Julie Vassilatos, parent activist and blogger in Chicago, has prepared a brilliant and funny multiple-choice test about mayoral control in Chicago.
Take the test and see how much you know. You will learn a lot.
Archives for the month of: June, 2018
One of the psychic rewards of teaching is discovering that students remember you as the person who changed their life. They probably never knew the name of the superintendent, forgot the name of the mayor and the governor, but they never forgot that one extraordinary teacher.
This recently happened to a sixth-grade teacher in Arizona. She wrote an encouraging note to one of her students and told the student to invite her to her graduation from Harvard. Sixth grade!
Twenty one years later, that student invited teacher Judith Toensing to Harvard to see her receive a doctorate of public health.
“Judith Toensing didn’t just teach her students, she inspired them.
“A sixth-grade teacher from Yuma, Arizona, Toensing made a strong impact on one of her students 21 years ago.
“At the end of the school year in 1997, Mrs. Toensing, wrote a note on the student’s report card: “It has been a joy to have you in class. Keep up the good work! Invite me to your Harvard graduation!.”
“This week, the student, Christin Gilmer graduated from Harvard as a doctor of public health.”
Gilmer saved her teacher’s note all these years. She invited her teacher to the graduation ceremony.
“Dean Michelle Williams thanked Toensing — and all public school teachers — for the “immeasurably important” work they do.
“You don’t just teach young people. You inspire them, and you propel them along a path of fulfillment and service to others. Your work is what makes our work possible,” Dean Williams said.”
Teachers matter.
Please watch the video of this Alabama educator who lost her son to opioids. She hopes that others will learn from what happened to her son. Addiction to painkillers can happen in the best of families.
The Sackler family of Connecticut became billionaires by manufacturing and marketing opioids, Oxycontin in particular. Their company is Purdue Pharmaceuticals. They are major funders of ConnCAN and 50CAN, organizations that promote charter schools. Their name adorns museums, libraries, and universities. Read about them here and here and here. The New Yorker called them “the family that built an empire of pain.” It said: “The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars–and millions of addicts.”
Okay, so we have a president who believes he is above the law, that he could murder James Comey in the Oval Office and it would be okay, that whatever he does is legal because he is THE LAW. Okay, so he knows nothing about the Divine Right of Kings, and thinks he is one. Okay, so he doesn’t know that the American Revolution came about because the colonists didn’t want to be ruled by a Mad King. True, he never read the Constitution.
But don’t give up hope!
Here is Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect. You too can share their wisdom for free by signing up here.
Kuttner on TAP
2018: The Case for Optimism. So let’s review the bidding. The investigative waters keep rising around Trump. The bill guaranteeing the safety of the special counsel won’t pass, but the support of four senior Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sends Trump a warning—seven if Trump were to stage a Saturday Night Massacre. Too much information is now with the U.S. attorney in New York. And firing Mueller would lead directly to impeachment.
Issues that looked like winners for Trump are turning blurry at best. China is pushing back against Trump’s hard line, and efforts by even hawkish trade officials to get back on the same side with the EU (whose support we need against China) are running up against Trump’s stupidly uninformed cold shoulder to Germany and his insistence that tariffs apply to Europe. Korea, despite early euphoria, will be far from an easy win for Trump, since at best we are in for a period of protracted diplomacy and a deal is still a long shot.
Republicans continue to look worse and worse for the November midterms. Speaker Paul Ryan’s unforced error in firing the House chaplain alienates Catholic Republican voters and divides his own caucus. The pitiful mess with former White House physician and failed VA nominee Ronny Jackson creates yet another wedge between Trump and his party’s nervous supporters in Congress. Trump’s personal unpopularity spills over onto his Republican enablers.
And despite the Republican penchant for trying to rig or steal elections, please note that the six special elections for vacant House seats since Trump’s election went off more or less as normal.
A Democratic pickup of at least 50 seats in the House seems likely, and the Senate is now seriously in play as well. In Tennessee, polls show the popular Democrat, Phil Bredesen, leading the widely detested far-right Republican and likely nominee, Marsha Blackburn. Even Republican Bob Corker, who is retiring from the Senate seat, backs Bredesen.
Lots could happen between now and November, of course, but none of it is likely to be good for Trump and the GOP. Even a good economy is not translating into support for the incumbent party.
I know, I know, it’s risky to count chickens before they hatch. But with all the gloomy news, there are actually many things to celebrate—things that keep hope alive. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Tom Ultican here reviews Johann Neem’s history of public schools in early America: “Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America.”
