Archives for the month of: January, 2019
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Miracle in Maine: New Governor Picks Critic of Government MicroManagement as State Commissioner!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2019 //
23

This is a great story. For eight years, Maine had a hot-headed Tea Party zealot as Governor. Paul LePage appointed a homeschooling parent as Commissioner of Education. He made racist remarks. He followed Jeb Bush as his idol.

In November, Democrat Janet Mills was elected. Competence, intelligence, sanity. Wow!

The educator she chose as Commissioner of education was stunned. She is amazing!

https://legacy.sunjournal.com/education-nominee-pender-makin-government-should-stay-out-of-the-classroom/

BRUNSWICK — The Saturday morning after Janet Mills won the gubernatorial election in November, Pender Makin sat in bed with her computer, sipping some coffee and preparing to compose a letter to whoever would be the next commissioner of the state Department of Education.

“I was on the one hand so filled with hope for a much better future for Maine, and also filled with exasperation due to some significant issues that I was concerned about at the department,” she recalled Dec. 28.

“‘Dear new commissioner,’” the Scarborough resident’s letter began.

Then, she said, “I basically laid out what I thought should be the most immediate strategic goals for that post.”

Makin, Brunswick’s assistant superintendent of schools since 2015, had no idea she was writing a letter to herself.

Even though she never planned to send the letter, deeming it just a way to organize her thoughts and feelings, Makin had started to establish a platform of issues and priorities that would serve her well in the weeks ahead.
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The state Senate and Education and Cultural Affairs Committee are due this month to confirm Mills’ nomination of Makin as Education Department commissioner. She would replace Robert Hasson of South Portland, who former Gov. Paul LePage tapped for the role in March 2017…

Makin said she was asked out of the blue in early December to attend an interview in Augusta with a cabinet screening committee.

“I said, ‘of course I will,’” she recalled. “How would I ever not? … I wake up with a sense of urgency; I consider it a complete mission, public education across the board.”

Makin saw the interview as a chance to share her beliefs about education with “a bunch of smart, powerful people,” but didn’t imagine herself much of a contender for the post…

Taking the reins of the department at the dawn of a new administration, “I see Maine as being in a prime position to be influencing national education policy, rather than reactively responding to every little whim that’s happening (at the federal level),” Makin said.

“We have the most unique demographics, we have innovative people in our classrooms all across the state,” she added, plus “a lot of passion and determination, hard work, and all the things that make Maine a real leader educationally. I feel that we maybe have squandered every opportunity to highlight that at the national level.”

Makin also said she sees Maine striving to achieve a world-class education for its students and pushing back against federal policies with which it doesn’t agree, instead of “absorbing blindly whatever gets handed down to us.”

She recalled implementation of the “No Child Left Behind” initiative in 2001, which launched a period of externally driven policies that created a culture of fear-driven accountability. Non-educators were telling educators how to teach, she said, and using sometimes punitive methods to try to bring about success.

But educators “don’t respond to carrots or sticks,” Makin noted, pointing out that the new teachers she meets each year come with a passion and idealistic desire to do the best for their students.
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“They arrive pre-motivated,” she said. “… They don’t need to have their professionalism stripped away and replaced with something to implement.”

“Government’s role should pull back, and focus on bills and initiatives that provide infrastructure,” Makin said. “Let’s look at innovative ways to provide … universal (pre-kindergarten). How can we raise up teacher bottom pay so that they’re recognized for the amount of education and work that they do to become teachers? How do we create equity across the state?”

“These are great, big things,” she continued. “I think government should stay out of the classroom; I think government should stay out of the transcripts,” and retreat from “micromanaging the actual operations of our schools.”

“When you take leaders, and you strip from them their leadership and you replace it with stuff to manage, you’re not fostering leadership,” Makin said. “So I think we need to just have a different lens.”

Categories Education Reform, Maine, Real Education, Resistance

New Mexico: Teachers Delighted That New Governor Will Drop PARCC, But Reformers Object

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
30

After eight long years of punitive Reformer leadership in New Mexico, a new day has arrived. Michelle Lujan Grisham has promised to banish PARCC. Her Lt. Gov. Howie Morales—an experienced educator— is temporarily leading the state’s Public Education Department.

“The governor, who was joined by four teachers at Thursday’s news conference, also said families and students around the state should “expect to see New Mexico transition immediately out of high-stakes testing.”

