Archives for the month of: July, 2018
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Los Angeles: UTLA Makes It’s “Last, Best, and Final Offer”

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
18

Negotiations in Los Angeles between LAUSD and its teachers union UTLA are at a critical point. UTLA issued this statement:


We demand a 48-hour response from LAUSD

When UTLA declared impasse earlier this month, LAUSD officials said they would bring significant proposals to today’s bargaining. Instead, they brought a previously proposed 2% ongoing salary increase, an additional one-time 2% bonus and a $500 stipend for materials and supplies. The UTLA bargaining team deemed this insulting, quickly reaffirmed negotiations are at a deadlock and gave the district 48 hours to respond to UTLA’s package proposal in a last, best and final offer.

“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. We must continue to fight for a sustainable future, yet we don’t have a partner in the very school district we are trying to save,” said Arlene Inouye, Chair of UTLA’s Bargaining Team. “We have been pushing for real change, they are keeping the status quo.”

Some outstanding key issues:

Class Size Matters. LAUSD gave no proposals to reduce class size. LAUSD has some of the highest class sizes in the nation, yet refuses to eliminate section 1.5 of the contract, which allows the district to ignore class size caps.

Fund Our Schools. LAUSD gave no proposals to address funding issues. California is the richest state in the nation, yet ranks 43 out of 50 in per-pupil funding.

Support Community Schools. LAUSD gave no proposals to fund Community Schools. Community schools meet the needs in the surrounding community, including wrap-around services, broadened curriculum and parent engagement.
Less Testing & More Teaching. LAUSD gave no proposals to address overtesting. Our kids are being overtested. Their teachers should have more discretion over what and when standardized assessments are given.

End the Privatization Drain. LAUSD gave no proposals for reasonable charter accountability and co-location measures. LAUSD refuses to address the $590 million lost to the unchecked expansion of charter schools each year.

Despite the need to look at factors that impact student health, safety and well-being, LAUSD has refused to address our common good proposals. In recognition of legal constraints tied to the “scope of bargaining,” UTLA has withdrawn proposals that are not mandatory subjects of bargaining. Nonetheless, we will continue to work diligently with parents and students for these improvements we think are vital to overall student success.

Last Thursday, July 19, LAUSD Supt. Austin Beutner told a room of business leaders at a Valley Industry and Commerce Association forum at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City that if things don’t change, ‘by 2021 we will be no more.’ Read the entire LA Daily News story here.

Beutner also said the loss of $590 million to charter school expansion is a “distracting shiny ball” and not a real concern. That amounts to $4,950 per student per year.

“That is much, much more than a ‘distracting shiny ball,’” said UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. “It amounts to robbing our students of educational resources and programs. That funding could mean more nurses, more librarians, more counselors, more arts, sports and music programs.”

“The real ‘distraction’ is that anti-union, pro-privatization ideologues are currently running the school district, and they are setting us up for failure, not success,” Caputo-Pearl said. “Regardless, UTLA remains steadfast in our fight for a better future for all students. We continue to fight for the heart and soul of public education in LA.”

Click here for more info on bargaining proposals. https://www.utla.net/members/bargaining

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals in district and charter schools in LAUSD.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Class size, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Teachers, Union

Valerie Strauss: Jeff Sessions is a Disgrace

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
36

Valerie Strauss calls out Attorney General Jeff Sessions as “the worst teacher of the week.” He might be the worst teacher of the year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/07/24/jeff-sessions-the-worst-teacher-of-the-week-even-though-its-only-tuesday/

Speaking to a conservative group of high school students, he did not stop them when they chanted, “Lock her up.” He laughed and may have joined them.

Strauss writes:

“Whatever he actually thought he was doing, this is what he did not do: educate the crowd about the fact that Clinton was never charged with any crimes, and that U.S. presidents don’t jail their opponents because they don’t like them.

“He could have given them a basic lesson in American jurisprudence. He didn’t.

“He could have done what John McCain did in 2008 during a town hall meeting in Minnesota when people in the crowd leveled racial and ethnic attacks against Barack Obama. McCain told them they were wrong. When one of his own supporters said he was scared of Obama, McCain said: “I have to tell you: He is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

“When another of McCain’s supporters said Obama was an “Arab,” meant by the backer as a pejorative, McCain took the microphone from her and said: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

“Sessions didn’t act anything remotely like that. Which makes him the worst teacher of the week — even though it is only Tuesday.”

