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Louisiana: Democratic Governor Edwards Pledges to Increase Education Spending, But Not on Raising Teachers’ Salaries

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2020 //
0

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announced a budget proposal that earmarked new spending on education, but no raises for teachers, whose pay is below the average for southern states.

For Louisiana public school teachers, a group that includes some of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ earliest and most avid supporters, the governor’s first post-reelection budget proposal has good news and bad news.

The good news is a request that the Legislature spend significantly more on education. The $32 billion spending package includes an additional $65 million to support K-12 schools, $25 million for early childhood learning programs and $35 million for colleges.

The bad news is that a certain line item is conspicuously missing: money specifically dedicated to raise teacher pay.

No raises has been the status quo for a long time now, with the notable exception of last year, when Edwards backed the first increase in a decade. Until Friday, every indication, both from Edwards’ campaign-year rhetoric and from the new reality of a budget surplus, was that it wouldn’t be the last.

It could be, at least for now. Rather than propose a specific raise and signal that Edwards would once again fight for it in the Legislature, his administration is now saying that any raises this year would have to come from the overall allocations the state makes to school districts. So while some teachers may benefit, there would be nothing across the board.

The governor’s top priority is early childhood education.

Low education spending and low teacher pay help to maintain Louisiana’s place as one of the lowest-performing states in the nation on NAEP.

 

Categories Early Childhood Education, Funding, Louisiana, Teacher Pay

Jackie Goldberg: Lies the Billionaires Tell

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2020 //
11

Jackie Goldberg is running for re-election to the Los Angeles Unified School Board. She is an experienced public official who has supported public schools for decades as a school board member and state legislator. A rightwing billionaire dumped nearly half a million into her low-budget race to try to stop her in the March 3 election (early voting has already started.)

Jackie was endorsed by the UTLA along with Scott Schmerelson, George McKenna, and Patricia Castellanos. Vote for them if they are candidates in your district.

Jackie sets the record straight here:

Dear Friends, Families, and Board District 5 Voters,

By now, you may have received a number of mailings telling you to “Vote ‘No’ on Jackie Goldberg”, all of which are being sent by a man named Bill Bloomfield, who lives in Manhattan Beach, CA.

Bloomfield is extremely wealthy and was a Republican until 2011 when he became an “Independent.”  He avidly supports charter school candidates and opposes all progressive Democrats.  So far this election cycle, he has spent almost $130,000— on “hit” pieces against me.  But this is far from his first rodeo.  He was part of the $13 million worth of lies that were used in 2017 against then-Board President Steve Zimmer, and he helped bankroll part of the $10 million spent to spread lies about Board Member Bennett Kayser in 2015.

In 2019, Bloomfield’s contributions to the California Republican Party totaled $445,000.  He also spent $7,583,806 to try to elect Marshall Tuck to be State Superintendent of Public Instruction.  Tuck ran on a platform of increasing support for the state’s charter schools.  Bloomfield not only supports charter schools over district public schools, he also opposes raising taxes on the wealthy to increase funding for public schools.

This very, very rich financier has never met me, never interviewed me as to my views, and has repeatedly distorted the truth to send you bald-faced lies about me and my 22-year record of public service.  His goal is to defame me to stand in the way of my quest to raise taxes on the rich and to make charter schools more transparent, equitable, and accountable.

Let me respond specifically to some of the many lies Bloomfield has been peddling about me in his monstrously misleading mailers.

LIE:  Bloomfield’s mailers attempt to paint me as a racist.

TRUTH:  I have lived in Echo Park for the last 40 years.  My son went to LAUSD schools that were primarily composed of Latino students.  I taught high school in the Compton Unified School District for 17 years and was one of two teacher-leaders to define plans that raised the reading of our students from the bottom of state testing in reading to the State average.

Among my campaign endorsers are Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farmer Workers, County Supervisor Hilda Solis, State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, La Opinion, Maywood City Councilmembers Elizabeth Alcantar and Eddie de la Riva, Bell City Councilmembers Fidencio Gallardo and Alicia Romero, Padres Unidos in South Gate, and Congressmembers Maxine Waters and Judy Chu, among others.

These leaders and community organizations, as well as La Opinion, do not endorse racists!

LIE:  Bloomfield claims my “agenda is too extreme and too dangerous for kids!”  He attacks me for removing funding for DARE, an anti-drug program for which the district paid millions of dollars to the Los Angeles Police Department.

TRUTH:  The LAUSD Board of Education discontinued funding for DARE after a study revealed that, in spite of great intentions, the program was a complete failure in reducing student drug use.

LIE:  Bloomfield, remarkably, suggests that the National Rifle Association (“NRA”) loves me.

TRUTH:  I have a lifetime “F” grade from the NRA because when I was on the Los Angeles City Council, I wrote and passed a measure that outlawed sales of cheap “Saturday Night Specials” in Los Angeles.  While on the Public Safety Committee in the State legislature, I helped kill major legislation that would have made gun ownership more protected, and thus increase the chance for all of us and our children to be victims of gun violence.  What I actually voted against that Bloomfield’s mailer attempts to misrepresent was a bill that would have automatically expelled a student for bringing to school a toy gun that may look like a real gun.  Though I do think this would be a dangerous and foolish thing for a student to do, I believe that all students should have a right to a hearing before being expelled.

