Archives for the month of: September, 2020
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Breaking! Federal Judge Rejects DeVos’ Efforts to Give Federal Funding to Private Schools

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
11

Secretary of Education DeVos issued a rule requiring states to share coronavirus relief funds with private schools, irrespective of need or low-income status.

News from the NAACP, the Education Law Center, and the Southern Poverty Law Center:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2020
Contacts: Ashley Levett, (334) 296-0084 / ashley.levett@splcenter.org
Sharon Krengel, (973) 624-1815, x24 / skrengel@edlawcenter.org

Parents, Districts, and NAACP Win Major Victory as Federal Court Blocks

Illegal DeVos Rule Nationwide

WASHINGTON D C – Late this afternoon the U S District Court for the District of Columbia
Judge Friedrich wrote: “Congress expressed a clear and unambiguous preference for apportioning funding to private schools based on the number of children from low-income families…” The court continued: “Contrary to the Department’s interim final rule, that cannot mean the opposite of what it says.”….The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in NAACP v. DeVos, striking down a rule that imposes unlawful conditions on federal emergency aid for public schools. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education violated the clear language of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in issuing a regulation that would illegally divert desperately needed funds away from public school students for the benefit of private schools.

“This decision sends a clear signal that Secretary DeVos cannot use illegal means to advance her agenda of funneling scarce public resources to private education, to the detriment of our highest need students in public schools across the country,” said Tamerlin Godley, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, who argued the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment. “We are particularly grateful that the court issued this decision quickly so that public school districts do not lose any more time in meeting the urgent needs of their students during this pandemic.”

The plaintiffs are the NAACP, public school parents and districts across the country. The plaintiff families have children enrolled in public schools in states including Maryland, North Carolina Georgia Arizona Florida Tennessee Nevada Mississippi and Alabama as well as,,,,,, , Washington, D.C. The plaintiffs also include Broward County Public Schools, FL; DeKalb County School District, GA; Denver County School District, CO; Pasadena Unified School District, CA; and Stamford Public Schools, CT.

The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm Munger Tolles & Olson LLP as well as the
Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These organizations collaborate on
Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS), a national campaign to ensure that public funds for education are used to maintain, support, and strengthen public schools.

The rule invalidated today required districts to either divert more funding for “equitable services” to private school students than the law allows or face onerous restrictions on the use of those funds in their public schools. It would have drastically diminished the desperately needed resources available to support public school children during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particularly harmful effect on historically underserved student populations, including students of color and low-income students.

The court’s ruling grants a nationwide vacatur of the rule, bringing much-needed certainty to public schools across the country that they will have the full amount of CARES Act funds to which they are entitled.

More information about NAACP v. DeVos is available here. #

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding

Today in 1957: Arkansas Governor Faubus Calls Up National Guard to Preserve Segregation

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
19

Today is an important day in the history of education in the United States. Federal courts had ordered the schools of Little Rock to admit nine black students. Crowds of white supremacists gathered to block their entry. On this day, Governor Orval Faunus called up the National Guard to prevent the black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High School.

From Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac”:

It was on this day in 1957 that Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to bar nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne Division to make sure they could enroll. A few days later, Eisenhower made a prime-time, live televised speech to the nation in which he said, “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

President Eisenhower proceeded to nationalize the Arkansas National Guard and directed them to protect the nine black students.

From Wikipedia:

By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance.[2] Called the “Little Rock Nine”, they were Ernest Green (b. 1941), Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1941), Jefferson Thomas (1942–2010), Terrence Roberts (b. 1941), Carlotta Walls LaNier (b. 1942), Minnijean Brown (b. 1941), Gloria Ray Karlmark (b. 1942), Thelma Mothershed (b. 1940), and Melba Pattillo Beals (b. 1941). Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate from Central High School.

When integration began in September 4, 1957, the Arkansas National Guard was called in to “preserve the peace”. Originally at orders of the governor, they were meant to prevent the black students from entering due to claims that there was “imminent danger of tumult, riot and breach of peace” at the integration. However, President Eisenhower issued Executive order 10730, which federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to support the integration on September 23 of that year, after which they protected the African American students.

The students endured mobs of hateful whites, screaming at them and shouting curses and insults.

White racists soon realized they had lost in the courts, but got their wishes by abandoning public schools and moving to the suburbs.

In time, the Little Rock School District became majority black. Now it is under state control, a fate that is often imposed on majority nonwhite districts, crippling local control and removing a path to political power for those who are not white.

Little Rock will forever be a symbol of white racism and of the courage and political will required to combat racism.

Categories Arkansas, History, Racism

Happy Birthday, Richard Wright!

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
5

Happy birthday to one of our best American writers! This tribute appeared in Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac.”

I own a fifth edition of Wright’s Black Boy. What makes it special is that it’s signed in the frontispiece “Sophie Tucker.” It was her personal copy. When I was a child, Sophie Tucker was a popular singer whose theme song was “Some of These Days.” She appeared in Houston at the Shamrock Hotel, which was the go-to destination for stars at that time. During her run, she stayed at a neighbor’s house and I got to meet the great woman.

