Archives for the month of: December, 2017
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New York: Parents Appaud Regents’ Decision to Create Multiple Pathways to Graduation

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
5

This comes from NYSAPE (New York State Allies for Public Education):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 15, 2017

More information contact:

Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com

Bonnie Buckley (631) 513-8976 bonnief.buckley@gmail.com

NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)

Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All (MPDA)

Parents Around the State Applaud the Board of Regents’ Precedent-Setting Diploma Expansion

On Monday, the NYS Board of Regents voted to create an additional alternate pathway to graduation for students who receive special education services. In doing so, the Board of Regents broke through the decades-old policy that tied all New York State high school diplomas to high-stakes exit exams. If the measure is formally adopted, these students who struggle with academic exams will be able to earn a diploma as long as they have completed the required amount of Regents-level coursework and earned the Career Development and Occupational Studies (CDOS) Commencement credential. Furthermore, students who should have graduated in 2015, 2016, or 2017 and have already exited high school will now have the option to re-enroll to meet the new requirements and earn a local diploma.

“As a New York State resident and parent, I am confident that these students will now be recognized as having ‘earned’ their high school diploma and be viewed as the assets to our State that they are,” commented Betty Pilnik, Long Island public school parent and co-founder of Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All. “These students have worked twice as hard as some of their peers and now will be able to join the workforce or the military or to further their education–options that were unavailable to them before the Board of Regents and NYSED acknowledged that these students deserve the opportunity to be contributing, productive members of society.”

Suzanne Coyle, Rockland County public school parent and an employment specialist concurred, “This is a significant and validating decision by the Board of Regents. Students who have exited high school with a CDOS, but no diploma, have faced a world of challenges and severe limitations with regard to their employment opportunities, higher education, entrance into any branch of the US military, and funding for further vocational training. They’ve been denied, but this will be transformative.”

Between 2015 and 2017, approximately 45,000 students with disabilities did not graduate despite multiple attempts to pass multiple Regents exams. The Board of Regents had implemented various waivers and safety nets, including 2016’s “Superintendent’s Determination,” to aid some of those students, but according to Christine Zirkelbach, Founder of NY Stop Grad High Stakes Testing, “Only 417 students of those 45,000 students were able to graduate with a Superintendent’s Determination as it was originally established. With this revision, NYSED has held to students taking and passing Regents-level curriculum, a full 22 credits, and has added the vigorous work required to earn a CDOS as a pathway to a meaningful diploma for students with an IEP. This is not lowering standards; this is substituting a hands-on practical assessment for a written exam.”

New York is one of only a few states that still requires high school exit exams, even when students have passed all their courses. While parents see the Board of Regents vote as a major step forward, we and our organizations will continue to advocate for the complete elimination of exit exams.

“It is a tragedy that so many students with disabilities have spent their entire high school career focused on passing these exams, many to no avail,” remarked Bianca Tanis, Ulster County public school parent, educator and founding member of NYSAPE. This change is an important first step in recognizing that high-stakes exit exams have never been shown to improve postsecondary outcomes for ANY students and that to the contrary, these costly exams exacerbate inequalities and diminish opportunity.”

“The opt out movement has never just been about grades 3-8 high-stakes testing. It is about empowering parents to advocate on behalf of their children. This change reflects that advocacy effort and a research-based, common sense response by our Board of Regents. Child-first policy shifts like these will continue to move New York in the right direction,” echoed Jeanette Deutermann, NYSAPE co-founder and Long Island Opt Out founder.

Lisa Rudley, Westchester County public school parent and another co-founder of NYSAPE, also applauded the vote, but added a note of caution, “We thank the Board of Regents for removing some of the barriers for students who deserve to have a meaningful diploma. This is an important step forward, however the fact that the granting of the diploma ultimately rests with the superintendent means that parents need to be diligent advocates for their children. District-level waivers tend to favor students in districts whose parents are most active; as such it’s important to keep in mind that they can be inequitably applied.”

The public will have 45 days (December 27 through February 12) to comment on the proposed regulations and the state education department can make revisions as necessary after the public comment period has ended.

