Michelle Obama is a very accomplished speaker. She achieves unusual power in her words because she has the ability to be completely herself as she speaks.
The Los Angeles Times said that her speech in New Hampshire yesterday may have been “a defining moment” of the campaign. Whether that is so, time will tell. But having stayed up very late last night to watch it, I can attest that it is worth your time.
Bill Phillis, retired deputy superintendent of schools in Ohio and founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, fights for full funding of public schools and blows the whistle on charter scams.
In his latest bulletin, he notices the strange governance of the state’s Gulen charters:
“The tangled web of the business operation of Gulen charter schools in Ohio
“17 of the Gulen charters in Ohio have 85 governing board seats. The same 38 individuals fill all 85 seats. Some members sit on as many as four Gulen charter boards. In some cases, board members live 150 miles from the location of the charter. About 85 percent of the board members are of Turkish descent.
Click to access 85da4d4b-4650-43c3-bad0-f4e896e9cc63.pdf
“Several of these 38 charter board members also serve on the Concept Management company board, and further on the real estate company board.
Click to access 2f99bc8e-1420-4820-b599-b564d193c139.pdf
“The followers of the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, exiled in Saylorsburg PA, have devised this secretive, devious enterprise as a means of advancing the Gulen Islamic movement.
“State officials, charter school sponsors and a bevy of school choice advocates have allowed this heinous scheme to flourish. If charter schools were required to follow the same regulations as traditional public schools and were subjected to the same monitoring, this sham would not have been created and allowed to operate.
“More to come”
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Doug Garnett is a communications specialist and a regular reader of the blog. He writes here about reading “Policy Patrons,” by Megan Tomkins-Stange.
Been reading Policy Patrons. And it’s given me a different insight.
We all feel like Gates, Broad and others are “dictating” what happens. It’s hard – because they aren’t. What they’re doing is far more subtle but with similar results.
What they’ve done is create a “walled garden” of groups that are all paid to support their position. The list in this article is an example of creating that walled garden – a range of community organizations, researchers, university credibility, etc…
THEN, with the walled garden created, the foundations themselves never have to “tell the government what to do”. They are able to say “well, I know somebody who deals with that – you should talk with them”. Except the foundations have ensured that this “somebody” is somebody who will give the answer they want.
It’s incredibly deceptive – but politicians and press seem incapable of detecting when they’ve been had in this way. Because the “walled garden” of true “ed reform believers” are the only people they end up talking to. In a sense, Gates, Broad, et. al. deliver answers on a silver platter so that state education departments, school districts, politicians, and press don’t have to work hard.
This informal (but massive) walled garden they’ve build believes in testing as management, believes in CCSS, believes in charter schools, and believes that privatizing government services is always good.
As a result, state education bureaucrats NEVER have to wander outside the garden – so they never have to confront uncomfortable truths. (It’s dangerous outside those walls and that threatens one’s career.)
But this also explains why politicians are so shocked when citizens confront them with dissatisfaction with their policies – they’ve been blissfully living inside the Eden of Reform – unaware that they aren’t in touch with reality. I’ve seen this in Oregon. Our legislators cannot believe it when someone rational challenges what they’ve been doing.
It’s a HUGE problem for those of us who believe in public schools and believe in the value of researched answers. Because it’s not illegal what they’ve done. They believe it’s entirely moral. And they think they’re being “good people” by doing it. And it spreads blame by breaking it into tiny bits so no single organization can be blamed for much. Kind of a guaranteed “plausible deniability” clause.
Yet the result is entirely immoral – because it’s the future of our children.
Howard Blume reports in the Los Angeles Times that the Los Angeles school board is considering closing three Gulen charter schools. The schools are part of the Magnolia Science Academy network of 10 schools.
The problem is that the schools rely heavily on a Turkish teachers brought in on temporary work visas.
The three charters now under review have five-year operating agreements that are expiring, and the L.A. Unified School District must either approve or deny their renewal applications. The official word, with no accompanying explanation, reached their campuses by email Tuesday afternoon: School district staff will recommend denial.
The Board of Education is expected to vote next Tuesday on the recommendations for Magnolia Science Academy 1 in Reseda, Magnolia Science Academy 2 in Van Nuys and Magnolia Science Academy 3 in Carson.
