The LAUSD board selected banker Austin Beutner in secretive proceedings.
A complaint has been filed saying that the procedure violated state law.
Archives for the month of: May, 2018
John Merrow recently served as a judge for the Education Writers Association’s annual reporting awards. While admiring the high quality of journalism that he read, he used his post to excoriate Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings for a self-serving opinion piece that they wrote in The Washington Post.
“Here’s the story that shouldn’t be ignored: The proponents of disastrous ‘school reform,’ which has given us 20+ years of ‘test and punish’ & such, are now positioning themselves as voices of common sense. Exhibit A is this recent Washington Post column by two former Secretaries of Education, Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings. One guided the Department under George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” and other created the infamous “Race to the Top” program.
“Their breath-taking chutzpah begins with the title of the piece: What ails education? ‘An absence of vision, a failure of will and politics.’ But their opening sentence actually tops it: “We have long benefited from a broad coalition that has advanced bold action to improve America’s education system.”
“Just exactly who are the WE that have benefited from the ‘bold action’ that the Secretaries refer to? It’s far easier to identify those who have NOT benefited from “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” Let’s start with students, because their performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which everyone agrees is education’s ‘gold standard,’ has basically been flat for the 20+ years of Bush and Obama. Next on the list are teachers, whose salaries and morale have declined over the years of increasing reliance on multiple-choice testing and ‘test-and-punish’ policies. Collateral damage has been done to the occupation of teaching, which has lost prestige and now fails to attract enough candidates to fill our classrooms with qualified instructors.
“So that’s–literally–millions of students and teachers who have NOT benefited from the ‘broad coalition’ that Duncan and Spellings are so proud of.”
Who benefitted from the Duncan-Spellings billions and mandates?
Testing corporations. Ideologues who want to fracture public education. Profiteers. “And–surprise–the two former United States Secretaries of Education. One now leads the University of North Carolina higher education system, and the other is one of three Managing Partners of The Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ very wealthy and active education venture.”
Wow.
He then goes on to enumerate the “reformers” who are now backpedaling or mansplaining, all to avoid responsibility for the disasters of the past 20 years. They (including Duncan and Spellings) are the people we need to be reduced from, says Merrow.
This is one of Merrow’s best pieces. He is on a roll.
Justin Parmenter writes here about a state legislator in North Carolina who denounced the teachers who plan to protest on May 16 as “thugs.”
He says, here come the teacher thugs!
He writes:
Brody is right to be concerned about the more than 13,500 thugs who will be storming Raleigh on Wednesday. After all, these thugs bring a very special skill set that make us extraordinarily effective advocates:
We are black belts in sarcasm and penmanship. Just wait til you see our signs.
We can hold our pee all day long.
We reserve a special teacher voice that demands attention.
We are very good at waiting in line (no cutting).
We can go 8 hours without sitting down once. The secret is in the shoes.
Most importantly, these thugs are experts in fact-based arguments.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Gary Rubinstein has followed the progress of the schools that claim that 100% of their graduates were accepted into four-year universities. What he usually finds is very high rates of attrition. But in the case of YES Prep, he found something more. Students are not allowed to graduate high school unless they have already been accepted into a four-year university. Voila! Success!
Today, Jitu Brown and the Journey for Justice will release a report on the steps of the Supreme Court about the continuing failure to enforce the Brown vs. Board decision of 1954.
Journey for Justice Alliance Releases Myth-Shattering Report “Failing Brown v. Board” that Exposes Deep Inequities in Public Education Across Race and Class
The Report examines course offerings in 12 cities revealing inequities that have remained since the civil rights movement, inspiring call from national organizations for a “new Brown v. Board” decision.
The Journey for Justice Alliance, a national network of community-based organizations in 31 cities, released its report “Failing Brown v. Board” which illuminates just how inequitable public education remains today, largely across racial lines. Through examining course offerings at high schools in 12 cities (and one elementary in Chicago), this report, which is backed by substantial research, shows how black and brown students are denied “access to inspiration” in comparison with their white, more affluent peers. “Failing Brown v. Board” was released on the first day of the “Poor People’s Campaign.”