Bonnie Buckley, Long Island public school parent and co-founder of Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All, knows the value of that civic engagement. “Two and a half years ago this inequity came to my attention when I learned my daughter wouldn’t be able to graduate without Regents exams. With several other parents, we started a grassroots movement and the Facebook page, Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All, to address this inequity. I am profoundly grateful to Chancellor Rosa, the Board of Regents and NYSED for making it possible for children all around the state to move on with their lives. This is a door opening, and we are pleased with this change and are hopeful it is an indication of other changes.”

We will continue to advocate for the removal of high-stakes standardized tests as requirements for earning a New York State high school diploma.

NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition of over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.

Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All is a grassroots parent organization with nearly 6,000 members.

Link: http://www.nysape.org/nysape-mpda-pr-diploma-expansion.html

Categories High School Graduation, New York, Special Education

This Appalachian Grandma Has a Few Choice Words about the GOP Tax Bill

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
7

Please watch.

Thanks to Susan Schwartz for this gem.

Categories Inequality, Inequity, Injustice

My Plan to Fix the Much-Abused Schools of Detroit

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
27

The Detroit News invited me to write a plan to revive education in Detroit.

Detroit has been a Petri dish for reformers for 25 years. Everything they tried has failed.

Here is my proposal.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2017/12/13/charter-schools/108585724/

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Reform, Failure, Privatization

The Senate Tax Plan Gives Betsy DeVos an Early Xmas Gift for Her Privatization Campaign

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
11

Edwin Rios of Mother Jones writes here about the early Christmas gifts that Congress has included in its tax plans for Betsy DeVos.

True, she didn’t get that tax break for Hillsdale College, which her brother Erik attended. That was a stocking stuffer. She gots plenty of other goodies, under the DeVos tree.


For starters, the Senate plan includes a provision that will help the private and religious schools DeVos has long championed: an expansion of a tax-free college savings program to include families who put their kids in private K-12 schools or even those who homeschool. At the same time, changes to state and local tax deductions could put a strain on how districts fund the very public schools DeVos is tasked with overseeing. And that doesn’t include several attempts Republican senators made to put provisions in the bill that favored religious schools and incentivized school choice, including a tax credit for corporations and individuals to nonprofits that provide scholarships.

“This bill,” says Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director of policy at AASA, the association of the country’s public school superintendents, “is designed to prioritize the privatization of education.” Specifically, she argues, the Republican tax plans could both undermine public school financing and encourage private school attendance.

First, thanks to Vice President Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) added an amendment expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to withdraw up to $10,000 each year for private and secondary K-12 schools. Cruz’s amendment also incentivizes families to use account funds for educational expenses and therapies for students with disabilities “in connection with a homeschool.” (At one point, the measure expanded college savings account eligibility to include unborn children, but the provision was removed because it failed to comply with the “Byrd Rule,” which blocks changes in the measure that don’t directly relate to taxes.)

“Expanding 529s to include any educational option,” DeVos told the Associated Press, “is a common-sense reform that reflects the reality that we must begin to view education as an investment in individual students, not systems.”

Expanding college savings accounts to cover K-12 private schools and homeschooling would “make it easier for people to choose out of public education.”
While some school choice advocates welcome the expansion of these savings accounts, others, like Michael Petrilli of the conservative think tank Thomas Fordham Institute, point out that the 529 savings program mostly benefits wealthy families and wouldn’t likely help low- and middle-class families. Mathew Chingos, a senior fellow and director of the education policy program at the Urban Institute, told Mother Jones in November that the expansion represents “a decent-sized government handout to people who would send their kid to private school anyway.” Ellerson Ng agreed, noting that the expansion of college savings accounts to cover K-12 private schools and homeschooling would “make it easier for people to choose out of public education.”

The Senate tax plan would also scale back state and local tax deductions (SALT), a move that Ellerson Ng warns could put pressure on already-squeezed state and local budgets. Originally, the Senate plan proposed eliminating all deductions for income, property, and other taxes, a move that could have resulted in a loss of $370 billion in state and local revenue over 10 years and put 370,000 education jobs at risk, according to an analysis by the National Education Association. But senators changed course and added a provision put forward by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would allow people to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes.

