My website is dianeravitch.com. I write about two interconnected topics: education and democracy. I am a historian of education.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
ECOT near the end?: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/01/ecot_online_school_could_close.html and http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/01/ecot_closure_could_send_studen.html#incart_m-rpt-1
The 74 has a set of horrible interviews with leading Ed Reformers. One particularly disgusting one is with former top state education official for Florida (under Jeb Bush) and more recently New Mexico, Hanna Skandera. The title quote for this interview was the sickening: “The ‘A’ Word: Hanna Skandera — ‘I Am Not Anti-Union Until They Don’t Put Kids First’ “:
https://www.the74million.org/article/bush-institute-hanna-skandera/
Diane, can you please send me your post on the Janus case.Thank you in advance, Hillary
An ostensibly balanced view on charter schools that I suspect is actually quite pro-charter:
https://theconversation.com/what-we-can-learn-from-closure-of-charter-school-that-devos-praised-as-shining-example-90084?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20January%2016%202018%20-%2092457851&utm_content=Latest%20
I have said that one cannot learn much by a visit. They will show you only what they want you to see.They will put their best foot forward.It is a snapshot at best into the school in question.
Trying to judge anything on a snapshot is pure folly.
The Akron Beacon Journal editorial board on ECOT: https://www.ohio.com/akron/editorial/editorials/beacon-journal-ohio-com-editorial-board-good-riddance-to-ecot
WordPress won’t allow me to post Plunderbund’s summary of their remarks, but worth reading if you’re interested.
Not saying all charter execs are mentally ill, but this doesn’t help: https://crooksandliars.com/2018/01/dc-charter-school-board-official-exposed
My supervisor in A Charter School Principal’s Story was John Goldman. While my book reveals his lack of expertise and judgment, it also reveals the systematic problems when a monopoly provides oversight for charter schools, and turns a blind eye to irresponsible governance.
Corporate Charters are the McDonalds, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Starbucks of education. Teaching children is not the priority. Earning a lot of money from the public trough is. To boost earnings for the management and shareholders means gutting quality out of education.
The damage being caused to our children by these greedy, corrupt, lying, corporate raiders of the public’s education system is going to destroy the republic the U.S. Constitution was written to create and protect.
You might be interested in reading the chapter “Other People’s Money”. My experience in the DC charter schools felt like being a round peg trying to fit into a square hole…a hole that had too much room for folks to take advantage of funds that were meant for students. While this was not a school controlled by a management company, there were many outsourced companies all around the so-called ‘independent’ charters, that serve to mold the schools into test-driven lifeless entities. These companies supposedly help schools do ‘practice testing’, find board members, and do audits with completely unqualified people to turnover staff, and then be paid more money to re-staff a school. I suspect A Charter School Principal Story will not be widely accepted by these folks or the folks who provide oversight for DC Charter Schools. There are too many people in decision-making positions in DC charter schools that have taken grave short cuts in terms of making time to learn what it means to make researched-based decisions about education. Rigor is hard work, and those kids deserve better, more informed and qualified leaders to support them.
Rigor is much more than just hard work. Rigor supports and encourages bullies to terrorize and torture. There is a reason that the so-called reformers of education picked Rigor for the theocratic, Koch brother’s brand of libertarianism’s battle cry.
All we have to do is look at the Merriam-Webster definition to see what Rigor really means to the greedy, power-hungry, corporate reformers of the publicly funded public’s community based democratic, transparent, non-profit education system.
That forced corporate rigor will destroy whatever the American Dream was for each individual unless the individual is a masochist and loves self-suffering.
Definition of rigor
1 a (1) : harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment : severity
(2) : the quality of being unyielding or inflexible : strictness
(3) : severity of life : austerity
b : an act or instance of strictness, severity, or cruelty
2 : a tremor caused by a chill
3 : a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable; especially : extremity of cold
4 : strict precision : exactness
The super wealthy send their children to schools like these K-12 schools and they do not push rigor and/or testing. These are schools that are more like luxury resorts.
Insightful letter to Akron Beacon Journal in 1/26 edition:
After ECOT, more of the same?
I read with interest the Jan. 22 editorial ‘‘Good riddance to ECOT.’’ Ohio public schools were robbed of more than $80 million while Republican campaign coffers enjoyed a generous cut of these ill-gotten gains. Will the Ohio House spend funds to repay the victimized school districts? Not likely.
It is very likely that we will soon see a “new” charter school organization pop up with a new name and the same ex-ECOT leaders in control, ready to bilk Ohio taxpayers of tens of millions while the Republicans look the other way or even celebrate the racket by attending graduation ceremonies as they did with ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow).
This scenario is not idle speculation. This very thing has happened in the past, and I see no significant changes in Columbus to prevent history repeating itself.
Jonathan C. Sell
Akron
Diane,
The push for CHOICE may not be popular in some areas but when parents confront their kids about what they learned and did in public schools does draw a concern and provides reasons for a call to reform…..
6th Graders Asked: “Do You Want to Change Genders?”
By Andrew
Posted on 6 days ago
218 Comments
In what must have been a complete surprise to school administrators in Bourbon, Missouri, it turns out that most parents of 11-year-olds are not thrilled when their kids come home and tell them they answered questions about their sexual and gender orientation in class that day. Normally, when a parent asks a child the age-old, dreaded question, “What did you learn in school today?” the answer should preferably not be: “I learned I can change my gender at will!”
Though we’re sure there are some snowflakes in Berkeley, California who will register their disagreement.
From Chicago’s ABC 7 News:
The questions were part of a survey from the state and also included the topics of drug use and suicide. Some parents are outraged, especially since the school district could have opted out of the survey.
Parent Courtney West said, “A lot of that was completely ridiculous for an 11-year-old to have to answer.”
It’s a survey done by the state department of mental health every other year to learn about teen behavior, in order to tailor prevention programs. But parents believe the students are too young for such personal questions.
“The most inappropriate one was if they were transgender or thought about changing genders,” said parent Samantha Overkramer. “My daughter, I mean she just doesn’t understand that.”
Due to the outcry, the report said, the survey will not include the controversial questions in the future.
Well, perhaps not, but you’d better believe this will soon be commonplace in every public school in America because when the social justice left gets their teeth into an issue, they don’t let go until it is normalized across the country. They already did it with sexual orientation and they are pushing transgender theory even harder. The idea that a person can feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body is not a new one, of course, but it IS new that we grant this any kind of scientific or cultural credence. It IS new that we now have to pretend that it’s not only normal to “change genders” on a whim, but that every child in the country must know all about this odd, fringe element of society.
It’s difficult to address this topic without coming across like some kind of insensitive, backwards bigot…and that’s exactly to the left’s design. But rest assured, we’re just fine with men who want to put on dresses and live their lives as “women.” But if you’re telling us we have to buy into the fantasy? If you’re telling us it’s perfectly normal for a 6th grader to decide to change from a boy to a girl one day? Eh, it’s a hard pass, sorry.
This is a ridiculous assignment. I don’t know of any school In the nation that invites students to change their gender.
Jscheidell,
I just read the story.
The survey comes come the U.S. Department of Educations “Safe and Drug-free Schools”Program. You should write and Express your concern to DeVos
Diane,
Another example/reason to get rid of the department and send many of the duties/projects back to the states.
Given the current ignorant and malevolent leadership at the US Dept of Ed, I would support its elimination. Important functions could be handed off to other departments, which are no better but preoccupied with destruction of their own responsibilities.
You know the history better than I, but malevolent leadership seems to be the rule rather than the exception at the DOE.
I hope we’re not the only ones reading Rebecca Klein’s reporting. Another stellar article on why our struggle is never ending: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/schools-teaching-slavery_us_5a7243cbe4b03699143f144f?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
It is funny I guess–history is written by the winners. The Civil War was not primarily about slavery. It was about State’s Rights and the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution. While the American government did not want to see slavery expand, Lincoln and other had no qualms about letting it continue to exist in the South.
Ask yourselves why did Lincoln wait to free the slaves 2 years into the 4 year war? I do not know what gave him the authority to do so. Why did he not free them at the outset of the war or immediately upon assuming office?
“In 2011, at the outset of the sesquicentennial, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were significantly divided on the issue, with 48% saying the war was “mainly about states’ rights,” 38% saying the war was “mainly about slavery,” with the remainder answering “both equally” or “neither/don’t know.”” <https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession>.
We are taught (back in the 1980s in college) that slavery was the issue but here only about 1/3 of adults think it was. A plurality think it was State’s Rights as I said. So American high school students are getting a fair understanding of slavery and the Civil War.
Regardless, the right to secede existed then as it does now. If Kansas want to secede then they should be allowed to do so. Forcing a state to remain is not freedom, which is why many of our ancestors came here for.
I am not condoning slavery. Slavery was wrong.
No need for me to get into this with you. While it is very big of you to not condone slavery (stop the presses!), you obviously condone misinformation and history-by-most-ignorant-common-denominator. You should give David Barton a call. I’m sure he would love to have you his team.
I am just relaying to you that a plurality believe it was state’s rights. Slavery as the main reason is a minority opinion in this country, as I just showed you.
Just because slavery ended does not mean that it was the reason we had the war. It was good that slavery ended.
As I said any state should be allowed to secede if it wants now or then. Nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that the federal government has the right or duty to maintain the union at all costs.