“Lujan Grisham had vowed on the campaign trail to eliminate PARCC testing in New Mexico if elected, and described it Thursday as a punitive system that has pushed educators to focus on test-taking preparation, not on teaching.”

Over the past eight years, the state’s NAEP scores were stagnant, and it remained near the bottom of all states tested. It also had the second highest rate of child poverty in the nation, exceeded only by that of Mississippi.

Teachers are thrilled. Reformers who supported Governor Martinez and her failed, punitive regime are disappointed. Reformers love high-stakes testing that humiliates teachers and children.

http://www.governing.com/topics/education/tns-new-mexico-parcc-grisham.html

“Amanda Aragon, executive director of the nonprofit group NewMexicoKidsCAN, called Lujan Grisham’s announcement disappointing.

“I think the criticisms of PARCC tend not to be based in real information,” Aragon said. She argued that the rhetoric across the country about PARCC has become politically driven and expressed concern that Thursday’s announcement would leave teachers and students in limbo while they wait for a replacement assessment to be developed.”

I am surprised that “Governing” magazine treats the Reformer group “NewMexicoKidsCAN” as a legitimate education organization when it is obviously tied to the billionaire-Funded 50CAN. The Reformer comment about PARCC is absurd, because PARCC has been a disaster across the country. Of the 26 states it started with, most have dropped out. When New Mexico and eventually New Jersey are gone, PARCC will be down to only four states. It may soon disappear.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Poverty, Privatization, Testing

Some L.A. Charter Teachers May Strike

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
5

Most charters schools are non-union. Nationally, about 90% of charters are non-union. That’s what the Waltons, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and other supporters of privatization want. They oppose unions. That’s why they support charter schools and vouchers.


Media Contact:
Ed Gutierrez, UTLA
213-595-7949 (m)
egutierrez@utla.net

Charter school teachers at The Accelerated Schools to announce possible strike

Teachers represented by UTLA at three Los Angeles charter schools operated by The Accelerated Schools (TAS) will announce on Wednesday a date for a potential upcoming strike. Educators have voted 99% to authorize a strike at the three schools.

The announcement comes on the heels of the release this week of a report by a state-appointed arbitrator and fact finding panel, which provides recommendations for resolving nearly all the outstanding contract issues at TAS. Teachers are demanding TAS decision-makers get back to the bargaining table and work to resolve these issues or face a strike.

Educators began negotiations with the urgent goal of fixing the problem of high teacher turnover and have been in contract negotiations with The Accelerated Schools for more than twenty months. The union and TAS are at impasse with disagreement on a small number of key issues. These include improvements in provisions that will ensure teachers are better able to exercise rights under their contract and provide for the same basic job protections currently enjoyed by nearly 90% of public school educators in Los Angeles. Teachers are also asking for TAS to offer more competitive health benefits and to take up an increased share of the cost for healthcare benefits.

TAS is not claiming an inability to pay for health benefit improvements. Teachers are fighting for a contract that will address skyrocketing teacher turnover at TAS and help bring increased stability for students and improvements in learning conditions.

“Last year, the teacher turnover rate was 40%,” said Wallace Annenberg High School teacher Kurt Belbin. “We know that this negatively impacts students and their educational experience. We were, and remain, resolved to fight for the schools that our students deserve.”

TAS teachers’ announcement comes at the same time that more than 30,000 UTLA members are poised to walk off the job at more than 900 school sites across LAUSD. A strike at TAS would be only the second charter school strike in the country following the walkout of 500 charter educators in Chicago last month.

JANUARY 9 – TAS TEACHER POTENTIAL STRIKE ANNOUCEMENT

Media site

Accelerated Charter Elementary School
3914 S. Main St., Los Angeles CA, 90011

What: Press Conference with TAS Teachers

Time: 3:45pm

Spanish-speaking parents and educators available

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools.
http://www.utla.net

Top 6 Nhà Cái Uy Tín & Sòng PhẳngNhất Việt Nam 2024

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform

Florida Education Association Responds to Governor DeSantis on Quality Education

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
4

This just came in from the Florida Education Association. Ten percent of Florida’s 3 million students attend charter schools. Three percent attend voucher schools, most of which are religious. Another eight percent attendprivate schools without vouchers. Seventy-nine percent attend public schools. Governor DeSantis and the Legislature should not ignore the seventy-nine percent while catering to the wants, needs, and desires of the twenty-one percent.