“In America, inequity is ignored as children in the same city have two completely different educational experiences and the dividing line in many cases is race. Every American child and their family have the right to a high-quality neighborhood public school from grades pre-k through 12. We aren’t asking for a handout in this report, we are demanding a fair return on our tax investment,” said Jitu Brown, National Director of the Journey for Justice Alliance. “Without access to great equitable public schools, we are failing an entire generation of students and their families solely based on the color of their skin and their socioeconomic status.”
This shattering myth report, its findings, and multiple statewide educator walkouts have pushed national and local organizers to call for a “new Brown v. Board” initiative for educational equity. On Monday morning at the steps of the Supreme Courts, the Journey for Justice Alliance, in partnership with the #WeChooseCampaign and the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools (AROS), will release the report and outline planks of the nationwide campaign.
“As parents this report is true to our lived experience. We must have zero tolerance for inequity and demand justice for every child now,” Zakiyah Ansari, a New York public school parent and advocacy director of the Alliance for Quality Education. “We choose equity, not the illusion of school choice”
For members of the press who can’t attend the press conference in person, please email Richard Fowler (Richard@richardmediacompany.com) to schedule a one-on-one interview with one of the participants.
WHAT: Press Conference
WHERE: U.S. Supreme Court, 1 First Avenue NE, Washington DC
WHEN: Monday, May 14th at 9am
WHO: Jitu Brown, National Director, Journey for Justice Alliance,
Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers
Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director, Advancement Project,
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, President, National Education Association
And the following organizations: NAACP, Alliance for Quality Education NY, Alliance for Education Justice, American Federation of Teachers, Camden Parent’s Union, Dignity in Schools Coalition, Badass Teacher’s Association, Save our Schools
Read the report here.
To all the mothers and grandmothers, have a very happy Mothers’ Day!
As Nancy Bailey writes here, moms and teachers together are powerful!
Here’s to Moms and Teachers: Standing Together for Great Public Schools!
Last night, I watched my favorite movie for what must have been the hundredth time. It is “Singin’ in the Rain,” with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor. I think it is very close to the perfect Hollywood musical (except for the song where Kelly and O’Connor ridicule the elocution teacher).
So, as I watched, I began googling sites about “The Making of Singin’ in the Rain”) and discovered some startling facts. (By the way, autocorrect hates it when you write the word “Singin’, and tries to make it “Singing”).
I already knew that Debbie Reynolds was a 19-year-old gymnast who did not have any dance training and was taught on the set by Gene Kelly. I knew that she cried and her feet were bleeding after the hours of making the famous number when they sing “Good Morning, Good Morning, It’s Great to Stay Up Late.”
In the climactic scene in the movie, Debbie (Kathy Selden) stands behind a curtain and dubs a song for the leading lady Lina Lamont (played by Jean Hagen), who has a horrible screechy voice.
What I didn’t know and just discovered was that Debbie Reynolds’ voice was dubbed in that famous last scene when she was supposedly dubbing for Jean Hagen! The actual singer of the song at the end, when Debbie was supposedly singing for Lina Lamont, was Betty Noyes.
Betty Noyes dubbed Debbie Reynolds’ voice in “Would You?” and “You Are My Lucky Star” and the final number “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Furthermore, when Kathy Selden dubs the line that Lina Lamont speaks (“Until the stars turn cold”) in the movie-within-a-movie called “The Dancing Cavalier,” the actual voice that was dubbed was Jean Hagen’s real voice.
So Debbie was dubbed by Betty Noyes, and Debbie was dubbed in the speaking line for the movie-within-the-movie by the woman she was allegedly dubbing.
Irony! The woman who was dubbing in the film was also dubbed.
This is a gem for those of us who love this movie.