LIE:  In one of his most insidious smears, Bloomfield claims that I support sexual predators.

TRUTH:  I voted against a bill that included so many limitations for where a convicted sex offender could live that there literally would be nowhere left for them to go.  And I did so because I knew that the California courts would overrule the bill and we would be left with noprotections on where sex offenders could live after being released from prison.  Sure enough, after its passage, the California Supreme Court did just that, ruling that the law was unconstitutional because the state could not have a law that left people with no place to live.  The following year, my Assembly colleagues and I passed a law preventing sex offenders from living near schools, parks, and other places where children might be.

LIE:  Bloomfield attacks me for the terrible crisis at Miramonte school.

TRUTH:  I was not even on the Board at that time of the Miramonte crisis.

LIE:  Bloomfield suggests voters have to choose between me and President Obama, claiming that I voted to shut down Teach for America.

TRUTH:  I did not vote to shut down Teach for America.  What I did do is raise the issue that a great many Teach for America teachers leave our District in two or three years.  I said that the District should recruit people who want to be teachers, not build their resumes—and I still believe that to be true.

LIE:  Bloomfield misleadingly claims that I cut programs for students of color.

TRUTH:  In the 2001-2002 school year, the state legislature was facing a huge budget shortfall.  The state was in a deep recession.  Yes, I voted for the budget.  In those days, it took a 2/3 vote to pass a budget, so allAssembly Democrats had to vote for the budget, or else the state’s services—including funds for schools—would be shut down.  Did I have to vote on a budget that took $9.8 billion from schools and public universities?  Sadly, I did.  But that was after fighting and winning the battle to avoid larger cuts of $14 billion.

LIE:  Bloomfield claims that I “forced Latino students to attend academically inferior and dangerous schools.”  He then points to a 1985 U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the District.  Notably, his source relates to issues in South Gate and Watts.

TRUTH:  The boundaries of the Board Districts that each School Board member represents were not the same in 1985 as they are today.  Though South Gate is currently in my Board District, I did not represent either South Gate or Watts during my first time on the Board when the Department of Justice’s investigation began, and I had nothing to do with the issues that brought upon the investigation.

LIE: Bloomfield claims that in my first tenure on the Board, student scores dropped.

TRUTH:  Student test scores were low in the 1980’s.  Why?  Because when Proposition 13 passed, the District literally lost 25% of its General Fund money due to big corporations and the wealthy no longer having to pay their fair share in property taxes.  Schools became overcrowded.  Most were on multi-track, year-round schedules, and funding to build new schools was rigged against the District.  It was because of my work and the leadership of then-Speaker of the State Assembly Robert Hertzberg, however, that the Assembly and Senate finally set aside several billion dollars for LAUSD and other severely overcrowded districts, which resulted in 131 new schools being built.

My record of support for public education is long, significant, and well-documented.  That is why UTLA, the teachers’ union, SEIU Local 99, the union representing teacher aides, cafeteria workers, CSEA Local 500, which represents library aides, the Teamsters AND the union representing school principals and administrators have all endorsed my campaign.

So, I urge you not to believe the vicious lies that this conservative, anti-public school millionaire is spreading about me in order to try to stop my work trying to tax the great wealth in this state and get our state legislators to invest in our children and youth again.  My mother taught in LAUSD for 40 years.  I grew up committed to public education, and I have never wavered in my support for full and adequate funding for public schools—from pre-school through college.  I was a youth activist in the civil rights movement, and I continue to spend my life working to improve the lives of the next generation.

I often remind people that our children are not part of the future—they are our entire future.  We must all work together to improve our state and federal governments’ investment in our children and youth.  California, if it were a separate nation, would be the fifth richest nation in the entire world.  While New York spends $29,000 per student in their schools, California only spends $16,500 per student.  Great change is needed.  I ask you to join me in this fight for FULL FUNDING for our public schools.  The time is NOW!  Please honor me with your vote on or before March 3.

Thank you,

Jackie Goldberg
Board Member, LAUSD Board of Education, Board District 5
Estimados amigos, familias y votantes del Distrito 5 de LAUSD,

Les escribo porque seguramente ya  han recibido en su correo uno de varios anuncios que les han enviado pidiéndoles que “Voten No por Jackie Goldberg”,  de parte de alguien llamado Bill Bloomfield, que vive en Manhattan Beach, CA.

Bloomfield es alguien extremadamente rico quien había sido Republicano hasta el año 2011, cuando cambió a ser “Independiente”.   El apoya firmemente a los candidatos que cuentan con el apoyo de las escuelas charter y se opone a todos los candidatos Demócratas progresistas.  Hasta la fecha ha gastado casi $130,000 atacandome en anuncios como éste. Pero no es la primera vez que hace esto.  En el 2017 fue uno de los que pagó por los anuncios llenos de mentiras sobre Steve Zimmer, presidente de la Junta Escolar. Y en 2015 ayudó a financiar los $10 millones de dólares que se gastaron para esparcir mentiras en contra de Bennett Kayser.

