Archives for the month of: September, 2017
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Laurene Powell Jobs’ Big Show: No Educators Invited

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
49

I have posted a couple of times about the celebrity show that Mrs. Jobs is paying for tonight. Lots of stars. No educators. If you should watch, write in with a comment. I have other things I have to do.

Here is what Politico says:

“STAR-STUDDED EVENT LOOKS AT RETHINKING HIGH SCHOOL: A hodgepodge of actors and musical stars will come together for a one-hour television special tonight on rethinking high school, set for broadcast on four major U.S. networks. The special was put together by the XQ Institute, a project of Laurene Powell Jobs’ philanthropic LLC called the Emerson Collective, and the nonprofit Entertainment Industry Foundation. In 2015, the XQ Institute launched a call to “rethink” high school, arguing that the average American high school has failed to keep up with huge changes in society and technology. High schools were revamped to use technology in unique ways; to shed traditional grades, classrooms and subjects to look more like creative workplaces; and set in nontraditional locations, like public museums.

– Russlynn Ali, XQ founder and former Education Department head of civil rights during the Obama administration, said “fixing our educational system is one of the biggest problems there is. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, we all have a vital interest in preparing America’s young people for the opportunities of the 21st century. But change of this magnitude is extraordinarily difficult, and won’t happen unless we unite around this common cause. Tonight’s special will highlight some of those schools, encourage educators and the public to build on those efforts and feature musical performances.” Celebrities expected to be there include Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks and Viola Davis. The special will air at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC.”

Open it for links.

http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=7a4567fcd7b496feae6fd258d30929ce1c151b2826d367480ee2df486e8c5e40bdf41a6bb996790f2f220479c91b352bcf191b308fda384f

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Missouri: New Push to Expand Charters Despite Lack of Success

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
10

Missouri legislators are gearing up for a renewed battle to expand charters, despite a lackluster record of existing charters.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-lawmakers-prepare-to-spar-again-over-charter-school-expansion/article_6ae01784-c517-5a65-b5ed-8736671d31c9.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

When there was a Democratic governor, charter expansion went nowhere.

Now with a Republican governor, the pro-charter forces are ready to push for more.

One of the major out-of-state lobbying groups is Betsy DeVos’s American Federatiob for Children, which has hired a herd of lobbyists to replace public schools with charters and tax credits for vouchers.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Failure, Missouri, Privatization

New York: Top State Officials Oppose Plan to Lower Standards for Charter Teachers

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
3

Chair of the New York Board of Regents Dr. Betty Rosa and State Education Commissioner Dr. MaryEllen Elia issued a statement strongly opposing the proposal by the State University of New York Charter Committee to lower standards for new charter teachers.

Charter schools complain that they can’t hire enough certified teachers so want lower standards. They also have high rates of teacher turnover.

Rosa and Elia suggest there may be reasons for their inability to recruit and retain qualified teachers. They already have significant exemptions to allow the hiring of uncertified teachers, like TFA, tenured or tenure-track college faculty, and “individuals who possess exceptional business, professional, artistic, athletic, or military experience.”

Please sign a letter to the SUNY trustees in support of qualified teachers for every child.

Categories New York, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching

Mercedes Schneider: Senate Appropriations Committee Says No to DeVos’ Choice Obsession

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
5

Mercedes Schneider reports that the Senate Appropriations Committee that oversees education pointedly ignored the Trump-DeVos proposal to turn Title I into voucher funding or to approve Trump’s sweeping campaign promise to allocate $20 billion for private school choice.

Senate Appropriations Has No Funding for Betsy DeVos’ Private School Voucher Hopes

Schneider writes:

“On September 06, 2017, the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee approved a FY2018 funding bill that included no inkling of a $1 billion Title I allotment that would be devoted to Trump’s proposed private school voucher, Title I graft-in program.

“On September 07, 2017, the Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the Subcommittee’s Labor-HHS appropriations bill by a vote of 29-2. The bill must pass both houses of Congress and be signed by Trump by October 01, 2017, the first day of the federal fiscal year 2018. If the appropriations bills are not approved by the start to FY2018, then the Senate Committee on Appropriations would need to draft a continuing resolution, a carry-over piece of legislation to keep the government operating until appropriations bills are approved. (For more on the history of appropriations and the budget process in general, see this Government Printing Office publication.)

“Even though the Senate’s Labor-HHS appropriations bill has a way to go before it becomes law, one issue is clear: The private school choice latched onto by Trump and lovingly nurtured by US ed sec Betsy DeVos will not be bolstered by a billion Title I bucks.

“And it’s not just a Senate dismissal of the Trump-DeVos wish for private school choice mega funds. In July 2017, the House also bypassed Trump’s billion-dollar, private school choice funding request.

“In its remarks about the process of constructing its Labor-HHS bill, the Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee noted that its goal was to produce a workable, bipartisan compromise.

