Archives for the month of: July, 2017
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New York: Who Is Behind the Effort to Allow Charter Schools to Hire Uncertified Teachers?

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2017 //
40

In this article, Alan Singer of Hofstra University connects the dots behind the effort to allow charter schools to hire uncertified teachers. He follows the money, and it leads to one man: Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Charters need to hire uncertified teachers because they churn through teachers and need newcomers who can devote long hours to the job without the diversion of a family.

“The finger points at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Politicians and wealthy business leaders with ties to Cuomo are behind the push to exempt some of the state’s charter schools from hiring certified teachers. It is a move that would weaken University-based teacher education programs, undermine teacher professionalism, and seriously hurt the education of children across the state.

“Cuomo has long been a supporter of expanded and minimally regulated charter schools. In 2014, while preparing to run for reelection, Cuomo spoke at a pro-charter rally on the steps of the State Capitol Building in Albany. In his speech he praised charter school groups and Republican and independent Democrats who were joining with him to “save” charter schools, although there was no movement trying to destroy them. Curiously, Cuomo never discussed pulling the children out of school and shipping them to Albany for a staged rally.

“In 2016, while no one was paying close attention, the State Legislature with Cuomo’s endorsement extended the regulatory authority of the Trustees of the State University over charter schools. The SUNY Charter Institute, a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees, now claims this legislation empowers them to permit charter schools under their jurisdiction to hire uncertified teachers and train them according to their own guidelines.

“The Trustees of the State University of New York currently authorize 165 charter schools in New York State including those operated by some of the most politically connected networks. Six SUNY charter schools operate in the Capital Region (Albany and Troy), six are in Buffalo, two are on Long Island, and over 140 are in New York City. The New York City charters include seven sponsored by Carl Ichan, ten affiliated with Achievement First, and 38 Success Academy Network Schools operated by Eva Moskowitz. Ichan is a corporate raider and real estate magnate with ties to the Trump Administration. Achievement First is connected to former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein who left the city’s Department of Education to work for Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. Eva Moskowitz is New York City’s Charter School Queen with political ties to Andrew Cuomo and hedge fund companies and foundations.

“According to a 2015 expose by Juan Gonzalez for the New York Daily News, between 2000 and 2015, 570 hedge fund managers made nearly $40 million in political contributions to New York State candidates, including $4.8 million to Andrew Cuomo. Several of Cuomo’s 2014 reelection campaign donors including Carl Icahn, of Icahn Enterprises, Julian Robertson of Tiger Management, and Daniel Loeb, of Third Point LLC, are major supporters of charter schools.”

Cuomo appointed all four members of the SUNY charter school committee that will make the decision.

Cuomo needs the hedge funders to finance the presidential run everyone expects he wants. But, as Alan points out, he also needs the votes of the public so he may be open to suasion.

That is why I hope you will use this link to protest this unwise decision before it is too late.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Privatization, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching

The Book That Betsy DeVos Should Read about Fraternity Life and Sexual Assault on Campus Today

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2017 //
13

We have had a vigorous discussion on the blog about Betsy DeVos’s decision to reorient the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights towards protecting the rights of those accused of rape rather than those who alleged that they were victims of rape.

Candace Jackson, DeVos’s controversial choice to lead OCR, made these startling remarks to the New York Times, which caused such an uproar that she subsequently apologized:

“Investigative processes have not been “fairly balanced between the accusing victim and the accused student,” Ms. Jackson argued, and students have been branded rapists “when the facts just don’t back that up.” In most investigations, she said, there’s “not even an accusation that these accused students overrode the will of a young woman.”

“Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right,’” Ms. Jackson said.”

I urge DeVos and Jackso to read John Hechinger’s riveting new book, “True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities.”
The book won’t be released until September. I read it in galleys and provided a blurb.

It provides an insider’s view of fraternity life on campus today. Hechinger is a writer for Bloomberg who often covers education. What you will encounter in the book is a culture of binge drinking, hazing, misogyny, sexism, and rampant disregard for the rights of anyone. I have never cared about fraternity life, never attended a college where fraternities or sororities mattered. Now I know what I was missing, and I’m glad I did. The lives of pledges are treated with reckless disregard; the lives and reputations of women matter not at all. In this peculiar world, getting dead drunk is ritual behavior.

The two women now not-enforcing civil rights protections for victims of sexual violence on campus should read this book for context. You should too.