Nora Gordon, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, wrote that changes to state and local tax deductions could make it harder for districts to raise revenue to fund public schools. Ending deductions on federal income, Gordon wrote, would make taxpayers who use them “less likely to vote for policies that could raise their state and local tax bills in the future.”
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Categories Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization

Mitchell Robinson: The Educational Malpractice of Eva Moskowitz

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
8

Mitchell Robinson teaches music education at Michigan State University. He read Elizabeth Green’s fawning article about Eva Zmoskowitz and her Success Academy charter chain, and he blew a gasket.

He is equally mad at Green and Moskowitz for reasons you will understand if you read his post.

Basucally, he is furious that two non-educators are touting a model that can never be “scaled up” because it depends on culling students.

He writes:

“I’m still trying to understand what’s so “innovative” about Ms. Moskowitz’s approach to teaching. Is it innovative for your “model teachers” to scream at little kids when they act like…little kids? Is it innovative to expel more students of color than your neighborhood public schools do? Is it innovative to be against “poor kids…get(ting) medical, nutritional and other services at school“? I’m struggling with how anyone, including Ms. Green, could consider Eva Moskowitz’s approach at Success Academy to be innovative–but then, I’ve only been teaching for 37 years, and attended a state university for my undergraduate degree in education.

“I am beyond tired—beyond exhausted, really—of persons who have never taught anyone anything lecturing the rest of us who have about what we are doing wrong, how stupid we are, how lazy we are, and how they know better than we do when it comes to everything about teaching and learning. How about this, Eva and Elizabeth?–instead of pontificating about things you are equally arrogant and ignorant of, why don’t you each go back to school, get an education degree, or two, or three, get certified, do an internship (for free–in fact, pay a bunch of money to do so), or two, or three, then see if you can find a job in a school. Then, teach.I don’t care what you teach; what grade level; what subject. But stick it out for at least a school year. Write your lesson plans. Grade your papers and projects. Go to all of those grade level meetings, and IEP meetings, and school board meetings, and budget negotiation meetings, and union meetings, and curriculum revision meetings, and curriculum re-revision meetings, and teacher evaluation meetings, and “special area” meetings, and state department of education meetings, and professional development in-services, and parent-teacher conferences, and open houses, and attend all those concerts, and football games, and dance recitals, and basketball games, and soccer matches, and lacrosse games, and honor band concerts, and school musicals, and tennis matches, and plays, and debates, and quiz bowl competitions, and marching band shows, and cheerleading competitions, and swim meets.Then do it all 10, or 20, or 30 more times, and let me know how you feel about someone who never did ANY of these things, even for a “few lessons“, telling you how stupid, and lazy you are, and how you’re being a “defender of the status quo” if you’re not really excited to immediately implement their “radical, disruptive” ideas about how to “save public education.”

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

John Thompson: The Sorry Record of the “Portfolio Model” of Closing Public Schools and Replacing Them with Charters

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
2

John Thompson is a teacher and historian in Oklahoma. He writes often about education policy. In this post, he recounts the recurring failure of “the portfolio model,” a reformer favorite.


Matt Barnum’s three-part series on the national corporate reform campaign to expand the “portfolio” corporate school reform model provides a balanced appraisal of the movement which is very different than the alt-facts presented by reformers seeking privatization and union-busting.

Barnum’s first post starts with Indiana’s Mind Trust which “has called for dramatic changes to schools; recruited outside advocacy, teacher training, and charter groups; and spent millions to help launch new charter and district schools.” He then warns, “A Mind Trust–style organization may be coming to a city near you.” Barnum further describes “their idealized vision,” known as the “portfolio model,” with an enrollment system which helps families choose schools, and where the local district’s role shrinks to holding schools accountable, often (mostly?) by closing ones that supposedly don’t measure up.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/12/06/a-portfolio-of-schools-how-a-nationwide-effort-to-disrupt-urban-school-districts-is-gaining-traction/

The Mind Trust and other portfolio advocates have assembled teams of “quarterbacks” to contribute money to initiate the portfolio approach and recruit the same privatization team players – Teach for America, Relay Graduate School of Education, TNTP, and Stand For Children.