Ivory tower (in this case The Brookings Institute) asserts that Pay-for-Performance would attract “better” (as in higher personal SAT scores) teachers. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/01/31/performance-pay-can-bring-stronger-teachers-into-the-classroom/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=60420266
It’s truly amazing how out of touch these guys are.
The wealthy and powerful leading this war against community-based, democratic, transparent, secular, non-profit, unionized traditional public education are not out of touch.
The Koch brothers, ALEC, the Walton family, Betsy DeVos, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Richard Mercer, et al. know exactly what they are doing but the agenda and motivations might be slightly different.
The end goal is to profit and be in charge … they don’t care if the kids are learning or not. They don’t care if the truth is that almost all teachers are competent and doing a good job. They don’t care. Thier goal has nothing to do with teaching children.
It’s all about money, power, and whatever they want god to be.
According to The National Review, now we need charter schools because cities haven’t funded teachers’ pensions:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455784/pension-crisis-school-choice-may-be-only-solution
Their subtitle leaves one scratching one’s head:
“Private schools educate students far more cheaply than public ones do.”
Obviously, they don’t mean Alt-School (32,000) or Dalton (46,050) or Lakeside (33,280), so are they conceding that charters are NOT public schools?
Tom Walker, aka, Jonathan Pie gets it right again on school shooting (if you are offended by language, this is not your thing, but language is not as offensive as killing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkH3mJnloO0
While we were distracted by mass shootings and Russian indictments, Congress went after the Americans with Disabilities Act, the civil rights act for persons with disabilities. Please note the 12 Democrats who voted against disability rights and, if you are a constituent, let them know you’re paying attention: https://medium.com/@JonathanCohn/without-the-votes-of-these-12-dems-the-house-gops-assault-on-the-ada-would-have-failed-d923b959256c
I feared collective exhaustion when our Dear Leader was installed by the electoral college. Just didn’t realize it would be this damned exhausting.
Heads up!
Grace Vanderwall wants to bring music back to schools (and she is speaking out). Her mother asks what would have happened to Grace’s life with the music programs that have now been cut in the school district she attended as a child. She is now 14.
Grace won America’s Got Talent in 2016 at age 12 singing her own songs that she wrote. Her first song, “I Don’t Know My Name” was ranked 5th for the year as one of the most viewed YouTube videos.
She was signed by Columbia Records putting out an LE and LP and is currently more than halfway through her first, national, sold out concert tour.
Grace has already won several major music awards, one from Disney, one from theTeen Choice Awards, and one from Billboard Magazine.
Both her LE and LP albums climbed to the top of the Billboard charts.
When she was barely 13, she sang at the closing of the Special Olympics in Austria in a huge, crowded stadium. (that’s her own song she wrote she sings at the closing).
Should we be concerned?
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/mark-my-words-bill-gates-is-running-for-president.html
Horrors!
I’ve read that Bill Gates once belonged to ALEC, and after he dropped out, he invited the Koch brothers to meet with him but they refused.
Gates made a contribution of $360,000 to ALEC about 2010. I met with the president of the Gates Foundation why and he had no answer.
If the president of the Gates Foundation were honest (excuse me while I wretch), he would have given the true answer: Because he wanted to and could.
Gates connections with ALEC tell me that he agrees with some of if not all of the Koch brothers thinking.
AND SHE LIVES NEAR ME! AND SHE IS A PRODIGY… AND SO YOUNG to have fame find her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB2kkKE6T0Q&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs
Just as the Dickey amendment prohibits CDC from gathering gun violence statistics, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if DoE will soon prohibit the gathering of statistics of racial harassment in our schools: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/racial-harassment-in-schools-uptick_us_5a8db498e4b03414379cae76
I did the NPE survey on gun violence, but left question #6 blank: “I support increased funding for school security with needs determined by the school and community.” I did so because this question, as posed, cannot be answered by me with a yes or no. I do not support increased funding for school security when so many other academic and social needs are higher priorities. For example, I’d rather see increased funding for healthy meals in schools than school security. I prefer to have schools and communities determine how funds are spent in their schools in general, but the choice given me in the question make it unanswerable, for me at least.
Secretary DeVos gives herself a B+/A-: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/ingrid-jacques/2018/02/22/devos-grades/110686684/
The politicization of the Supreme Court will have far-reaching ramifications. This question tells it all:
“…(Justice) Kennedy asked Frederick, representing the union, the question that seems to be foremost on his mind. If the Court rules against the union, “the unions will have less political influence, yes or no?”
“Yes,” Frederick said, “they will have less influence.”
Kennedy replied: “Isn’t that the end of this case?”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/when-the-supreme-court-doesnt-care-about-facts/554354/
Hi Diane, Not sure if you’ve seen it, but this lengthy essay is definitely worth the time to read….it’s based on higher ed, but there’s an awful lot that applies to K-12: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/whose-university-is-it-anyway/
On cell phone zombies in our schools: http://senseofhuebner.com/2018/03/03/cell-phone-zombies/
Frederick Hess goes (somewhat) off message in National Review on school choice: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/03/01/education-reform-local-schools-key/
What Business Are We In ?
“To be educated is to become more human.”
J. Lawrence Walkup, President Northern Arizona University
“No One Gives a S**t What You Think or Feel.”
David Coleman, Principle creator of “The Common Core”
The quotes above are both expressions that have moved me to think about school, education, and my relationship with the students that I teach and have taught. The quotes are separated in time by about fifty years. One I have grown to believe strongly and the other troubles me. The first was spoken by a college president and was incorporated as a motto for my alma mater . The second, was said to a group of teachers assembled to learn about the basis of Common Core instruction.
The “To be educated “line I first saw on a plaque on a building near the old forestry building on the north campus of NAU. I walked by it on the way to the first university class I was enrolled in as an undergraduate. From that first time I began to evaluate whether I felt it was true or not as I pursued my education at NAU and later other institutions. I wasn’t convinced that the class I was headed to that first semester was likely to improve my humanity. As I recall it was something like “Basics of Resource Conservation”. It was an 8:00 A.M. class. At NAU, 8:00 A.M. means cold. It was in the forestry building that meant being surrounded by forestry majors. They were equal parts flannel wearing Paul Bunyans, dreadlocked hippies and Monkeywrenchers of various sorts who seemed basically harmless but an odd bunch. Human but…. Cold, odd, and smelly is a tough way to start the day or an educational journey. Here I was supposed to become more human?
It was a semester length class and in the 18 weeks I spent there the professor challenged just about everything I believed to be true about the relationship between people and everything else that makes up the physical world. It was the first time I had seen physics and other science disciplines coordinated with things like right/wrong, morality, economics and the psychology of human nature. We talked about values, goals, and things like common obligations and mutual consideration. To my amazement numbers could be inserted in these thoughts in order to make them more rather than less clear. It was as much about human relationships as it was about trees and wildlife. Using our gift of thought to improve things in general seemed to be the underlying purpose.
The class was very topical and we were encouraged to discuss the issues and voice our positions on the subjects at hand. The topics were often local Northern Arizona issues such as land use, forest and open space preservation and various water and pollution issues. Then as now there were very distinct differences of opinion on these topics even among cold, sleepy undergraduates. I heard lots of opinions from the stupid to the sublime, was introduced to the Navajo view of creation, and saw the beginning of at least two fistfights. All in all a pretty good class for 8:00 A.M. and 5 degrees F.. In retrospect I do believe that some movement towards humanity was made available to some of us. I don’t know if there was ever hope for the guy who said we should connect the Grand Canyon to the railroad and use it as a garbage dump for Phoenix (a precursor to the first fistfight) but I and others left with a few answers and some new questions. I have referred often in my teaching career to things discovered here. I guess that’s human.
Regarding “no one gives a s*** what you think or feel”, I first read that line about a year ago in my personal research while acquainting myself with various views and attitudes being expressed about the upcoming reform (?) known as Common Core. David Coleman is the principle creator of the Common Core and has since become the president of The College Board and thus executive of all of its associated educational arms. (PSAT,SAT,AP et al) His views and opinions we must give a s*** about as they heavily influence what we do. In fairness, the quote (yes it is a direct quote profanity and all) was directed toward a group of ELA teachers in New York in a training session about student writing. The observation being that typical student writing is subjective, opinion driven, and largely narrative; much like human interaction. The point, I believe, was that in a goal oriented professional setting tools of analysis and evidence are necessary to accomplish organizational goals. That in itself is true, but only placed in the proper context. There are many kinds of writing meant to serve many purposes. Among those are entertainment, speculation, emotional arousal, and perhaps even propaganda. (Where would Fox and MSNBC be without this style) Tools of analysis and evidence are vital to writing a legal brief or a business plan but less useful to a novelist, songwriter, or poet.
I am curious how much of our GNP is spent on the purchase of entertainment of various sorts. Do we give a s*** about these products and activities? Does Mr. Coleman? I spend a lot of time and money on various types of obscure music. Music and literature are by nature emotionally communicative and generally highly opinionated. Some forms bridge centuries of human experience and are as powerful and pertinent today as when created. They are often used to communicate both personally and commercially with millions of people. Are these non sourced and non footnoted creations valueless? Are the feelings and opinions elicited from readers and listeners sewage? Cogito ergo sum indeed. Who is education for, and who and what purposes should it serve?