En el 2019, contribuyó $445,000 al Partido Republicano de California.  También gastó $7,583,806 para tratar de elegir a Marshall Tuck como Superintendente de Instrucción Pública. La postura de Tuck fue de apoyar el apoyo para las escuelas chárter. Bloomfield no sólo apoya a las escuelas chárter en vez de las escuelas públicas del distrito, además se opone a alzar los impuestos a los ricos para aumentar los fondos para las escuelas públicas.

Este hombre de finanzas tan pero tan rico, no me conoce, nunca me ha entrevistado para conocer mis puntos de vista, sin embargo se ha dedicado a distorsionar repetidamente la verdad con terribles mentiras sobre mí y mis 22 años de servicio al público. Su objetivo es difamarme por el hecho que yo busco aumentarle los impuestos a los ricos y lograr que las escuelas charter se comporten de forma más transparente, equitativa y responsable.

Permítame responder, de manera específica, a algunas de las muchas monstruosas  mentiras que Bloomfield ha estado diciendo sobre mí.

LA MENTIRA: Los anuncios intentan decir que yo soy racista.

LA VERDAD:  He vivido en Echo Park durante los últimos 40 años. Mi hijo fue a una escuela de LAUSD, cuyos estudiantes en su mayoría eran Latinos.  Fui maestra de preparatoria en el Distrito Escolar Unificado de Compton durante 17 años y junto con otra maestra líder, preparé un plan que logró mejorar la lectura de nuestros estudiantes, y subir nuestros resultados de los más bajos en el estado a el nivel promedio.

Entre las personas que apoyan mi campaña cuento con Dolores Huerta, co-fundadora de la Unión de Campesinos, Hilda Solís, Supervisora del Condado de Los Angeles, la Senadora María Elena Durazo, La Opinión, los Consejales Elizabeth Alcantar y Eddie de la Riva de Maywood, Fidencio Gallardo y Alicia Romero de Bell, el grupo Padres Unidos de South Gate y la Congresista Maxine Waters y Judy Chu, entre otros.

Ninguno de estos líderes, ni de estas organizaciones de la comunidad, ni el diario La Opinión apoyan a candidatos racistas.

LA MENTIRA: Bloomfield afirma que “¡mis propuestas son muy extremas y muy peligrosas para lo estudiantes! Me ataca por haberle quitado fondos al programa DARE, “ un programa contra drogas en el que el Distrito pagó millones de dólares al Departamento de Policía de Los Angeles.

LA VERDAD:  La Junta Escolar de Los Angeles descontinuó los fondos para el programa DARE después de que un estudio demostró que a pesar de tener buenas intenciones, el programa fue un verdadero fracaso en reducir el uso de drogas entre los estudiantes.

LA MENTIRA:  De manera muy extraña, Bloomfield sugiere que la Asociación Nacional de Rifles (NRA por sus siglas en inglés), me adora.

LA VERDAD:  La NRA, me dió una calificación de “F” de por vida cuando era Consejal de la Ciudad de Los Angeles, debido a que logré que se aprobara una medida que prohibía la venta de las armas baratas llamadas “Saturday Night Specials” en Los Angeles.  Cuando fui miembro del Comité de Seguridad Pública en la Legislatura, ayudé a darle fin a una ley que protegía aún más la compra de armas, pues esto aumentaba la posibilidad de que cualquiera de nosotros, incluyendo a nuestros hijos, fueran víctimas de la violencia armada. A lo que se refiere Bloomfield es que voté en contra de que un joven se le expulsara por traer un arma de juguete que parece de verdad. Aunque creo que esto es algo peligroso y tonto, creo que todos los estudiantes merecen una audiencia antes de que se les expulse.

LA MENTIRA:   En una de sus ataques más engañosos, Bloomfield alega que yo apoyo a los depredadores sexuales.

LA VERDAD:  Yo voté en contra de una ley sobre dónde puede vivir un depredador sexual, que resultaría en que no pudieran vivir en ningún lado.  Voté de esta forma porque sabía que las cortes de California iban a revocar esta ley y que entonces no tendríamos ninguna protección para determinar donde los depredadores pueden vivir al salir de la prisión. Como lo predije, la Suprema Corte de California revocó la ley, dictando que la ley no cumple con los requisitos de la Constitución puesto que la ley no permite un lugar en donde vivir. El año siguiente, mis colegas en la Asamblea y yo pasamos una ley que evitaba que los depredadores vivieran cerca de escuelas, parques y otros lugares cerca de dónde hay niños.

LA MENTIRA: Bloomfield me ataca por la terrible crisis que sucedió en la escuela Miramonte.

LA VERDAD:  Yo ni siquiera era miembro de la Junta Escolar cuando sucedió la crisis de Miramonte.

LA MENTIRA:  Bloomfield sugiere que votar conmigo es votar contra Obama, porque voté para que se cerrara el programa Teach for America.

LA VERDAD: Yo no voté para cerrar el programa Teach for America.  Lo que sí hice fue expresar preocupación por el hecho de que una gran mayoría de los maestros de Teach for America se van del Distrito en dos o tres años. Dije que el Distrito debe reclutar a personas que realmente quieren ser maestros a largo plazo en lugar de hacerlo solamente para mejorar su currículum – y aún mantengo esta opinión.