Barnum writes that it is unclear how much money has been invested in promoting portfolios. He notes that 1/3rd of the $77 million raised by the Mind Trust since 2006 came from national groups, but it is clear that “prominent philanthropies, including some that have also spent millions in recent years funding charter schools nationwide, are investing heavily.” In particular, he cites the Walton, Arnold, and Broad foundations. He points out the role of David Osborne’s book tour, funded by Walton, Arnold, and Broad, where Osborne “recently compared teachers unions’ opposition to charter school expansion in Massachusetts to George Wallace’s promotion of mandated school segregation.”

The thing that jumps out to me with Barnum’s first two posts is that the record of these political campaigns is mixed. And organizing an attack on unions and school boards is much, much easier than actually improving schools. This ambiguity is an even more important theme of his third piece, as well as the sources he footnotes. National reformers may believe that they can come into localities that they know nothing about and push through their privatization schemes. They may have tons of money to gamble on risky social engineering experiments, but they have little or no evidence that the tumult that they instigate would benefit students, and remain oblivious to the damage down by failed experiments.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/12/08/advocates-of-the-portfolio-model-for-improving-schools-say-it-works-are-they-right/

Barnum cites conservative reformers and research from a range of scholars to puncture the public relations spin of big-bucks portfolio advocates. Even the cornerstone of the experiment, a common enrollment system, has prompted pushback by conservatives who note the way that it would promote more teach-to-the-test malpractice and by patrons who were confused by the systems. Even one of the most highly praised centralized enrollment system, in Denver, did not increase access of special education students to charters or have a statistically significant effect on the number of low-income students in charters.

Advice to the Arnold Foundation

Denver Study Shows Simplifying Enrollment Drove More Disadvantaged Students to Sign Up for Charter Schools

Something similar applies to school closures which is the silver bullet being promised by portfolio advocates. Those who trust the increase in test scores in New Orleans attribute much of the gains to closing schools that were low-performing. As Barnum acknowledges, that only works when there are better schools available, and I would say that it would take more than a portfolio of silver bullets to create them in our most challenging districts. Barnum also links to his compilation of research which showed gains for students in closed schools in only 1/4th of the studies. He showed no examples of closures where displaced students benefitted but the outcomes in receiving schools didn’t decline.

Research Shows Students Can Benefit When a School Closes — but Only If There Are Better Ones to Attend

And the question of costs versus benefits brings us to New Orleans, which is typically cited as the proof of the concept of portfolios. It is the only serious gripe that I have with Barnum’s wording. While he acknowledged that test score growth is a flawed metric, Barnum doesn’t mention why it is so much more problematic in evaluating NOLA and other experiments that focus unflinchingly on bubble-in accountability. Test score growth might or might not mean more learning, and as I hope any teacher would understand, it often means the learning of destructive habits. Personally, I can’t see any scenario where test score growth in a place that stressed such growth as much as the NOLA portfolio can stand by itself as evidence of meaningful learning that beneficial to students.

Regardless, Barnum cites a “national analysis [which] also found that New Orleans students made large academic gains between 2009 and 2015.” I wish he’d been more precise in noting that NOLA only had three years when the growth rate exceeded that of the old failing system. However, Barnum notes that the gains occurred when New Orleans was most generously funded, and was free to suspend or push out large numbers of students. He mentions the lack of clear evidence that gains can be sustained without those tactics, and that “more recent test scores in the city have suggested that schools are backsliding somewhat.” Corporate reformer Peter Cook called the decline “The Great NOLA Train Wreck.”
https://peterccook.com/2017/11/08/great-nola-train-wreck/

Barnum also notes “another concern: expansion of charters in New Orleans coincided with a decline in the number of schools offering prekindergarten.” And regarding NOLA, Newark, and elsewhere, he addresses the conflicts between outside reformers and communities.

Portfolio advocates should also explain the disappointing results of Memphis and Newark. Barnum writes, “A Vanderbilt analysis found that a state takeover effort known as the Achievement School District failed to raise test scores, even as it was dubbed a “national exemplar” in implementing the portfolio model.” I wish he’d also reported that Memphis became #1 as New Orleans became #3 in “disconnected youth,” or students out of school without a job.
http://www.speno2014.com/oydataguide/

Barnum notes a recent, revisionist (and I would say flawed) study which indicates the $200 million Zuckerberg reform investment in Newark was a “mixed success.” In a longer analysis he writes:

Journalist Dale Russakoff wrote a largely critical account of changes that focused on how a large share of the Zuckerberg money went to high-paid consultants. Since, media reports have largely suggested that the approach failed and that the money was wasted.