FEA statement on Gov. DeSantis and education

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Education Association (FEA) President Fedrick Ingram released this statement today following the inauguration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Gov. DeSantis has said he is focused on giving every child the opportunity for a world-class education. So are the members of the Florida Education Association, and we hope to work with him toward that goal. We want a great education available to every child, and we want every student to be successful.

“Our state can do the most good for the greatest number of students by investing in the neighborhood public schools that educate the large majority of Florida’s kids. ‘Choice,’ on the other hand, is a code word for draining tax dollars from our neighborhood public schools to fund charter and voucher programs that serve only a small percentage of children.

“Florida’s neighborhood public schools need this administration’s support. Our state ranks 44th nationally in education spending. We are 45th in the nation in teacher pay and 47th in pay for our education staff professionals, and we are facing an unprecedented and growing teacher shortage. An investment in our neighborhood public schools and our educators is an investment in Florida’s future.”

PS: I updated the statistics to include those students enrolled in private schools that do not accept vouchers.

Thanks to Sue Legg of the League of Women Voters.

Click to access Private-School-Report-2016-17.pdf

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Privatization, Vouchers

Nevada: Internecine Charter Battle Over Accountability

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
3

There is so much loose money sloshing around charter world, so naturally there are squabbles over the money. Mine! No, mine! Whenever online schools are involved, you can count on the presence of lobbyists and fake parent groups created by K12 Inc. or Pearson’s Connections Academy.


Personal cash payments. Drinks and airfare. Government contracts.

Those are the ingredients of a good scandal. But in the case of Nevada’s State Public Charter School Authority, there’s more behind allegations of inappropriate conduct than meets the eye.

Authority staff members are accused of accepting payments and other perks from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. The membership organization guides charter authorizers nationwide on best practices, but it also landed a contract with the Nevada charter authority in 2016. Now, the attorney general’s office is being asked to investigate.

That request came from the National Coalition for Public School Options (PSO). And it’s an action that the group has taken in another state where regulators were moving to hold charter school operators more accountable.

The group claims to fight for a parent’s right to choose the best education for their child. It has pushed back against stronger accountability for online charter schools under its overarching motto: “I trust parents.”

PSO declines to share its financial backers, but it’s commonly believed in the charter world that it receives funding from K12 Inc., one of the biggest operators of online schools nationwide. An IRS filing shows PSO spent over $2 million in 2016.

PSO’s spokeswoman, Susan Hepworth, also works for Woodberry Associates, a firm that has lobbied for K12 Inc.

In an email, Hepworth suggested that the NACSA group is trying to deflect attention from its wrongdoing, writing that “NACSA’s actions are their actions and they cannot blame it on anyone but themselves.”

The South Carolina Public Charter School District is aiming to set the record straight on what it calls “inaccurate and misleading” statements that PSO made about it to the Nevada attorney general.
In that state, the inspector general’s office investigated a PSO allegation that a charter district employee influenced the awarding of a contract to NACSA while simultaneously working as an independent contractor for the group.

But while the investigation found other issues, it concluded there was no evidence that the employee used an official position for financial gain.

“Notably, the South Carolina complaint was filed during a contentious period during which some charter schools sought to escape the (district’s) accountability policies by moving to a newly formed authorizer in a phenomenon known nationally as ‘authorizer shopping,’” attorneys for the district wrote in a letter to Nevada’s attorney general on Dec. 13.

Meanwhile, Nevada’s charter authority has been struggling to hold its own underperforming online schools — Nevada Connections Academy and Nevada Virtual Academy — accountable.

Perhaps not coincidentally, similar conflict-of-interest accusations against the agency’s former executive director, Patrick Gavin, surfaced around the same time that Nevada Virtual Academy’s charter was up for renewal. PSO has denied the timing was intentional.

Now, the group is leveling another accusation that Mark Modrcin, the charter authority’s director of authorizing, accepted “personal cash payments” from NACSA. The authority responded that Modrcin complied with all rules and requirements for state employees in a consulting contract he had with the organization.

Meantime, the Nevada Parents for Online Education — the local PSO chapter — claims it was retaliated against by Pat Hickey, executive director of the Charter School Association, who disinvited them from a recent stakeholder meeting.

