Archives for the month of: September, 2019
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Nancy Bailey on The War Against Little Children

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
7

 

Nancy Bailey describes here the determined effort by policymakers to stamp out play and childhood, all in the name of teaching reading long before children are ready to learn to read.

Because kindergarten has become more advanced, preschool is seen as the time children must have prereading skills for kindergarten. If they don’t, it’s seen as a red flag. This makes teachers and parents push children to learn to read early.

Children are expected to know letters and numbers, even basic sight words. They’re supposed to be able to sit and focus on tasks for longer periods. But preschool wasn’t always about teaching prereading skills, and we should question if children that young are being pushed to read too soon.

In 2002, Newsweek published an article entitled “The Right Way to Read.” The title was conjecture. Reporters visited the Roseville Cooperative Preschool in northern California. Children there were called “masters of the universe” because they oversaw play. Children played most of the time. The school based everything on play.

Children played at a science table. They used magnifying glasses to explore flowers, cacti, and shells. They donned smocks to do art, lots of art. They were able to climb and stay active. They had access to books and a dollhouse.

There were no letters or numbers on the wall.

Director and founder Bev Bos told teachers, “Forget about kindergarten, first grade, second grade. We should be focusing on where children are right now.”

But Newsweek didn’t praise the preschool. They were there to show the controversy surrounding it.

The Bush administration had claimed research indicated that 50,000 Head Start teachers were going to have to learn how to provide explicit instruction on how to teach the alphabet, letter sounds, and writing to young children.

Not only that. Preschool teachers were to use a detailed literacy-screening test. Forty-five million was being earmarked for preschool-reading research.

Children were no longer masters of their world. Adults were in control.

Yes, the adults were in control but they made horrible decision that stole childhood and play from children.

For all the hundreds of millions and billions poured into the Great Crusade to Teach Preschoolers to Read, there has been minimal change in NAEP scores for reading, in fourth or eighth grades. Despite the pressure to raise test scores in reading, scores remained stagnant, and no academic progress was made at all for the lowest performing students since the implementation of NCLB almost two decades ago.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Early Childhood Education, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Play, Testing

Ted Dintersmith: Why We Must Invest in a New Vision for Education

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
45

 

Ted Dintersmith was honored by the NEA for his advocacy on behalf of public education.

In this article, which appeared in Forbes, he urges support for a national commitment to investing in education and the future of our society.

He writes:

Education is the single most important issue determining our democracy’s future.  If we continue to get it wrong, we’re headed for collapse.  But if we bring the vision and courage to get it right, we will rescue the American Dream. Now more than ever, we desperately need a compelling blueprint, an Education Imperative.

Education sits in a context. Machine intelligence (computers, software, robotics, artificial intelligence) is advancing at a blistering pace, posing profound career and citizenship challenges for our population. Within a decade or two, machines will outperform humans on almost any physical or cognitive task, eliminating almost all routine white- and blue-collar jobs. To his immense credit, presidential candidate Andrew Yang is sounding alarm bells about this economic tsunami heading our way.  And if economic upheaval isn’t enough, technology-driven social media and deep-fake videos are now weapons with the power to manipulate and disrupt civic engagement, to undermine democratic processes…

In the past, America was at its best when faced with an existential crisis. Hell, we saved the free world during World War II.  We rebuilt Europe.  We put a man on the moon.  What better cause than fighting for our children’s futures by rallying around an aspirational view of what our schools could be, by stepping up to an Education Imperative.

Our Education Imperative should start with our babies and toddlers. There’s no better economic investment, nor higher moral imperative, than ensuring that our youngest children receive high-quality early-childhood care. Too many of America’s kids grow up in desperate circumstances.  Every child, not just every rich child, deserves a decent start in life.  

The vast majority of U.S. kids attend our public K12 schools, one of our country’s most vital resources. These schools need more financial support.  We need to offset the outsized role of local property taxes in funding education, which results shortchanging the kids who need the most. If you’re looking for heroes in America, you’ll find them in our classrooms. Our teachers fight daily for their kids, even risking their lives to protect children from shooters armed with NRA-endorsed assault weapons.  They deserve a fair salary, better professional development support, and trust.

You may not agree with all his prescriptions but in general he is on the right track.

Time for a massive investment in children and teachers and education.

Testing and choice have been a wasteful and harmful distraction.

 

Categories Accountability, Creativity, Funding, Teacher Pay, Testing

How the GOP in North Carolina Pulled Off Its Sneak Attack on Medicaid Expansion for 634,000 People

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
18

Think dirty politics, think North Carolina.