“The Trump-DeVos private school choice push was just too extreme for bipartisan agreement. Plus, the requested billion would have been used not for established Title I purposes but for funding an unapproved leech of a program.

“As Alyson Klein of EdWeek reports, The Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee directly addressed the attempt to funnel Title I funds into private school choice:

“The [Trump] administration had sought a $1 billion boost for the nearly $15 billion Title I program, the largest federal K-12 program, which is aimed at covering the cost of educating disadvantaged students. The Trump administration had wanted to use that increase to help districts create or expand public school choice programs. And it had hoped to use the Education Innovation and Research program to nurture private school choice.

“The Senate bill essentially rejects both of those pitches. It instead would provide a $25 million boost for Title I, and $95 million for the research program, a slight cut from the current level of $100 million.

“But importantly, the legislation wouldn’t give U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team the authority to use that money for school choice. In fact, the committee said in language accompanying the bill that the secretary of Education Betsy DeVos must get permission from Congress to create a school choice initiative with the funds. [Emphasis added.]

“So, if Betsy DeVos wants to use Title I money to fund her private school choice pet, she must be willing to subject her ambitions to a Congress that appears likely to award only token funding at best.”

To read the many links, open the post.

Categories Betsy DeVos

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN ARIZONA! Voucher Referendum Clears Legal Hurdle!

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
4

The parents and educators who gathered signatures successfully met the legal requirements–and surpassed them–to get a referendum on the ballot in 2018 on vouchers. The legislature recently passed a law to extend vouchers to everyone, removing all limitations. Arizona’s public schools are already underfunded. Vouchers, even if few apply, as is typically the case, will drain even more resources from the public schools.

The referendum will be known as Proposition 305.

According to the Blog for Arizona, quoting the Arizona Capitol Times:

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office has validated 86.6 percent of a sample of signatures collected by Save Our Schools Arizona, putting the school voucher referendum on track to reach the 2018 ballot.

The majority of the roughly 108,000 signatures deemed valid by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office were gathered in Maricopa County, and now, SOS Arizona’s statewide validation average sits at about 87 percent overall.

That gives SOS Arizona a comfortable margin of error; with an 86 percent validation rate, the referendum would have nearly 93,000 valid signatures, about 18,000 more than it needs to make it to the ballot.

Elections Director Eric Spencer reiterated what Reagan announced via social media, adding that barring the pending legal challenges SOS Arizona still faces, the outlook for the referendum is “sunny.” He anticipated a notice of certification would be sent to the governor’s office on Sept. 11, the deadline for the remaining three counties to report results.

But if those counties were to report tomorrow, Spencer said, the Secretary of State’s Office is ready to certify what will be billed as Proposition 305 on the 2018 general election ballot.

Results from Cochise, Yavapai and Yuma counties are still pending.

“We feel like this validates – pun intended – everything that we’ve been saying all along,” said SOS Arizona spokeswoman Dawn Penich-Thacker.

“You don’t get rates like that by cutting corners or trying to cheat the rules, and this speaks loudly to the fact that we played by the rules, we did it right, we took incredible care to ensure every voter who signed would be heard,” she said, referring to allegations made in a lawsuit against the referendum. “At this point, the voucher proponents are opposing the voters of Arizona.”

The first of two lawsuits filed against the petitions was dropped–the one implying that the petitions were gathered by paid felons. The second lawsuit–which criticizes the signatures–is unlikely to succeed.

The voucher proponents, says another source in this story, are “coming unglued” at the prospect of facing a referendum where the public gets its say. The voucher supporters are the Goldwater Institute (Arizona-based), Americans for Prosperity (the Koch brothers, also known as the Kochtopus), and American Federation for Children (the Betsy DeVos creation, which should be renamed Americans for Vouchers or Americans for the Elimination of Public Schools).

This is a big win for advocates for public schools. Please go to the SOS Arizona page and donate whatever you can to help them. They are facing billionaires, and the billionaires will try to exhaust the resources and energy of SOS with frivolous lawsuits.

Give whatever you can. I have contributed. If you can send $5 or $10 or $50 or $100, or more, please do.

They need our help!!!

Categories Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Supporting public schools

Steven Singer: Teachers, Don’t Be a Good Soldier for the Tech Industry

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2017 //
43

Steven Singer has a warning for teachers: Use technology wisely. Do you collaborate in the industry’s plans to replace you with a robot or an iPad.

He begins:

“Dear fellow teachers,

“Thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice.

“I know you have plenty more important matters to attend to this morning. I, myself, left a pile of ungraded papers on my desk so I could get here. Not to mention I urgently need to fix my seating charts now that I’ve finally met my students and know who can sit with whom. And I’ve got to track down phone numbers for my kids’ parents and go through a mountain of Individual Education Plans, and… Well, I just want you to know that I get it.