Categories Education Reform

Meet the New Director of FairTest, Andre Green

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
2

Andre Green is the new executive director of FairTest.

ANDRE GREEN TO BE NEW FAIRTEST EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
WHEN DR. MONTY NEILL RETIRES THIS SUMMER

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) has announced that Andre L. Green will become executive director of the country’s leading assessment reform organization. Dr. Monty Neill, FairTest’s long-term leader, is retiring this summer.

As the grandson of sharecroppers, the child of a single mother, a product of Louisiana public schools, and the first person in his family to earn a bachelor’s degree, Andre Green knows the power of a quality education. He brings almost 20 years of experience in education policy, operations, technology, data analysis and advocacy to FairTest.

After graduating from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, a test-optional school, at age 19, Andre moved to Somerville, Massachusetts to teach fifth grade. After teaching, he was a juvenile detention center case manager. He then worked at YouthBuild USA, helping disadvantaged young people earn high school credentials while developing job skills.

Most recently, he was the first Political Director at MASSCreative, Massachusetts’ statewide arts advocacy group, serving as its primary liaison to elected officials. For the past year, he has consulted with FairTest on development of a new strategic plan.

Andre was elected to the Somerville (MA) School Committee in 2015 and currently serves as its Chair. He was the lead author of a resolution calling for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing.

Andre is a past champion on the television game show “Jeopardy!” He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Jessica, and daughter Madelynn.

On Thursday evening, November 8 , 2018, FairTest will sponsor a special event to honor Monty Neill and welcome Andre Green. The program will take place at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 6:00pm to 8:30pm. FairTest will present its “Deborah W. Meier Hero in Education Award” to Dr. Neill for his decades of work for assessment reform. Details about the event will be posted at http://www.fairtest.org.

Founded in 1985 and based in metropolitan Boston, FairTest runs campaigns for assessment reform policies such as test-optional college admissions. It also opposes misuses of standardized exams in making educational decisions.

Green wrote the following letter to Education Week, in response to their assertion in an article that test resistance is slowing down or dying:

Assessment reform movement is alive, strong — and winning – at the state and local level. When it comes to public education, it has always been state capitals and local governments where key decisions are made, not Washington, DC. With ESSA the law of the land, the fight to make real progress in reducing standardized exam misuse and overuse will take place in state legislatures, boards of education and school committees.

And we’re making that progress; not “slowing to a crawl.” The number of states that require an exit exam to graduate has dropped from more than two dozen to 12–with Indiana eliminating their test just this summer. We’re seeing interest in reducing state testing from the new Governor of New Jersey, and from gubernatorial candidates in states like Georgia. Several states, such as New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are piloting alternative assessments that may prove to be national models. Organizations like the NAACP are speaking out more strongly about the need to replace flawed tests.

Make no mistake, when a future President and Congress take up ESEA again in several years, testing reformers will be there. And we’ll be joined by allies from school districts, states and community groups where better assessment policies have already been adopted and implemented.

Andre Green
Executive Director, FairTest

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Testing

Is Anti-Testing Movement Over or Just Resting?

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
14

Alyson Klein reports in Education Week that the anti-testing movement has slowed to a crawl. With testing requirements locked into federal law (the so-called “Every Student Succeeds Act”), activists are discouraged or waiting for another chance to attack the testing regime that has obsessed federal policymakers since the passage of No Child Left Behind, and even earlier, going back to Bill Clinton’s Goals 2000, which encouraged every state to develop their own standards and tests with an infusion of federal dollars. You can trace the testing movement even earlier, but it was not until Goals 2000 that there was real federal money offered to states to get the testing going.

She writes:

Just a few short years ago, there were real questions about whether Congress would ditch annual, standardized assessments as part of a makeover of the nation’s main K-12 education law. At the same time, parents were increasingly choosing to opt their children out of standardized tests.

But the Every Student Succeeds Act ultimately kept the tests in place. And since then, at least some of the steam has gone out of the opt-out movement in states such as New Jersey and New York, considered hotbeds of anti-testing fervor.

Some of the biggest skeptics of annual, standardized testing have taken a break from what was a big push to reduce the number of federally required tests. And they don’t expect there will be another opportunity to roll back federal testing mandates for quite awhile.

“Nobody is fighting on it now,” said Monty Neill, the executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, who has spent decades engaged in the national fight to pare back assessments and has recently announced his retirement. “It’s too early for the next round. On the consequences of the tests, the lengths of the tests, the nature of the tests, [the debate’s] continuing. It’s not on any state table now because there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Neill is grateful that some states took opportunities in ESSA to broaden accountability beyond test scores and shift teacher evaluation away from test results, although most state ESSA plans don’t go as far as he’d like.