Yesterday, while some Democratic legislators and Governor Roy Cooper attended a 9/11 memorial service, the Republican legislators called a snap vote to override the governor’s veto of the state budget. They had repeatedly assured the Democrats that no votes would be recorded that morning, but they lied. If the full body of representatives had been present, the governor’s veto would have stood.

Cooper vetoed the budget because it did not include Medicaid expansion, which he favors but the Republicans oppose. Thanks to the Republicans, 634,000 citizens in the state will not have health coverage.

This article includes an interview with Democratic representative Chaz Beasley, who explains what was at stake.

He said,

North Carolinians sent us up to Raleigh to have a voice and a say in how we spend $24 billion. And what we’ve seen throughout this process is that many of us were not at the table when whole swaths of the budget were negotiated and settled upon. The governor has made it clear what he would like to see in the budget. One thing he’d like to see is Medicaid expansion in there.

But problems with the budget go beyond the fact that it doesn’t expand Medicaid for 500,000 North Carolinians. We still underpay our teachers. We still have schools that lack the resources to be successful. We still haven’t given a large enough pay increase to our state employees, or a cost of living adjustment to our retirees. Instead, the budget includes things like expanding programs for virtual charter schools that do not have good ratings for how they’re teaching our kids.

Virtual charter schools, we know, are a cash cow for big out-of-state corporations, and they are noted for terrible academic performance, high attrition, and low graduation rates.

The only mildly amusing comment in the article comes from a Republican who said that it was important to take a vote on 9/11 “so that the terrorists didn’t win.” He didn’t explain why it was necessary to take the vote when members of the Democratic party had been assured there would be no vote that morning. When you lie, cheat, and steal to get your way, you undermine democracy. When you betray democracy in your pursuit of power, the terrorists win.

 

Categories Corruption, Democrats, Lies, North Carolina, Republicans, Virtual Charter Schools

Los Angeles: Parent Calls on LAUSD Board to Investigate Nick Melvoin

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
9

 

Tracy Abbott Cook, a parent in District 4 represented by Nick Melvoin, testified to the LAUSD board and asked it to investigate him based on the emails leaked to Michael Kohlhaas. The emails showed that Melvoin had collaborated with opposing counsel from the California Charter School Association. Ms. Cook believes this is a violation of Melvoin’s obligation to the voters who elected him and to his ethical responsibility as a lawyer. Melvoin has two masters, she says, because his campaign was heavily funded by the charter industry.

Vigilant parents like Ms. Cook are keeping the heat on board members who favor charter schools over public schools. As voters, they expect their elected board members to represent public schools, not the California Charter School Association.

Please watch: This is what the Resistance looks like.

Categories Education Reform

Curriculum Company Sues Parent for Criticizing Its Program

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
33

Sarah Sparks writes in Edweek about a curriculum company that is suing a parent in Wake County, North Carolina, for criticizing its math program. The company says the parent is defaming its product. The parent’s lawyer says the company is attacking the parent’s First Amendment rights.

As the story notes, this is a SLAPP suit, a suit meant to silence public criticism. The last time I encountered this sort of thing was when a charter company filed a suit against a school board member in California for negative criticism. The ACLU came to her defense. It should defend this parent too, who is using his Constitutional right to disagree with a program adopted by his district.

A group of families in Wake County, N.C., have pushed for months to get the district to stop using a controversial new curriculum. Now the company behind the curriculum is suing one of the most vocal parents for defamation.

It’s a surprising move that some say could have broad implications for parent advocacy around curriculum and instruction. A win by the company “would certainly cast a shadow on the idea that parents have a right to participate in their own children’s education, to criticize schools for buying particular textbooks, to voice their concerns about instruction and curriculum,” said Tom Loveless, an education researcher formerly at the Brookings Institution, who is not involved in the case.

The Mathematics Vision Project, a nonprofit provider of open source math curricula, filed a complaint this summer against Blain Dillard, a parent in the Wake County public school system. MVP has accused Dillard, an outspoken opponent of the math program, of libel, slander, and “tortious interference with business relations.”

The company alleges that Dillard has launched “a crusade against MVP” through his online criticism of the curriculum and advocacy with school officials and employees.

In a written statement to Education Week, Jeffrey Hunt, Dillard’s lawyer, wrote that the lawsuit “has no legal merit.”

“It is alarming that a parent would be sued for defamation for expressing opinions and making truthful statements about his son’s high school math curriculum,” Hunt said. “The lawsuit appears to be an attempt to silence Mr. Dillard and other critics of MVP, and to chill their First Amendment rights to speak about MVP’s services.”