“There are a lot of seemingly more pressing concerns than listening to a teacher-blogger jabber about the intersection of politics and our profession.

“Is that all of us? Okay, would someone please close the door?

“Good. No administrators in here, right? Just classroom teachers? Excellent.

“Let’s speak openly. There’s something very important we need to talk about.

“There is a force out there that’s working to destroy our profession.

“Yes, ANOTHER one!

“We’ve got lawmakers beholden to the corporate education reform industry on the right and media pundits spewing Wall Street propaganda on the left. The last thing we need is yet another group dedicated to tearing down our public schools.

“But there is. And it is us.

“You heard me right.

“It’s us.

“There is an entire parasitic industry making billions of dollars selling us things we don’t need – standardized tests, Common Core workbook drivel, software test prep THIS, and computer test crap THAT.

“We didn’t decide to use it. We didn’t buy it. But who is it who actually introduces most of this garbage in the classroom?

“That’s right. US.

“We do it. Often willingly.

“We need to stop.

“And before someone calls me a luddite, let me explain. I’m not saying technology is bad. It’s a tool like anything else. There are plenty of ways to use it to advance student learning. But the things we’re being asked to do… You know in your heart that they aren’t in the best interests of children.

“I know. Some of you have no choice. You live in a state or district where teacher autonomy is a pathetic joke. There are ways to fight that, but they’re probably not in the classroom.

“It’s not you who I’m talking to. I’m addressing everyone else. I’m talking to all the teachers out there who DO have some modicum of control over their own classrooms and who are told by their administrators to do things that they honestly disagree with – but they do it anyway.

“We’ve got to stop doing it.

“Corporations want to replace us with software packages. They want to create a world where kids sit in front of computers or iPads or some other devices for hours at a time doing endless test prep. You know it’s true because your administrator probably is telling you to proctor such rubbish in your own classroom so many hours a week. I know MINE is.

Listen, there are several reasons why we should refuse.

“First, there’s simple job security. If your principal brought in a Teach for America temp and told you this lightly trained fresh from college kid was going to take over your classes, would you really sit down and instruct her how to do your job!?

“I wouldn’t.

“That’s the entire point behind this tech industry garbage. You are piloting a program that means your own redundancy.”

Read it all for the conclusion and the links.

Never forget the power of NO.

Categories Education Industry, Teachers and Teaching

DeVos Will Roll Back Obama-Era Protections for Victims of Campus Sexual Assault

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
126

In a speech at George Mason University, one of the few universities where she can speak without student protests, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced a retreat from the guidelines protecting victims of sexual assault on campus. She devoted equal time in her speech to the rights of the victims of rape and the rights of those accused of rape.

Her stance seems likely to discourage rape victims from coming forward, since doing so is already hazardous and puts them at risk of ostracism, especially when the alleged perpetrator is a popular athlete on campus.

Given that she was appointed by a man who has boasted of sexually assaulting women without their consent–just “grabbing them by” their genitals–her indifference to victims of sexual assault is not surprising.

When the subject was first discussed by the Secretary and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Candace Jackson, Ms. Jackson said that most claims of sexual assault were bogus.

“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.

“Ms. Jackson later issued a statement clarifying that the conclusion was based on feedback from cases involving accused students, and even if complaints don’t allege violence, “all sexual harassment and sexual assault must be taken seriously.”

“Such comments infuriate advocates for victims and women, who have spent the last six years waging a concerted campaign to educate college administrators, and the public, on students’ rights under the law, and how to combat what some have called “rape culture” on campus. A 2015 survey commissioned by the Association of American Universities found that more than one in four women at a large group of leading universities said they had been sexually assaulted by force or when they were incapacitated while in college.”

The current stance of the Department suggests that Jackson prevailed, that is, if anyone in her Office tried to persuade her that she was wrong. She meant what she said the first time. She believes that 90% of accusations are false.

The steady evisceration of civil rights continues apace.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Linda Darling-Hammond: Keep the Dream Alive

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
9

Linda Datling-Hammond of Stanford University and the Learning Policy Institute, posted the following statement. She attacked many reseources for educators, but since I have to copy links manually, I am adding only one:

Keep the DREAM Alive
A message from Linda Darling-Hammond

On Tuesday, President Trump announced his plan to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Since it was implemented, the DACA program has ensured that nearly 800,000 children of immigrants—many of whom have no recollection of any country other than the U.S.—can safely attend school, earn degrees, and become contributing members of the country in which they were raised.

As educators and allies, we have dedicated our careers to creating safe, respectful, and welcoming spaces where children and youth are valued for who they are and supported to learn, grow, and bring their talents into the society. The repeal of DACA and the deportation of the children and young adults it protects is cruel and counterproductive: It flies in the face of country that is a nation of immigrants and where these “Dreamers” are working towards a better life each and every day.