On the other side of the coin, organizations that see annual standardized testing as a key equity principle are also taking note of a break in the anti-test action.

“I think it is much quieter, whether that’s because ESSA plans [are mostly approved] and [the] federal law is not going to be opened up for awhile,” said Patricia Levesque, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a think tank started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But, she said, she doesn’t expect that the debate is dead forever. “A lot of things are cyclical. That’s just the way that policy is.”

ESSA, like its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act, requires states to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. But the new law says states must use other factors—such as chronic absenteeism—in identifying schools for extra support. And it gives states wide latitude to figure out how to intervene in struggling schools and evaluate teachers.

NCLB required states to test all their students. Schools that assessed fewer than 95 percent of their students were considered automatic failures.

Under ESSA, states must somehow account for low test participation, but just how to do that is up to them. And states can continue to have laws affirming parents’ right to opt their students out of tests, as Oregon does. ESSA also requires states to mark non-test-takers as not proficient.

There are a few things to say about the testing movement.

First, there were some gains initially on NAEP as a result of the introduction of test prep, the biggest gains occurring in the late 1990s.

Second, NCLB has been a major disappointment, with billions spent on testing and meager gains since 2003, when the high-stakes testing began. Even some of its biggest supporters acknowledgement that the gains since 2007 have been meager to non-existent. Apparently, the low-hanging fruit has been picked with test prep. For most states, NAEP scores have been flat since 2007, yet the testing continues.

Third, the U.S. stands alone in its demand for annual testing. Among the high-performing nations of the world, not one of them tests every student every year. Most have a single test at transition points, from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school. Finland has no standardized tests at all until the end of secondary school.

Fourth, the NAACP broke ranks with other civil rights groups recently and released an issue brief opposing high-stakes standardized testing.

Last, standardized tests are NOT a way of advancing civil rights; they are normed on a bell curve, and the neediest kids always end up in the bottom half of the bell curve. Being told year after year that you have failed does not encourage students to try harder.

Testing corporations are in D.C. and important state capitols, lobbying to keep the testing regime in place. The Gates Foundation funded numerous organizations to demand the continuation of high-stakes annual testing, a practice unknown in private schools like the one where the Gates children are students.

The billions spent on testing should have been spent to reduce class sizes, raise teachers’ salaries, and affect real change.

Annual standardized testing is a hustle and a fraud.

It is the Golden Calf of education. Our policymakers and members of Congress worship the Golden Calf. The gold, however, is available only to the test corporations, not students.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Testing

Delaware: Parents at Charter School Question Why School Needs Three Co-Administrators

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
10

A charter school in Delaware recently hired a second co-administrator, then hired the chair of the board.

“Odyssey Charter School parents and teachers have been packing board meetings this summer to question the hiring of a new co-administrator, the convening of committee meetings with little public notice and the resignation of a board president rumored to be in line for a full-time job.

“In June, they demanded to know why the board hired a second administrator at $150,000, plus a $7,500 signing bonus to cover health expenses. He will share control of the school with Denise Parks, who will also make $150,000.

“The jobs were not advertised and stakeholders didn’t know about the change in leadership, they said.

“This week, they focused on the resignation of former board president Dimitrios Dandolos and rumors he might be hired for a third administrative job, also making six figures. If he was, they said, Dandolos would be doing many of the things he did for free as board chair.

“Teachers and parents, who have donated thousands of dollars to the school, questioned the need for two, if not three, well-paid administrators.”

In the unregulated world of charter schools, anything is possible. No accountability, no transparency.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Paul Thomas: New Orleans RSD mirage, Not Miracle: A Reader

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
4

Paul Thomas has gathered a reading list about the Recovery School District and claims that it was proof positive that “disaster capitalism” (Naomi Klein’s term) works.

Since Reformers have experienced failure in everything else they have attempted, the New Orleans “miracle” is their last best hope for proving the “success” of privatization. David Leonhardt of the New York Times called his one-sided review of the New Orleans “miracle” fact-based while ignoring the inconvenient facts that disproved the claims. He should read Paul Thomas’ list and try again.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Failure, New Orleans

Leonie Haimson Takes David Leonhardt to the Woodshed and Pleads for Fact-Based Journalism

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
18

Leonie Haimson, parent activist in New York City, critiques David Leonhardt’s highly admiring and uncritical review of the latest study of charter schools in New Orleans.