LA MENTIRA:  Bloomfield dice, de manera engañosa, que yo recorté programas para estudiantes de color.

LA VERDAD:  En el año escolar 2001-2002, la legislatura estatal se enfrentaba a un tremendo déficit.  El estado se enfrentaba a una profunda recesión.  Sí, vote a favor de presupuesto.  En ese tiempo, se requería que ⅔ de los representantes en la Asamblea votarán a favor, y por lo tanto todos los Demócratas tenían que votar a favor, o de otra forma los servicios que provee el estado, tendrían que recortarse. ¿Fue necesario que votara por un presupuesto que le quitó $9 mil millones de dólares a las escuelas y a las universidades públicas? Tristemente, lo fue.  Pero esto fue después de luchar y de ganar la batalla para evitar mayores recortes, de $14 mil millones.

LA MENTIRA: Bloomfield alega que yo forcé a “estudiantes Latinos a que asistieran a escuelas académicamente inferiores y peligrosas”. Para demostrarlo, presenta una investigación del Distrito que llevó a cabo el Departamento de Justicia en 1985. De forma notable, ésta investigación se refiere a los temas de las escuelas en South Gate y Watts.

LA VERDAD: Los límites de los Distritos que cada miembro de la Junta Escolar representa no eran iguales a los límites de hoy.  Aunque South actualmente está en mi Distrito, yo no representaba a South Gate ni a Watts cuando yo fui miembro de la Junta Escolar y cuando la investigación del Departamento de Justicia se inició y yo no tuve nada que ver con los asuntos que resultaron en esa investigación.

LA MENTIRA:  Bloomfield alega que durante mi primer término en la Junta Escolar, los resultados de los exámenes de los estudiantes disminuyeron.

LA VERDAD: Los resultados de los exámenes eran muy bajos en los años 80. ¿Por qué? Porque cuando se aprobó la Proposición 13, el Distrito perdió literalmente el 25% de los fondos generales debido a que las grandes corporaciones y los ricos no querían seguir pagando lo que les correspondía en los impuestos sobre la propiedad.  Aumentó la sobrepoblación en las escuelas.  Muchas de ellas estaban en calendarios de todo el año y el financiamiento para construir nuevas escuelas estaba diseñado en contra de las necesidades del Distrito.  Fue debido a mi esfuerzo y el de Robert Hertzberg, entonces líder de la Asamblea que la Asamblea y el Senado finalmente destinaron varios miles de millones de dólares para LAUSD y otros distritos que sufrían de sobrepoblación, lo cual resultó en la construcción de 131 nuevas escuelas.

Mi record de apoyo por la educación pública es largo, importante y bien documentado.  Es por esto que UTLA, la unión de maestros, el Local 99 SEIU que representa a los asistentes de maestros y trabajadores de cafetería, el Local 500 de CSEA que representa a bibliotecarios, el sindicato de los Teamsters y el sindicato que representa a los directores y administradores, todos apoyan mi campaña.

Por todo esto, les pido que no crean las mentiras que dice este millonario conservador quien se opone a las escuelas públicas. El quiere evitar que yo pueda seguir trabajando para poder lograr que la gente que cuenta con tantos recursos, tenga que pagar más en impuestos para lograr que nuestros legisladores puedan invertir en nuestros niños y nuestra juventud.  Mi madre trabajó en LAUSD durante 40 años.  Yo crecí comprometida a la educación pública y mi compromiso por un financiamiento completo y adecuado para los escuelas públicas – desde la pre-escuela hasta la universidad – nunca ha disminuído.  En mi juventud fui activista del movimiento de los derechos civiles y cada día de mi vida trabajo para mejorar la vida de las generaciones futuras.

A veces le recuerdo a la gente que nuestros hijos no son parte del futuro — ellos son el futuro entero.  Debemos trabajar juntos para mejorar la inversión que hace el gobierno en nuestros hijos y en la juventud. California, si fuera una nación separada, sería la quinta nación más rica del mundo entero.  Mientras que en Nueva York se gastan $29,000 por cada estudiante en las escuelas, California gasta $16,500 por estudiantes.  Se necesita un gran cambio.  Te pido que te unas a mi en esta lucha por lograr que nuestras escuelas tengan un FINANCIAMIENTO COMPLETO.  ¡Este es el momento!  Espero contar con el honor de tu voto el día 3 de marzo, o antes, si votas por correo.

Gracias,

Jackie Goldberg
Miembro, Junta Escolar de LAUSD, Distrito 5
Contribute
Paid for By Jackie Goldberg for School Board 2020
ID# 1417975
419 N. Larchmont Blvd., #37, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Jackie Goldberg for School Board 2020 · 419 N Larchmont Blvd # 37 · Los Angeles, CA 90004 · USA

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Ethics, Los Angeles

Education Week: Common Core Is Still a Hot Item for Vendors

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2020 //
12

The controversy over the Common Core standards has died down since so many states have renamed and rebranded them as if they no longer exist. But below the eye of public attention, Common Core does what it was intended to do: It has created a marketplace for vendors. 