Our goal in ELA and the Social Sciences is to meet the students where they are and help them acquire the tools they need to achieve their goals. Hidden in Mr. Coleman’s line is a strong bias toward directing students toward his goal, and perhaps business or industry’s goals but with no consideration of the writer’s purpose. There is value in analysis and persuasive writing but it is not isolated there. Additionally, education is a relationship. In fact a series of relationships: Teacher- class, teacher-student, teacher-subgroup etc.. In order to facilitate the flow necessary for education to occur a student’s views and opinions matter a great deal. A person’s feelings and opinions are emblematic of the person herself. Denigration is no starting point for education.
Writing in any format serves to clarify and make real those things about which we care. Once a view or opinion is tangible (written) we can order it, arrange it, or supplement it to suit our purpose. We may come to understand it better and improve it or oddly as in the scientific method we may choose to discard it after seeing it in full form. Writing is a process. The beginning is necessarily felt and thought. The human construct of language allows us to direct these feelings toward a task but it does not require that we diminish the thought or feeling. Different writers pursue different goals and that must be recognized in order to facilitate the writer’s skills. Mr. Coleman seems fixated on a narrow and constricted view regarding the purposes and value of writing.
We write about, analyze, and persuade about the things that matter to us. These things and our ability to understand ways in which we can act on them are what make us human. We must not place the process above the principle. We should not place one goal above all others. The process exists to serve the value and that value (feeling, opinion) needs to be respected if we expect to lead students to a greater understanding of their topics and therefore themselves. We cannot discard opinion and feeling and remain what we are. The quote was not “To be educated is to be an algorithm”.
J Riley Ferguson
Teacher and Human
Now this just takes the cake…the incompetence of DeVos and this whole admin is just mind numbing….DeVos attempted to tweet what a “modern classroom” should look like compared to that old factory system rows stuff, but the image she used is from a cover of a children’s book…
Ed Reformers colliding: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/jonathan-chait-cant-rewrite-the-obama-education-legacy/
I attended a public forum yesterday with my member of congress in the Hudson Valley of NY. The topic was guns and schools. As you can imagine, there were many passionate voices at the meeting. (There were many teachers in attendance too.)
For those opposed to arming teachers but wondering what they can do to influence the conversation, a constituent suggested looking into what companies your pensions and 401Ks are invested in and then considering putting pressure on the company to divest in gun manufacturers (or at least ones that make the assault rifles.)
I emailed NYSTRS, our teacher’s pension company in NYS, asking about investments in gun manufacturers. Here’s their response:
From NYSTRS on 3/12/2018, 10:56 AM
Thank you for your inquiry.
NYSTRS does hold shares of gun manufacturers in its passive portfolios. These passive portfolios track a broad market index. No decision has been made on divestment of gun stocks from our portfolios. Please be assured your concerns will be shared with our Executive Director.
If you have any additional questions, please write back or call us at (800) 348-7298. Thank you.
Information and Communication Center/dp
Anyone else a little surprised? Anyone else think it might be worthwhile using a unified voice to force our pension systems to divest at least until sane gun laws are enacted?
(My son wondered aloud to me if NYSTRS might also be invested in for-profit charter schools, as well.)
All food for thought…
I think it is worthwhile to get NEA-AFT locals to pressure ALL state retirement systems to divest from gun makers. Though I am retired, my NYSTRS pension and my still-existing connections to my AFT local would enable me to join this effort. If such an effort is organized, I would join & spread information with colleagues. As an individual, I will contact the NYSTRS and urge that they divest.
When for-profit Edison Schools was in deep financial trouble, it was bailed out by Jeb Bush using the pension funds of Florida teachers, which he controlled.
The California Democratic Party has some travel tips for our Dear Leader while in the state:
https://www.cadem.org/news/press-releases/2018/an-open-letter-to-donald-trump-from-the-cdp-team
Our Dear Leader?
More like the GOP’s Dear Leader or the Koch Brothers’ puppet or the KKK’s mouthpiece …
When you’ve got to launch a student video contest and offer real cash money for students to take worthless tests, well, you ain’t winning.
Dear professo Diane Ravitch
Hi, this is an Education professor of Seoul National University (South Korea) and greatly appreciate you for the posts and your commitment to progressive movement for public schooling. By this, I would like to invite you for the 19th international conference on education research 2018 with the umbrella theme titled as “Education for Democracy and Social Justice: Global, National and Local Contexts” during 17-19 of Octobe, 2018. I as co-chair of the conference comittee wish you as a keynote speaker deliver insights of education in relation to democracy and social justice based upon your current activities.
We will reach you with an official invitation letter ASAP when you positively respond.
Looking forward to hearing you soon.
Best regards
SS
Thank you, Sung-Sang Yoo.
I am not available to travel in October. I will be attending the national conference of the Network for Public Education from October 20-21 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
I wonder if you or someone might respond in print to the bootlicking homage in today’s Indianapolis Star to privatizer David Harris of the Mind Trust leaving Indianapolis, where he bought the school board, to assumedly scale out that model nationally. https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2018/03/15/tully-relentless-education-champion-david-harris-leaving-mind-trust/421513002/
You will see the response tomorrow on this blog.
David Harris gets millions from rightwing foundations that hate public schools, unions, and teacher pensions. He is a shill for privatization
Fordham Institute implies Louisiana is the “next Massachusetts” and that State Superintendent of Education, John White, is a heroic educational leader: http://educationnext.org/louisiana-threads-the-needle-ed-reform-launching-coherent-curriculum-local-control/
The day that Louisiana surpasses or equals Massachusetts is the day that horses will fly and donkeys will talk.
I bet our Dear Leader probably thinks donkeys can talk because he saw it on Shrek.
The leader of MAGA and GOP can think?
Hello Diane, I am reaching out to you personally to see if you would be able to be a decision maker for a petition I am wanting to start.
“Help protect our kids who attend public schools”
Thank you and I hope to hear back from you.
As a result of Tuesday’s election in Illinois, voters will now have a choice of TWO billionaires for governor, GOP incumbent Bruce Rauner or the Democratic party endorsed candidate JB Pritzker.
Two Progressive candidates on the ticket for governor, Dan Bliss and Chris Kennedy, both of whom support public education, got a combined total of votes which exceeded the number of votes Pritzker received. If just one Progressive had run, he probably could have beaten Pritzker. Progressives are going to have to do a much better job of uniting in support of one key liberal candidate in elections, so they are not competing against each other and losing altogether as a result.
Yes, just like what happened with Hillary vs Bernie, and when the Alt-Right/Russian misinformation machine hacked the Democratic Party and found one e-mail that made it sound like the primary was an alleged rigged and unfair contest between Hillary vs Bernie, that was just another rock that led to Hillary’s defeat by the Kremlin’s Agent Orange Donald Trump, because some or many of Bernie’s inflamed supporters refused to vote for Hillary.
In Ohio, 50% of a teacher’s rating is determined by student test scores. Legislation is set to change that. However, Cleveland’s mayor, Senator Matt Dolan, and Eric Gordon, the CEO of Cleveland City Schools, want to keep the 50% student test score rating for Cleveland teachers ONLY! Why? I don’t understand why an employer would fight to keep their work force rated as poorly as possible based on subjective, erroneous, information while the rest of the state’s teacher work force are rated differently. Who would want to work for that employer? Can someone explain this to me?
Temps on two year drive-thru stints from Teach for America would work for that employer. That’s how corporate reform works. Get rid of veteran, career educators, with higher salaries and pensions, and deprofessioalize teaching by claiming virtually anyone fresh out of college with a BA in anything and 5 weeks of summer training can replace them.
When I moved to the US from Canada to work in a DC charter charter, I laughed at the remnants of teacher evaluation forms that added 50 percent to a point score – as a numerical percentage used to assess teachers. These tools were the first things to go – I remember fondly tossing them into the garbage – explaining to a new team of teacher-leaders – that there was not one ounce of research to back up the practice. Students with varying degrees of understandings are never equally distributed from school to school or classroom to classroom, thus the practice – completely invalid. Instead, we developed a new tool that teachers could use to self assess first – and then have mentors and administrators use it with teachers throughout the year to support team teaching and professional conversation and action. It was a modified version of Danielson’s effective practices. Teachers also read and discussed articles written by Linda Darling-Hammond. These ‘uncommon school’ folks don’t even know who these people are – yet they wield way too much power, particularly in inner city schools. We really need to educate school leaders more and shut down this ridiculous practice – and figure out a way to educate board members and other politicians that make education decisions – to do better in terms of preparing themselves for their roles.
Linda Brown died yesterday.
She was the Brown in “Brown v Board of Ed.”
So much important history to teach and to know.
Hey, Diane, just wanted to inform you that — for me at least — the commenting feature whereby we can be notified of new comments or new posts via email does not work. If I want to learn of new comments, I have to go back to the original post and re-click on the comments. The only thread that does notify me of new comments is this “About” thread. The notifications were always useful. Any idea why this doesn’t work any more?