I never met Richard Wright. I wish I had, but not as a child.

Today is the birthday of American novelist Richard Wright (1908) (books by this author), author of the novel Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), a seminal memoir of African American experience. Wright was born in Roxie, Mississippi, a town he described as “swarming with rats, cats, dogs, fortune tellers, cripples, blind men, whores, salesmen, rent collectors, and children.”

Wright dropped out of school in the ninth grade to help his family. Black people weren’t allowed to take out library books in the 1920s, so he forged a letter from an Irish co-worker asking a librarian to “let the colored boy use my card.” Wright read voraciously, studying the styles of different writers. He told a friend, “I want my life to count for something.”

He was in New York by 1937, working on a guidebook of Harlem for the Federal Writers’ Project when his first collection of stories, Uncle Tom’s Children, was published (1938). The collection won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled him to keep working on the novel that became Native Son, the story of 20-year-old African-American Bigger Thomas, whose opportunity-deprived life on the South Side of Chicago leads him to commit murder. The first draft was written in four months. The book is a searing examination of the consequences of systemic racism. About the book, Wright said: “I was guided by but one criterion: to tell the truth as I saw it and felt it. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears.” The novel was an instant sensation, selling more than 250,000 copies in its first three weeks.

Wright said: “All literature is protest. You can’t name a single novel that isn’t protest.”

Categories Literature

Florida: Teachers Are Burning Out Under Stress

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
30

The schools of Sarasota, Florida, have adopted what they call “a concurrent model,” with teachers responsible for both in-person and remote learning. Some teachers say this is like working two jobs at once and wonder whether this is sustainable.

School in Sarasota County started a few days ago, but some educators say they are already overwhelmed and exhausted by the new way of teaching amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teachers knew this year was going to be a challenge with social distancing, extra sanitizing measures, technology issues, projecting their voices through a face mask for hours on end, and juggling students both in the classroom and at home — something the district is calling concurrent learning.

Four days into the new school year, some concurrent teachers aren’t so sure the teaching model is doable long term.

“I am worried that after a month or two of this, teachers that are really trying their best are going to start breaking down because it is not a sustainable way of teaching and we will burn out,” said Sarasota High School teacher Sarah Sturzu.

President of Sarasota Classified Teachers Association Patricia Gardner tells 8 On Your Side she’s been getting emails and teary-eyed phone calls one after another since school started Monday.

“They are finding they can’t give the attention to both groups. They just don’t feel like they are doing the job they should be doing and they feel the kids aren’t getting what they deserve to get on either side of this,” said Gardner.

Categories Florida, Teachers and Teaching, Technology

Maurice Cunningham: Why the Waltons and Koch Support Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
10

Maurice Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, specializes in exposing the role of Dark Money in education. If you read my book, Slaying Goliath, you know that Cunningham’s research and blog posts helped to turn the tide against a state referendum in 2016 to expand the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. Cunningham showed that “Yes on Two” Organization was funded by billionaires and that the billionaires were hiding their identities. Despite being outspent, the parent-teacher-local school committee won handily.

In this post, originally from February, Cunningham explains why the Waltons and Charles Koch are so devoted to privatizing public school governance. He’s right that they want to lower their taxes. They also want to smash teachers’ unions; more than 90% of charters are non-union. The corporate sector doesn’t like unions, and most private unions have been eliminated. The teachers’ unions are still standing, which annoys the billionaires.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Massachusetts, Privatization, Unions, Walton Foundation

Canada: “Individualism Run Amok”

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
8

This is an article based on an interview of me conducted by Carolyn Bassetti of the Canadian publication Alberta Views.

I have recently been emailing with public education advocates in Canada who are alarmed by their government’s drift towards consumerism in education. They are as concerned as we are about the constant attacks on public education.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, International, Privatization

Trump: Wounded Vets Are “Losers”

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2020 //
70

Jeffrey Goldberg writes in The Atlantic that Trump is contemptuous of veterans who were wounded or captured. He calls them “losers” and “suckers.”

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Categories Cruelty, Trump

Chris Barbic, Founder of Failed “Achievement School District,” Returns to Tennessee

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2020 //
26

Chris Barbic has returned to Tennessee to join its “charter school center.”

Barbic, you may recall, launched the much-lauded Achievement School District in Tennessee, drawing upon $100 million from the state’s $500 million Race to the Top grant. He promised to take over the state’s lowest performing schools, hand them over to charter operators, and propel them into the top 25% of schools in the state, in five years’ time.

After four years, he stepped down due to a heart attack. By the end of year five, none of the schools in the ASD had been vaulted into the top 25% of schools in the state. They all remained mired at the bottom of the state’s list of schools, as measured by test scores. Since Barbic’s departure, the leadership at ASD has changed hands a few times, but the evaluations have not improved. ASD was a flop.

However, the concept was adopted without waiting for results by a few other states, including North Carolina (one school was in its state-controlled version of ASD) and Nevada (no success). Georgia proposed to create a similar district, but it was turned down by voters.

State takeovers have typically failed. Michigan launched its “Education Achievement Authority” several years ago. It was a disaster, and it was closed down.