Alex Harwin, in her update of the marketplace, writes that more than two-thirds of district leaders say they are still buying CCSS products.

This is a good time to recall that Arne Duncan’s chief of staff Joanne Weiss wrote in the Harvard Business Review blog that building a national marketplace for vendors was one of the central goals of CCSS:

Technological innovation in education need not stay forever young. And one important change in the market for education technology is likely to accelerate its maturation markedly within the next several years. For the first time, 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted rigorous common standards, and 44 states are working together in two consortia to create a new generation of assessments that will genuinely assess college and career-readiness.

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

In this new market, it will make sense for teachers in different regions to share curriculum materials and formative assessments. It will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students – and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents.

If we can match highly-effective educators with great entrepreneurs and if we can direct smart capital toward these projects, the market for technological innovation might just spurt from infancy into adolescence. That maturation would finally bring millions of America’s students the much-touted yet much-delayed benefits of the technology revolution in education.

Weiss previously ran Duncan’s Race to the Top program, and before that, was CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, which raises money for charter schools.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry

Teresa Hanafin on Trump’s Politicizing the Justice Department

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2020 //
17

Teresa Hanafin writes the “Fast Forward” column for the Boston Globe:

 

The biggest story that is still reverberating today isn’t Bernie Sanders’ victory in the New Hampshire primary, or Pete Buttigieg’s close second-place finish, or Amy Klobuchar’sremarkable rise, or the surprising slide of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.

No, it’s Trump’s stunning, deliberate, and unprecedented insertion of presidential power, politics, and favoritism into our judicial system.

Look, we all know there’s plenty of injustice in the justice system. Look at the decades-long practice of imposing far harsher sentences on those convicted of using or distributing crack cocaine vs. cocaine in powder form. Those using crack cocaine tended to be Black, while powder cocaine was the preferred drug of white people. What a coincidence!

That’s an example of systemic disparities that many are working to change. (The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the cocaine penalties’ differences.)

Trump used the power of the presidency to put his stubby thumb on the scales of justice to benefit a close ally and longtime friend.

Trump’s demand that the sentence recommended by federal prosecutors for his good buddy Roger Stone be reduced is astonishing enough. But adding to the impropriety was the fact that AG William Barr and top Justice Department officials jumped when Trump interfered, declaring that they would change the prosecutors’ recommendation to a lighter sentence for the president’s friend because, well, that’s what you do when you’re in the tank.

The whole stinking mess caused all four prosecutors to resign from the case — and one quit the Justice Department altogether.

To recap: Stone is a longtime political adviser to Trump, who used him during the 2016 campaign as a conduit to WikiLeaks, which had more than 19,000 e-mails that had been stolen from the servers of the Democratic National Committee. He tried to use Stone to get a heads-up when WikiLeaks was going to release e-mails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

It was special counsel Robert Mueller who charged Stone last year. There were seven charges, all felonies: five counts of lying to investigators, one count of obstructing Congress (specifically, the House Intelligence Committee), and one count of tampering with a witness (in both the House inquiry and Mueller’s investigation).

A jury found Stone guilty of all seven charges. As is customary, the probation department then came up with a recommended sentence — 7 to 9 years in prison — and the prosecutors agreed.

They argued that Stone’s conduct was exceptionally egregious because the House and Mueller probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election were critical to our electoral system, and because of the danger to our democracy posed by foreign meddling.

But the bulk of the prison time prosecutors requested was related to Stone’s witness tampering because it involved threats of physical violence to his longtime associate, Randy Credico, after Credico indicated that he would cooperate with the House committee. Stone and Credico both said the threats were jokes, but the jury didn’t believe them.

Stone’s defense attorneys say federal guidelines call for a sentence of 15 to 21 months, and they are asking for probation. Prosecutors say their enhanced sentence request because of the threatened violence is in keeping with federal guidelines. As I’m sure you know, prosecutors often overreach when asking for sentences, and defense attorneys always downplay the offenses.

After Trump’s interference, the Justice Department announced that it would take the rare step of changing its prosecutors’ recommendation. DOJ officials ended up submitting a statement to the judge without a sentence recommendation, but asked her to impose a lighter sentence.

Yes, these are the prosecutors asking the judge to go easy on a convicted felon.

So it’s up to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who could impose a lesser sentence or a harsher sentence. Or she could demand that the Justice Department explain why it changed the original recommendation, and ask the prosecutors who resigned why they did so.

Unsurprisingly, Trump already has attacked Jackson. He also declared that Stone should not have been found guilty — a nice trashing of the system of trial by jury — and should never have even been charged with anything because only Trump’s political opponents are supposed to be investigated and locked up.

Now congressional Democrats are demanding that the DOJ inspector general — who is independent of the department — investigate. House Democrats may also call Barr to Capitol Hill to explain his actions.

Please remember how critical it is to our democracy that justice be administered fairly and independent of influence. Imagine if one of your kids were arrested with a friend for say, drug use, but the parents of your child’s friend were chummy with the mayor, who gets the local prosecutors to drop the charges against that kid. But your kid gets jail time because you’re not buddies with the mayor. Would you shrug your shoulders the way congressional Republicans are?
Categories Injustice, Justice

Bill and Melinda Gates Describe Their Vision for the Future

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2020 //
111

Discounting for the rhetoric and hyperbole, it is worth reading Bill and Melinda Gates’ letter about what they do and why they do it.