Dr. Ravitch,
I want to recommend a book to you and someone to have on your radar
He knows a lot about the impact of Katrina and the decisions afterwards on public schools and is an advocate for getting music back into schools earlier than just high school in NOLA
On persistent survival of the Common Core: http://theconversation.com/betsy-devos-said-common-core-was-dead-its-not-92800
We know that many of the bad ideas that are foisted on the public schools come from business. At IBM, they have gotten rid of “gray hairs and old heads” by using juked up evaluations, or forcing employees to resign or be laid off. Yet another reason schools shouldn’t be run like businesses.
https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/
Rebecca Klein, a true rarity today—a real journalist: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-bathrooms_us_5abe4f28e4b0f112dc9bbe8d
Duncan sings the praises of all things Ed Reform in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/people-are-saying-education-reform-hasnt-worked-dont-believe-them/2018/04/01/6fddf5b0-3399-11e8-8bdd-cdb33a5eef83_story.html?utm_term=.e92f0fb1fed4&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1
A GREAT rejoinder to Secretary Duncan’s article: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/04/duncan-revises-again-courage-and-betsy.html?spref=tw
While the article comments generally see through Duncan’s self-congratulatory propaganda, the he’s got the twitter-verse working on his behalf: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=Arne%20Duncan&src=typd
From the Perdaily site of Lenny Isenberg
http://www.perdaily.com/2018/03/laissez-faire-capitalism-on-steroids.html
“In her book “Democracy in Chains,” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/books/review/democracy-in-chains-nancy-maclean.html
“Professor Nancy MacLean of Duke University in North Carolina.clearly lays out the 40 year master plan that the Koch brothers and other mega rich oligarchs have funded to dumb down the American electorate to the point that they are literally incapable of understanding information” that is presented in the media or anywhere.
“This is because they no longer have the requisite critical thinking skills necessary to do so. These skills have been systematically removed from our public education system as this country in 2018 regrettably realizes the orwellian newspeak world so presciently described in George Orwell’s novel 1984.”
“This didn’t just happen. But step by systematic step the “dismantling of the administrative state,” has been accomplished by monomaniacal oligarches who are able to give themselves a disproportionate and undemocratic say as to what goes on in this country.
This is in complete derogation of the fundamental democratic principle of “one man [or woman], one vote” and worse, it compromises the checks and balances between the three branches of government. The Supreme Court ruling in Citizen United gave the corporate oligarchs the ability to spend unlimited amounts on elections, for their goals — under the guise that these corporate legal fiction should have individual civil rights.”
Read more at Perdaily.com
Too true. There’s a great satiracle piece on this matter today by Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker, where he describes (Koch puppet) Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s plan to defund education, in order to promote “trickle-up stupidity”: “Scott Walker Dismayed That Wisconsin Apparently Smarter Despite Cuts in Education” https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scott-walker-dismayed-that-wisconsin-apparently-smarter-despite-cuts-in-education?
Diane, I know you have been following Maurice Cunningham’s coverage of the dark money spent on Question 2 in Massachusetts in 2016. Families for Excellent Schools was fined $426,000 (all the funds on hand) and barred from the state for four years. But these shape shifters reorganized and are now funding Mass Parents United. Here’s Cunningham’s latest post:
http://blogs.wgbh.org/masspoliticsprofs/2018/3/26/whya-massachusetts-parents-united/
Tracy Novick, who is Field Director for MA School Committees, just posted this tweet:
with this link: https://t.co/IIx2BgfVW5 showing that Keri Rodrigues, the “parent” Executive Director of MPU will be a participant:
“As part of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Leading the Nation celebration, participants in this State House event will reflect on the Commonwealth’s status as a national leader in K-12 education, trade perspectives on 25 years of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, and discuss next steps to address persistent areas of concern such as achievement gaps.”
MA DESE has invited a banned pro-charter, dark money group’s Executive Director to be a participant in a celebration of Massachusetts public education.
It’s not bad enough that Rodrigues gets her money from privatizers like Walmart, her Twitter feed and published columns are full of invective against public school teachers and public school advocates like Lisa Guisbond of Citizens for Public Schools and Monty Hall of FairTest.
It’s flat out wrong.
Good Lord! Not Monty Hall! I’m mortified!
Monty Neill, of course!
And here’s a follow up from Professor Cunningham:
http://blogs.wgbh.org/masspoliticsprofs/2018/4/3/mr-lehigh-misdiagnoses-fever-ms-rodriguez-recovers-dese/
I’m curious if you knew about this:
I thought the H-E-B guy was a friend of public education and was excited to read more about the center he’s created for Texas public schools (holdsworthcenter.org)
but I’m trying to figure out why the CEO of TFA is on the board!
This seems counterproductive to say the least.
Betsy DeVos will be in Dallas, TX tomorrow visiting Dade Middle School. A protest is being organized through the Texas Organizing Project.
The NRA will meet in Dallas next month. Be ready to welcome them.
Diane, You were so right that people should “Never Trust Zuckerberg.” Can’t get much more reprehensible than this: “Facebook sent a doctor on a secret mission to ask hospitals to share patient data”
“Facebook was in talks with top hospitals and other medical groups as recently as last month about a proposal to share data about the social networks of their most vulnerable patients.
The idea was to build profiles of people that included their medical conditions, information that health systems have, as well as social and economic factors gleaned from Facebook.
Facebook said the project is on hiatus so it can focus on “other important work, including doing a better job of protecting people’s data.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/facebook-building-8-explored-data-sharing-agreement-with-hospitals.html
“Bill Maher Zings Eric And Donald Trump Jr. As He Comes Out Fighting For Teachers:”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-children-eric-trump-donald-trump-jr_us_5ac86333e4b09d0a1193fb8f
Naomi Klein’s video about Puerto Rico’s future is not to be missed:
See this:
Teachers across the country have finally had enough of the teacher pay penalty | Economic Policy Institute
https://www.epi.org/publication/teachers-across-the-country-have-finally-had-enough-of-the-teacher-pay-penalty/?utm_source=Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_campaign=cf0aa927b4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e7c5826c50-cf0aa927b4-58078537&mc_cid=cf0aa927b4&mc_eid=4e2776f99b
Just when you thought the Facebook mess couldn’t worse, it does so exponentially, the far right sides are hurting from laughing so much, so soon:
“Today, Facebook is announcing a new initiative to help provide independent, credible research about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more generally. It will be funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.”
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/new-elections-initiative/
That’s not funny, that’s scary!
Bought and paid for by the notorious Billionaires Against Democracy (BADS).
The BADS already own this country but they are consolidating their power and aiming to make sure they keep it clenched in the vise grip of their greedy little paws.
Rise up, Plebeians, before the ruling class declares dominion over all and proves the American experiment is a failure and a has-been
Secretary DeVos weighs in on Oklahoma: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/382259-devos-rips-oklahoma-teachers-over-strike-serve-the-students
More proof that the testing machine doesn’t measure anything.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad-i-cant-answer-these_us_586d5517e4b0c3539e80c341
“Report Recommends Expanding No-Excuses Charter Practices but Does Not Recognize or Address Limits and Potential Problems” http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2018/04/no-excuses
Diane, I just contacted WMU to confirm and your talk will be at Schneider Hall, not the Dalton Center as you had it on a previous web posting. Here is a link to the updated, correct information: https://wmich.edu/humanities/eventsravitch
Thank you, Greg.
You know more than I do.
The first and only time!
Update on Kentucky: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/11/us/kentucky-teachers-pension-governor/index.html
The National Review’s spin on things (i.e. Florida “the big winner”): https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/american-education-35-years-of-mediocrity-since-a-nation-at-risk/
Does anyone know an example of teachers who’ve been bullied and maligned by parents being successful in taking action against the parents? My district seems rampant this year with parents using social media to target and slander teachers in closed, invitation-only chat rooms and group texts. It is out of control. And we are just sitting ducks, defenseless against whatever the parents choose to say.
Admins are beyond ineffective – they barely acknowledge there’s an issue.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Seriously Alice?
It is 2018 and such a question is asked? Well, with 15,880 school systems in 52 states and a media that is owned by the oligarchs and billionaires who need to see the end of democracy, it makes sense. https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
In 1998, when they came after me, (and I was a famous educator) http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html there were few parents who didi not celebrate my practice, as they CHOSE THIS MAGNET SCHOOL, often because of my successful practice.
But whenever there was a troubled child, who had an issue with me, the principal called me in and subjected me to abuse and humiliation. One of many, which included raiding my employee folder and removing 4 decades of awards and glowing evaluations, so as to fillet with ‘documentation’ of my incompetence. Of course, I supplied all the teaching materials and was never reimbursed. How else do you push a dedicated, celebrated professional out the door!
Using parents is now a rampant technique, and the media ENTIRELY Owned by the
EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf has , for 2 decades maligned teachers… those ‘bad, lazy tenured teachers.”
THE EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OWNS THE MEDIA” they are not going to tell our people how they are destroying our democracy –even as they demolish the only road to income equality! Schools fail when the professionals are removed.
By maligning & replacing competetent professionals with trained civil servants, the charlatans who run the show into the ground, are ending democracy, which depends on shared knowledge!
The War on Teachers began two decades ago when the experienced professionals who knew (WLLL) WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE were removed across the nation on fabricated charges so snake-oil salesmen could sell ‘online learning’ and charter schools as magic elixirs. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Surely, by now everyone has seen the destruction in LAUSD as thousands of their professional teacher-practitioners were ousted by fabricated charges. http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html The media helped them out the door http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/HAVE-REPORTERS-BECOME-POLI-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Media_Media-Bias_Media-Blackout_Media-
and the union looked the other way http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
Long before the EPA was under attack, public education was on the battle field. I did not know what hit me in 1998!I was a famous, celebrated educator — the NYSEC Educator of Excellence–when this happened to me: http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
and also, to tens of thousands of our most experienced, dedicated professional practitioners..i.e teachers!