Magnolia’s schools have attracted increased attention in the wake of a failed coup in Turkey in July. The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Turkish cleric Muhammed Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the revolt. Erdogan claims American charter schools with Turkish ties supported — and even helped fund — Gulen’s alleged activities.
L.A. Unified has not yet released its rationale for recommending that the schools’ renewal requests be denied. But sources inside and outside the district make it clear that one major issue is Magnolia’s foreign workers, most of whom came in to teach.
The school group applied to bring in 138 teachers from abroad, almost all from Turkey, and 97 eventually worked for Magnolia. Thirty-seven still do. As required by law, Magnolia covered the visa-related costs, which it estimated at about $3,000 per employee, and chose to pay for the visas of spouses and children.
L.A. Unified estimated the total cost of that effort at about $929,000, according to Magnolia Chief Executive Caprice Young, the former L.A. school board president who took over Magnolia in 2015.
Young said she ended the practice, though she has brought in a Chinese citizen to teach Chinese.
L.A. school board president Steve Zimmer, however, says Magnolia’s past actions remain a problem. Magnolia never indicated it intended to import teachers en masse, Zimmer said, when before the Board of Education for approval.
“The role of an authorizer includes making sure that a charter follows the instructional and business practices outlined in its petition,” said Zimmer, who declined to discuss the district’s internal report.
The significance of any alleged ties to Gulen is a matter of intense debate. The cleric, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, has denied involvement in the coup. And Turkish-associated charter groups, including Magnolia, have denied financial or management ties with each other or with him.
Magnolia’s Turkish employees agreed to be interviewed only on condition of anonymity, out of fear that family members back home could be targeted in a wide-ranging crackdown on dissidents and suspected Gulen followers. Magnolia governing board member Umit Yapanel recently stepped forward as an admirer of Gulen, he said, to emphasize the peaceful intentions of like-minded people.
“In discussing whether the schools should be renewed, L.A. Unified officials will bring up the spending of public education funds on the visas, the employment of foreign nationals over American workers and the failure to disclose the hiring strategy, said district sources who were not authorized to speak on the record. The work visas, known by the designation H-1B, are supposed to be used only when no qualified American job seekers can be found.”
Like other Gulen schools, the Magnolia chain denies any ties to the Turkish Gulen movement yet is heavily staffed by Turkish teachers. Gulen schools typically have Turkish board members and in other states have been investigated for steering contracts to Turkish contractors and vendors.
Anthony Cardinale is a third grade teacher who recently met with education commissioner MaryEllen Elia to discuss the Common Core and state testing in New York. She asked him to evaluate the released passages from the ELA tests. He found them to be developmentally inappropriate and summarized his finding in a report.
You can download the report at this link: cc-ela-passage-eval-2016-final-copy
Angie Sullivan teaches second grade in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. She is a passionate advocate for her students, most of whom live in poverty in a county blessed with untold riches.
Guess what? The Nevada Legislature has decided to issue bonds so that billionaire Sheldon Adelson can have a new stadium. Adelson is a far-right Republican; he was one of Newt Gingrich’s biggest supporters. He now supports Trump.
Angie writes about it here, in an email circulated to journalists, legislators, and school board members:
Important events.
Drop-out Sheldon Adelson declared one of America’s richest men
http://www.forbes.com/profile/sheldon-adelson/
Sheldon Adelson gave money to Trump – both have extreme political views.
http://fortune.com/2016/09/20/donald-trump-donation/
Trump is rejected by prominent Nevada Republicans
Sheldon Adelson wants a stadium and for tax payers to assume the risk.
http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/adelson-commits-personal-wealth-back-stadium-plan
U.S. Senator Harry Reid backs stadium.
http://m.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/reid-declares-support-stadium-raiders-move-las-vegas
Democratic Lobbyists campaign for stadium
http://www.ktnv.com/news/ralston/sands-to-stadium-committee-your-money-or-your-team
Special session called to give Adelson funding for stadium
Democratic Nevada Senators could stop stadium deal or at least make sure stadium jobs were union or starving public schools got much needed funding. They don’t.
A few Nevada Democratic Senators try
http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2016/oct/09/education-not-a-billionaire-deserves-our-tax-money/
The Culinary Union openly campaigns against this give-away to Billionaire Adelson – who is aggressively anti-union.
