Hartford, Connecticut.
After posting about it, I happened to meet the artist who created it at a community event. He emailed the photo to me. I enlarged it, framed it, and it sits on my desk.
I want to share with you something I love watching. It shows my age. It is a dance number performed by Bob Hope and James Cagney.
Yankee Doodle Dandy!
They are having such fun that it makes you smile. Made me smile.
But then I am so much older than most of you that you may not even know who Hope and Cagney are.
If you do, this will bring joy to your heart. We can all use that.
Phyllis Bush is a retired teacher in Indiana. She is a co-founder of Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, and a board member of the Network For Public Education.
She writes:
“Many politicians are beholden to their base in order to be re-elected. Because so few people have traditionally voted, especially in off years, unhappy voters are hugely influential in setting the political agenda for the rest of us. Since those unhappy folks are mad about nearly everything, they choose candidates and instruct them to cut taxes and to obstruct governance.
“Then when nothing gets done, we are all angry, and we blame it on everyone but ourselves, because those who voted, voted for obstructionists and hard liners, and the rest of us stayed home and complained about our votes not counting. We should hardly be shocked since this is what we get from our apathy.
“Instead of looking for solutions to deal with the serious issues facing us, we get distracted by non-issue threats like transgender bathrooms rather than real issue threats like repairing our infrastructure or dealing with inadequate funding of our social services. This vicious cycle continues because rather than telling their constituents the truth about issues and about choices that need to be made to solve these issues, politicians appeal to our baser selves by sowing seeds of discontent and by concentrating on wedge issues rather than on the compromises needed for governance.
“The bottom line is that it is our own fault because we want easy answers to the complexities of life. We are willing to believe what we are told without questioning anyone who reinforces our pre-conceived notions. We are willing to rant and to complain and to blame. So, we sit at our keyboards and angrily click on the latest topic that annoys us, and we periodically rant about the latest slight that angers us–whether it is personal or political.
“If anything is ever to change, we need to get off our asses to do the hard work of living in a democracy. We need to get informed, to get engaged, to get involved, to think, and to hold our elected officials to the same standard as we would hold our friends and families.
“Rather than waiting for superman, we need to channel our own inner strength and roll up our sleeves to do what is necessary to change the world.”
I am very patriotic. I was a child during World War II, when Americans fought for freedom and democracy and to liberate the world from tyranny.
I want America to be the America I thought it would be in my childhood.
I want it to be a place with “liberty and justice for all.”
I want it to be a country where no one is homeless.
I want it to be a country where no one goes hungry, where everyone who wants to work can find a job that pays a living wage.
I want it to be a country where no one who is ill cannot afford medical care.
I want it to be a country where people get enough education to realize their hopes and dreams, without going deep into debt.
I want it to be a country where schools cultivate creativity and the joy of learning.
I want it to be a country where educators are treated with the same respect as other professionals.
I want it be to a country where neighbors help one another and care for one another.
I want it to be the country of the American Dream, a country where every child can grow up loved and live in dignity.
That’s what the Fourth of July means to me.
John Thompson has some good ideas to improve the Democratic party platform, from a teacher’s point of view.
He adds his suggestions to the platform language, in bold:
Democrats will invest in early childhood programs like Early Head Start and provide every family in America with access to high-quality childcare and high-quality pre-K programs. … To close the opportunity gap, we also must find ways to encourage mentoring programs that support students in reaching their full potential and make schooling a collaborative, team effort.
We must renew and expand our commitment to Community Health Centers, as well as … full-service community schools.
Democrats are committed to reforming our criminal justice system and ending mass incarceration. … We need to provide greater investment in jobs and education, and end to the school-to-prison pipeline, by funding Restorative Justice programs and opposing the mass suspension of students from No Excuses charter schools.
Democrats believe that we should not be contracting, outsourcing, or privatizing work that is inherently governmental in nature, including postal services, school services, and traditional public schools.
A major reason for the 40-year decline in the middle class is that the rights of workers to bargain collectively for better wages and benefits have been under attack at all levels. …Democrats believe so-called “right to work” laws are wrong for workers and wrong for America. We will continue to vigorously oppose Vergara v California and the other lawsuits led by Campbell Brown’s The 74, which would strike down laws protecting the due process rights of teachers.
We believe that personnel is policy. We will nominate and appoint regulators and officials who are not beholden to venture philanthropists who would silence the teaching profession and curtail its ability to contribute our professional judgments in debates over education policy.
Large corporations have concentrated their control over markets to a greater degree than Americans have seen in decades—further evidence that the deck is stacked for those at the top. Democrats will take steps to stop corporate concentration in any industry and in public education where it’s unfairly limiting competition by forcing traditional public schools to compete with CMOs, that don’t serve their share of poor and special education students, and English Language Learners, using the unreliable test results as the metric for keeping score.
