Archives for the month of: September, 2018
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Chicago: Now That Rahm’s Leaving, What Should Happen Next?

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
9

Raise Your Hand for Public Education-Illinois has some excellent ideas about what should happen next in Chicago.

As you may know, we have been critical of many of the mayor’s education policies over the years, as they haven’t often aligned with our vision of an education system that is based on high-quality, researched-backed policies, centers on children’s curiosity and creativity, emphasizes collaborative learning environments instead of competition, and provides crucial social-emotional and health supports alongside academics.

We’ve also been critical of how those policies have been decided and rolled out; rather than encouraging debate, engaging families, students, teachers, and communities in a robust process to provide input, and seeking consensus beforehand, the mayor’s office has frequently sought only a post-hoc rubber stamp from the Board for decisions about CPS.

So these are some of the things we’ll be looking out for:

Funding: Budgets are a set of priorities. What are the essentials that have been cut over the years, or were never funded, and how will the next mayor fund these things? Will a candidate end the damaging student-based budgeting (SBB) system? SBB contributes to an accelerated death cycle for schools with decreasing enrollment, distorts hiring practices to favor the least-experienced teachers, and forces schools to eliminate librarians, art, and music to cut costs. And how will the next mayor work to get increased revenue to the schools?

School ratings: Test scores and attendance are the primary factors used to rate elementary schools. These ratings drive a lot of bad practice inside schools. How will the next mayor change this?

Overemphasis on test scores: Linked to above issue. Skill-drill test prep must be replaced with authentic learning environments. This requires time for serious professional development and planning! PD and planning time have been cut dramatically under this mayor to make room for the longer unfunded day. When teachers can’t collaborate, schools can’t improve. Test prep is not a good practice to improve learning.

Privatization: Charter schools have proliferated in areas of declining enrollment, and the mayor accelerated outsourcing of critical positions in the school building. CPS has also engaged in a new partnership with Mark Zuckerberg where private student data will likely be handed over to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC. How will the negative impacts of this be addressed and outsourcing reversed? Is a candidate willing to fight the continuation of IL’s tax credit scholarship program when it is up for renewal in 5 years?

Community: Schools should be community anchors. A number of schools with lottery-based or test-score based admissions have been added to the CPS “portfolio” over the past eight years. How can schools function as community hubs when there are so many barriers to access? How will facilities decisions be made to decrease race and class segregation rather than further entrench it in our divided city?

Wrap-around supports: CPS ratio of clinicians to students is grossly inadequate. The recommended ratio for students to social workers is 1:250 in districts without high poverty. In CPS the ratio is 1:1250. Will increasing clinician positions be a priority for the next mayor?

Early childhood ed: Rahm announced a new plan recently, but we are hearing from parents that there is a lot of chaos in the current system. We plan to do some listening tours with parents this year to find out what’s going on. Candidates should explain how new preschool programs will be funded and whether expanding services for one age group will mean reduction in services for another.

Special ed: CPS’s deliberate diversion of resources away from special education resulted in the state taking over special ed. How will the next mayor instruct CPS to systemically correct this debacle and to work with the ISBE monitor?

Elected school board: We believe that checks and balances, transparency and accountability are crucial in moving the school system to a better place. We need a Board of Education that’s directly accountable to the public at the ballot box and one whose deliberation of issues doesn’t take place behind closed doors. Where do the candidates stand on a fully elected, representative school board for Chicago?

So there’s a lot of research for everyone to do, and obviously education is only one area to focus on when determining who to vote for. Stay informed, stay involved, go to candidate forums, do your homework!

And attend our annual fundraiser, Raise a Glass for RYH, on October 2 to talk with us about all the important education issues facing our schools!

Happy school year, all.

Categories Accountability, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Charter Schools, Chicago, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Funding, Privatization, Special Education, Supporting public schools, Testing

California: State Board of Education Rejects Rocketship Charter Expansion Plan!

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
6

Best news of the day!

The charter-friendly State Board of Education turned down Rocketship expansion plan, after 25 speakers denounce it. Chair of board voted to support.

“In a 9-1 vote, the board agreed with the California Department of Education’s recommendation to deny the charter organization’s petition to establish a new school in San Pablo near Richmond, which the West Contra Costa Unified school board and Contra Costa County board of education had also denied. Citing concerns about the charter school’s financial and educational plans, some board members said Rocketship – which operates 10 schools in San Jose, one in Antioch, one in Concord and one in Redwood City where the company is headquartered – may be trying to expand beyond its capacity. Board President Michael Kirst voted against denying the appeal.