The district is entering its third year using the MVP curriculum, which received a favorable evaluation from the curriculum reviewer EdReports. The open source curriculum emphasizes problem-solving and collaboration—students learn by working through problems, and teachers are expected to act as facilitators.

For months now, parents have spoken out against lessons that they say are confusing and poorly structured, lodging complaints with the district and making statements at school board meetings. Parents said their children weren’t getting enough direct instruction and were encouraged to rely on their classmates for help. As a result, they said, students who used to get As and Bs were now getting Cs and Ds, which would have long-lasting effects on their grade point averages and college prospects.

Barbara Kuehl, an author and consultant at MVP, said that the organization’s materials encourage a variety of methods. “Our curriculum not only supports well-timed direct instruction, we advocate for it,” she said. Kuehl declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.

Pushback from parents over a new curriculum, and particularly a discovery-based program, is nothing new, said Loveless.

“There have been all kinds of programs that have been oriented around that philosophy, and they have been quite controversial,” Loveless said.

What is new? A curriculum provider suing parents over such complaints.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Curriculum, Freedom of Speech, North Carolina

Julian Vasquez Heilig on Our Segregated Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
6

This is an interview with Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig, the scholar who was recently named dean of the University of Kentucky School of Education. JVH’s scholarship focuses on equity. He has written about charter schools and Teach for America.

https://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/segregation-worse-charter-schools-vasquez-heilig-miller-190909/

From the Progressive:

Vasquez-Heilig and his co-authors, T. Jameson Brewer of the University of North Georgia College of Education, and Yohuru Williams of the University of St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences, analyzed publicly available data to confirm what public school advocates have said for years: Nationally, higher percentages of charter students of every race attend “intensely segregated” schools.

I had an opportunity to speak with Vasquez-Heilig about his study and the urgency to address the hard truth of his findings.

Q: What questions were you were looking to answer with this study?

Vasquez-Heilig: So what we really wanted to know is, are charter schools more segregated, when you look at the state-level data, the national level data, and the local level data. We wanted to determine if the one reason why charter schools are more segregated is because they sit in segregated communities, as is often discussed.

We found that across all levels, charter schools are more segregated where African American and Latinx students are in the majority. We found geography didn’t explain that away, and that it’s growing worse.

Q: Did your research find any variation with respect to segregated charter schools from state to state?

Vasquez-Heilig: That’s a good question. There are a couple of states—and cities—where neighborhood public schools are slightly more segregated—Los Angeles, and Hawaii, for example. But those are the exceptions. In the vast majority of states and the vast majority of cities, African American and Latinx students were more segregated in charter schools.

Categories Charter Schools

Jack Hassard: Trump’s Outrageous War on Science

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
58

Jack Hassard Taught science education for many years. He used to write a blog called “The Art of Teaching Science,” but became so upset about current events that he renamed his blog “Jack Hassard’s Blog.”

In this post, he excoriates Trump’s war on science.

He begins:

Science was under assault last week by an un-educated President and his staff who believe that they can supercede the findings of science when the findings don’t agree with their personal and political views.

When Hurricane Harvey inflicted its wrath on Houston and most of East Texas, I painted an art series of 4 canvases showing how hurricanes harm not only property, but the people who endure the storm. This may be a family or community of friends who are wading through flooded streets to find shelter. I believe that science should be in the service of people. In this case, it was in the service of these people by providing the most up-to-date forecast, and warnings about the storm and its aftermath. When narcissistic politicians intrude into the nature of how science is done, they corrupt the findings, and lend support to the distrust of science and scientists.

Assault on Science

Science has been under assault during the entire period of time Trump has been in office. Scientists in several departments, especially the EPA, and Commerce Dept. have come under dire consequences because of the administration’s anti-science views, and their attempt to oversee and obstruct the process of science.

It’s not the first time. Republicans have had a field day trying to influence the nature of the science that is produced by United States government agencies. Chris Mooney documented this in his book, The Republican War on Science, published 2005, midstream in the George W. Bush administration. In Bush’s assault on science, the principle underpinning of his war was to please political and religious groups.

In Trump’s case, not only has politics and religion played a part, but the most egregious sin committed by Trump is his form of narcissism that is of the loud kind. He brags, he boasts, I’m smart, I’m really smart, he insults, and is obsessed with numbers (see Craig Malkin’s chapter, Pathological Narcissism and Politics in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, edited by Bandy Lee, M.D.). Trump simply can never be wrong or corrected because he’s such an “extremely stable genius.”

Categories Science, Trump

Kentucky PTA Lawyer: The Other Side of the Story

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
5

I posted Gay Adelmann’s account of her efforts to see the financial records of the Kentucky PTA. Both sides ended up in court.