Public education must engage students to be critical thinkers and civic participants while addressing the wellbeing of the whole child. Democrats believe that all students should be taught to high academic standards. Under no circumstances will we agree to the segregating of poor children of color into second class CMOs that impose soul-killing behaviorism and worksheet-driven instruction in order to jack up test scores and/or to defeat and privatize traditional public schools.
Peter Greene does not like the draft platform of the Democratic party.
The rhetoric and the jargon were too much for him.
Jack Hassard, professor emeritus of science education at Georgia State University, notes that Georgians will vote in November on whether to create a special district for low-performing schools, modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District.
If it passes (and who is against “opportunity”?), that means the state will gather together its lowest-performing schools and hand them over to charter operators, most from out of state. The charter operators will have years to demonstrate their stuff. If (and when) they don’t, the schools can be given to other charter operators.
In November when we vote to pick a new president (topic for a future post), citizens in Georgia will vote on a ballot amendment to the state constitution. If passed, this amendment (Senate Bill 133) will create a school district (Opportunity School District) that would authorize the Governor’s office to supervise, manage, and run a new school district made up of schools from across the state that have been determined to be failing, based on scores on standardized tests.
The state calls it the “Opportunity School District.” Hassard calls it the “Misfortunate School District.”
In what sane world would policymakers choose a model that has been tried and failed?
Who was ripped off by Trump University?
People who were too trusting.
The New York Times here describes the war widow who put her husband’s insurance policy into Trump University and found herself the object of unending sales pitches, not only from Trump University, but from “Cambridge Who’s Who,” a phony company affiliated with Donald Trump, Jr., which promised to give its clients recognition and a “brand.”
The sales pitches seeking to separate Cheryl Lankford from her money began during the recession as she struggled to get back on her feet after the death of her husband, an American soldier serving in Iraq.
Two of them were from companies that have boasted the Trump name.
One was Trump University, the real estate sales seminar that Donald J. Trump promoted as a way for average people to profit from opportunities in the housing market. Ms. Lankford said she spent $35,000 from an Army insurance payment to learn Mr. Trump’s secrets.
Another was Cambridge Who’s Who, a vanity publisher promising “branding services” that seemed to complement the real estate business she hoped to create. She paid thousands of dollars to Cambridge, whose spokesman and “executive director of global branding” was Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr.
Six years later, Ms. Lankford, who is 44 and has a son, has little to show for the money she spent, aside from a nagging sense that she was taken advantage of. Several friends in her community in San Antonio fell for similar offers, she said, but most are not eager to talk about it.
“As a widow, you find you were so dependent on your husband, and when you make a mistake because of predatory businesses, it’s embarrassing,” Ms. Lankford said. “We’re an easy target.”
“Easy target” might describe the audience for several enterprises stamped with the Trump brand that have been accused of preying upon desperation, inexperience or vanity. Some are well known. Trump University has most recently gained notice because of Mr. Trump’s attacks on the Mexican heritage of the judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit brought by former students. There was also a multilevel vitamin-selling enterprise, the Trump Network, that Mr. Trump had said would give hope to people looking to “opt out of the recession.”
But intersecting with these was another, largely unexamined, business venture, Cambridge Who’s Who, which generated hundreds of complaints that it deceptively peddled the promise of recognition in a registry, as well as branding and networking services of questionable value. Dozens of people who paid Trump-endorsed businesses were also sold products by Cambridge, which benefited from its partnership with Donald Trump Jr. through “leveraging relationships built by the Trump empire,” according to Cambridge.
Cambridge was not a Trump company; it was operated by Randy Narod, a Long Island, N.Y., nightclub and bagel store owner barred from the securities industry for having had an impostor take his licensing exam. However, Cambridge gained the Trump imprimatur when the younger Mr. Trump came on board in 2010 and began promoting its services as a way for people to distinguish themselves in a tough economic climate.
Can you believe that this huckster and snake-oil salesman is the Republican candidate for President?
Susan Ochshorn of ECE Policy Works offers these thoughts for the Democratic platform:
1) Children are rarely mentioned in this document. They are our precious “human capital,” the future of our nation and a robust democracy. I find their absence disturbing overall, but especially so in the section, “Poverty/Communities Left Behind.”
America’s child poverty rate puts us second only to Romania among advanced economies. The poverty rate for children under age 6 hovers around 22 percent. There are also whole communities of children across the nation living in communities of concentrated poverty, where more than 40 percent of families live below the line. All of this, in the richest nation in the world. [Diane’s note: Romania is not an ‘advanced nation,’ even though Susan correctly notes that some UN organizations created a list in which we ranked behind Romania in child poverty.]
2) Socioeconomic status has been shown to be a key factor in children’s academic success. Children living in poverty are more likely to be exposed to adverse childhood experiences–maternal depression, domestic and community violence, substance abuse, etc.–and suffer from toxic stress, which affects their ability to thrive in school.