“Board members said they were especially concerned about problems associated with the Rocketship Futuro Academy charter school, which opened in Concord two years ago, with the State Board’s approval. The California Department of Education has sent six letters of concern to the school, which is located in the Mt. Diablo district, related to finances and other issues. Rocketship said they expected new philanthropic support which would improve the school’s finances.

“Chief Deputy Superintendent Glen Price, who was sitting in for State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, said the California Department of Education was concerned about the lack of students with disabilities in Rocketship schools, lack of information about its English learner program, high suspension rates among some student groups, and its governance model, which includes charter school board meetings held in San Jose. Price, who lives in Contra Costa County, said meetings that far away were “counter to all of our objectives for parent and stakeholder engagement.””

Even with the billionaires’ support, charter schools are becoming toxic.

Resistance works.

Charter schools divert money from public schools.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance

Steven Singer: There Is Virtually No Difference Between For-Profit and Nom-Profit Charters

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
17

Yesterday we learned that Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to ban for-profit charters. This sounded great, but there are very few for-profit charters in California other than K12 Inc. Even K12 Inc.’s CAVA (California Virtual Academies) won’t close until their charter comes up for renewal. It can go on ripping off students, families and taxpayers until then.

The fact that the California Charter Schoools Association celebrated the ban is evidence that it will do nothing to curtail the graft and corruption that is commonplace in the California charter industry.

How timely that Steven Singer explains that there really is no difference between for-profit and non-profit charters. They all drain resources and the students they want from public schools, undermining them and threatening the future of public education.

He writes in part:

“Stop kidding yourself.

“Charter schools are a bad deal.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re for-profit or nonprofit.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re cyber or brick-and-mortar institutions.

“It doesn’t matter if they have a history of scandal or success.

“Every single charter school in the United States of America is either a disaster or a disaster waiting to happen.

“The details get complicated, but the idea is really quite simple.

“It goes like this.

“Imagine you left a blank check on the street.

“Anyone could pick it up, write it out for whatever amount your bank account could support and rob you blind.

“Chances are you’d never know who cashed it, you’d never get that money back and you might even be ruined.

“That’s what a charter school is – a blank check.

“It’s literally a privately operated school funded with public tax dollars.

“Operators can take almost whatever amount they want, spend it with impunity and never have to submit to any real kind of transparency or accountability.

“Compare that to a traditional public school – an institution invariably operated by duly elected members of the community with full transparency and accountability in an open forum where taxpayers have access to internal documents, can have their voices heard and even seek an administrative position.

“THAT’S a responsible way to handle public money!

“Not forking over our checkbook to virtual strangers!

“Sure, they might not steal our every red cent. But an interloper who finds a blank check on the street might not cash it, either.

“The particulars don’t really matter. This is a situation rife with the possibility of fraud. It is a situation where the deck is stacked against the public in every way and in favor of charter school operators.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Deregulation, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

“Hijacked by Billionaires:” The Shameful Role of Big Money in Buying Education and Undermining Democracy

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2018 //
21

This morning, the Network for Public Education Action has published a major report on the role of Big Money in buying elections to control education and undermine democracy.

“Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools” examines several districts/states where the super-rich have poured in money from out-of-state to buy control of school boards and buy policy, with the goal of advancing privatization.

The case studies include: Denver, Los Angeles, Newark, Minneapolis, Perth Amboy, N.J., Washington State, New York City, Newark, Rhode Island, and Louisiana.

This carefully documented report deserves your attention. It names names.

The rich use their money to steal democracy and local control.

Their only idea is privatization. They use their vast wealth to take away what belongs to the public.

Read it. Share it with your friends and colleagues. Post it on social media.

If you want to help the Network for Public Education and the Network for Public Education Action Fund continue its work to support public education, sign up, donate, come to our annual meeting in Indianapolis on October 20-21.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, Scandal, School Choice, Vouchers

Good News! Governor Brown Signs Bill Banning For-Profit Charters! (With a Caveat)

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
17

Julian Vasquez Heilig reports that Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation to ban for-profit charters. This is very good news. In 2015,he vetoed such a bill.

Now, here’s hoping that the Legislature can pass (and the governor will sign) a bill requiring accountability and transparency in all charters, including a ban on nepotism and conflicts of interest.