But today, after following the voices of teachers across two decades, I realize that the same forces that allow this charlatan — Pruitt — to prosper and be protected, are the ones that made it impossible for GENUINE TEACHERS TO HAVE A VOICE, in the discussion about School Reform.
WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE are words to remember, for only those who ‘get it’ can make learning happen with kids. DUH! Ditch the teachers… and let parents –who are clueless bout how learning takes place, and how REAL professionals enable and facilitate it– ruin their reputations in the anarchy of cyberspace where ‘freedom of speech’ occurs without the necessary RESPONSIBLITY !!
I taught for thirty years from 1975 – 2005 and every year I knew of other teachers at the schools where I taught that was bullied by parents. I was bullied by parents (but not every year I taught), and I don’t know of even one teacher that went to court to fight back because lawyers are really expensive and teachers don’t make enough money to hire them. The only time teachers fought back was when the teachers’ union supported the teacher and provided the lawyers and that was usually only when the teacher’s job was at risk and the parent’s allegations unproven but the administration was supporting the parents and not the teachers.
It was my experience that most administrators fear parents that are loud-mouthed bullies. And I was a victim of an incident with a bully parent. The union-backed me and the students that were involved in this 1st Amendment issue that I was defending against that damned parent. The union provided legal help and we beat that principal and the parent. In fact, that principal lost his job because we won (my and my journalism students). The school board had that principal fired even though he still had three years left on his contract. That principal bet on the wrong horse. That issue even hit the media news and the district and parent did not look good when it did.
It began 2 decades ago, os what you are seeing now, is the direct result of the total lack accountability for GOING AFTER the teachers. (THE PLOY in the PLO to end public education DEPENDED on the removal of the authentic teacher -practitioner, the PROFESSIONAL who knew WLLL (WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE) and how to enable the learning of REAL SKILLS .
In order to create an ignorant citizenry, AND END DEMOCRACY (WHICH DEPENDS ON SHARED KNOWLEDGE) http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
the teacher had to be sent out the door, so Gates & Pearson, and Moskositz and Devos, ETC, could tell the people what schools need to do.
ACROSS 15,880 SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN 52 STATES IT BEGAN.
I experienced it NYC when I was the NYS Educator of Excellence, and the UFT let it happen in the largest district tithe nation.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Then they fabricated charges in LA, decimating the teaching staff. WERE YOU TERMINATED OR FORCED TO RETIRE FROM LAUSD BASED ON FABRICATED CHARGES? – Perdaily.com
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
But no where, in all the stories I have followed for 18 years, since they came after me, has any story demonstrated the utter lawlessness then the story of Lorna Stremcha, who sued in court to prove that the principal her school, set her up to be sexually assaulted.
http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
I have posted this here many times over years. HERE IS LAWLESS:
She went on to the fight for workplace laws in Montana schools, and wrote the book
Bravery, Bullies, & Blowhards |
https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/life/my-montana/2016/03/18/educator-recounts-harassment-school/81896206/
What is happening now, is nothing new, but the media is owned by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX which keeps all this ‘news’ local…so it disappears!
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
Whoa. That’s not quite what I was looking for.
Yes, my question was a serious one.
I’m not a famous educator. But I am skilled, experienced, and have decades of successfully educated students to my credit.
What I was asking about was very specific to 2018 and the explosion of social media and the complete absence of filters on people’s vitriol. This is totally new in my district. While there have always been disgruntled parents. Social media has changed the size and the scope of the audience who reads the venom parents feel entitled to share.
It has reached a level of insanity here. And admins are slow to respond.
We’ve talked about publishing parent emails on social media.(minus names.)
So my question still holds.
Anyone else?
I said as much at the end of my comment when I wrote: “Ditch the teachers… and let parents ruin a teacher’s reputation — in the anarchy of cyberspace where ‘freedom of speech’ occurs without the necessary RESPONSIBILITY !!
This is the inadvertent consequences of the NEW TECHNOLOGY OF INFORMATION, which has brought the human race into a new ERA!
The Facebook story offers a glimpse at the unanswered Questions.
Just like in former eras, when civilization has been transformed, there was little grasp of the things that would happen …DOWN THE ROAD!
Agriculture transformed society, and so did industrialization.
This is the Era Of Information Technology…. and the parents at your school, and the haters on the internet, and the children who taunt other children are ALL responding to the opportunity to say whatever comes into their heads…like our President… LIES ARE JUST FINE
FREEDOM OF SPEECH COMES With RESPONSIBILITY!
IN THE PAST responsible speech was ensured because of the ACCOUNTABILITY provided by the law..
As we know, if no one can be held accountable for egregious behavior, nothing happens. Lloyd Lofthouse, who is BTW, a former Marine, stood up to the parents, and had, at his side, THE only LEGAL ARM that teacher have THE UNION. He also had the evidence that woudl stand up in court, or he would not have been able to find an attorney. Trust me on THAT one!
I tried to sue the superintendent of my district, who moved me from my famous practice, and who said that I was guilty of corporal punishment. Defined by her; A STUDENT said that I CURSED at here, and this was ‘frightening.’
Are you Following. Ok… There was no hearing. I never heard the allegation, or had an opportunity to say WTF are you talking about.
BOOM. Shoved into the district office rubber room, and facing the loss of my pension!
Here is the good part… when I was told of this incredible allegation — I expressed surprise, and asked “Who said this?” and was told the information was privileged.
The HEAD HONCHO of the Manhattan Bureau of the uFT, was there, and he told me “to sit down and LISTEN!”
I LEFT AND FILED A SUIT, after I FOUND AN ATTORNEY WHO WOULD SUE THE DOE, AND IT COST ME $26,000 to get me back into the school, but now I taught in a closet, where as before, I taught the entire 7th grade in a curriculum that Harvard and Pew was studying… I was the cohort for the New Standards at the time, and in Wh’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
I tell you this, because what Lloyd says is true… UNLESS the UNION will support you, then You will have to defend yourself to bring ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PARENT for using FREEDOM OF SPEECH to demean & humiliate you.
My sad tale, was that I spend 6 months in the rubber room as my classroom practice was dismantled and my thousands of books and materials distributed to the teachers, My research with Pew was thrown away.
I was back for a few months, before the next onslaught… when a teacher in the school downstairs, (we were housed in a bigger school) alleged that she heard me threaten to kill the principal… and I was back in the rubber room for a few minutes, until my HUSBAND reached RANDI WEINGARTEN, and she arranged arbitration so I would not lose my benefits. I
I would have taught many more years. I never taught again.
I
If YOU , dear Alice, feel that you are maligned on line, then go to the authorities, to the union and TELL THE MEDIA
… but of course, the parents will spin the story and it will blow up.
Loyd and I are explaining that you have a hard decision to make if you want to end this.
Whoa. That’s not quite what I was looking for.
Yes, my question was a serious one.
I’m not a famous educator. But I am skilled, experienced, and have decades of successfully educated students to my credit.
What I was asking about was very specific to 2018 and the explosion of social media and the complete absence of filters on people’s vitriol. This is totally new in my district. While there have always been disgruntled parents. Social media has changed the size and the scope of the audience who reads the venom parents feel entitled to share.
It has reached a level of insanity here. And admins are slow to respond.
We’ve talked about publishing parent emails on social media.(minus names.)
So my question still holds.
Anyone else?
Progress in Arizona: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/12/602023664/arizona-governor-agrees-to-20-percent-raise-for-protesting-teachers
…I think.
Syracuse student suspended for opting out. http://www.syracuse.com/schools/index.ssf/2018/04/cny_parent_says_daughter_suspended_for_opting_out_of_state_tests_district_says_i.html
“The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public Schools: Are first-world children being trained for a third-world life?” By Lynn Stuart Parramore / Institute for New Economic Thinking
https://www.alternet.org/education/corporate-plan-groom-us-kids-servitude-wiping-out-public-schools
Prayers to the Bush family on the passing of First Lady (and First Mom) Barbara Bush.
In other news, President George W. Bush, in an interview yesterday, defended his No Child Left Behind Act as landmark civil rights legislation and needed accountability. Really wish he — and his brother — would go away on education policy. For those willing to look: https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/george-w-bush-defends-legacy-no-child-left-behind-education-business-conference/
I think George W. Bush, Sandy Kress (the architect of NCLB),maybe Margaret Spellings, and Rod Paige are the only people left who still believe that NCLB was a success. They are its parents.
And Rod Paige called the NEA and its teachers “a terrorist organization” not long after 9/11.