They say it’s because they highlighted “unethical and potentially illegal behavior.” Hickey said they were not invited after launching a smear campaign against charter authority Chairman Jason Guinasso.

To be fair, it’s clear there were issues between Gavin and some authority board members regarding transparency and communication. And perhaps it would have been more prudent for him to recuse himself from the request-for-proposals process that resulted in NACSA winning a state contract.

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But there’s a larger issue at play here — a charter-school civil war between those who take a hard line on virtual schools, and those who fight for those schools to stay open. Expect more skirmishes if state regulators continue their accountability campaign.
Contact Amelia Pak-Harvey at apak-harvey@reviewjournal.com or 702-

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

John Thompson: Oklahoma and the Same Tired Privatization Agenda, Part 3

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
8

This is the third in a series about education politics in Oklahoma by John Thompson, historian and retired teacher.

The Oklahoman no longer dominates Oklahoma politics as it did for generations, but it is still the biggest bear in our woods. Now that legislators and governor-elect are more inexperienced than ever, the corporate school reform-loving newspaper is aggressively pushing its privatization agenda. Since our state government is almost completely lacking in knowledge of how and why the state implemented the entire accountability-driven, charter-driven experiment at the beginning of the decade, who knows who will win the hearts and minds of newly-elected officials?

One of the most worrisome of the Oklahoman’s recent editorials praised Reason magazine’s prescription for school improvement. Reason’s diagnosis was virtually indistinguishable from that of Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd, which said that underfunded high-poverty urban schools don’t need more money as much as they need to learn from high-performing schools in the rich exurbs.

The Oklahoman then editorialized:

In 2011 and 2012, Oklahoma implemented reforms that have proven effective in Florida, including a third-grade reading law that required retention of students who were two years below grade level, and an A-F school grading system. Lawmakers have since watered down some of those reforms. Instead of backing off, Reason’s education rankings indicate Oklahoma lawmakers should double down.

https://newsok.com/article/5616294/education-report-merits-review-in-spending-debate

The Oklahoman is still angry that moderate Republican State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister led a bipartisan effort that allowed schools to use more discretion when deciding whether to retain 3rd graders who don’t pass their reading test. For years, it has led the chorus for adopting an under-funded replica of the full Florida agenda. Fortunately, the Oklahoma Watch’s Jennifer Palmer has researched the facts about our Reading Sufficiency Act (RSA) law.

Oklahoma Nearly Tops Nation in Holding Back Early-Grade Students

Palmer reports that 3rd grade is:

the only year educators are required by law to retain students who aren’t reading-proficient — it’s not the most common year for students to be retained. A review of federal data from 2011-12 to 2015-16, the latest available, found that repeating a grade is actually more common in kindergarten and first grade.

Palmer reveals “nearly 10,000 students in kindergarten through second grade were retained in the 2015-16 school year, compared to just over 2,500 in third grade.” That represents 6 percent of those three grades, and “only Mississippi retained a higher proportion of students in those early grades.”

Moreover, she finds that “the high-stakes third-grade test appears to drive many of the early retentions.”

Even sadder for poor children of color, the retention rates are worse in urban schools than in their suburbs. Palmer writes, “Oklahoma City Public Schools and Tulsa Public Schools reported similar numbers for kindergarten through second grade: 833 and 823, respectively. Moore Public Schools, on the other hand, which is about half the size of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, reported just 59 students retained.”

The Oklahoma Watch also chronicled the financial and human costs of the high stakes testing. It explains that, “In some cases, retaining a student is warranted and even beneficial, especially if their struggles are related to age or maturity, educators say. But Oklahoma’s extraordinarily high rate suggests something is out of whack.”

And “one extra year of schooling at Oklahoma’s average of $8,091 per student costs the state $80 million. Advocates say that money would be better spent on extra support for the student within their normal grade progression.”

Palmer then cites Texas A&M University research that followed nearly 800 children for 14 years. Elementary students who were held back “were almost three times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers. In that study, the most common year repeated was first grade.”

She cited another study on Florida students who were retained in third grade, and that being old for their grade didn’t reduce the likelihood the student would receive a diploma. But in contrast to the ExcelinEd lobbyists ubiquitous spin, she added “critics note the researcher in that study and others on retention works for a Harvard research center chaired by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who came up with the retention policy and has been pushing it nationwide.”