And now Dreamers are being told to prepare for deportation, their futures frozen in an agonizing six-month stasis, facing the fear of leaving their home, their family and friends, and futures they have invested deeply in. Many are still school children, now living with the daily nightmare of being torn from their families and sent to a land they don’t know.

As educators and education advocates, we have an ever-increasing responsibility to protect our students, to be even more explicit in our belief in their potential, and to protect their right to learn and to become contributing members of society, just as generations of immigrants before them have done.

When our nation fails our children, our pathway is clear: We must double down on our collective work for equity, justice, and high-quality education and make sure that every student feels safe and empowered to learn, thrive, and realize their dreams.

We urge Congress to act quickly to integrate the protections of DACA into law.

Resource:

Southern Poverty Law Center:

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2017/immigrant-and-refugee-children-a-guide-for-educators-and-school-support-staff?utm_source=LPI+Master+List&utm_campaign=9102525a7f-LPI_MC_DACA_20170907&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7e60dfa1d8-9102525a7f-42294815

Categories Bias, Bigotry

USA Today: Join Trump’s Swamp by Playing Golf at One of His Golf Clubs

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
18

USA Today posted an investigation into the way that CEOs and lobbyists make contact with Trump: they join one of his golf clubs. Of course, for $200,000, they could join Mar-a-Lago, his winter residence (he doubled the entry fee after his election).

Dozens of lobbyists, contractors and others who make their living influencing the government pay President Trump’s companies for membership in his private golf clubs, a status that can put them in close contact with the president, a USA TODAY investigation found.

Members of the clubs Trump has visited most often as president — in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia — include at least 50 executives whose companies hold federal contracts and 21 lobbyists and trade group officials. Two-thirds played on one of the 58 days the president was there, according to scores they posted online.

Because membership lists at Trump’s clubs are secret, the public has until now been unable to assess the conflicts they could create. USA TODAY found the names of 4,500 members by reviewing social media and a public website golfers use to track their handicaps, then researched and contacted hundreds to determine whether they had business with the government.

Or, they could rent a $22,000 a night suite at the Trump Hotel located within walking distance of the White House. The building is owned by the federal government and the lease prohibits any profit-making by any elected federal government official, but that doesn’t include Trump apparently.

Categories Education Reform

National Education Policy Center: CREDO Overstates Charter Findings and Rankings

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
9

The National Education Policy Center reviewed CREDO’s latest report on ranking charter organizations and found it wanting.

CREDO Report Fails to Build Upon Prior Research in Creating Charter School Classification System

Key Review Takeaway: Report overstates its findings, ignores relevant literature, and fails to address known methodological issues, suggesting an agenda other than sound policymaking.

NEPC Review: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-CMOs

Report Reviewed: https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/CMO FINAL.pdf

Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Gary Miron: (269) 599-7965, gary.miron@wmich.edu

Learn More:

NEPC Resources on Charter Management Organizations

BOULDER, CO (September 7, 2017) – Charter Management Organizations 2017, written by James Woodworth, Margaret Raymond, Chunping Han, Yohannes Negassi, W. Payton Richardson, and Will Snow, and released by Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), assessed the impact of different types of charter school-operating organizations on student outcomes in 24 states, plus New York City and Washington, D.C. The study finds that students in charter schools display slightly greater gains in performance than their peers in traditional public schools, especially students in charter schools operated by certain types of organizations.

Gary Miron and Christopher Shank of Western Michigan University reviewed the report and found CREDO’s distinctions between organization types to be arbitrary and unsupported by other research in the field. This raises concerns about the practical utility of the CREDO findings.

In addition, Miron and Shank contend that CREDO researchers made several dubious methodological decisions that threaten the validity of the study. A number of these problems have been raised in reviews of prior CREDO studies. Specifically, CREDO studies have been criticized for:

Over-interpreting small effect sizes;

Failing to justify the statistical assumptions underlying the group comparisons made;

Not taking into account or acknowledging the large body of charter school research beyond CREDO’s own work;

Ignoring the limitations inherent in the research approach they have taken, or at least failing to clearly communicate limitations to readers.

These problems have not only gone unaddressed in Charter Management Organizations 2017, but have been compounded by the CREDO researchers’ confusing and illogical charter organization classification system. As a result, the reviewers conclude that the report is of limited value. Policymakers should interpret the report’s general findings about charter school effectiveness with extreme caution, but might find CREDO’s work useful as a tool to understand how specific charter school management organizations perform relative to their peers.

Find the review, by Gary Miron and Christopher Shank, at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-CMOs

Find Charter Management Organizations 2017, by James Woodworth, Margaret Raymond, Chunping Han, Yohannes Negassi, W. Payton Richardson, and Will Snow, published by CREDO, at:
https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/CMO FINAL.pdf

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) Think Twice Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice:

Home

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

Categories Charter Schools, Research
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