Ohio’s testing system crashes. Many schools disrupted.
https://www.journal-news.com/news/local-education/state-testing-system-crashes-leaving-butler-county-schools-scrambling/ktKOZPjgTaejbBBRnRrISK/
Another example of how Jeff Flake may be the most appropriately named senator: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jim-bridenstine-nasa-confirmation_us_5ad8aab7e4b03c426dac081c
Member of Ed Reform Hall of Shame having trouble in his newest role: http://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/23268573/michigan-state-rally-calls-interim-president-john-engler-resign
Insightful opinion piece from Paul Krugman today: “We Don’t Need No Education” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/opinion/teachers-protest-education-funding.html
Great blog, so well organized and you’ve diligently working on it for a long time. I, too, and doing what I can to raise awareness of ALEC. I wonder if you could consider commenting on my “Inside the Walkout” post:
Oakland OUSD elected member proposed new policy with the express purpose of destroying public schools. https://www.facebook.com/OpenOakPublicEdNetwork/photos/pcb.1879825628775861/1879825595442531/?type=3
Rebecca Klein continues her stellar reporting: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-students-disabilities-inequality_us_5adf3cf9e4b07be4d4c533c5
Secretary DeVos met with state Teachers of the Year. Didn’t go so well: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/betsy-devos-top-teachers_us_5ae79725e4b055fd7fcef147
“But Hazell, a Republican who voted for President Donald Trump, said he found DeVos’ responses to his concerns unsatisfactory.”
Gee, I guess Hazell didn’t pay attention during the election. He is shocked, shocked I tell you! The standards (excused the pun-ish reference) for Teacher of the Year in Oklahoma must be quite low.
Elizabeth Warrens outs the billionaires who want to destroy public education and teachers unions.
Why rise salaries for Americans when you can get teachers from the Philippines
Districts That They’re Recruiting Overseas – The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/arizona-teachers-philippines.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Feducation&action=click&contentCollection=education®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront
BASIS has figured out how to game the U.S. News and World Report rankings: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings
The US News rankings don’t tell you the attrition rate or how many students actually graduated or whether students were not allowed to graduate unless they were already accepted in a four-year college.
Right! (It’s hard not to think USN&WR doesn’t get some benefit from those schools.)
“A culture of fear”: http://www.richmond.com/news/plus/a-culture-of-fear-how-the-teacher-evaluation-system-richmond/article_173a63b9-baff-5427-b8e1-b5cc00e9045a.html
Skandera is an issue in New Mexico governor’s race: http://nmindepth.com/2018/05/04/a-look-at-issues-at-dem-governors-forum/
Key section of article:
Because of former Education Secretary Hanna Skandera’s polarizing nature, one of the more interesting answers of the evening was when the candidates were asked the qualities they are looking for in the next education secretary. (You can hear answers at minute 32.)
Cervantes led off by talking about voting against Skandera despite pressure Gov. Susana Martinez put on southern New Mexico legislators. He said the question he was being asked at the time was whether she had the minimum qualifications to run PED. “The most important thing in the next secretary is not meeting the minimum expectations, it’s someone who exceeds the highest expectations and qualifications we could have.” He said he wants a secretary who sees teachers as collaborators, not as the cause of the problem.
Apodaca said he did not agree on the need for an education secretary, preferring an education strategy that comes from the “community up” that empowered teachers, principals and superintendents. But, he said, “you have my word that the secretary will come from the field, will come from New Mexico.”
Lujan Grisham said Skandera was given a particular task by Martinez: to destroy public education in New Mexico, as she had done in Florida. “What New Mexico requires and deserves is a secretary of public education who is clear about restoring the trust, dignity, faith and respect in our public education system,” she said.
Great editorial by candidate for Lieutenant Governor in New Mexico:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/it-s-time-to-end-parcc-testing-in-new-mexico/article_5c22c08a-5236-535c-b9d3-45f41df691d0.html
Plunderbund continues its stellar reporting on ECOT: http://plunderbund.com/2018/05/13/while-going-out-of-business-ecot-continued-to-enrich-the-lager-family/
Diane,
The following might interest you regarding the PROMISE program related to the Parkland shooter – Cruz. It seems there have been a number of articles indicating that the program maybe ONE of many reasons for the shooter and congress was called upon to investigate the possibility by Sen. Rubio.
Students of color and with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by exclusionary discipline practices. New data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reveals that Black and Latino students are twice as likely to be pushed out of school. During the 2015–16 school year, Black students represented 15 percent of the total student enrollment, and 31 percent of the students who were referred to law enforcement or arrested. And, students with disabilities represented 12 percent of the overall student enrollment and 28 percent of the students referred to law enforcement or arrested.
These disparities in school discipline practices start early. A 2014 OCR report found that while Black children make up 18 percent of pre-K enrollment, they represent 48 percent of pre-K children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension.
In 2014, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice released guidance to help states, districts, and schools address their use of exclusionary discipline and begin to implement research-based practices to promote positive school climate with a focus on civil rights.
The Trump Administration has floated the idea of revoking this guidance. What will that mean for students of color and with disabilities? How can advocates continue to shine a light on the disparate impact of exclusionary discipline practices?
Please join New America, the National Black Child Development Institute, and the Greater Washington Urban League for a conversation on the school to prison pipeline.
Registration will begin at 5:30 pm, accompanied by light refreshments.
This New America event is co-sponsored with the National Black Child Development Institute and the Greater Washington Urban League. This event was made possible due to the generous support from the W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation and the Alliance for Early Success.
Participants:
Tyra Mariani, @tyram25
Executive Vice President, New America
Dr. Andre Perry, @andreperryedu
David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Brookings Institution
Dr. Ivory Toldson, @toldson
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Negro Education
Professor, Howard University School of Education
Anise Walker
School Climate Specialist & Restorative Justice Coordinator, District of Columbia Public Schools
Moderator:
Ameshia Cross, @ameshiacross
Director of Policy and External Relations, National Black Child Development Institute and Civic Engagement Chair of Thursday Network, Greater Washington Urban League Young Professionals
School to Prison Pipeline: Decriminalizing Public Education
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
740 15th Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
What is the course of actions to change the “disparities”?
Are you claiming these children “pushed out of school” for violations are innocent?
It sounds like you want to close these percentage, even them out, just the Common Core philosophy.
WHEN WILL THE PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN GET HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS?
Not JScheidell! He is a Trumper. He wants them in prison.
I think the Trumpers want to send children born to poverty straight to prison soon after they are born. Eventually, everyone born into poverty will grow up in prison and have children of their own … born in prison to live there all their lives.
Again and again it’s President Donald Trump’s fault. Next you’ll be calling me racist.
It’s not the kid’s nor the parents responsibilities for their actions. It’s the fault of anyone and everyone else in poverty stricken communities and because they can’t afford free public education.
I don’t have to call you a racist. You just did that to yourself.
You said, “It’s not the kid’s nor the parents responsibilities for their actions. It’s the fault of anyone and everyone else in poverty stricken communities and because they can’t afford free public education.”
But I’m not going to call you a racist. A segregationist, yes.
I was born into a family living in poverty. During the Great Depression, my parents were forced to drop out of high school and find jobs to survive.
My older brother and sister grew up in that poverty, but our father, with help, landed a union job in construction and started to earn a livable wage. I was about four or five when that happened.
My parents did not have the knowledge to help me become a better student until my mother asked my second, 1st-grade teacher for advice so she could teach me to read at home. I was seven by then and at seven I could not read.
By age ten I was an avid reader and a lover of books. Even though my mother managed to teach me to read when the schools couldn’t because they didn’t have what was needed to work with children like me, my parents still didn’t know what they could do to help me do better in school.
I can’t blame them.
But for many children living in poverty (1 in 4 in the U.S.), hunger is real and having parents that work two or more jobs that pay poverty wages is real and getting worse.
The U.S. has more children living in poverty than all but one of the other OECD nations and that country is Hungry.
What are the Trumpists doing for those people living in poverty? They are doing NOTHING, and I’ll tell you what they aren’t doing.
And there is so much more these ignorant deplorable fools are not doing.
What can we learn from other countries that we are not doing here for disadvantaged children that live in poverty?
Lloyd,
Still blaming Trumpsters but avoiding the issue – Obama’s program which Max Eden of the Manhattan Institute has documented how these same discipline policies allowed the Parkland, Florida school shooter to slip through the school discipline cracks without an arrest record. An arrest record would have prevented him from legally buying the gun with which he murdered 17 people. Broward County, site of the Parkland shooting, was one of the nation’s first school districts to implement “restorative justice” policies the Obama Department of Education pushed on school districts. Dozens of similar stories have come out since the Parkland shooting.
Diane originally noted that when this program first came to light that she disliked the idea that this PROMISE program had anything to do with it.
Broward Co is not the only district adopting Obama’s program – which has had successes with students who attended the program – Cruz seemingly did not. Education Secretary DeVos is “considering” repealing the Obama administration’s Dear Colleague guidance letter that pushed these discipline policies, The dept has met with parents of children who have suffered under the new discipline policies.
American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, support the guidance as a way to fight “institutional racism,” despite rank-and-file teachers reporting declining school safety, as well as being assaulted and threatened.
The Obama policy was intended to reduce the suspensions of black students. Cruz is not black.
Diane,
Correct – that Cruz was not of the correct color as noted in the program – but he was assigned to PROMISE
Much of this failed response can be traced to pressure from the U.S. Department of Education to disrupt the “school to prison pipeline.”
One program BCPS had established to deal with “obstreperous, or even criminal, students – without suspending or expelling them or involving law enforcement — was the Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentors, Interventions, Supports & Education (PROMISE) program.” PROMISE was part of a Collaborative Agreement on School Discipline signed by BCPS, the Sheriff’s Office, and others to govern how to handle these students.