Categories Education Reform, Higher Education

Tim Slekar: Next Step in Wisconsin’s War on Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2017 //
30

Having treated teachers shabbily, Wisconsin now finds it needs to take desperate measures to hire teachers: lower standards.

Tim Slekar of Edgewood College in Milwaukee says this is madness.

He writes:

“There is NO NEED for an “emergency rule” that deregulates teacher licensure.

“However:

“There IS AN EMERGENCY need to address the reasons why teachers are fleeing Wisconsin classrooms. and…

“There IS AN EMERGENCY NEED to address the reasons why students are not enrolling in teacher education programs at Institutions of Higher Education.

“Any step that DPI takes to “reduce regulations” actually lowers the standards of the the people that will be charged with the educational and social/emotional welfare of OUR children.

“The TEACHERS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE will never enter our schools through the dismantling process of deregulating the profession and intentionally lowering standards. The standards were put in place to guarantee a level of expertise.

“In summary,

“WE DON”T HAVE AN EMERGENCY THAT REQUIRES DUMBING DOWN THE PROFESSION OF TEACHING.

“WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY THAT REQUIRES COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP!”

Tim Slekar testified to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction that the teacher shortage is a “manufactured crisis” and it will not be solved by lowering standards.

He is a one-man crusade, fighting for the integrity of the teaching profession in a state led by hostile actors. The people of Wisconsin deserve better leadership but they won’t get it until they vote Scott Walker and his malignant enablers out of office.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Bill Moyers’ Website: The Trump-Russia Timeline

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
8

Bill Moyers’ website very usefully assembled a timeline of Donald Trump’s relations with Russia and Russian individuals.

Categories Education Reform

New York City: Mayor de Blasio’s Capitulation to the Powerful Charter Lobby

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
51

There used to be a well-known saying: “You can’t fight City Hall.”

Change that to: “You can’t fight the charter lobby.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio ran for mayor with the promise that he would fight the charter lobby. He was a public school parent and had served on a community school board. I believed him. I endorsed him.

Then after he was elected, the billionaires showed him who runs education policy in Albany. Governor Cuomo, the recipient of large sums from the financial industry, became the charter cheerleader, even though charters enrolled only 3% of the children in the state. The Republican-led State Senate gives the charter industry whatever it wants. The charter industry’s best friend is State Senate Republican leader John Flanagan, who loves loves loves charters, but not in his own district on Long Island. Call him Senator NIMBY.

De Blasio wanted charters to pay rent if they could afford it. The legislature required the City to give free space to charters, even though public schools are overcrowded, and to pay their rent if they locate in private space.

In the recent legislative session, the mayor was told that the only way to get a two-year extension of mayoral control was to revive 22 charters that had been closed or abandoned for various reasons.

Now the mayor is seeking a “truce” with the private charter industry that sucks the students it wants from the public schools.

Sad.

Mayoral control is a failed experiment. New York City needs an independent Board of Education, which chooses the Chancellor and to whom the Chancellor reports. The Mayor should make appointments to that board, along with the borough presidents. Candidates should be screened for their qualifications and experience by an independent review board of civic leaders, a process used in the past.

The city needs a board prepared to support and defend the 1.1 million students in public schools, to provide a public forum for grievances, and to listen to their parents and communities.

Categories Bill de Blasio, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Privatization

Los Angeles: New School Board President, a Charter School Operator, Calls for Unity

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
22

Two newsworthy items from Los Angeles:

First, the new school board elected charter chain operator Ref Rodriguez as its president. Rodriguez leads the PUC (Partnership Uplifting Communities) charter chain of 16 schools. Rodriguez called for unity after the just-concluded dirty election, the most expensive in U.S. history.

Politico reports:

“LA SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT SEEKS UNITY AFTER UGLY ELECTION: New Los Angeles school board president Ref Rodriguez says he will kick off his tenure by reaching out to fellow board members in one-on-one meetings. The goal: helping the nation’s second-largest school district heal from one of the ugliest and most expensive school board races in the district’s history, he said. Rodriguez, who was elevated to president last week in a 4-3 vote, told Morning Education he wants to meet with his colleagues away from the public and media spotlights to build new relationships and work on old ones. That includes meeting individually with two new board members who were elected earlier this year, Kelly Gonez and Nick Melvoin, who share his support for charter schools. And it means finding common ground with each of the three board members who voted not to install him as president last week. Rodriguez also said he wants the board to get together soon and collectively commit to some “guiding principles.”