Given the thorough research by Russakoff, and the work of other excellent journalists, it’s hard for me to take seriously the special pleading by reformers who deny that Newark was a failure. It’s especially hard to fathom how social scientists would get away with spinning the conclusion that Newark portfolio might have worked because it might lead to future gains, but without offering evidence that the happy ending might occur, and “eventually alter system-wide productivity for future cohorts.”

Click to access newark_ed_reform_nber_w23922_suggested_changes.pdf

Finally, Barnum writes, “There is little or no rigorous research comparing gains in Denver, Indianapolis, and Washington D.C. to similar districts that have gone in a different direction.”

Denver was identified as having the largest achievement gap in the nation, indicating that like D.C. the gains may be due to economic growth and/or gentrification. And a recent scandal shows that D.C. still hasn’t shown the ability to curtail the cheating that portfolios would invariably encourage. And as far as Indianapolis, recent research can help estimate the gains that occurred when the Mind Trust and other corporate reformers invested in the city. Median income in Indianapolis is $10,000 or 1/3rd greater than that of the resource-starved Oklahoma City schools and 3rd grade scores are much higher. During the next five years, however, student performance grows at the same rate in both cities, 4.4 years.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2015/10/07/report-denver-ranks-last-among-50-cities-on-income-based-achievement-gaps/
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2016/09/21/dps-students-of-color-not-making-as-much-progress-on-state-tests-as-white-peers/
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2017/10/04/indianapolis-public-schools-sees-little-a-f-change-but-innovation-schools-got-top-grades/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/ballou-high-principal-reassigned-following-report-questioning-school-standards/2017/12/04/54bbcdfe-d947-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.ce1c2339b34d

Now that the claims of gains for portfolios have been largely debunked in Newark, D.C., Tennessee, and Indianapolis, and the extreme exaggerations regarding Denver and New Orleans cut down to size, what are the prospects for the new portfolio public relations campaign? We educators have seen this dog and pony show repeatedly. We need to keep reminding political leaders of the Billionaires Boys Club’s sorry record in education policy.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Watch Out, Boston: Here Comes School Choice, Whether You Want It or Not

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2017 //
14

Christine Langhoff, retired educator, wrote the following information about the corporate reform assault on Boston Public Schools. Voters overwhelmingly rejected expansion of charter school, but the privatization movement is never dissuaded by public opposition. They think democracy is the problem and have no qualms about ignoring the will of the people when it conflicts with their ambition.

Langhoff writes:

Last week, this rather odd Tweet appeared from the Boston Public Schools Twitter account:

The language about “choice” made me remember that NPR featured this article about how “coaches” are helping parents choose schools for their children.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/11/27/551853951/confused-by-your-public-school-choices-hire-a-coach?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2055

Of course, most BPS parents don’t have money for this sort of help. No worries! There’s an edu-business non-profit for that: EdNavigator https://www.ednavigator.com

And they’re coming to Boston! After a successful run in – New Orleans?

So who is behind EdNavigator? The “leadership” page shows a bunch of folks from TNTP and some KIPPsters

https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/leadership

And the Board of Directors is full of a bunch more charteristas, including Chris Stewart, aka @CitizenStewart, as Director of Outreach and External Affairs:

https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/board-of-directors

Their partners page shows many hotels, i.e. low income workers. Remember that the Pritzker hedge fund family of Chicago own Hyatt Hotels :

https://www.ednavigator.com/who-we-are/our-partners

The plan is to offer school choice counseling as a “benefit” to low income workers and by developing this “trust” in their workers, the public school system is supplanted as the knowledgeable entity on education.

“Our Navigators combine expert knowledge of schools with a deep understanding of our communities. Most are accomplished former teachers, school leaders, or counselors, and all have passed a background check, received privacy training and adhere to a strict code of confidentiality.