New Orleans is the original prototype, where all the district’s schools are now operated by charter managers. Despite lots of hype, it is hardly a model. The latest state scores for schools found that almost half the charters in NOLA were rated either D or F. Overall, the district’s test scores were below the state average. The highest performing schools are the most selective. NOLA is a low-performing district in one of the nation’s lowest performing states (on NAEP, the national testing program that compares states).

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Michigan, New Orleans, Privatization, Tennessee

A Study of Charter Schools and Special Education

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2020 //
6

The National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education has released a study of charter schools and special education by doctoral candidate Katherine Parham at Teachers College, Columbia University.

From the dawn of the charter movement, the subject of charter schools and special education has generated significant controversy.

Albert Shanker cautioned in a Washington Post op-ed in 1994 that the freedom from state and local regulations sought for charter schools would mean control over admissions and thus exclusion of “difficult-to-educate students.” A decade later, Martin Carnoy and his co-authors documented in The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (2005) that high-achieving charter middle schools enrolled far more students with strong academic records than neighboring public schools as well as far fewer English-language learners and students with special needs. Similarly, Gary Miron and his co-authors documented in a 2011 study of a major charter management organization (CMO) that it not only managed to screen out a disproportionate number of underperforming students but also shed those who failed to fulfill behavioral and academic expectations. In a 2018 study, Peter Bergman and Isaac McFarlin Jr. documented that charter schools were significantly less responsive than traditional public schools to inquiries from parents of potential applicants with special needs.

Substantiating the concerns of Shanker and the findings of scholars subsequently analyzing this issue was a 2012 report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office determining that in 2008-2009, 11.3 percent of students in traditional public schools were classified with special needs while 7.7 percent of students in charter schools belonged to the same cohort; in 2009-10, the numbers were 11.2 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education, published in 2016, the numbers were 12.8 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively.

In “Charter Schools and Special Education: Institutional Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation,” Katharine Parham explores this gap and the evolution of federal law designed to prevent discrimination against students with special needs. Parham, a doctoral candidate in education policy at Teachers College, concedes the existence of “discriminatory practices, such as ‘cropping off’ service to students whose disabilities make them among the costliest to educate, counseling out students with severe needs, or advising families of students with disabilities not to apply.” However, Parham contends two other factors explain some of the gap: variation in rates of classification of special needs by charter schools and traditional public schools as well as disparities in funding. In addition, Parham analyzes potential remedies for improving the provision of special education by charter schools.

Dispassionate, clear, and concise, this working paper should prove instructive and helpful to policymakers and scholars alike.

Samuel E. Abrams
Director, NCSPE
August 10, 2020

Coming soon: Helen Ladd and Mavzuna Turaeva on charter schools and segregation in North Carolina; Francisco Lagos on the impact of Chile’s Inclusion Law of 2015; and Kfir Mordechay on school choice and gentrification in New York.
NCSPE provides nonpartisan documentation and analysis of school choice and educational privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization, Research, Special Education

Peter Goodman:”This Is Not the End of Cities”

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2020 //
19

The media has been churning out stories about the exodus of people from cities, to escape crowding and coronavirus. People, they say, are rushing to the suburbs.

New Yorker Peter Goodman dissents. He believes that city life will bounce back in time. New York City already is healthier than most other parts of the nation, though mass transit has not yet recovered from the pandemic. Everything ground to a halt in mid-March, and city life is only now beginning to resume, but with masks and social distancing.

Goodman argues that “Cities are the Engines of Democracy, Innovation, and Growth and Schools Play a Major Role.”

As cultural life revives, so will cities.

Ambitious young people flock to them for exposure to museums, dance, concerts, theater, and civic life and diversity of people and experiences.

An interesting article on a real estate website called Curbed.com says that the “urban exodus” story is mostly a myth. True, there has been flight from two of the most expensive places in the U.S—San Francisco and Manhattan (but not Brooklyn!)—but the flow out of cities has not accelerated.

But a nationwide, pandemic- or protest-induced urban-to-suburban migration taking place on a scale that impacts both urban and suburban housing markets in a measurable way? There is zero empirical evidence to support such a trend. None. Nothing. Zero.

Earlier this month, real-estate-listings giant Zillow published an exhaustive study examining every conceivable housing-market data point related to cities and suburbia to see if there are major divergences that suggest an urban-to-suburban migration trend.

Are pending home sales between urban and suburban areas different now than they were before the pandemic? They aren’t!

Are suburban homes selling more quickly than homes in urban areas? Nope!

Are suburban homes selling above their list price at a higher rate than urban homes? Not at all!

Are urban homes seeing price cuts at a higher rate than suburban homes? If anything, the opposite!

Are home valuations accelerating faster in suburban areas than in urban areas? Urban zip codes have a slight edge!

Are suburban home listings getting a larger share of search traffic relative to urban areas now than they were last year? The suburban share is actually down 0.2 percentage points!

There is a German saying: Stadtluft macht frei (“urban air makes you free”). It has been true for centuries. It will be true again.

Categories Art, Creativity, Democracy, Freedom, Innovation
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