And I still love Debbie, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Tom Ultican has been writing a series of posts about the “Destroy Public Education Movement,” a phrase coined by Professor Jim Scheurich of Indiana University, who has been documenting this vile effort to privatize public schools.
In this post, Ultican writes about current events in Oakland, where the school board seems to be cooperating with the demise of the district.
He writes:
“A “Systems of Schools” plan has been introduced by the destroy public education (DPE) forces in Oakland, California. The plan basically posits that with 30 percent of students in charter schools, the system has become inefficient. Therefore, the school board needs to review resources and close schools in areas with too many seats and overlapping programs.
“However, since Oakland’s school board has no authority over charter schools it is only public schools that can be closed or downsized unless charter schools voluntarily cooperate.”
Read on.
The school district of Oakland, California, has been struggling to right its finances for years. One reason that it can’t right it’s Books is that charter schools are a drain in the district. Recently the district learned what the charters cost, by reading the report from “In the Public Interest.” The annual cost: $57.4 Million.
https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Study-says-Oakland-school-district-lost-57-4-12898930.php
“Oakland has more charter schools per capita than any other district in California and has struggled to balance its budget in recent years, with schools forced to make $9 million in mid-year cuts this year.
“The report, called a first-of-its-kind analysis of such costs, also included net-loss analysis for East Side Union High School District in Santa Clara County and San Diego Unified.
“The high costs of charter schools have led to decreases in neighborhood public schools in counseling, libraries, music and art programs, lab sciences, field trips, reading tutors, special education funding, and even the most basic supplies like toilet paper,” said the researcher, political science Professor Gordon Lafer. “Unlimited charter school expansion is pushing some of California’s school districts toward a financial tipping point, from which they will be unable to return.”
Oakland may be an object lesson in the destructive effects of unlimited charter expansion. The continued financial drain may cause the school district to collapse.
http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article210896254.html
Two charter school teachers in Durham, North Carolina, write that their schools are closing on May 16 to join the protest against the Legislature’s underfunding of public schools.
Taylor Schmidt and Morgan Carney, teachers at Central Park Charter School, reflect on their school’s advantages and point out:
“As the 10th largest economy in the nation, North Carolina is currently ranked 39th for per-pupil spending. Public school teachers often reach into their own pocketbooks to buy essentials like pencils and copy paper for overcrowded classrooms, nevermind having the financial support to take 95 sixth graders on a bus to a local farm for project work.
“Adding to these challenges is the broken system of creating and managing charter schools in our state, a system that includes our own school. Soon after we arrived at Central Park, structural shortcomings became apparent. Students of color comprised 81 percent of the demographics of Durham Public Schools in 2013, while students of color at Central Park comprised only 29 percent of the student population. Whereas 66 percent of students in Durham Public Schools were eligible for free and reduced lunch, only 7 percent of CPSC students were eligible for the program.
“This realization led to greater clarity: regardless of our intentions, we had become part of the problem of school resegregation. We petitioned the state to become the first charter school to give weighted lottery preference to economically disadvantaged families. We have changed our policies to provide free and reduced-price lunches and transportation assistance. While there is more work to be done, each year the socioeconomic diversity of our student body better reflects the strengths found in the rich diversity of our community and delivers on the mandate for NC charter schools to provide increased learning opportunities for those most in need.
“In 2018, Central Park is arriving at another moment of clarity. We recognize that, despite positive intentions, we are still part of the problem. As a charter school, we play into a system that has strayed from the original goals. The charter school system has been turned into a Trojan horse that severely underfunds our state’s public schools, creates competition for resources, resegregates our schools, and provides blinders to cover the increasing privatization of North Carolina’s educational institutions through for-profit charter schools. The mission of our school, and the original mission of charter schools, forbid us from staying silent on these issues.
“We intend to actively fight against resegregation of schools by race and class in North Carolina. We stand against privatization, vouchers, and for-profit charter schools, believing passionately that we must serve in collaboration and partnership alongside our communities’ public schools.”
Read more here: http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article210896254.html#storylink=cpy
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