3) Given all of the above, we need a much more comprehensive, holistic approach to early care and education. Universal preschool is essential, but families need support from the prenatal period, after birth, with paid parental leave and high-quality infant/toddler care. We must look to effective models of education that attend to the whole child, including community schools, which bring together social and mental health services and supports for parents.
4) We need to re-imagine education for all of our students, but especially for our youngest children, whose natural zest for learning we are squashing under the demands of standards-based accountability and the narrowed curriculum of the Common Core. The Finns, whose educational outcomes are stellar, see schools as laboratories for democracy–places of joy, exploration, and inquiry. They respect the unique developmental path of each child. Their children are not pushed into academic work and high-stakes testing at an early age.
Public Schools First NC reports here on the actions of the state legislature in its closing hours. It enacted as much as possible of the ALEC privatization agenda, inviting out-of-state charter operators to take over public schools, creating an “achievement school district” like the one that failed in Tennessee, and reducing oversight of charters.
Go to the website of http://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org to see the full report and open the links.
The $22.34 billion conference budget (and money report) was released Monday evening, June 27. The Senate passed the budget Wednesday, and the House passed it on Friday, July 1. The spending plan for the next fiscal year obviously affects our public schools in many ways:
Average 4.7% salary increase for teachers. The teacher salary schedule will restore annual step increases for teachers in years 0-14, at year 15 salary will stay the same for next 10 years.
Raises average teacher salaries to over $50,000 in 2016-17 and $55,000 over the next three years.
School administrators receive step increase and a 1.5% increase to base salaries
Noncertified school personnel receive a 1.5% salary increase.
School administrators and noncertified personnel will also receive a one-time 0.5% bonus.
Starts a pilot program for rewarding third grade teachers. Teachers who are in the top 25% in the state for EVAAS student growth index scores in reading will share $5 million. Teachers who are in the top 25% of their LEAs for the same score will share $5 million, and teachers who fall in both categories will receive both bonuses.
Expanding the voucher program by an extra $10 million and 2,000 students every year until 2026-2027 when spending will plateau at $134.8 million per year. The budget also expands the percentage of money that can go to Kindergarten and 1st grade recipients, from 35% to 40% of what remains after prior recipients are enrolled.
Keeping the school performance grade formula at 80% test scores, 20% growth and the 15-point scale will remain for the next three years.
Requiring maximum class size ratios are: Kindergarten 1:18; 1st grade 1:16; and 2nd and 3rd grade 1:17. The budget also eliminates districts’ flexibility around those caps.
Funding 260 new pre-K slots at a cost of $1.325 million. This is far less than the more than 7,000 children on the state’s pre-K waiting list and contrasts with both the governor’s and the House plans to spend $4 million on 800 spots.
Changing requirements for virtual charter schools, including reducing the percentage of teachers who must live in state from 90% to 80%, and changing the way students who withdraw are counted under the withdrawal rate cap of 25% by creating four new exceptions. For instance a student who withdraws for “a family, personal, or medical reason” and who notifies the school would not count as a withdrawal under the cap.
Reducing central office budgets by $2.5 million, bringing funding down to mid-90’s levels.
The House passed the omnibus charter school measure HB 242, which changes many aspects of charter reviews and renewals, despite the opposition of a national charter school group. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers criticized the bill in a letter because the changes leave little way for the State Board to close low-performing charters while also making reviews too infrequent for high-performing charters to be eligible for federal grants. The measure was sent to Governor McCrory to be signed on Wednesday, June 29.
In addition to the budget, the Senate amended and passed the ASD bill HB 1080 this week, over the objections of several Democratic members. Sen. Chad Barefoot amended the bill to require the chosen school operators be experienced in turning underperforming schools around, to allow the extension of the charter operators’ contracts, and to allow Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools to create an innovation zone with their existing Project Lift schools. The House quickly concurred with the coercive takeover measure and sent it to the governor along with its li’l buddy, HB 242. Is it a coincidence that a measure forcing communities to surrender schools to out-of-state charter operators was put before the governor on the same exact day as a measure shredding accountability for charter operators? I can raise one eyebrow at a time, and I’m doing it now. For real.
These bills and many others are on the governor’s desk now. No surprise vetoes are expected, but all that signing is a hand cramp waiting to happen. Keep hope alive!
Follow us on Facebook and the web for the latest on the massive voucher expansion contained in the budget. Refresh yourself on the differences between public and private schools in order to scrutinize the growing Opportunity Scholarship program.
Be sure to visit our LEGISLATIVE UPDATE page for information, including our Week In Review summary and our weekly video review.
Over the next few weeks, we will provide more in-depth analysis of the bills that impacted K-12 public education in North Carolina.
Diane Ravitch's blog 