Kentucky: What is the State PTA Hiding?

I heard from S. Coy Travis, whose law firm represents the Kentucky PTA. He wanted readers to know both sides. I invited him to write a commentary, and he did.

He wrote:

Isn’t Kentucky PTA subject to the Open Records Act? Why does Kentucky PTA think that it doesn’t need to follow a lawful Open Records Act request.

Kentucky PTA is a private nonprofit corporation. While PTAs do work closely with schools, they are not simply an extension of the public school or generally under the control of the school district. As best said by Betsy Landers, past National PTA President, “PTA doesn’t work for the school – it works on behalf of children and families.”

The Kentucky Open Records Act, KRS 61.880 et seq., only applies to public agencies. School districts are clearly public agencies subject to the Open Records Act.

Under the Kentucky Open Records Act, public records of public agencies are subject to inspection unless they fall within a particular exclusion. One of the exclusions are records (a) that are required by a public agency to be disclosed to it by a private entity, (b) that are generally recognized as confidential or proprietary, and (c) that would permit an unfair competitive advantage against the private entity disclosing the records.

Breaking down that analysis:

(a) Kentucky PTA is required by the Accounting Procedures for School Activity Funds a/k/a Redbook to provide the requested records to the school. The school is a public agency under the Kentucky Open Records Act. There is little dispute that this portion of the analysis is satisfied.

(b) Financial records of private entities are generally considered to be confidential or proprietary. There is case law in Kentucky that acknowledges that a private entity’s financial records – including budgets and annual financial reports – are typically considered confidential and proprietary. While there may be great interest in these records, that does not change the fact that they are, generally speaking, considered to be confidential or proprietary. This point is explored more below.

(c) Entities that might be competitors or adverse to Kentucky PTA could use these records to gain an advantage on Kentucky PTA. As one example illustrating this point:

Suppose that a group wishes to reduce the influence of Kentucky PTA by forming unaffiliated parent teacher organizations (PTOs), which focus on the local school only and do not have the advocacy aims of PTA. The PTO organizers, if given access to Kentucky PTA financial records, could use those records to identify PTA chapters with fewer members and/or financial resources. The PTO organizers could then target those schools for development of a PTO instead of a PTA. As another example: Suppose that a charter school advocate wishes to build support for charter schools by pointing out schools with “weak” PTAs in an effort to show that public schools have not fostered parental involvement. This would clearly be detrimental to PTA.

So, while Kentucky PTA respects the goals of the Open Records Act, Kentucky PTA does not agree that the Open Records Act legally applies to Kentucky PTA or that the records that Kentucky PTA (through its local units) is required to disclose by law should be subject to an Open Records Request. Kentucky PTA believes that the current request is not supported by a correct interpretation of the law. For Kentucky PTA, this case is entirely about the “how” and not the “what” that is at issue.

How can Kentucky PTA claim its financial records are confidential when it discloses that information to members at local meetings?

First, it’s important to again remember that Kentucky PTA is a private entity, not a government agency or program. Second, Kentucky PTA has roughly 105,000 members, and we encourage our members to engage with local units. And yes, our local units regularly share financial information with members during PTA meetings. But, to put the Kentucky PTA membership number in context, there are approximately 4,468,000 people in Kentucky. This means that, out of Kentucky’s entire population, only 2.3% of the people in our state are Kentucky PTA members. While we gladly share information with our members, Kentucky PTA does not regularly share detailed financial information with the general public except as otherwise required by law. The essence of privacy rights is that private entities get to control how their information gets disseminated to the general public. In other words, the private entity gets to decide what to share, what not to share, how to share it, etc. Kentucky PTA takes its role in the public education sphere seriously and carefully balances its privacy interests against the goal of being transparent and ensuring public confidence in PTA.

Put into a different context: Just because a person might choose to share information with the person’s friends and family does not mean that the person does not still consider the information confidential to anyone outside those groups.

Why did Kentucky PTA sue an activist?

Technically, the named defendant in the lawsuit is the public agency – the school district. This is because the public agency currently possesses the records, and as such, is the defendant in an Open Records Act lawsuit. Ms. Adelmann was named not as a defendant but as a “real party in interest.” This means that Kentucky PTA acknowledged, from the outset, that Ms. Adelmann has a legal interest in the legal question at issue in the case and deserves a full and fair opportunity to be heard on the issue. Contrary to the narrative that Kentucky PTA has tried to keep Ms. Adelmann in the dark or hide anything, Kentucky PTA wanted to ensure that she had the chance to say whatever she wanted to say and be a part of this process.

Why doesn’t Kentucky PTA want to see the activist get these records? Why didn’t Kentucky PTA just give the records to the activist?