They claim that Deborah Meier was one of their primary inspirations for their work in education, but knowing Debby Meier, I doubt that they read her book The Power of Their Ideas or that they understood what she was saying.

Both of us had the chance to attend excellent schools, and we know how many doors that opened for us. We also know that millions of Americans, especially low-income students and students of color, don’t have that same opportunity.

Experts, of course, have a much more rigorous vocabulary to describe this situation. In 2001, I met an educator named Deborah Meier who had a big impact on me. Her book The Power of Their Ideas helped me understand why public schools are not only an important equalizer but the engine of a thriving democracy. A democracy requires equal participation from everyone, she writes. That means when our public schools fail to prepare students to fully participate in public life, they fail our country, too.

I think about that a lot. It really helps drive home the stakes of this work for me.

If you’d asked us 20 years ago, we would have guessed that global health would be our foundation’s riskiest work, and our U.S. education work would be our surest bet. In fact, it has turned out just the opposite.

Deborah Meier believes in democracy. She believes that democracy should be the norm inside schools and outside schools. She does not believe that billionaires should fund a national standardized curriculum and pay to impose it on everyone.

The Gates’ should invest more in global health, where help is desperately needed, and stop imposing standardized curriculum, standardized technology, and and standardized testing on everyone.

They truly  don’t understand Deborah Meier.

Categories Democracy, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Washington Post Finds Bloomberg “Stop and Frisk” Video

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2020 //
35

Mike Bloomberg has this problem with minorities because of his many years of telling the police in New York City to stop black and brown youths and frisk them, without cause.

When he began his campaign for the presidency, he went to a black church and apologized for stop-and-frisk.

But the damage had been done.

The Washington Post found one of what must be many videos where Bloomberg touted his stop-and-frisk policy and credited that policy with reducing murders and gun crime (as Charles Blow pointed out, the policy was completely ineffectual).

When stop-and-frisk was declared unconstitutional by the courts, there was no rise in crime. In fact, major felonies are far lower today than they were when Bloomberg was mayor. In the last year of Bloomberg’s mayoralty, there were 419 murders; last year there were 319 (no stop-and-frisk in place).

Mike Bloomberg is running an unorthodox and unprecedented campaign, in which he’s skipping the first four states but carpet-bombing the rest of the country with a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of spending. This has allowed him to run his campaign virtually unchallenged — and gain some real momentum.

The result: a poll Monday that showed the former New York mayor hitting 15 percent nationally. The result of that: No more free ride.

Bloomberg’s opponents on Monday began circulating audio of a 2015 speech in which he speaks in rather unvarnished terms about New York’s stop-and-frisk policy targeting minorities. The basics of what Bloomberg said: Minorities are responsible for the vast majority of violent crime, and thus their communities were the logical targets for warrantless searches.

Now, not only are Bloomberg’s Democratic opponents circulating the clip, but President Trump is, too.

Trump, who is reported to be wary of going toe-to-toe with Bloomberg and his essentially limitless resources, tweeted the clip Tuesday morning, saying, “WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” (The tweet was later deleted, though it was captured in this Internet archive, and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted the clip.)

Trump is in a glass house on this issue. Not only is his record on racial issues what it is — most notably on the Central Park Five and Charlottesville — but he has vocally supported the stop-and-frisk policy. During the 2016 campaign, he proposed bringing it nationwide, and he reiterated his support as recently as 2018. He could say Bloomberg’s description of the policy is crass, but it was widely known that the policy did pretty much what Bloomberg said it did, and Trump backed it.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Stop and frisk works. Instead of criticizing @NY_POLICE Chief Ray Kelly, New Yorkers should be thanking him for keeping NY safe.

636 people are talking about this

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

NYC politicians better stop pandering–ending stop & frisk would be a disaster. http://bit.ly/19xlEja 

Thugs’ stop-and-frisk fear revealed in biggest gun seizure in city history

Even the gunrunners know stop-and-frisk works. The NYPD took down two smuggling rings that used cheap Chinatown buses to funnel a terrifying array of illegal weapons here from the South — and

nypost.com

But Trump’s standing on the issue aside, this is the day Bloomberg’s campaign had to know was coming, and the questions about it are thoroughly valid. Bloomberg finally disowned the stop-and-frisk policy when he began running for president, but he had previously defended it to the hilt. It’s not unreasonable to consider this his biggest obstacle to the Democratic nomination, especially given the important role minority voters will play after Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire.

This is the video: https://youtu.be/1bbjB3jVGRU

Bloomberg said earlier that “it’s controversial, but first thing is, all of your — 95 percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York. It’s true in virtually every city. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”

Bloomberg’s team sought to prevent such audio from coming out of the speech by blocking recordings of it, according to the Aspen Times.

Some commenters on Twitter think that Trump deleted his tweet calling Bloomberg a racist re “stop-and-frisk” because he was afraid some of his voters might switch to Bloomberg!