They’re like pediatricians for your educational health, and they’re always ready to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and get things done. In a recent survey, 95 percent of EdNavigator members said that their Navigator is “the person I trust most for information and advice about education issues.”

https://www.ednavigator.com/how-we-help

Here in Boston, EdNavigator goes by the name of Boston School Finder
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about

About Boston School Finder
“Boston School Finder is being developed and distributed by a committed and diverse team of Parent Ambassadors supported by local non-profits. These parents and guardians represent nearly all the neighborhoods of Boston, and enroll their children in BPS, charter, Catholic, and private schools.
Funding for Boston School Finder was provided through the Boston Schools Fund and the Barr Foundation, two local non-profit organizations. Web design and development was provided by a team of volunteers who work at Wayfair, a Boston-based e-commerce company specializing in home goods.
Many other organizations, including the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, the Boston Charter Alliance, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and community organizations from all around the city are providing guidance and input on the site.”

They’ve hired “Parent Ambassadors”
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about/contact

And have detailed information about enrollment for public, private, charter and religious schools
https://www.bostonschoolfinder.org/about/enrollment

Since November 29, some pages for the website have been removed, but here’s some of the information that has gone missing:

2017 Barrr Foundation grants:
Ed Navigator Inc.
To support the EdNavigator expansion to Boston.
• Year Awarded: 2017

• Amount: $500,000

• Term: 24 months

• Program: Education


Boston Schools Fund Inc. To support the development and implementation of the Boston School Finder Family Information Tool.
• Year Awarded: 2017
• Amount: $300,000
Term: 12 months

The Barr Foundation is also a champion of Unified Enrollment, which in turn is part of CRPE’s Gates Compact, all of which will have a detrimental effect on Boston’s public schools.

http://www.bostonschoolsfund.org/boston-compact/

Also in the missing link from November 29, was this list of Board members

PRESIDENT WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
TREASURER WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
CLERK JILL SHAH
DIRECTOR WILLIAM F. AUSTIN
DIRECTOR JILL SHAH
DIRECTOR KATHRYN EVERETT

Austin taught math at Roxbury Prep, which is the charter where John King was a founding teacher before he moved on to New York state and then to replace Arne Duncan. (It is also the school with the persistently highest suspension rate in the state of Massachusetts.) Austin has overseen its four-campus expansion. Shah and her husband own the on-line furniture store Wayfair; her husband is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank.

On Tuesday, Austin confirmed to a member of the Boston Teachers Union that the above is accurate.

So, charteristas and billionaires. Color me skeptical that these organizations are well suited to helping Boston parents choose public schools for their children. It seems, too, that the parents most likely to utilize the bostonschoolfinder.org website are the best educated and most advantaged to begin with.

The Boston City Council held a hearing on Tuesday evening, December 5, which I attended, with the purpose of getting this information on the record. The hearing was on the school assignment process, which has been a colossal boondoggle, featuring algorithms written by MIT students. The current plan was enacted in 2013, and there were supposed to be yearly reports about progress, or lack of and necessary improvements along the way. No reports have been issued over the past four years.

When Councilor Tito Jackson (who supported the “No” position on last year’s charter expansion ballot question) probed for a reason for the lack of reporting, the School Department’s answer was that we’ve had three different standardized state tests, so no judgments can be made about the quality of the schools, information parents need to choose a school. When Jackson asked about Unified Enrollment, the School Department claimed to know nothing about it, that there had been no meetings on the topic. But Mayor Marty Walsh has filed legislation to fast track Unified Enrollment, then later denied he did so after reports became public.

“Currently, students have a list of school options comprising only district schools and can apply also to as many charters as desired. Under unified enrollment, unless school list lengths are expanded, the presence of any charter school on the list necessarily will bump a district school off of it, reducing district school options, states QUEST in its report published on Sept. 18, 2017. Under bill H.2876 filed by Rep. Alice Peisch and co-sponsored by Walsh, Carvalho and Rep. Dan Hunt, charter schools could elect to give enrollment preference to students living near the school.”

http://baystatebanner.com/news/2017/oct/11/quiet-push-unified-enrollment/

(Rep. Alice Peisch, by the way, has been a staunch supporter of charter expansion and was one of their spokespeople during last year’s Question 2.)