Neem, a historian of American education, is an immigrant to the United States from India. He attended public schools. He met students from many different background. From his own life experience, he understood the genius of public education in fostering a democratic culture.
Ultican found Neem’s history to be especially relevant in understanding debates today.
He reviews important topics in the book and sees how they relate to today’s battles over curriculum, pedagogy, religion, and charter schools.
He writes:
My main take away from this read is that in developing universal free public education in America the foundation for democracy was forged. That foundation is under attack today. Read this book and you will deepen and reinforce your own need to protect America’s public schools.
John Thompson, teacher and historian, has been investigating the track record of Superintendents “trained” by the unaccredited Broad Foundation.
He writes:
Across the nation, educators have seen the harm done to public education by Broad Academy superintendents. But what do we see when we take a step back and think through their patterns of behavior? And what do we see when looking at Oakland, for instance, where four Broad graduates have run the district? When Broad focuses so intently on one school system, what does the record of its leaders say about education “reform?”
Perhaps the most powerful indictment of an Oakland-connected Broadie, Antwan Wilson, was written by conservative reformer Max Eden, who is one of the many new critics of the data-driven micromanaging which Broad exemplifies. This is crucial because more and more reformers are acknowledging that their accountability-driven theories have failed; apparently, these corporate reformers are now gambling everything on choice, and placing their bets on charters that don’t face the oversight that once was contemplated by many neoliberal reformers.
And that is the first obvious pattern which emerged from Oakland. Before the first Broad manager (Randy Ward) was appointed, Oakland had 15 charters. Six years later, after Oakland experienced three Broad superintendents, it had 34. By the time Antwan Wilson left, the district had 44. As was explained in 2016 by the New York Times Motoko Rich, Wilson faced “a rebellion by teachers and some parents against his plan to allow families to use a single form to apply to any of the city’s 86 district-run schools or 44 charter campuses, all of which are competing for a shrinking number of students.” The likely scenario was that the common application form would result in a New Orleans-style charter portfolio model.
Second, the Oakland Broad experience provides another example about the way that their corporate reformers are untroubled by behaviors that most people see as scandalous. Its four Broad leaders all came with a history of dubious behaviors, or when they left they were caught up in questionable activities.
Vincent Matthews (Broad Class of 2006) had been the principal of a Edison Charter Academy in Noe Valley which had been in danger of losing its charter because it had been criticized for pushing out black students with low test scores. Kimberly Statham (2003) had resigned as chief academic officer of the Howard County Schools following allegations of a grade changing scandal involving her daughter.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/incoming-sf-schools-superintendent-takes-measured-stance-charters/
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-mtblog-2007-10-where_are_they_now_kimberly_a-story.html
Randy Ward (2003) left Oakland for San Diego where he resigned, after being placed on administrative leave. The San Diego County Office of Education had been thrown into turmoil as a forensic audit examined “concerns related to certain expenditures and compensation” for top education officials.
I’d add an observation about one controversy involving Michelle Fort-Merrill, “a close confidant to former superintendent Ward,” who earned a salary of $161,000. A whistle-blower won a civil lawsuit after accusing Fort-Merrill and others of “playing favorites with public education money by awarding lucrative legal contracts to friends.” He successfully claimed that his due process rights were violated.
When Fort-Merrill was terminated, she sued saying her due process rights were violated. Isn’t it hypocritical for corporate reformers to use charter expansions and data-driven evaluations for an all-out assault on educators’ due process rights while using those rights to protect their huge salaries?
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sdut-tensions-rise-at-county-office-of-education-2016jul14-story.html
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sd-me-county-schools-audit-20170714-story.html
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/mar/02/ticker-lawsuit-top-lawsuit-office-education/#
Only after Antwan Wilson left Oakland and became Washington D.C.’s chancellor, did his full record become apparent. As Valerie Strauss noteds “It was no secret that when Wilson departed the Oakland Unified School District 2½ years after arriving, he left a budget deficit of about $30 million behind.” But subsequent analyses showed:
While Wilson was superintendent in Oakland, the district overspent its budget in some areas, but spent substantially below budgeted amounts in other categories, according to data from the Board of Education. During the 2016-2017 school year, $10.4 million was budgeted for “classified supervisors and administrators” while $22.2 million was spent, according to the Board of Education. In the same year, $21.4 million was budgeted for professional and consulting services, but $28.2 million was spent.