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael

The Secret to Mississippi’s “Success” in Fourth-Grade Reading, Revealed by Thomas B. Fordham Institute

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2020 //
22

Many researchers were amazed to see that the state of Mississippi had a sharp growth in its fourth-grade reading scores.

Fortunately, the far-right Thomas B. Fordham Institute reveals how this happened.

The surest path to success in fourth-grade reading on NAEP is to hold back third-graders who did not pass the third-grade reading test. It works! It increased Florida’s fourth-grade reading scores. And it worked for Mississippi too! You have to give credit where it is due: Jeb Bush thought up this way to artificially inflate Florida’s NAEP standing. Research has consistently shown that kids who are held back are likelier to drop out of school later, but who cares about them? The scores and ratings are everything! Mississippi holds back a higher percentage of third-graders than any other state. How about those numbers!

One of the bright spots in an otherwise dreary 2019 NAEP report is Mississippi. A long-time cellar dweller in the NAEP rankings, Mississippi students have risen faster than anyone since 2013, particularly for fourth graders. In fourth grade reading results, Mississippi boosted its ranking from forty-ninth in 2013 to twenty-ninth in 2019; in math, they zoomed from fiftieth to twenty-third. Adjusted for demographics, Mississippi now ranks near the top in fourth grade reading and math according to the Urban Institute’s America’s Gradebook report.

So how have they done it? Education commentators have pointed to several possible causes: roll-out of early literacy programs and professional development (Cowen & Forte), faithful implementation of Common Core standards (Petrilli), and focus on the “science of reading” (State Superintendent Carey Wright).

But one key part of Mississippi’s formula has gotten less coverage: holding back low-performing students. In response to the legislature’s 2013 Literacy Based Promotion Act (LBPA), Mississippi schools retain a higher percentage of K–3 students than any other state. (Mississippi-based Bracey Harris of The Hechinger Report is one education writer who has reported on this topic.)

The LBPA created a “third grade gate,” making success on the reading exit exam a requirement for fourth grade promotion. This isn’t a new idea of course. Florida is widely credited with starting the trend in 2003, and now sixteen states plus the District of Columbia have a reading proficiency requirement to pass into fourth grade.

But Mississippi has taken the concept further than others, with a retention rate higher than any other state. In 2018–19, according to state department of education reports, 8 percent of all Mississippi K–3 students were held back (up from 6.6 percent the prior year). This implies that over the four grades, as many as 32 percent of all Mississippi students are held back; a more reasonable estimate is closer to 20 to 25 percent, allowing for some to be held back twice. (Mississippi’s Department of Education does not report how many students are retained more than once.)

Just goes to show: If at first you don’t succeed, fake it.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Florida, Mississippi, NAEP, Testing

Peter Greene: Trump and DeVos Abandon Charter Schools for Hot-Looking Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2020 //
7

Peter Greene nails it here, in discussing how Trump and DeVos folded the federal Charter Schools Program into a big, fat block grant that states can spend however they wish. 

For decades, Republicans have been wanting to eliminate social programs by turning them into block grants to the states. Now, as Valerie Strauss reported, charter school advocates are outraged. Brought to the dance and abandoned.

Open the link and see the great image Greene posts to make the point.

I have known for many years that right-wingers went for charters only because they lay the groundwork for vouchers.

I learned that when I worked in rightwing think tanks like the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Koret Education Program at the Hoover Institution.

The true right-wingers don’t give a hoot about charter schools except as a way to condition the American public to give up on public schools and place their faith in consumerism.

Charters pave the way for vouchers. They turn citizens, invested in public institutions, into consumers, looking out only for their own child.

Now that the Trump administration has a chance to show what it really cares about, it is vouchers (aka “Education Freedom Scholarships” or some other deceptive name).

DeVos wants every American child in a religious school or some other private school.

Not the kind that costs $25,000-50,000 a year.

The kind that costs $4,800 a year.

The kind that scoffs at the common good.

The kind that employs high-school dropouts as teachers (as in Florida), the kind that decides which children are acceptable and which are not allowed. The kind that kicks out students, staff and families who are gay, knowing that Trump’s rightwing Supreme Court will back them up.

The kind that accepts only “our kind.”

The Trump-DeVos show and the return of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia as acceptable public policy.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bias, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Racism, Religion, Vouchers

Dana Milbank: Bill Barr Supports Hookers for Jesus

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2020 //
29

No U.S. Attorney General in history has ever turned the Department of Justice into a political tool belonging to the president. Until now. Bill Barr has totally politicized the Department.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote today:

There has never been a better time to be a Hooker for Jesus.

Under Attorney General Bill Barr’s management, it appears no corner of the Justice Department can escape perversion — even the annual grants the Justice Department gives to nonprofits and local governments to help victims of human trafficking.

In a new grant award, senior Justice officials rejected the recommendations of career officials and decided to deny grants to highly rated Catholic Charities in Palm Beach, Fla., and Chicanos Por La Causa in Phoenix. Instead, Reuters reported, they gave more than $1 million combined to lower-rated groups called the Lincoln Tubman Foundation and Hookers for Jesus.

Why? Well, it turns out the head of the Catholic Charities affiliate had been active with Democrats and the Phoenix group had opposed President Trump’s immigration policies. By contrast, Hookers for Jesus is run by a Christian conservative and the Lincoln Tubman group was launched by a relative of a Trump delegate to the 2016 convention.