Moreover, Florida held back 50 percent fewer students below third grade. And Florida invests more than $130 million per year for supports to improve student literacy, while Oklahoma only provided $6 million for 78,000 at-risk students in the last fiscal year.

It must be stressed that the original 3rd grade high stakes reading test, is one of two policies that were clearly repudiated by almost all Oklahoma stakeholders. I had believed it had mostly been mended, despite not being ended, and there is evidence that retentions have slowed during the Hofmeister administration. I’ve talked with many former students angered that their kids were taught by a string of temporary teachers and subs as their kids tried to avoid being retained. But that was attributable to the combination of extreme budget cuts and the overall reform package that drove teachers out of the system.

The second threat, the expansion of charter schools, has garnered pushback. Even many or most of the choice true believers have realized that it would be impossible to find more charters willing to retain more poor children of color. About the only markets left, small towns and gentrifying neighborhoods, are clearly the new targets. I don’t expect reformers to willingly back off of high stakes reading tests, but clearly their main priority will be blaming the system for failed reforms and, creating portfolios of charters in gentrifying areas, leaving district schools and pushing online charters like Epic CMO as alternative schools to the charter systems.

We’ve been winning, but we can’t back off from the battle to reclaim public education.

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

Mitchell Robinson Consoles Fordham Institute on Loss of Scott Walker

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2019 //
27

Mitchell Robinson, a professor of music education at Michigan State, was bemused by the reaction of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s to Scott Walker’s election defeat.

He begins:

“I have to say that it’s pretty amusing to see an–allegedly–education-focused website like the Fordham Institute print this “sky is falling” forecast of new Wisconsin governor Tony Evers’ predicted influence on schooling in the state, but it’s illustrative of Fordham’s deep hatred for public education, and their support for the corporate ed reform agenda. Between the twisting of facts and innuendos, it’s like taking a stroll through a hallway of funhouse mirrors…so join me as we take a peek at their concerns:

“They are concerned that Evers wants to adequately fund schools: “Evers wants to increase school funding—even more than Walker”…

“Yes, because Walker was such a big supporter of public schools. (My eyes just rolled back so hard they bumped into the rear of my skull.)

“This point is supported by some snarky references to the “fact” that spending increases (caveat: above a certain threshold) don’t improve student learning–because, you know, no one with the financial means to do so ever decides to buy a house in a community that spends a lot of money on their kids’ schools. And because standardized test scores aren’t directly correlated with parental income levels. And because spending more money on stuff helps in every single other aspect of life…except for education.

“(The next time some neo-con tells you that “throwing money at education doesn’t do any good!”, tell them, “You may be right, but spending less money on schools hasn’t worked, so let’s try spending more and see what happens!”)

“I mean, these Fordham guys are just unbelievable.”

Then, they are disappointed that Governor Evers won’t give as much money to private schools as to public schools. How sad.

“And not to be a scold or anything, but I thought that spending more money on schooling doesn’t improve student learning…so isn’t Evers actually helping private schools by spending less on them?

“What will Evers think of next? Rolling back the voucher programs that have decimated Wisconsin’s public schools, once one of the very finest state school systems in the country? Egads…

“And the Fordham Institute is sad about what might be lost with respect to Walker’s “legacy”?

The bottom line here is that it’s richly ironic to see an anti-education “think tank” like Fordham losing their minds over the prospect of a duly-elected governor who may actually do her or his job. An occurrence that is becoming more common in the Midwest, with new Democratic governors and senators being elected in the three states that handed Trump the White House in 2016: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

“Wisconsin has suffered for 8 long years under the tyrannical rule of Koch-puppet Scott Walker. The state’s citizens—and children—can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, and the folks at Fordham may want to step off the tracks before they get run over. Because change is coming. Fast.”

The corporate reform “movement” is in disarray.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding

Los Angeles: No Progress on Negotiations between UTLA and School Board

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2019 //
20

This just in from the UTLA:

OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Anna Bakalis, 213-305-9654
Kim Turner, 213-305-9316

No progress made in bargaining today

LOS ANGELES — UTLA met with LAUSD officials today in the hopes that the district would finally have a meaningful proposal to settle the contract, but the district made yet another unacceptable offer. LAUSD’s latest proposal ties a pay raise to cuts in healthcare for future employees, would actually increase class size instead of lower it, and does nothing to bring more long-term nurses, counselors, and librarians to work with our students.