Wilson spent huge amounts of money, creating new, unbudgeted positions and he paid more than what was customary. Strauss noted, “In 2013, before Wilson arrived in Oakland, only four administrators earned more than $200,000; two years later, at least 26 did.”
But Wilson spent less on books and supplies for classrooms than was budgeted. In 2015-2016, Strauss recalls, “$18.6 million was budgeted, but only $12.3 million was spent, according to board data. In 2016-2017, $20.1 million was budgeted for books and other school supplies, but only $6.8 million was spent.”
Wilson was forced to resign in D.C. after violating rules when transferring his daughter to one of the city’s most desirable high schools. This followed a Washington Post report that “an internal investigation has uncovered signs of widespread enrollment fraud” at a desirable school.
And these violations were revealed about the time that it was learned that Wilson had been warned of the Ballou High School graduation scandal. Moreover, these revelations followed Washington Post discovery that “the dramatic decrease in school suspension rates was also fake.”
In other words, Wilson, the fourth Broad superintendent of Oakland, found himself in a very similar situation in D.C., being the third in the line of corporate reformers that began with Michelle Rhee. My sense is that the mess he helped create in Oakland illustrates a pattern which is similar to the one that was started by Michelle Rhee. Even if Broad superintendents were not so cavalier about violating the norms of honest behsvior, their data-driven mentality would still create inevitable scandals. Plus, the more that Broad and other corporate reformers double-down on a single district, the more damage will become too serious to be covered up any longer.
For instance, D.C.’s data-driven, competition-driven reforms created “a Culture of Passing and Graduating Students.” A review of FY16-17 DCPS graduates found that 34.% of students graduated with the assistance of policy violations.
The unraveling of D.C.’s claims of transformational success is crucial because it was once the heart of the Billionaires Boys Club’s vision for American schools. Nobody dared to claim that Oakland was a great success, but as the Motoko Rich’s article articulates, it became the “Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools.”
Not only did Broad train four of Oakland’s superintendents, but:
It has granted about $6 million for staff development and other programs over the last decade. The Broad Center, which runs the superintendents’ academy, has subsidized the salaries of at least 10 ex-business managers who moved into administrative jobs at the district office.
Broadies may have had “modest success in raising student achievement” but in the environment they created there is no reason to believe that those “achievement” gains are real. It failed to solve the district’s financial problems, and it dramatically expanded charters.
So, what is next?
Broad has been helping to fund the campaigns to elect its corporate reformers in elections throughout California. Its failure to improve Los Angeles, Oakland, and other districts is interpreted as more evidence against public education norms. Rather than admit that their social engineering has failed, Broad et. al are doubling down on the edu-politics of destruction.
Leonie Haimson is a true school reformer, unlike the hedge funders, tycoons, and entrepreneurs who have falsely claimed that title. She is a dedicated education activist who has led the fight over many years for fully funded public schools and student privacy.
In this video, she talks with veteran journalist Bob Herbert about the mistakes of those in power who rely on standardized testing as the sole definition of success, about segregation, about the damage wrought by charter schools, and about the changes that will benefit all students.
Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagney, the Republican candidate for Governor, admitted in a secret recording that he pushed a very bad voucher bill to passage, because if he didn’t, the Walton family would give $3 Million to his opponent in the Republican primary.
What a creep. He sold out public schools and the children of Georgia for fear of Walton money going to his rival.
Pennsylvania bowed to pressure from religious schools that are beneficiaries of public funding via tax credit programs and removed language from the state law that bars discrimination.
Should private schools that benefit from Pennsylvania’s tax credit programs adhere to the rules of the public system?
That debate often revolves around school accountability because the state does not require private schools to administer and publish the results of standardized tests.
But the question has also cropped up in recent weeks around an entirely different issue — employee discrimination.
In May, Governor Tom Wolf’s administration removed nondiscrimination language from guidelines governing private schools that receive money through state tax credits.
The removal came soon after a coalition of private schools and lawmakers complained the language violated state law, prompting administration officials to acknowledge that the clause was inserted by accident.
The eliminated language would have barred private schools that benefit from the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) from discriminating against their employees on the basis of “gender, creed, color, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.”
The inclusion of “sexual orientation, gender identity or expression” irked several religiously-affiliated private schools around the state. One school, Dayspring Christian Academy in Lancaster County, called the language a “direct violation of our Christian conscience,” and encouraged parents to contact their legislators.
This skirmish highlights, for some, a lack of state oversight for religious and private schools that benefit from state policy. With some lawmakers pushing to create new avenues for private schools to receive state funds, that tension will likely grow.