– The race is like a “cloud hanging over us” – The school board race pitted charter school backers against teachers unions, generating $17 million in campaign spending. Supporters of charter schools ultimately came out on top, shifting the board’s politics with the election of Gonez and Melvoin, two former Obama administration staffers, in May. Rodriguez, who joined the board in 2015, is now part of the majority that supports charters. But despite the victory, the race is like a “cloud hanging over us,” Rodriguez said. “What I’m hoping to do is unify this board and get past all of that rhetoric.”

– The divisiveness over charter schools has been damaging, Rodriguez said. “The media doesn’t help us any,” he said, adding that the “meat of the story” isn’t about school choice. Rodriguez ticked off a number of other pressing priorities – like addressing a multi-billion deficit made worse by underfunded pensions and declining enrollment, with students leaving the district for charter schools, for example. To improve the district’s finances, local education officials are also working to launch a unified enrollment system that would allow families to apply online to any school in the district. After some contentious debate last month, the board voted unanimously to approve $16.7 million for the new enrollment system, while excluding independent charter schools from it for at least two years. Rodriguez said he’s not sure if the board will revisit the issue with charter school supporters in the majority. “I’m not sure where we’ll end up,” he said.

– Rodriguez also stressed the need to highlight the successes of traditional public schools, while increasing collaboration between public schools and charter schools. “Charter schools are not a panacea,” he said. “They don’t have the ‘secret sauce’ when it comes to quality and we have to stop pretending that they do.”

Second item from Los Angeles: the salary of school board members was more than doubled, to $125,000 if they have no other job.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization

Former Charter Teacher: Why Teacher Attrition is High in Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
13

Alternet posted an informative article that explains why charter schools churn through teachers. It was written by Rann Miller, who taught for six years in a charter school in Camden, New Jersey.

He writes:

“John was fresh-out-of-college and had never set foot in a city school before. Hired the day before the school year started, he missed out on the two-and-a-half weeks of training the charter organization had given the rest of us on what to expect at a turnaround school in Camden, NJ. John lasted less than a week.

“I’d started the year as a history teacher, relieved to be without the responsibility of my own classroom and homeroom. But after five more teachers followed John out of the school building within the first month, I had both. When I left at the beginning of the next school year, seven more teachers were right behind me.

“When a school loses teachers, by choice or by chance, students are cheated out of continuity, while the goals and objectives of the entire organization can be hindered. In charter schools, including the ones where I taught for six years, this problem is particularly pronounced. Teachers leave charters at significantly higher rates when compared to traditional public schools. Among urban charter schools, it’s not uncommon to see teachers turning over at a rate of 30, 40 or even 50% a year. I’ve witnessed first hand—and experienced—why this is such a problem, and what causes teachers to flee. But I’ve also seen for myself that there are charter schools and networks that don’t mind high levels of teacher turnover. Turmoil and churn work for organizations that are determined to control both the makeup and the mindset of their faculty…

“The weeding process is all about maintaining control where there is none. It serves to remove “troublemakers”: the folks who will hold the organization accountable. For charter leadership looking to maintain sovereignty of mission and mission implementation, teachers who are independent thinkers and teachers with lives outside of schools are as much of a detriment as those deemed incompetent. The teachers who remain either like the Kool-Aid or at the very least are still thirsty.

“Teacher turnover is an effective tool for organizations that seek to shift accountability away from school leadership. High teacher attrition is an accountability loophole. Rather than rethink a mission that prizes drilling over teaching, or addressing why young teachers get burned out or why teachers of color walk away from the very communities they are so passionate about, some charter leaders will often put the blame on the leavers. “They couldn’t cut it,” you’ll hear them say. They’ll insist to stakeholders that some teachers weren’t good enough, while others weren’t the right “fit” for the organizational mission and culture. The charter school’s organizational leadership and mission remain intact; anyone who is not fighting for “our kids” has been let go.”

Read it all. Quite a story.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Speak Out for the Teaching Profession!

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
7

Many states are planning to lower standards for new teachers, because charter schools can’t recruit enough teachers to fill their staff.

Speak out against lowered standards!

Don’t let them destroy the teaching profession!

Click here and stand up for qualified teachers!