That Catholic Charities has been replaced by Hookers for Jesus says much about Barr’s Justice Department. Friends of Trump are rewarded. Opponents of Trump are punished. And the nation’s law enforcement apparatus becomes Trump’s personal plaything.

Federal prosecutors Monday recommendedthat Trump associate Roger Stone serve seven to nine years in prison for obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, witness tampering and other crimes.

Then Trump tweeted that the proposed sentence was “horrible and very unfair” and “the real crimes were on the other side.” And by midday Tuesday, Barr’s Justice Department announced that it would reduce Stone’s sentence recommendation. All four prosecutors, protesting the politicization, asked to withdraw from the case.

But politicization is now the norm. Last week, Barr assigned himself the sole authority to decide which presidential candidates — Democrats and Republicans — should be investigated by the FBI.

Also last week, the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Justice Department, announced that New York state residents can no longer enroll in certain Trusted Traveler programs such as Global Entry — apparent punishment for the strongly Democratic state’s policies on illegal immigrants.

On Monday, Barr declared that the Justice Department had created an “intake process” to receive Rudy Giuliani’s dirt from Ukraine on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden — dirt dug in a boondoggle that left two Giuliani associates under indictment and Trump impeached.

The same day, Barr’s agency announced lawsuits against California, New Jersey and King County (Seattle), Washington — politically “blue” jurisdictions all — as part of what he called a “significant escalation” against sanctuary cities.

On Tuesday, to get a better sense of the man who has turned the Justice Department into Trump’s toy, I watched Barr speak to the Major County Sheriffs of America, a friendly audience, at the Willard Hotel in Washington.

Even by Trumpian standards, the jowly Barr, in his large round glasses, pinstripe suit and Trump-red tie, was strikingly sycophantic. “In his State of the Union, President Trump delivered a message of genuine optimism filled with an unapologetic faith in God and in American greatness and in the common virtues of the American people: altruism, industriousness, self-reliance and generosity,” he read, deadpan.

Trump, he went on, “loves this country,” and “he especially loves you.” The boot-licking performance continued, about Trump’s wise leadership, his unbroken promises and even the just-impeached president’s passionate belief in the “rule of law.”

Then Barr turned to the enemy. He attacked “rogue DA’s” and “so-called social-justice reformers,” who are responsible for “historic levels of homicide and other violent crime” in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Chicago and Baltimore. Politicians in sanctuary jurisdictions, he said, prefer “to help criminal aliens evade the law.” Barr vowed to fight these foes with “all lawful means” — federal subpoenas to force them to turn over “information about criminal aliens,” dozens of lawsuits to invalidate statutes and attempts to deny them both competitive and automatic grants.

In response to a question, Barr railed against tech companies’ use of encryption: “They’re designing these devices so you can be impervious to any government scrutiny,” he protested.

Maybe people wouldn’t be so sensitive about government scrutiny if the top law enforcement official weren’t using his position to punish political opponents and reward political allies.

Instead, with Barr’s acquiescence, we live in a moment in which: Trump’s Treasury Department immediately releases sensitive financial information about Hunter Biden, while refusing to release similar information about Trump; Trump ousts officials who testified in the impeachment inquiry and even ousts the blameless twin brother of one of the witnesses; and Trump’s FBI decides to monitor violent “people on either side” of the abortion debate — although the FBI couldn’t point to a single instance of violence by abortion-rights supporters.

This week, the Pentagon released a new color scheme for Air Force One, replacing the 60-year-old design with one that looks suspiciously like the old Trump Shuttle.Surprised? Don’t be. Soon the entire administration will be able to apply for a Justice Department grant as a newly formed nonprofit: Hookers for Trump.

Bill Barr will be remembered by historians for his role in destroying the professionalism, morale, and ethics of the Department of Justice. He is Trump’s Joker.

 

Categories Character, Injustice, Lies

Laura Chapman: A Few More Trump Budget Cuts to Think About

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2020 //
12

Trump proposes to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, which are very small appropriations, but which Republicans have always hated. I seem to recall that he wants to eliminate NOAA so the weather service can be completely privatized, and the public will have to pay to find out what the weather is and might be.

Laura Chapman adds:

In addition to the cuts to education programs, consider these cuts too.

Cuts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by $2.8 billion Can’t have the EPA telling us we should be able to drink lead and contaminant-free water, breath clean air, save the land from more degradation from fracking, stop save the oceans from oil spills and micro plastics and so on.

Eliminates National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Grants and Education programs (-287 million) Can’t have full staffing of the agency that keeps information flowing about climate change. Can’t have scientists perpetuating “fake” news or predicting where hurricanes might fall, fires may flair, forests threaten by disease.

Eliminates the Institute of Museum and Library Services (-$229 million) “Musing” is dead. Move fast and break things. While you are at it trust the internet for all information, never trust a librarian. Nobody but a few elitists want to preserve these programs with full staff.

Eliminates the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (-$455 million) Everyone knows that this is a LIBERAL, news and entertainment outfit and that billionaires can fund it.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Privatization
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