Leonhardt says he wants a “fact-based debate,” but Leonie says, he didn’t provide “fact-based journalism.”

She opened the links he provided and found that most have nothing to do with his claims. He introduces no new facts or evidence.

She begins:

David Leonhardt’s latest NY Times column touting charter schools is full of bogus claims and sloppy journalism. He inveighs against progressive critics, writes that he wants a fact-based debate over education reform “in a more nuanced, less absolutist way than often happens” but then adds: “Initially, charters’ overall results were no better than average. But they are now.” The link is to a CREDO website that doesn’t show this.

The most recent CREDO national study of charters from 2013 examined charters in 26 states plus NYC and found significant (if tiny) learning gains in reading on average but none in math. CREDO is generally considered a pro-charter organization, funded by the Walton Foundation and many independent scholars have critiqued its methodology.

Moreover, the main finding of the 2013 study was that the vast majority of charter schools do no better than public schools, as Wendy Lecker has pointed out. In 2009, CREDO found, 83 percent of charters had the same or worse results in terms of test scores than public schools, and in 2013, about 71-75 percent had the same or worse results.

Finally, to the extent that in some urban districts, there are studies showing that charters outperform public schools on test scores, there are many possible ways to explain these results, including an overemphasis on test prep, differential student populations, peer effects, higher student attrition rates and under-funding of most urban public schools.

Leonhardt also writes that “The harshest critics of reform, meanwhile, do their own fact-twisting. They wave away reams of rigorous research on the academic gains in New Orleans, Boston, Washington, New York, Chicago and other cities, in favor of one or two cherry-picked discouraging statistics. It’s classic whataboutism. ”

Yet three out of these four links have nothing to do with charter schools, nor are they peer-reviewed studies. The NYC study by Roland Fryer instead focuses on which attributes of NYC charter schools seemed to be correlated with higher test scores compared to other NYC charter schools.

The Chicago link goes to a NY Times column Leonhardt himself wrote on overall increases in test scores and graduation rates in Chicago public schools that doesn’t even mention charter schools. The DC link also is far from “rigorous research,” but sends you to a DCPS press release about the increase in 2017 PARCC scores, with again no mention of charter schools, or even “reform” more broadly.

If there is indeed “reams of rigorous research” supporting charter schools, one might expect that Leonhardt would link to at least one actual, rigorous study showing this.

Open her post to see her masterful analysis of Leonhardt’s vapid claims.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Orleans, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation

New York: Jewish Advocacy Group Files Lawsuit Demanding State for Failure to Set Standards for Yeshivas

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
12

At a time when the U.S. Secretary of Education is advocating vigorously for public funding of religious schools across the nation, it is noteworthy that a Jewish advocacy group is demanding that the state set standards for Yeshivas, some of which do not offer instruction in English. Such a limited education does not prepare students to live in the modern world.

https://www.yaffed.org/lawsuit1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 23, 2018

Contact: Anat Gerstein, anat@anatgerstein.com, 646-321-4400
Lynsey Billet, lynsey@anatgerstein.com, 347-361-8449

YAFFED Files Federal Lawsuit Against New York Governor, NYS Education Commissioner, Board of Regents Chancellor Alleging Unconstitutional “Felder Amendment” Denies Yeshiva Students Right to Basic Education

Hundreds of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Support Schools that “Graduate” Students with Few Skills; Poverty Rates and Public Assistance Sky High

(New York, NY) – Today, Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED), a nonprofit committed to improving educational curricula within ultra-Orthodox schools, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, and N.Y. Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa. YAFFED is represented by lawyers from the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP as pro-bono counsel.

The suit alleges that on April 12, 2018, when Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a budget that included an amendment to New York Education Law, Section 3204, section 2, known as the “Felder Amendment”, New York created a carve-out to the statutory requirement of substantial equivalent instruction in non-public schools that applies to and is intended to benefit only certain ultra-Orthodox non-public schools. In doing so, New York violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The amendment to Section 3204 is the brainchild of State Senator Simcha Felder and ultra-Orthodox community leaders who oppose state oversight of yeshivas. Senator Felder attracted much attention in late March when he single-handedly held the 2018 state budget negotiations hostage, demanding the Education Law be changed to inoculate ultra-Orthodox Jewish non-public schools from oversight before agreeing to pass the budget.