The Network for Public Education invites you to speak up and let the charter authorizers in New York know that every child deserves a well-prepared, professional teacher.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Daniel Katz: Charter Schools Should Not Be Allowed to “Certify” Unqualified Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
30

Daniel Katz prepares secondary school teachers at Seton Hall University. He knows the importance of having highly qualified professionals in every classroom, especially in urban districts where many students need extra support and individual attention.

In this post, he expresses his bafflement that the SUNY Charter School Committee is considering a plan to permit charter schools to “certify” their own teachers and bypass the rigorous standards now expected of public school teachers.

Katz describes in detail what a farce this proposal is. Even SUNY faculty are incensed that their knowledge is belittled by a governing committee–the charter committee–that consists of three lawyers and a CEO, all appointed by Governor Cuomo.

This proposal is not only an insult to the teaching profession, it insults the African-American and Hispanic families who have a right to expect that their children will be taught by professionals, not inexperienced amateurs.

The New York Board of Regents must stop this travesty. Now.

All children in the state deserve a qualified teacher.

If you are outraged, send an email to the SUNY Committee.

Categories Education Reform

Jersey Jazzman: Do Charter Teachers Need to be Certified or Pass State Exams?

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2017 //
11

Jersey Jazzman explores the flap in New York about certification–or lack thereof–for charter school teachers.

The charter industry says, if we get the test scores, we don’t need teachers with masters’ degrees or certification…

JJ says:

Yes, “better results” are all that matters, no matter how practically small they may be. And no matter how you got them: if your gains are from student attrition, or narrowing the curriculum, or onerous disciplinary policies that drive out students, or resource advantages, that’s just fine with SUNY (State University of New York). You should be able to bypass the teacher certification rules the loser NYC district schools have to follow, so long as those test scores stay high…

We’ve been through this over on my side of the Hudson. The charters, usually affiliated with larger networks, believe that their “successes” entitle them to train their own staffs outside of standard regulation by the state. The theory seems to be that traditional university-based teacher training programs are too… well, traditional.

…they shouldn’t have to subject their teachers to all that boring research and theory and intellectual inquisitiveness and whatnot. Just bring these prospective teachers into the charters, let them soak up the awesomeness, and then put them into schools…

Oh, sorry: charter schools. The data is thin, but that’s what appears to be happening with the Relay “Graduate” “School” of “Education,” the premier charter teacher training center in the Northeast. Despite some unsourced claims from Relay’s leadership, and some professional development contracts with districts like Newark and Camden and Philadelphia, it’s clear that Relay has become more a staffing firm for a particular group of charter chains than a broad provider of teacher training.

Relay is a phony “graduate” school. There is no faculty. No library. No research. Just charter teachers teaching other charter teachers. How to be awesome.

As Bruce Baker and Gary Miron have pointed out, this leads to a “company store” style of professional development, where charter teachers essentially pay back a part of their wages to their employers (or their employers’ partners) in exchange for the right to continuing working at their jobs — usually for lower wages than their public district school counterparts.

As many have noted, Relay is steeped in the “no excuses” style of pedagogy, exemplified by Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion. I contend it’s a type of teaching that would never, ever be accepted out in the leafy ‘burbs; one that makes the teacher the focus of the classroom instead of the student. This is yet another instance of the charter industry selling its schools as an antidote to race and class inequality, even as it imposes a different kind of schooling on urban students of color than the schooling found in affluent, majority-white suburban schools.

Relay has been at it for a few years now, but I’ve yet to see any empirical evidence that they’re doing any better than the university-based teacher training programs. Relay is placing most of its teachers into a separate group of schools, and most (if not all) of the teachers in those schools are being trained by Relay. Both Relay and its client charter schools make what Angus Shiva Mungal calls a “parallel education structure.” We’re not likely to see many Relay grads move into jobs currently held by traditionally trained teachers, which is what we would need to properly compare the two training paths.

Still, Relay has had to at least adhere to the form of university-based teacher training. Their “professors” may be inexperienced and utterly lacking in scholarly qualifications, but their graduates do get an actual teaching certification, based on a “graduate” “school” teacher training program. The SUNY proposal, however, does away with even the pretense of college-level training.

TFA and Relay will destroy the teaching profession if they can manage it.

They are a destructive force in education.

Speak out against this retrograde policy.

Categories Charter Schools, Fraud, Teacher Education
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