Religious schools receiving public money through these programs will not be required to report standardized test scores and will be permitted to discriminate against students and staff on grounds that would not be permissible in public schools.
This is a terrible precedent. Where public money goes, so must public laws and accountability. Why should the public subsidize discrimination?
This will likely be a template for DeVos’s voucher plans at the federal level.
Jan Resseger reports on a startling development in Michigan. She quotes the new superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools, who just completed his first year on the job. His words are inspiring. He is actually fighting for the kids and the public schools. Dr. Nikolai Vitti was chosen by Detroit’s elected school board in 2017, after years of disastrous state control, led by people who enabled erosion of the public schools and the advance of privatization.
She writes:
Dr. Nikolai Vitti was their choice, and last week at the end of his first year on the job, at a conference sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, he confronted the dogma of Michigan’s power establishment—Rick Snyder, the DeVos family and all the rest.
The Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss reprinted part of Dr. Vitti’s remarks: “People often ask me, ‘What were you most surprised about when you took the job and started to work in the system?’ And I often say I was shocked, horrified at the lack of systems and processes for traditional public education. Traditional public education has always been, and hopefully will always be, the vehicle for social change, for social justice, for equal opportunity in this country. And walking into the system and seeing a lack of systems and processes is a testament to the lack of belief in what children can do.”
Vitti continued: “And there is a racist element to what has happened. Children in Detroit have been treated like second-class citizens. When a system is allowed to be run over a decade by individuals, and it’s not about one individual, but individuals that had no track record of education reform, no local governance structure to address immediate concerns and issues by the community through an elected board… and year after year of low performance, a lack of growth, drop in enrollment, facilities that are not kept up, that would never ever happen in any white suburban district in this country. And that is a testament of race. Because this country would not allow that. We see signs of that in Flint and we saw signs of that in New Orleans after the flood and we have multiple examples of this.”
Resseger quotes a column written by Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press, who served as moderator for the panel discussion at Mackinac Island. Her column was titled “Miracle on Mackinac Island: Business Community Gets Woke to Race.”
She said that the meeting may have been “a watershed moment in Michigan history.” For once, the power structure got a lesson about racism and the treatment of children in Detroit as second-class citizens.
Speaking to the state’s white power structure, Vitti pulled no punches:
His words drew loud and sustained applause. But Vitti also said something that drew tears. When I, as moderator of the forum, asked him to speak to the assembled crowd as an 8-year-old third-grader and tell them what he wants, he looked out and said:
“I want the same thing that your child wants,” he said to loud applause. “I may not have your privilege. I may not have the color of your skin. I may live in a different ZIP code. But I want the exact same thing you want for your son, your daughter, your grandchild, your niece, your nephew. That’s what I want.”
The Michigan legislature keeps piling on mandates, but with no support to reach them, she wrote.
The Michigan Legislature has scared some parents and teachers to distraction with a new law banning schools from promoting third-graders who do not read at grade level. Nine of 10 third-graders in the city schools do not read at grade level. And some parents and teachers feel the law will exacerbate an existing third-grade-to-unemployment pipeline similar to the fourth-grade-to-prison pipeline that already exists.
The shame is this is yet another example of the state attempting to polish its reputation at the expense of our children. Rather than help districts find ways to improve, then raise standards, the Legislature keeps raising standards without any support to make meeting them possible. One would think that legislators are trying to make public schools fail to make it easier to increase the number of charters across Michigan, but nah, that couldn’t be it, right?
Detroit’s Mayor Mike Duggan said that all of Michigan was in trouble, not only Detroit, because of bad leadership at the state level:
“We know the history. We had 10 years of state-appointed emergency managers,” Duggan said. “During that time, we lost half of the enrollment. … They eliminated career technical education, eliminated art, eliminated music … and all that happened was children continued to leave. … But this isn’t just Detroit.”
He cited National Assessment of Educational Progress scores that tell a larger story.
“For white students in the state of Michigan, fourth-grade math and reading level, in 2013 we were 14th in the country,” he said. “Last year — 46th in the country. Now, if you sat down in 2013 and said how can I sabotage Michigan’s future? … I’m not sure you could have accomplished it.”
Duggan said the state chose tax cuts over children, which was a mistake.
Michigan’s leaders (think Betsy DeVos, who has played a major role in state education policy, pushing charters) thought that they could fix the schools by adopting school choice while cutting taxes.
It didn’t work.
Now, let’s see how the power structure responds. Are they able to change course or will they double down on failure?
Diane Ravitch's blog 