Actually, Kentucky PTA has already agreed to provide the requested records to Ms. Adelmann. Kentucky PTA is currently in the process of gathering those records and digitizing them so that they can be produced to Ms. Adelmann. However, Kentucky PTA is almost exclusively made up of volunteers, so it will take time to get these records. Additionally, many of the requested records, though produced to the schools, are not produced to the state PTA office, so we will have to collect those from our local units.

We have also heard that Ms. Adelmann feels that she did not get a sufficient response from Kentucky PTA when she requested these records from local units. Kentucky PTA is not aware of any request made at the state level or the specifics of who in local PTAs Ms. Adelmann asked for these records. To date, she has not provided Kentucky PTA with any corroboration of the efforts she made to get these records directly from PTA at any level before resorting to her request under the Open Records Act, and she has repeatedly acknowledged that she did so more for her own convenience. Regardless, Kentucky PTA is currently working on developing written protocols to ensure that there are more clearly-established and understood procedures for member document requests in the future.

Is this a good use of Kentucky PTA’s resources?

We’ve all heard the phrase, “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” Likely, those who have children or have worked with children have stressed this lesson many times. Kentucky PTA fully agrees with this assessment, and that is the driving belief behind this legal action. Again, Kentucky PTA is not trying to hide anything – it fully intends to produce the requested records to Ms. Adelmann. However, we do believe that the question of “how” those records are produced has been completely overlooked. Using an analogy that education activists in Kentucky can appreciate, Kentucky PTA believes that trying to get the records of a private entity through an Open Records Act request is a lot like trying to pass a pension reform bill by calling it a wastewater bill – no matter what anyone may believe about the merits, the process is flawed.

Additionally, much of the legal work performed for Kentucky PTA, including most of the time spent on this litigation, has been done on a pro bono basis. As a supporter of public education and its allies, Kentucky PTA’s general counsel has done his absolute best to keep the costs on this case as low as possible, including substantially reducing the hourly rate when work has been billed.

Why didn’t Kentucky PTA take action in the past in response to other Open Records Act requests?

There was a previous Open Records Act request made by a local newspaper a couple of years ago for PTA records. However, there is no evidence that Kentucky PTA knew about the request prior to the school district releasing the records. In an Open Records Act case, once the records have been released, there is really no remedy. In the current instance, Kentucky PTA was made aware of the request through local PTAs contacting the state office before the records were produced, giving Kentucky PTA the opportunity to intervene for the above-stated reasons.

If Kentucky PTA is giving the activist the records, why is it planning to appeal the trial court decision?

The decision by the trial court in this case has no precedential value for any future requests. Until there is a published appellate opinion, there is no controlling law on this question. Kentucky PTA believes that it and other entities required to produce records to the government by law would benefit from an analysis of this portion of the Open Records Act.

Categories Accountability, Kentucky

Steven Singer: Time to Close Every Single Charter School, Every One

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
41

Steven Singer, a teacher in Pennsylvania, has concluded that there are no good charter schools. The problem, he says, is not implementation but the concept, which, he insists, is wrong.

He writes:

The problem with charter schools isn’t that they have been implemented badly.

Nor is it that some are for-profit and others are not.

The problem is the concept, itself.

Put simply: charter schools are a bad idea. They always were a bad idea. And it is high time we put an end to them.

I am overjoyed that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are starting to hear the criticisms leveled against the charter school industry in the face of the naked greed and bias of the Trump administration and its high priestess of privatization, Betsy DeVos. However, I am also disappointed in the lack of courage displayed by many of these same lawmakers when proposing solutions.

Charter schools enroll only 6 percent of students nationwide yet they gobble up billions of dollars in funding. In my home state of Pennsylvania, they cost Commonwealth taxpayers more than $1.8 billion a year and take more than 25 percent of the state’s basic education funding. That’s for merely 180 schools with 135,000 students!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Mineola, N.Y.: A Third-Grade Classroom Where Students Spend 75% of The Day on Their iPads

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2019 //
33

Four years ago, the Hechinger Report described a third-grade class in an affluent suburb of New York City where children spend 75% of the day on their iPads.

Is this the future?

It is not a cost-saver, since there is still one teacher and a class of 20+ students. In most tech-infused projections, this is called “personalized learning,” and it is pitched as a way to cut costs by increasing class sizes.

At Governor Cuomo’s urging, New York passed a $2 billion bond issue to pay for new technology in the classroom. Districts on Long Island, pride themselves on their adoption of the latest technology. Technology and STEM are the rage.

Read, then use your iPad or computer to write a comment.

Categories New York, Technology
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