“All across America, special interest groups and individuals seek to chip away at a child’s access and right to a comprehensive education. Nowhere have they been more successful than right here in New York, where many yeshivas have gotten away with providing no secular education at all, or at best a very limited one, to tens of thousands of children. This sub-standard secular education was codified into law with Senator Felder’s amendment.” said Naftuli Moster, YAFFED‘s Founder and Executive Director.

As of June 2018, there were 273 Orthodox yeshivas registered with the state; 211 of these yeshivas are located in Kings County. In 2013-14, there were over 52,000 students enrolled in 83 Hasidic schools in New York City, concentrated in the neighborhoods of Borough Park, Williamsburg, Crown Heights (all in Brooklyn). An additional 26,446 students were enrolled in Hasidic schools in places such as Monsey, New Square, and Kiryas Joel. Oversight of these schools by education officials in New York was already non-existent, resulting in many schools flouting state laws. It is projected that by 2030, between 8% and 13% of school-age children in New York City, and between 23% and 37% of school-age children in Brooklyn, will be Hasidic, meaning without action, even more students are on track to being denied a sound, basic education.

“The Felder Amendment tailors State oversight for a small subset of schools based on their religious affiliation, in a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution. There is no secular legislative purpose for the Felder Amendment, which is seen by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious sects as an endorsement of their religious choice regarding education.” said Eric Huang, lead counsel for YAFFED.

Even though the new amendment creates a carve-out that relieves ultra-Orthodox yeshivas from following the rigorous standards set in state education laws for all other non-public schools, these yeshivas continue to benefit from hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars annually. Federal money flows to yeshivas through programs such as Title I, II, and III; Head Start and child care contracts; the E-rate telecommunications program; and food programs. For example, non-public schools in the largely Hasidic neighborhood of East Ramapo received approximately $835 per student in federal Title funding in 2016-17. In addition, state and city funding is provided to yeshivas through Academic Intervention Services (AIS), Nonpublic School Safety Equipment (NPSE), Mandated Services Aid (MSA), the Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP), EarlyLearn, Universal Pre-K, child care vouchers, and New York City Council discretionary funds.

It is a well-established fact, going back decades, that most Hasidic boys’ yeshivas, some Hasidic girls’ schools as well as non-Hasidic, ultra-Orthodox boys’ schools fail to provide a basic education to their students. Leaders in the ultra-Orthodox community often boast about the fact that many yeshivas focus on only providing students with a religious education, particularly for boys who are all expected to become rabbis. Few yeshivas administer state tests, including Regents exams, and most yeshivas do not award “graduates” a diploma, making post-secondary education nearly impossible.

The “Education Clause” in Article XI, section 1 of the New York State Constitution ensures the availability of a “sound basic education” to all children in the State and creates the right to adequate instruction along with all the resources that such instruction requires. For public schools, the curriculum for grades one through eight must include instruction in the subject areas of arithmetic, reading, spelling, writing, the English language, geography, United States history, civics, hygiene, physical training, the history of New York State, and science. In high school, academic instruction must include instruction in the English language and its use, civics, hygiene, physical training, American history including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Many yeshivas fail to provide any instruction comparable to instruction in these subject areas.

At many ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, the language of instruction is almost exclusively Yiddish. From ages 7 to 12 many Hasidic boys receive instruction in basic English reading, writing, and arithmetic for only 90 minutes a day, four days a week.

Male students over the age of 13 often spend 12 hours a day receiving instruction only in Judaic studies with no secular instruction.

In a recent survey conducted by YAFFED, of 116 yeshiva graduates and parents of current students, not a single respondent said that their school provided instruction in every subject required by the state. In elementary schools, 65% of those who attended Hasidic yeshivas reported having received some education in English reading, 61% in English writing, and 65% in arithmetic. Less than a quarter (24%) reported learning U.S. History, and only 2% learned New York history. Only 8% of Hasidic boys in the survey received instruction in science, and 10% were taught geography. None recalled any education in art or music. Of the respondents who attended elementary-level Hasidic yeshivas for boys in New York City, 27% said they received no secular education at all in elementary school. At the high school level, 75% of respondents said they received no secular education at all, and for the 25% who did, it was typically optional and often discouraged. Only 14% of respondents said they learned English; 7% in mathematics; 18% in science; and 9% in social studies. None had art or music classes.