The DNC uses Culinary to campaign for Hillary.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_561c5817e4b050c6c4a29bc2
Democrats hate Adelson?
Seems confusing?
Perhaps circular.
Not hard to figure out; money is driving this car.
To be clear: Sheldon Adelson could pay for 20 stadiums if he wanted to do so. He enjoys making us do it for him.
___________
What these political money games look like for me?
I worked from 3:30pm to 7:30pm at my school trying to copy reading materials. I have zero reading textbooks. The copiers were not working.
No textbooks
No paper.
No copier.
I gave up for tonight.
And I am only one accountable?
Guess that makes me a whiner?
Maybe I should suffer because my Title I, Tier I at-risk school teaches the poor?
I was emailing Democratic Nevada Senators who received huge donations from Adelson – asking them to hold out since the stadium deal is a money pit and public schools are starving in Nevada.
Second year in a row a special session is held to give a billionaire a tax payer funded deal.
I get lectured by democrats who could have done something: They say the money will trickle down to me and my at-risk kids.
Trickle down? I am waiting by the broken copier right now because I have no textbooks.
I’m not supposed to be disappointed?
30 years Nevada public education has been neglected. We are not ahead even after last session restored previous cuts.
Over-night Sheldon Adelson gets a new toy.
Is it any wonder teachers feel like they have zero allies?
Stop your whining and eat those crumbs!
I guess I should lose my job because I state openly I need a reading textbook.
Pardon me for being disappointed today.
The injustice is so thick it is hard for me to see.
I will be at every protest Culinary needs to hold to make those stadium jobs UNION.
Angie
Our reader Laura Chapman reviewed the regulations for teacher education issued by John King’s Department of Education today.
She writes:
“I downloaded the regulations. They are final, include some discussion of comments, but the parts that matter are concentrated in “definitions.” Here you go on the definition of “student growth.”
“Student growth: The change in student achievement between two or more points in time, using a student’s scores on the State’s assessments under section 1111(b)(2) of the ESEA or other measures of student learning and performance, such as
“student results on pre-tests and end- of-course tests;
“objective performance-based assessments;
“student learning objectives;
“student performance on English language proficiency assessments; and
“other measures that are rigorous, comparable across schools, and consistent with State guidelines.
“Teacher evaluation measure: A teacher’s performance level based on an LEA’s teacher evaluation system that differentiates teachers on a regular basis using at least three performance levels and multiple valid measures in assessing teacher performance.
“For purposes of this definition, multiple valid measures must include data on
“student growth for all students (including English learners and students with disabilities) and
“other measures of professional practice (such as observations based on rigorous teacher performance standards, teacher portfolios, and student and parent surveys).
“There is no real difference between ESSA as interpreted by these regulations and the last iteration of regulations in NCLB.
“The persistent reference to student learning objectives (SLOs) and gains between pretests and same year end-of-course tests reflect a profound misunderstanding of teaching, learning, curriculum organization across and within a year, the difference between what may be explored but individuals and subgroups or the whole class and what may be treated as a matter of “mastery” (especially of easy to test content/skill-sets).
“The explicit and implicit assumptions about education are wrong from the get go. The process can be followed but it will mean more of the same invalid stack ratings that have prevailed since 2001.
“Student Learning Objectives–SLOs–are not valid. Recent research from the American Institutes of Research confirms that there is no evidence of gains in student achievement or basis for claims of validity for every grade and subject where those convoluted writing exercises are required.”
Secretary of Education John King refuses to believe that the new federal law restricts his ability to control U.S. education. Today he released regulations that would threaten the federal funding of teacher education programs if their graduates teach low-scoring students.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, blasted King’s overreach and poor judgment
AFT’s Weingarten on Teacher Preparation Programs Regulations
“WASHINGTON—Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the Department of Education’s final regulations for teacher preparation programs.
“It is, quite simply, ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates. Frankly, the only conceivable reason the department would release regulations so out of sync with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and President Obama’s own call to reduce high-stakes testing is that they are simply checking off their bucket list of outstanding issues before the end of their term.
“The final regulations could harm students who would benefit the most from consistent, high-quality standards for teacher preparation programs. The regulations will create enormous difficulty for teacher prep programs and place an unnecessary burden on institutions and states, which are also in the process of implementing ESSA.