The momentum for this legislation was reignited by great reporting on K12 Inc. by reporter Jesse Calefati of the San Jose Mercury News in 2016. Give credit where it is due. Be thankful for freedom of the press!

PS:

An ally in California says this is not as big a deal as it seems. She writes:

“I just can’t understand all of the excitement about this given that there really aren’t any for profit charters left in CA anyway. This bill was approved by the Callifornia Charter Schools Association who were already celebrating and promoting that there are no for profit charters in CA. For profit charters have never really been an issue in CA, we have barely had any in the past. Of course, the vast majority of online charters contract to k12 and we all know they are a huge profit machine.”

http://www.ccsa.org/blog/2018/08/california-charter-schools-association-celebrates-landmark-legislation-banning-for-profit-charter-sc.html

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Freedom of the Press, K12 Inc., Privatization

BREAKING NEWS! Florida Supreme Court Tosses Out Appeal for Amendment 8!

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
16

The Florida League of Women Voters won their legal case to knock the deceptive Amendment 8 off the November ballot!


The League of Women Voters case against Amendment 8 wins in the Florida Supreme Court. It will be removed from the November 6th ballot. The vagueness of the amendment language and its misleading title: “School Board Term Limits and Duties; Public Schools” was the basis for the justices’ 3 to 4 ruling. This is significant in many ways.

The decision puts a roadblock in the effort to create an alternative charter school system. This is a basic goal of the school privatization effort. No doubt some legislators will continue to push proposals to remove any local school board control of charter schools. In reality, local public schools have little ability now to oversee these charters, but they must authorize new charters. Removing this power to authorize charters is seen as limiting the expansion of charters.

The amendment included three unrelated proposals. In addition to the proposed removal of local school board authority to authorize charter schools were two additional proposals. The first one was to impose term limits on school board members. The second proposal was to require civics in K12 curriculum. Civics is already required in the Florida curriculum; it just was not in the constitution. All three proposals are now removed from the ballot.

This is just another step in the long journey to reaffirm the importance of our public school system.

Congratulations to the Florida League of Women Voters and to the Southern Poverty Law Center!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, Hoax, Privatization

Denis Smith: Can You Identify the MISSING WORD in Ohio’s Online Charter School Commercials?

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
6

Denis Smith reminds us of the old Groucho Marx television shows. If you said the “magic word,” a duck would descend and you would win a prize.

He provides readers with commercials for “online public schools,” “tuition free” and invites you to guess which is the missing word?

In the wake of the great ECOT scandal, there is one word that dare not be mentioned.

There is no prize for the right guess.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince: On a Religious Mission to Change America

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
35

Sam Tanenhaus writes here about Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince, the siblings intent on turning America into a business.

Their mission is religious in intensity.

They were born to fabulous wealth.

They are the Medicis of West Michigan, as Tanenhaus describes them.

They believe that God helps those who helps themselves, and they want to get the government out of the way of God’s plan to pick winners (people like them) and losers (who have to fend for themselves).

Their worldview does not seem to include empathy, compassion, or any sense of the common good.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Billionaires

William Mathis: What Americans Think About Their Schools

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
12

What Americans Think About Their Schools

William J. Mathis

“Schools are not as good as they were in my day. Kids had to mind then. Not like today. Things are out of control.” Said in a variety of ways, over half the population agrees. The truth is that schools are a lot better in many ways — and worse in others.

Among the better ways, since 1971, when reliable records became available, 9 and 13 year olds have registered steady improvement in reading and math while minority students are closing the achievement gaps. The national graduation rate is at an all-time high of 84% and it has steadily increased since we passed 50% in 1948. Serving needy children is now the law of the land. There is less smoking, bullying and drinking. That is not a bad picture.

But the citizens have reason to see it differently.

On the nightly news, the latest school shooting will be the lead and the villain will be glorified with name, picture and amateur psychoanalysis (Note to Media: Don’t give the perpetrators personalized attention). School lockdowns, police tactical squad exercises, allegations of impropriety, privatization lobbyists, religious objectors, sports parents, angry parents, gun toting teachers, juvenile drug pushers, opioids, school closing controversies, publicity seeking politicians, and discrimination charges all find their way into the headlines and ooze into our collective psyche.