Broward County Sheriff’s Union president Jeff Bell said PROMISE was partly to blame for the shooter’s escaping arrest, because it “took all discretion away from the law enforcement officers to effect an arrest if we chose to.” BCPS has now confirmed that the shooter was indeed assigned to the federally lauded, vehemently protected, but tragically ineffective PROMISE program. It’s not clear how much of the program he went through, but he was in fact sent to PROMISE rather than to jail.
The post Parkland Shooter Was Involved in PROMISE Program as noted bt WLRN – The PROMISE program allows students who commit certain misdemeanors — there’s an official list of 13 — at school to avoid getting involved with the criminal justice system. Instead, they attend the alternative school, where they receive counseling and other support.
Some of those infractions are petty theft under $300, trespassing, vandalism, possession or sale of alcohol or marijuana, bullying, harassment, fighting or assault that doesn’t result in an injury.
Runcie – superintendent has said about 1,600 to 2,000 students participate in PROMISE each year. An intervention program for minor offenses – Cruz was assigned to Promise but may not have attended.
Put them all in jail? 1600-2,000 kids?
Diane,
Not changing the subject – I believe the program was directed to handle minority students, as well, but Holder and Obama didn’t want the program strictly directed to those 2 classes
So rather than ask questions ” Put them all in jail? 1600-2,000 kids?” I challenge you to offer a solution to end mass incarceration without endangering the public. How can reform efforts keep violent offenders off the streets while still decreasing America’s high prison population? Obama’s idea might not have been a bad solution, and yes, some students did benefit – but many things were not carried thru.
Broward County teaches us how not to fix the crisis. Stopping the “school-to-prison” pipeline by simply refusing to arrest violent students carries with it unacceptably high costs.
Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations published a comprehensive report that reached this conclusion:
“Despite committing a string of arrest able offenses on campus before the Florida school shooting, Nikolas Cruz was able to escape the attention of law enforcement, pass a background check and purchase the weapon he used to slaughter three staff members and 14 fellow students because of Obama administration efforts to make school discipline more lenient.”
Max Eden, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute specializing in school discipline reform and disorder, wrote in a USA Today op-ed last March that the Obama administration’s changes to school discipline had a dangerous result to public education all over the country. According to Eden,” it pressured school officials and teachers to underreport or not report serious incidents committed by students.” “So they reclassified about a dozen problems as being potentially police related. Not surprisingly the rate of arrests plummeted. If you don’t arrest kids for things, then your arrest rates will go down which they did [in Broward]. They got really great public attention for it. The Obama administration brought them in and said they were a national model now that they’re getting their arrest rates down.”
“So, the Obama administration issued federal guidance putting school districts on notice that even if their discipline policy was ‘neutral on its face’ and ‘administered in an evenhanded manner,’ they could be subject to a federal civil rights investigation if minorities were suspended at a higher rate,” Eden wrote. “Partly in response to federal pressure, over 50 school districts, serving 6.35 million students, implemented reforms and 27 states revised their laws regarding school discipline.”
Cruz, according to The Washington Post, had a long history of escalating behavioral problems which got to the point of some teachers becoming scared of him.
Rubio was on the Senate floor proposing changes to the PROMISE Program –
RUBIO: I intend to propose changes to the federal youth PROMISE Program so that a school district plan under this program does not delay and does not discourage law enforcement from being alerted to dangerous and violent or hazardous behavior. This deranged killer was able to buy guns on 10 separate occasions because he would have passed every — any background check because none of the stuff that was known about him was reported to that system. The guy wasn’t African-American. He wasn’t a minority.” I know. They couldn’t just say give African-Americans and minorities a pass. That would have been seen immediately.
So basically it was a blanket proposition to look at the other way on certain types of criminal behavior and crimes. And they were things that were more than just misdemeanors.
jscheidell asks, “How can reform efforts keep violent offenders off the streets while still decreasing America’s high prison population?”
What reform efforts are you talking about?
Do you know how many “violent offenders” are in US prisons?
Drug offenses make up 46.2 percent of the inmates in US prisons.
Homicide, aggravated assault, and kidnapping offenses make up 3.2 percent of the total.
Here’s a link to the list:
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp
And that is just the Federal Bureau of Prisons
Time Magazine says “30% of Prisoners Should Not Be in Prison”
“Crime exploded in the 1980s and 90s. Officials responded with harsh sentencing laws that had little impact and ironically may have made things worse. Now that crime is down, we need to change our approach. Instead of doubling down on the failed draconian policies of the past, based on vengeance, we have an opportunity to rethink how America punishes people who break the law and ground those decisions in what we know works.
“With 2.2 million people in prison, mass incarceration is the greatest moral and racial injustice of our time. We need bold solutions to solve this crisis, but few systemic solutions exist.”
http://time.com/4596081/incarceration-report/
The promise program was to lower the reporting of crime(s) for all students. That was the accomplishment the school meet to receive I think it was $500.000.00 from President Obama.
Diane,
What I would like to see is a stop to a program where leniency instead of discipline is pushed and allow dangerous students endless “second chances,” How about instituting a discipline policy which is a benefit to the child and the children around him in the community which does not look the other way regarding weapons issues, and violent actions – According to the county’s chief juvenile probation officer Broward now has the highest percentage of “the most serious, violent [and] chronic” juvenile offenders in Florida, Cruz had, as we see in hind sit, brought bullets to school, physical altercations, and issued criminal threats to fellow students – never resulted in a criminal record.
By 2016, after just a few years under the new discipline policies being praised and copied around the country, Broward County schools had the highest ratio of cases involving weapons in Florida.
No, Diane, I do not believe just throwing them into jail is the answer but I bet there are 17 students, their parents and the community might think otherwise
Real Clear investigations found that since relaxing of discipline,” Broward youths have not only brazenly punched out their teachers, but terrorized Broward neighborhoods with drive-by shootings, gang rapes, home invasions and carjackings.” Is there a connection to the lax, look the other way policy in school to that of ones off the school grounds?
Letters to the Department of Education and Department of Justice from Rubio to investigate the evidence regarding the discipline and arrest policies of Broward County schools, in agreement with Sheriff Scott Israel’s department, played a critical role in the Parkland tragedy.
What did Obama’s efforts to reduce disparate discipline of black kids have to do with Cruz of Parkland. He is not black. You are changing the subject.
Gary,
Never said they were innocent….a poor inference. Let them out – Common Core? Never alluded to that I wonder what you read.
The Common Core Philosophy is to close the gap between the kids with hire scores and the kids with low scores. So make the curriculum easier for the low scoring students wish in return puts the high scoring kids to sleep. So the kids, yellow, brown, black, white, green or what ever color they choose for that day, are in schools disrupting and preventing the kids who are there to learn and the worst part is these kids are pulling resources from the kids who want to learn.
Everyone want to stop bullying but no one wants the bullies to be removed.
So your in a Public Library and it’s quiet, as it should be, and a couple kids come in making a lot of noise disrupting everyone who are doing their quiet business. Should the quiet people have to put up with the disruptions or should the people being disrupting be asked to be quiet or leave?
Diane,
I forgot the quote marks starting at “Students of color……
If jail or special program(s) is warranted then so be it. The kids who want to learn shouldn’t have to deal with the disruptions. They go to school to learn.
PS, In school suspension should be banned.
Buy a piece of ECOT. Interesting to see how they spent some of their public funding: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2018/05/buy_a_piece_of_ecot.html
Reading jscheidell’s comments about discipline and the consequences to children caught up in the justice system for in-school acts that were once within the purview of school administrators is a reminder of how many people who are not educators and lack any training in education believe they have all the answers to schools’ persistent problems.
Few children are violent. Those who are generally have some mental health issue – bipolar disease, sexual assault, exposure to violence or trauma. Extreme poverty exacerbates all of these. These kids can indeed disrupt a classroom (though the number of 17 other children is ludicrously low) and should not be allowed to continue to do so. But when schools lack social workers, guidance counselors, school psychologists and have huge class sizes and service kids who lack any health care, especially mental health care, is the solution to jail the children instead?
I’m reminded of a seventh grade boy I taught more than 30 years ago. He was often angry, had irregular attendance, found it difficult to concentrate on his schoolwork. One spring day, in gym class, he punched a little girl in the face with a closed fist because she was taking too long to kick the ball in a game.
We sent for his mother, but she refused to come to school for what she said was an unimportant event. When she finally came, she explained that she was at her wits’ end with her son, who often disappeared from their apartment. She had been fighting with the housing authority to get her an apartment on a lower level than their sixth floor because she had twice caught her son trying to push his younger sister out of the window. She seldom slept through the night, nor did anyone else in the family. We had no help we could offer her, aside from testing for an IEP, or trying for an appointment at a community health center with a wait list of months.
In a quiet moment one day, I took the boy aside and asked what was going on. He told me there was a man he “did things” for. He went to the man’s apartment when the man wanted help. Sometimes, he told the man when other people were coming along a certain street. Sometimes, he delivered packages for the man. The man gave him money and he gave some of the money to his mother, but would not tell her how he got the money. I assumed it was drugs at the time, but later it occured to me that perhaps the man also pimped this child.
I don’t know what happened to him. The school year ended, and he did not return to school the following year. Most any thoughtful, experienced teacher has run across a child like this one. Nikolas Cruz was a troubled child who grew into a troubled young adult. (And he has the facial features commonly associated with fetal alcohol syndrome, which may be why he was placed with an adoptive family.) Effective mental health treatment perhaps would have avoided the tragedy Cruz is responsible for.