Not surprisingly, Hasidic families are at high-risk for poverty and reliance upon government assistance. Approximately 45% of Hasidic households in New York are poor and another 18% are near poor. In the largely Hasidic area of Williamsburg, the median household income is $21,502, compared to the Brooklyn median of $46,958 and the city median of $52,737. Hasidic communities in Brooklyn have a greater percentage of families receiving cash assistance, food stamps, public health care coverage, and Section 8 housing vouchers, as compared to Brooklyn and New York City as a whole. For example, 33.8% of Borough Park residents utilize Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps; in Williamsburg, the number is an astounding 51.8%. The Brooklyn total is 23.8%, while 20.4% of all New York City residents receive SNAP food stamps.

The percentage of people in a heavily Hasidic district of Brooklyn utilizing public income support such as cash assistance (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Medicaid has increased dramatically in the last decade as the population grew rapidly without improvements in education. In Borough Park, 63.1% of the civilian non-institutionalized population receives public health care coverage, compared to 42.7% of all Brooklyn residents and 39.5% in New York City as a whole. In Williamsburg, the proportion of residents receiving public health coverage is 76.6%.

The ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic town of Kiryas Joel was named the poorest town in the country in 2011, with 70 percent of the village’s 21,000 residents living in households whose income fell below the federal poverty threshold. And in 2018, the largely ultra-Orthodox town of New Square was found to be the poorest town in New York State.

“New York’s tens-of-thousands of yeshiva students deserve better – they deserve, like all students, the right to develop the skills that will enable them to lead independent, financially secure lives. With this lawsuit, we’re making it clear: Hasidic children have the right to the education that is constitutionally guaranteed to them by the state of New York.” concluded Moster.

About YAFFED

YAFFED is an advocacy group committed to improving educational curricula within ultra-Orthodox schools. We fervently believe that every child is entitled to a fair and equitable education that is in compliance with the law. Our work involves raising awareness about the importance of general studies education, and encouraging elected officials, Department of Education officials and the leadership of the ultra-Orthodox world to act responsibly in preparing their youth for economic sufficiency and for broad access to the resources of the modern world.

Categories New York, Religion

Los Angeles: UTLA Calls on Board to Toss Out All Decisions Where Ref Rodriguez Cast Deciding Vote

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2018 //
14

United Teachers of Los Angeles called for the LAUSD Board to reverse all decisions in which RefRodriguez cast the deciding vote. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to serious criminal charges.

Here is the UTLA statement:

LAUSD School Board member Ref Rodriguez resigned this morning, after pleading guilty in a downtown courtroom to a felony conspiracy charge and a series of misdemeanors for money laundering during his 2015 election campaign. Next, Rodriguez is expected to reach a $100,000 settlement with the City Ethics Commission.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said of his apology in court today:

“‘I’m sorry’ does not cut it. Ref Rodriguez has been disingenuously hinting at his innocence for over a year. In the meantime, critical, long-lasting policies were decided, using his swing vote – including the 4-3 vote to begin the process of hiring investment banker Austin Beutner as superintendent. Therefore, UTLA demands that all 4-3 votes where Rodriguez cast the deciding vote be reconsidered or thrown out completely. Every vote he made on the school board was not in the interest of students or parents of LAUSD. He carried out the wishes of the wealthy elite, including the CEO of Netflix and the billionaire-backed California Charter Schools Association,” Caputo-Pearl said.

Ignoring an outcry from the community and parents for his resignation, Rodriguez refused to step down for almost one year. He should have done the right thing when allegations first came to light, Caputo-Pearl said.

“His ethically challenged behavior sets a bad example for our kids, but is great for CCSA and those who funded his legal battles,” Caputo-Pearl said. “These people have a plan to undermine LAUSD and public education. We must continue to fight this agenda.”

We reiterate our demand for a special election. The LAUSD School Board says it will move quickly to appoint a member to the board in the interim and will hold a special election eventually. We reiterate our demand for transparency in the process to bring about the appointment, and that it not be similar to the hiring of Supt. Austin Beutner, who was selected with little public input or oversight.

While awaiting the election, the appointee must be a true advocate for public education, not beholden to CCSA, and it must be someone who respects and values transparency and accountability. The appointee must be someone who supports the essential civic role of public school districts, and must be someone with experience in education, community, and politics, not someone who is learning on the job.

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals in district and charter schools in LAUSD.

###

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Fraud, Los Angeles

Trump Polls Poorly Among Independents

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2018 //
56

Matthew Yglesias says don’t be discouraged by the polls that show how much Trump’s base loves him because what matters more is that he polls poorly among independents. That’s good news.

https://apple.news/AJ1j67mdfTKScmkxxEtb-FA

Categories Education Reform
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