“Instead of designing a system to support and improve teacher prep programs, the regulations build on the now-rejected high-stakes testing system established under NCLB and greatly expanded under this administration’s Race to the Top and waiver programs. It’s stunning that the department would evaluate teaching colleges based on the academic performance of the students of their graduates when ESSA—enacted by large bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate last December—prohibited the department from requiring school districts to do that kind of teacher evaluation.
“Teacher prep programs need to help ensure that teachers are ready to engage their students in powerful learning and creating an environment that is conducive to learning. These regulations will not help achieve that goal. These regulations do not address ways to help the current status of the teaching profession: the shortages, the lack of diversity or the high turnover.
“While the department has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same. The regulations will punish teacher prep programs whose graduates go on to teach in our highest-needs schools, most often those with high concentrations of students who live in poverty and English language learners—the exact opposite strategy of what we need. As we brought up in January 2015—in our comments to the department’s proposal— if programs are rated as the department proposes, teacher prep schools will have incentive to steer graduates away from assignments in our toughest schools, and that will only make matters worse.
“If we want to get it right, we should look to countries like Finland, where prospective teachers receive extensive training in their subject matter and teaching strategies combined with clinical training. Finland has no alternative prep programs. Programs are highly selective and free of cost; their graduates go on to work in supportive, professional environments with strong unions, fair pay and benefits, and without high-stakes testing.”
###
Pasi Sahlberg, the great Finnish educator, was in Birmingham, Alabama, last night, where he patiently explained how to make schools great. There is a summary of his advice here.
Thursday night (tomorrow), he will speak at Wellesley College at Alumnae Hall at 7:30 pm.
He will be introduced by Howard Gardner.
I will be there too because I endowed the lecture series to make sure there was one great campus that sought out the best minds in education and presented them each year in a public event. The series is called the Diane Silvers Ravitch 1960 Lecture on Education and the Common Good.
Come early, as parking will be limited. Chelsea Clinton is conducting a rally for her mother (class of 1969) from 3-5. I wish she would stay to hear Pasi’s lecture. She would learn a lot.
Standardized tests produce results normed on a bell curve. The students who cluster in the bottom half of the bell curves are predominantly poor, children with disabilities, and children of color. The bell curve, by design, never closes. That is why it is fundamentally wrong to rank students, teachers, and schools by a measure that favors the most affluent.
Secretary of Education John King is releasing regulations that will punish education programs if their graduates teach students whose scores are low. “Reformers” are supposed to be aware of the power of incentives, but not Secretary King. He thinks he can scare education programs to focus more on raising test scores. More likely is that teachers will get the message to avoid teaching in schools that enroll students who are impoverished, and that their preparation programs will encourage them to steer clear of the neediest children.
This is the report that appeared this morning in politico education (http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=70112e1be3cf7964cb8f83700178acc6d2452a022573f96620522e9d5cbe9274):
TEACHER PREP RULES OUT TODAY: The Obama administration unveiled its long-delayed final regulations governing teacher preparation programs today. The rule preserves much of the administration’s original proposal from 2014, and requires states to develop a rating system for teacher-preparation programs.
– The rule will also eventually punish low-performing programs by cutting off their access to federal TEACH grants that help students pay for teacher training.
– The final rule retains a particularly-controversial component, which holds teacher-preparation programs accountable, in part, for how their graduates perform as teachers, based upon their students’ academic success. However, states will have flexibility in determining how to measure student learning.
– Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sharply criticized the regulations, saying in a statement that although the department “has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same.”
– Weingarten said it was “ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates.” And she said the rules ultimately punish teacher prep programs that send graduates into the highest-need schools.
– Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement that the group was “pleased the department listened to feedback and made these regulations stronger.”
– Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she’s impressed with how much the department kept with its original intent, “which was to insert far greater accountability for program quality.” She added that the effectiveness of the rule “very much depends on states doing their bit to hold programs accountable for quality.”
– “I told people they would never see the light of day,” Walsh said of the rules. “I’m happy to be wrong.”
– Education Secretary John B. King Jr. will be speaking about teacher preparation at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education today. Watch the USC event live, starting at 1 p.m. ET, here.
– Read the regulations here
Diane Ravitch's blog 