On Friday, December 8, the School Department released another plan informed by an MIT algorithm for start times for our schools. Ostensibly, the goal was later start times for high schools, many of which begin now at 7:15. There are no school buses for high schools, which means kids often need to leave home by about 6:00 to arrive at school on public transportation. There has been an uprising among parents since new times were revealed because they have changed start times in 105 of 125 schools (84% of all BPS schools) ostensibly in order to change 21 high school start times.

Under the new plan, many elementary schools are scheduled to begin at 7:15, with afternoon dismissals as early as 1:15. Adding before and after school care to schedules for the littles could mean an 11 hour day away from home. When parents began to push back, asking how they could be expected to juggle work schedules with these new school hours, these pieces of advice were offered:

“My new bell time doesn’t work for me, what can I do?
• For students who are eligible for transportation and where we have capacity on our buses, BPS will provide transportation from off-site, before-school programs to school; and from school to off-site, after-school programs.
• Your school likely has before- or after- school programming. More than 90% of all BPS schools have after-school programing and 90% of BPS schools starting after 9:00 AM have a before-school program. Additionally, we will continue to work with programs and schools to expand available before- and after-school programming across BPS.
• BPS is happy to provide parents, guardians, and students with letters to employers notifying them of a school scheduling change and explaining why this may necessitate a change of working hours. For this, please email starttimes@bostonpublicschools.org.
• We realize that in some cases, the only option for families may be to change schools. For more information on this process, please visit a BPS Welcome Center, its website, bostonpublicschools.org/welcomeservices, or call 617-635-9010. Please also consider attending the BPS School Showcase on Saturday, December 9, at TD Garden; the event begins at 9:00 am and ends at 1:00 pm. For more information, visit bostonpublicschools.org/registrationevents.”

https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/7016

The Boston Globe weighed in, essentially telling parents to suck it up:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/12/09/new-school-schedules-are-worth-hassle/tjfhF0WLfE6O1Et90SW7vL/story.html?camp=bg%3Abrief%3Arss%3Afeedly&rss_id=feedly_rss_brief&s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter#comments

Parents have posted a petition which has garnered over 4,700 signatures since Saturday.

https://www.change.org/p/tommy-chang-and-mayor-walsh-stop-immediate-changes-on-school-start-times-in-boston

When I start to add up all this chaos, I come to one conclusion: it’s deliberate.

It makes enrollment in traditional schools more difficult.

It makes school schedules more onerous for parents and kids.

It will destabilize the entire school system.

It will drive families away.

It will make the privatizers gleeful.

It will subvert the voters’ emphatic NO to an expansion of the charter industry.

Right here in the cradle of public education.

Categories Boston, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice

Trump Refuses to Protect U.S. Against Future Russian Hacking of Our Elections

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2017 //
91

A blockbuster report in the Washington Post says that Trump adamantly refuses to acknowledge Russian hacking into our elections and will not discuss ways to protect against recurrences. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is laughing about what they accomplished with an expenditure of only $500,000.

There are many reasons to worry about Trump’s presidency. This may be the biggest. He is violating the oath he took to protect our country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/donald-trump-pursues-vladimir-putin-russian-election-hacking/

The story begins:

In the final days before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his inner circle pleaded with him to acknowledge publicly what U.S. intelligence agencies had already concluded — that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was real.

Holding impromptu interventions in Trump’s 26th-floor corner office at Trump Tower, advisers — including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and designated chief of staff, Reince Priebus — prodded the president-elect to accept the findings that the nation’s spy chiefs had personally presented to him on Jan. 6.

They sought to convince Trump that he could affirm the validity of the intelligence without diminishing his electoral win, according to three officials involved in the sessions. More important, they said that doing so was the only way to put the matter behind him politically and free him to pursue his goal of closer ties with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“This was part of the normalization process,” one participant said. “There was a big effort to get him to be a standard president.”

But as aides persisted, Trump became agitated. He railed that the intelligence couldn’t be trusted and scoffed at the suggestion that his candidacy had been propelled by forces other than his own strategy, message and charisma.

Told that members of his incoming Cabinet had already publicly backed the intelligence report on Russia, Trump shot back, “So what?” Admitting that the Kremlin had hacked Democratic Party emails, he said, was a “trap.”