To get an even handed picture of the public attitudes toward education, Phi Delta Kappa, an honorary education society, sponsors an independent national poll each year. This year, it has some positive results and some things we should worry about. Perhaps the most important finding in this time of calls for charter schools and privatization is 78% of Americans prefer to reform the existing public school system rather than replace it with something else. This is the highest support level in the past 20 years and is an affirmation of the public’s will to look to the common good. Perhaps people are concerned about the fragmenting of the values that held us all together, the things that make us a nation.

As elections get closer, the perennial question of taxes is raised. Here we might be surprised. Even though the single biggest cost of education is teacher salaries and benefits, two-thirds of the citizenry think that teachers are underpaid while “an overwhelming 73% of Americans say teacher pay in their community is too low” and 73% would support teachers going out on strike for higher salaries, including about 6 in 10 Republicans. This is the highest support for teacher pay seen in the 50 years of the poll. For the last seventeen years, the lack of funding has been named as the biggest problem facing their local schools.

The citizenry also shows a strong commitment to equality even as the news brings us disturbing pictures of some folks wanting to refight the civil war. There should be extra programs and resources for children with special needs say 60% of the sample. The public also realizes that the achievement gap is also the opportunities gap. While recognizing the racial and geographic differences, the root problem is the income gap. We should be disturbed about the increasing segregation of schools and society. Low-income areas have lower expectations, lesser resources, and lesser achievement.

As an educator the most discouraging finding is that parents don’t want their children to be teachers. The public, nevertheless, has high regard for teachers but that does not translate into a livable wage for half the teachers in the country, reports Education Week. Teacher benefits are better than what are provided in other fields but the astronomical increase in medical and prescription costs is pushing negotiators to ask the teachers to pay an ever increasing share. Add a crushing college loan debt and the field becomes a poor economic choice. Teachers fundamentally like their work but the finances and ever increasing laws generate a bureaucratic deterrent. We face teacher and administrator shortages in a state that is losing student population.

As a society, we can be proud of our educational system and we honor our teachers. Large crises loom on the horizon particularly as manufacturing is off-shored, middle class jobs are eliminated, medical costs threaten people’s ability to afford care and as our nation ages. Of course, the answer is investing in our future and providing the skills and opportunities a new generation needs to sustain our nation and our planet.

The fiftieth Phi Delta Kappan poll can be found at http://pdkpoll.org/results

William J. Mathis is the managing director of the National Education Policy Center and Vice-Chair of the Vermont State Board of Education. The views expressed are not necessarily the opinions of any group with which he is affiliated.

Categories Opinion Polling

Laura Chapman Explains the Gates Foundation’s Latest Gambit

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2018 //
33

As you read recently, the Gates Foundation is investing $92 Million into the creation of “networks.” For the Gates Foundation, this is chump change. After all, it spent as much as $2 Billion on the Common Core, and $575 Million on trials of teacher evaluation by test scores (both failed to make any difference). So what is this tiny series of grants for? The education director of Gates is Robert Hughes, a lawyer who previously led New Visions for Public Schools in New York City. New Visions received the second largest grant.

Laura Chapman explains these grants, which promise remarkable results, results that have eluded Gates again and again.

She writes:


” It is still not clear what the $92 Million will do, although it’s likely to add a new layer of administrators.” Most of the Gates grants for “Networks for School Improvement” go to nongovernmental “intermediaries” and a theory of action (sort of) intended to induce targeted schools into some version of continuous improvement sharply focussed on improved test scores in math, plus college/career readiness.

I looked at the Gates Foundation press release and fact sheet about their current “portfolio of investments” in nineteen Networks for School Improvement. Almost all focus on improving test scores in math, middle school and 9th grade. Why? These test scores are viewed as “on-track indicators” for postsecondary enrollment.

Most of these grants require participating schools to adopt a continual improvement process (or continuous improvement process) determined by outside groups and “change experts.” The “science of school improvement” is a new slogan from reformers who wish to conduct experiments on students, teachers, and schools, while masking the corporate and science lab contexts from which the processes have been adapted. The Gates grants offer incentives for different versions of improvement science, some of these seeking incremental improvements, others seeking breakthrough improvements from “rapid” experimental cycles. All of these grants assume major deficiencies in the staff working in schools that that serve low income and mostly Black and Latino students, especially teachers of math.

In the following, I have edited the press release leaving in place only some of the jargon attached to justifications for each grant. Only one grant sends money to a public school district. Allmost all grants go to an intermediary organization structured to prevent direct oversight from elected school boards and supported by private dollars from foundations and corporations.