It’s clear we are still deadlocked over the issues and an impasse between the two parties still exists. Tomorrow, we are in court to fight another anti-union attempt to stop our strike by LAUSD. We have agreed to meet with LAUSD on Wednesday at 9 AM, and we hope that the district brings a real proposal that genuinely supports our educators, students, and communities.

For UTLA’s part, today we pulled six issues from our bargaining package that the district says are “permissive” and claims we are not able to strike over—including important proposals to reduce overtesting and give parents and teachers more decision making at schools. We are disappointed that once again the district is putting up roadblocks to cost-neutral efforts to improve our students’ learning conditions. This is another last-minute, high-priced-lawyer maneuver by LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner. We disagree that these issues are “permissive” and are going to the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to fight for our right to bargain over them, but for now, to protect our right to strike, we have withdrawn them.

“Austin Beutner once again reveals his disdain for the educators and parents of LAUSD by fighting tooth and nail against proposals to give parents and teachers a greater voice in how their schools are run,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl says. “These proposals have wide community support and would not have cost the district a dime.”

Meanwhile, our members were asked to send home Beutner’s letter to students today that claimed UTLA refused to bargain—this while our team was actually at the table with LAUSD. He claims LAUSD is broke, yet he is spending money on hundreds of thousands of letters with inaccurate and false information and dares to ask our members (98% of whom voted to strike) to distribute the letter. Beutner did this after telling teachers we can’t talk to parents, which is the subject of a pending unfair bargaining charge.

UTLA is planning to be in court tomorrow to fight another attempt by Austin Beutner to stop our potential strike. Last week, the federal court threw out Beutner’s attempt at an offensive special education injunction to stop a strike, and we expect PERB to dismiss his request for another injunction based on unsubstantiated bad faith bargaining claims in the next few days. This third attempt at an injunction is based on a disingenuous claim that UTLA did not give sufficient notice of our intent to strike.

We are fighting to keep our strike date of January 10 but we are ready to shift to Monday, January 14, if LAUSD’s pursuit of this technicality is allowed to stand. We wish Beunter would spend as much energy trying to reach an agreement as he does employing his high-priced lawyers to try to thwart our right to advocate for our students and strike if it comes to that.

Categories Los Angeles

You Are Invited to a Webinar on Protecting Student and Educator Privacy

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2019 //
7

Please join this free webinar on protecting your privacy and the privacy of students.

SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE JAN. 20 WEBINAR ON HOW EDUCATORS CAN BETTER PROTECT THEIR STUDENTS’ PRIVACY — AND THEIR OWN

A few weeks ago, it was reported that the personal information of 500,000 San Diego students, former students and school staff was exposed in a massive breach. At about the same time, education institutions and organizations were rated as the worst sector for cybersecurity in a 2018 report.

We invite you to join us for a short webinar on Jan. 20, with important tips on how teachers and district/school staff members can better protect their students’ privacy of and their own.

We will be offering guidance along with Marla Kilfoyle of the Badass Teachers Association from our Educator Toolkit for Teacher and Student Privacy, released this fall. Educators will receive a certificate of participation. Don’t miss out! Space is limited!

When? Sunday, January 20 from 6-7 PM EST (3-4 PST). We’re saving lots of time for questions!

How? Sign up here – it’s free!

We hope to see you on the 20th.

Leonie Haimson and Rachael Stickland
Co-Chairs, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

http://www.studentprivacymatters.org

Categories Data and Data Mining, Privacy and Privacy Rights

John Thompson: What Mike Petrilli Doesn’t Know About Oklahoma, Part 2

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2019 //
35

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, wrote a three part series on education “Reform” and politics in his state.

This is part 2.

The Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli seemed to be whistling through the graveyard in “The End of Education Policy.” The corporate reformer argued that “Our own Cold War pitted reformers against traditional education groups; we have fought each other to a draw, and reached something approaching homeostasis. Resistance to education reform has not collapsed like the Soviet Union did. Far from it. But there have been major changes that are now institutionalized and won’t be easily undone, at least for the next decade.”

https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-end-of-education-policy

In fact, the failed school “reform” experiment is losing politically as the public rejects test-driven, competition-driven reform. The Billionaires Boys Club and federal and state governments have wasted billions of dollars on their theories. Now their political campaign is stumbling.