As Trump addressed journalists on Jan. 11 in the lobby of Trump Tower, he came as close as he ever would to grudging acceptance. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” he said, adding that “we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”

As hedged as those words were, Trump regretted them almost immediately. “It’s not me,” he said to aides afterward. “It wasn’t right.”

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House.

The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. The repercussions radiate across the government.

Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.

His administration has moved to undo at least some of the sanctions the previous administration imposed on Russia for its election interference, exploring the return of two Russian compounds in the United States that President Barack Obama had seized — the measure that had most galled Moscow. Months later, when Congress moved to impose additional penalties on Moscow, Trump opposed the measures fiercely.

Trump has never convened a Cabinet-level meeting on Russian interference or what to do about it, administration officials said. Although the issue has been discussed at lower levels at the National Security Council, one former high-ranking Trump administration official said there is an unspoken understanding within the NSC that to raise the matter is to acknowledge its validity, which the president would see as an affront.

Trump’s stance on the election is part of a broader entanglement with Moscow that has defined the first year of his presidency. He continues to pursue an elusive bond with Putin, which he sees as critical to dealing with North Korea, Iran and other issues. “Having Russia in a friendly posture,” he said last month, “is an asset to the world and an asset to our country.”

His position has alienated close American allies and often undercut members of his Cabinet — all against the backdrop of a criminal probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

This account of the Trump administration’s reaction to Russia’s interference and policies toward Moscow is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies. Most agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

Trump administration officials defended the approach with Russia, insisting that their policies and actions have been tougher than those pursued by Obama but without unnecessarily combative language or posture. “Our approach is that we don’t irritate Russia, we deter Russia,” a senior administration official said. “The last administration had it exactly backwards.”

Others questioned how such an effort could succeed when the rationale for that objective is routinely rejected by the president. Michael V. Hayden, who served as CIA director under President George W. Bush, has described the Russian interference as the political equivalent of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, an event that exposed a previously unimagined vulnerability and required a unified American response.

“What the president has to say is, ‘We know the Russians did it, they know they did it, I know they did it, and we will not rest until we learn everything there is to know about how and do everything possible to prevent it from happening again,’ ” Hayden said in an interview. Trump “has never said anything close to that and will never say anything close to that.”

‘More than worth the effort’

The feeble American response has registered with the Kremlin.

U.S. officials said that a stream of intelligence from sources inside the Russian government indicates that Putin and his lieutenants regard the 2016 “active measures” campaign — as the Russians describe such covert propaganda operations — as a resounding, if incomplete, success.

Moscow has not achieved some its most narrow and immediate goals. The annexation of Crimea from Ukraine has not been recognized. Sanctions imposed for Russian intervention in Ukraine remain in place. Additional penalties have been mandated by Congress. And a wave of diplomatic retaliation has cost Russia access to additional diplomatic facilities, including its San Francisco consulate.

But overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives — destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House.

The bottom line for Putin, said one U.S. official briefed on the stream of post-election intelligence, is that the operation was “more than worth the effort.”

Categories Education Reform

Former Facebook Executive Apolgizes for Damage Facebook Has Done to Society

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2017 //
12

A former Facebook executive has taken the extraordinary step of apologizing for the damage the social media giant has done to society.

A former Facebook executive is making waves after he spoke out about his “tremendous guilt” over growing the social network, which he feels has eroded “the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”

Chamath Palihapitiya began working for Facebook in 2007 and left in 2011 as its vice president for user growth. When he started, he said, there was not much thought given to the long-term negative consequences of developing such a platform.

“I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of our minds, we kind of knew something bad could happen,” said Palihapitiya, 41. “But I think the way we defined it was not like this.”

That changed as Facebook’s popularity exploded, he said. To date, the social network has more than 2 billion monthly users around the world and continues to grow.

But the ability to connect and share information so quickly — as well as the instant gratification people give and receive over their posts — has resulted in some negative consequences, according to Palihapitiya.

“It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are,” he said. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works: no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”

Categories Media, Technology

Steven Singer Has Two Theories About Why Facebook Blocks His Posts

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2017 //
8

On two occasions, Steven Singer’s posts have been blocked by Facebook. Both posts were about privatization.

He has pondered why this happens.

He has two theories.

Read here to find out what they are.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization
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