ACHIEVE ATLANTA: $532,000, 24 Months. Achieve Atlanta will help to develop a tool to support the successful matching of high school students to good-fit colleges and support students in selecting, applying to, and enrolling in good-fit postsecondary institutions. Aims: Create a matchmaking “tool” to aid students in selecting a postsecondary institution. Develop the “match and fit tool” as a predictive indicator for student success.

BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: $11,160,000, 48 Months. BCPS will hire onsite literacy coaches trained to use “high quality, standards-aligned materials and continuous improvement strategies” to support teachers and accelerate literacy in 12-15 middle schools selected as Literacy Intensive Sites. Aim: Improve “8th and 9th Grade On-Track outcomes.”

BANK STREET COLLEGE: $700,000, 16 Months (Yonkers, NY) Bank Street will organize, train, and support school-based math teams and team leaders in 10 Yonkers Public Schools. Teams will analyze data to track student improvement. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who successfully complete 8th grade math. Support Bank Street’s own data collection and analysis capacity in addition to the skills of teams and team leaders.

ED PARTNERS: $12,000,000, 61 Months (CA). California Education Partners (Ed Partners) will launch a network that will manage up to 50 secondary schools across 18 small and middle-size districts. Aims: Improve outcomes for Black, Latino and low-income students. Build the capacity of Ed Partners and these schools to improve outcomes (design, deliver, measure, learn from, and evaluate interventions).

CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY (CLEE): $560,000, 20 Months (RI) The Center will create a network that serves ten high schools in Rhode Island. CLEE will train teams of school and district leaders to be receptive to “a culture of change, identify equity gaps in 9th grade course completion, study root causes, and test interventions.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who complete a 9th grade college-prep math course. Induce school and district leaders to accept prescriptions and methods for change from CLEE.

CITY YEAR: $520,000, 18 Months (MILWAUKEE, WI). City Year and the “Everyone Graduates Center” at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education will organize and train teams from 10 middle schools serving predominantly Black, Latino, and low-income students to embrace “continuous improvement by utilizing Early Warning Indicators” and leveraging “innovative human capital, including AmeriCorps members.” Aims: Enable all students to complete 8th grade “on-track to high school graduation.” Induce teams to accept and practice the “continuous improvement” methods from City Year and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education.

COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF TEXAS: $503,000, 15 Months (NORTH TX ) EducateTexas will lead the regional Texas Network for School Improvement (TXNSI) Collaborative. The Collaborative will also be supported by Learning Forward (expertise in continuous improvement) and The Charles A. Dana Center (subject matter expertise in math education). Aims: Increase the math proficiency of Black, Latino and low- income students 8th grade students in 10 North Texas schools. Train leaders in those schools to ”adopt continuous improvement processes,” accelerate change, and increase outcomes.

COMMUNITY CENTER FOR EDUCATION RESULTS (CCER): $515,000, 24 Months (South King County, WA). CCER and the Puget Sound College & Career Network, will expand the College & Career Leadership Institute’s work on “systems improvements” congruent with the Gates funded “Road Map Project for South Seattle and South King County high schools. Aims: Provide support for more low-income students to have a meaningful, high-quality plan for college and career. Long term, “Eliminate opportunity gaps by race and income, and for 70 percent of the region’s students to earn a college degree or career credential by 2030.”

CORE: $16,000,000, 61 Months (CA) CORE stands for the non-governmental California Office to Reform Education, since 2013 active in steering accountability measures for large, urban districts in Fresno, Garden Grove, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Ana. CORE Districts participate in a system of “data-driven continuous improvement.” Aims: Sustain the CORE-PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) research partnership and publicize findings. Enhance the use of CORE’s data and improvement management systems to improve “9th grade on-track rates.”

HIGH TECH HIGH: $10,300,000, 60 Months (Southern California). The High Tech High Graduate School of Education will lead a College Access and Enrollment Network of 30 (high) schools. Focus is on financial access, college application process, bonding and belonging, reducing failure to enroll after admission. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who apply, enroll, and ultimately go to a four-year college. (The High Tech High Graduate School of Education offers teacher certification and a master’s program. https://hthgse.edu/programs/teacher-residency-program/).

INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING: $7,400,000, 60 Months (Dallas, TX). Leaders from two University of Pittsburg programs will train participants from 12 secondary schools in the Dallas Independent School District in continuous improvement efforts. Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, English learners, and low-income students who are proficient in English Language Arts and on track at the end of 9th grade for high school graduation. Induce teams of school and district leaders to lead continuous improvement efforts. (The University of Pittsburg programs are: The Institute for Learning an outreach program of the Learning Research and Development Center and Center for Urban Education).

KIPP FOUNDATION: $499,000, 23 Months, (Multiple states). Convene and support KIPP’s college counselors in 31 charter high schools in 16 states, improving and refining how they help young people matriculate to and graduate from college. Aims: Accelerate the development of practices, tools, and approaches that predict and increase college success for their students. Keep high-achieving students from “under-matching” to colleges that are less rigorous than they are qualified to attend.

NETWORK FOR COLLEGE SUCCESS (NCS): $11,700,000, 60 Months, (Chicago, IL) NCS will train participants in 15-20 Chicago high schools to “engage in cycles of continuous improvement—testing which student, teacher, and school interventions create the school conditions that build upon the abilities, intelligence, and creativity of Chicago’s youth.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who are on-track to high school graduation and earning a 3.0 GPA or better at the end of 9th grade. Induce participating high schools to seek “continuous improvement” by using NCS methods.

NEW VISIONS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS (NVPS): $13,900,000, 60 Months (New York, NY. NVPS will work train teams in up to 67 New York City high schools (over five years) to “use data and continuous improvement strategies (design, implement, test) to help more students maintain competitive GPAs, succeed in advanced coursework, and achieve college-ready scores on state Regents exams.” Aims: Increase the number of Black, Latino, and/or low-income students who graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college. Induce participating high schools to seek “continuous improvement” by using NVPS methods.

NORTHWEST REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICE DISTRICT: $586,000, 24 Months (OR) This Service District (NWRESD) is the largest of in Oregon, serving 20 school districts. NWRESD’s Deeper Learning and Equity Network will train participants in 32 regional high schools a use a continuous improvement process focused on “deeper learning and culturally sustaining pedagogies.” Aims: Increase the number of students who are on track by the end of 9th grade to graduate. Induce participants to use the network’s method of continuous improvement.

PARTNERS IN SCHOOL INNOVATION: $499,000, 15 Months (Philadelphia, PA). Partners will convene and help middle school math teachers, instructional coaches, and principals in 10 schools to improve math performance for selected students. Aims: Help students who begin the year below grade level in math to rapidly catch up to their high-performing peers. Increase the capacity of Partners to connect schools in virtual communities and to use classroom-level data in the continuous improvement process.

SEEDING SUCCESS: $560,000, 24 Months (Memphis, TN). Seeding Success (part of the StriveTogether national network of cradle-to-career collective impact organizations) will enlist 15 Shelby County Schools (middle school feeders into high schools) for a 24-month “rapid improvement cycle process” of identifying “8th grade and 9th grade on-track outcomes, root causes of students who fall off track, and testing aligned interventions. Aims: Help more students stay on track toward college and career readiness. Induce the participating schools to engage in “rapid improvement cycles” based on Seeding Success methods.

SOUTHERN REGIONAL EDUCATION BOARD (SREB): $3,300,000, 36 Months. SREB will enlist 10 secondary schools in Birmingham, AL (Jefferson County) to increasing the proficiency rates of Black, Latino, and low-income students on 8th grade math and 9th grade Algebra 1. Aims: Improve scores indicating “math proficiency” in grade 8 and in Algebra I. Promote “improvement science and cycles” in two national networks: High Schools That Work and Making Middle Grades Work.

TEACH PLUS: $619,000, 23 Months (Chicago, IL & Los Angeles, CA). Teach Plus will use an “evidence-based Change Management Framework” from the Boston-based Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy (has deep connections to Teach Plus) to develop continuous improvement skills among the teacher leaders and principals in ten middle schools located in two cities. Aims: Increase the number of African American, Latino, and low-income students achieving proficiency in 8th grade math. Promote use of the Change Management Framework from the Rennie Center https://www.renniecenter.org/change-management

I hope this post is of use in understanding how the $92 dollars will be used to extract compliance with the Gates-favored methods of intervening in schools. It is not obvious how much of the money will actually reach schools, teachers and students. It is not yet obvious how much collatoral damage will be done by these ventures. Gates is a sucker for anything that looks like a short-term fix or formula for public schools.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates
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