Not surprisingly, the attempt to use the stresses of high stakes testing and nonstop competition between schools to remedy the stresses of poverty and trauma, created a fiasco. They used increased segregation by charter schools to counter the stress of racial segregation. They even used untested and unreliable value-added models, that are biased against teachers in high-challenge schools, in order to recruit more talent to those schools!?!?!

The Obama administration and edu-philanthropists tried to entice charters into serving more high-poverty students with hundreds of millions of dollars of grants. As the reliable Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay explains, only 18 percent on the era’s innovations produced “any positive impact on student achievement,” and “some of these positive impacts were very tiny.” And even in many charters that initially claimed to produce big test scores gains, the result was “‘quiet churn’ of students from year to year, which slows achievement for both students who change schools and those who stay.”

The ‘dirty secret’ about educational innovation

High student mobility in Milwaukee stalls achievement, despite well-planned school reforms

The Hechinger Report’s Caroline Preston describes a state-authorized charter school in Seminole, Ok. as a test case as to “whether these privately operated, publicly funded schools can open in small communities without eroding public education.” The article’s title, “A rural Charter School Splits an Oklahoma Town.” The subtitle is: A businessman makes an end run around community opponents. Now, he wants to expand others like it,” should serve as a warning.

A rural charter school splits an Oklahoma town

Even though it seems inexplicable, especially in a state that has too many rural school systems, Oklahoma allows charters in small towns like Seminole that only has around 1,600 students. If the charter school could meet its goal of serving as many as 700 students, the public school system would be wrecked.

Even more illogical is a law that allows the state Board of Education to override local decisions on granting charters. And due to one of the “reforms” in the full corporate reform agenda which was adopted at the beginning of the decade, the board is dominated in true believers by choice and the edu-politics of destruction for blowing up the “status quo.” It’s unlikely that the board will ever meet a charter application that it doesn’t love. Even if the charter isn’t capable of helping kids, it hurts the privatizers’ opponents.

Preston explains that the charter founder, Paul Campbell, runs a company, Enviro Systems, that wants graduates who could staff his business. She notes that Campbell lacked knowledge about schools, but his “can-do, pro-business attitude fits in with the ethos of this working class, Trump-supporting town.”

However, many patrons believed:

It could inappropriately blur the lines between schools and the workplace. Opponents also felt that Campbell, who had no background in education, had put together a proposal pockmarked with problems, one that didn’t offer students any opportunities they couldn’t already get from existing programs. Church services grew tense. Friendships soured.

At first glance, it might seem like Seminole is lucky that the charter’s goal was 60 students in the first year, and it only served 29. But the overall threat remains. As a former school board member said, “she worried the charter school would be a private school ‘in sheep’s clothing,’ benefiting only students of families with the means to sort out the school’s application process and ferry their kids to and from school.” And sure enough, about 45 percent the charter’s inaugural class qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, in contrast to 73 percent in the Seminole district.

And once again, Fordham’s Mike Petrilli stakes out a position about schools, a community, and a state he doesn’t know. Petrilli says of Campbell, “More power to him.” He endorses Campbell’s “vision of helping lift local school performance with market-style inducements. ‘Here is a person who is trying to bring up the quality of education in the community. He’s an employer; this is where a lot of the energy for education reform has come from, the employers who find they are just not getting the workers they need or they don’t have the schools to recruit people into the community.’”

The point should be clear. Charters have failed in terms of school improvement. Regardless of whether charter expansion is spun as a “portfolio” or an “innovation” school, it is a tool for economic gain as opposed to an education investment.

In urban districts, privatization is a means to spur gentrification, as well as to break unions. My approach has been to schmooze with Oklahoma City leaders, hoping to ground policy decisions in at least some education facts. As one of the most powerful and candid business leaders told me in response, “You may be right. I don’t know that much about education.” But low-performing schools make economic development more difficult, and “I believe economic growth will lift all boats.”

As will be explained in the next post, political and business leaders are still hearing nonstop spin from Fordham, edu-philanthropists, and portfolio advocates, and their pitch often sounds pretty good to business people who don’t know much about education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Oklahoma, Privatization, Testing
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