Draconian discipline for every child attending public schools would not.
Christine,
As a retired school counselor after 36 years I do not lack the ed background. The comments were regarding the PROMISE program fostered by Obama and Holder and along with Runcie. I never would say I have all the answers to school problems – except one – keep the politicians and govt out of school. “Draconian discipline for every child attending public schools would not.” – I Concur – the discipline policy of looking the other way and NOT addressing these students is never the issue either.
If you remember I first brought this PROMISE program up a while back after the shooting and, I stand to be corrected, but Diane indicated she wanted no parts of accepting this as a reason for Cruz the shooter – and instead, as most respondents here , the NRA was/is the bad guy and Davis Hogg became the tool to front the story of the NRA as the problem. Very little anger directed to Cruz! But as more info comes to light, a Rubio call to congress for an investigation and more press to question it, the topic resurfaces.
The PROMISE Program started in Chicago by the current superintendent in the school district in Broward – Robert Runcie . The premise of the PROMISE Program is federal grants. This happened under the Obama administration and Eric Holder. The money came from the Department of Justice – 500,000 I believe went to Broward after reducing their numbers and at the same time becoming the model for he program expansion.
It originated from the premise that the Obama and Holder held that the prison population is disproportionately minority and African-American because of injustice in America. They had to basically extend this policy to types crime rather than types of perp. So various misdemeanors — and some crimes that are above misdemeanor but not full-fledged Class A felonies — were ignored by everybody committing them. And the reward for behaving was federal money. So the incentive to ignore crime was monetized by a program called the PROMISE Program instituted by Obama and Holder
You have the black population, estimated 15, 20%; the prison population of minorities and African-Americans can be 60%. So they believe that bigotry and racism is resulting in charges and convictions against innocent minority perps.
Runcie ““While other districts have amended their discipline codes, prohibited arrests in some circumstances, and developed alternatives to suspension, Broward was able to do all these things at once with the cooperation of a group that included a member of the local NAACP, a school board member, a public defender, a local sheriff, a state prosecutor, and several others. In early November, The Miami Herald reported that suspensions were already down 40 percent and arrests were down 66 percent.””
According to WJCT First Coast News (an NPR affiliate), Runcie’s spokeswoman Tracy Clark indicated that Cruz’s records were being “aggressively analyzed.” Clark admitted that a connection had been confirmed: Cruz was referred to the PROMISE Program following a bathroom vandalism incident at the middle school in 2013.
Clark further explained that, although Cruz appeared for the intake interview, there is no record of him completing the three-day assignment that had been recommended for him. She “did not want to speculate” as to the reason that he did not attend the program, and did not provide any information explaining why the school district failed to follow up on his failure to attend.
I feel one should rid political slogans, but focused on solutions – It means recognizing and proactively treating mental illness, which has afflicted so many of those involved in mass public attacks.
Because making sure there will be no more Columbines or Sandy Hooks or Parklands means taking real action. 2 parents of children lost in the shooting are running for school board, one – Mr. Petty, noted that the Promise program was one issue they would address to insure the safety of the students.
All of the prevention that was in place and none of it was used, . The NRA remains the number one culprit and the number one target. 18 states don’t even report data to the background check system? So what good is it, if the data isn’t even there? If there were perps that are not being arrested, that are not being charged, they will not show up in a background check when they go to buy a gun.
A (former) teacher in (Devos’) Michigan: https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/he-loved-teaching-math-michigan-then-he-quit-manage-chick-fil
You have been such a supporter of teacher activists–I thought you might be interested in this article, “When teachers become activists.” The Badass Teachers and many other groups are mentioned as part of a larger countermovement against high-profile “reformers.”
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0031721718775674
Article is behind pay wall
Hello Diane, FYI: Under the link below from the LA Times is Bill Gates’ book list for summer reading. One of the “comments” about the article read:
“I have a book for Bill to read, ‘The Death and Life of the Great American Public School System,’ by Diane Ravitch. He owns it. So does The Times via Eli Broad.” FYI/CBK
OOOPs. Here is the link for the Gates book list article I mentioned below:
http://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-bill-gates-books-20180522-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter
Great article by Thomas Frank on Education and NeoLiberal fantasies of fixing Education in American simply by firing teachers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/21/teacher-strikes-schools-neoliberal-fantasy-debunking
More on education policy from New Mexico gubernatorial candidates: https://www.abqjournal.com/1173670/teacher-evaluations-likely-to-be-overhauled.html
A unusually balanced media review of Louisiana test scores: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/low-naep-scores-result-of-computer-illiteracy-says-supt-john-white/
John White had been promising that test scores would rise dramatically under his brilliant leadership. He got an early copy of the NAEP scores and blamed the decline on computers.
Right! This article — as you and/or Mercedes have on this blog in the past — nicely quoted Mr. White’s previous dismissive reply to a teacher who made a similar complaint with regards to Louisiana’s internal testing. I hope the White-backing reformers never get a super-majority on Louisiana’s BESE.
Diane, I thought you might be interested in this one from The Washington Post.
“One roadblock to arming teachers; Insurance compaines”
“Kansas has a problem: It has a law allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom, but almost no schools are using it because insurance companies refuse to provide coverage if they do.”
I read that and broke out laughing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/one-roadblock-to-arming-teachers-insurance-companies/ar-AAxQBmh?ocid=spartandhp
And I’m still laughing.
Couldn’t help noting this excerpt from former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer’s autobiography. He talks about how his farming family would often discuss education and civil rights.
“…From our farmhouse in the Deep South, we believed that equality of education was the essential first step. Education was the key to future progress, for blacks and those with redneck prejudices. This would lead to full citizenship regardless of color. We knew the lack of education on behalf of young farm laborers on Scopena, and we came to understand that those attending the black schools in our parish were not getting a good education. Full, unified public education was the beginning answer, we thought, one that everyone would see and support.
We failed to see that it would take years and years to achieve school equality. This would not be accomplished with the passing of a law, or by a presidential decree only. It would take death and destruction and much time for this to happen. The stain of racial prejudice had, and has, spread across America and, to erase it, countless acts of personal confession and personal courage will be required.
Years later one of our own, my son Chas (Charles E. Roemer IV), became president of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for eight years, in charge of K-12 public education for the entire state of Louisiana. My daughter, Caroline, became head of the public charter school movement in Louisiana, not only establishing charter schools as an alternative education for public school children in Louisiana but insisting that charter schools provide openings for blacks, too.
Both Caroline and Chad participated in the public school revolution in Louisiana some twenty-five years after I was governor. I could give them almost no political assistance in their battles, because my political time was long gone. They did it mainly on their own. And no two people have done more for public education as have Chas and Caroline in that quarter century. Their Poppa is proud of them…”
I should note that Governor Roemer takes numerous gratuitous shots at teacher unions throughout the book and takes pride in being one of the earliest Ed Reformers.
No two people did more to advance privatization and support the Bobby Jindal GOP agenda than Chas and Caroline Roemer. They gleefully undermined public schools. I DEBATED Chas Roemer a few years back and was astonished by his inability to defend the radical rightwing agenda he supported
Lol! Maybe that’s what he meant, Diane. Btw, is that debate available anywhere? Would LOVE to watch it.
I found it, Diane. Loved your talk. Didn’t care for your adversary’s.
For anyone interested:
The debate: http://ladigitalmedia.org/video_v2/asset-detail/LNWMK-0510
Some commentators:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_c7cd0d29-2ae4-577c-9123-6531238844b9.html
http://la.aft.org/news/ravitch-and-roemer-debate-education-reform-baton-rouge
Thank you for that!
Diane
DIANE
I found this to be an interesting look at the “gap”
Talking with children matters: Defending the 30 million word gap
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Erika Hoff, Meredith Rowe, Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, and Kathy Hirsh-PasekMonday, May 21, 2018
“Home is where our story begins…” so the argument that a child’s early experiences at home perpetuate social inequality is understandably contentious. That controversy garnered new attention in 1995 when researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley reported that children of highly educated, professional parents heard many more words addressed to them than children of less educated parents. Counting the number of words per hour addressed to children in the homes of professional families, working-class families, and families on public assistance, they extrapolated that by the time children were 4-years-old, advantaged children had roughly 30 million more words addressed to them than the least advantaged—a finding often referred to as the “30 million word gap.” Subsequent study of the same children, along with other research, established that differences in early language experiences are related to a host of academic and social differences among children and the adults they become. Language is the currency of education and is associated with reading ability, income, healthcare outcomes, and high school graduation rates. Therefore, children who start out with lower language skills are projected to have lower school readiness scores and will follow a dampened trajectory through school and life.
Authors
R
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education – University of Delaware
E
Erika Hoff
Professor of Psychology – Florida Atlantic University
M
Meredith Rowe
Associate Professor – Harvard Graduate School of Education
C
Catherine Tamis-LeMonda
Professor of Applied Psychology – New York University
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Senior Fellow – Global Economy and Development, Center for Universal Education Professor of Psychology – Temple University
@KathyandRo1
Though subsequent research has supported a word gap, a recent “failed replication” published in the journal Child Development challenges the original Hart and Risley finding. Douglas Sperry, Linda Sperry, and Peggy Miller make two points based on recordings made in homes of preschool children in five different primarily poor and working-class communities. First, they find variation in the amount of speech addressed to children and that this variation is unrelated to socioeconomic status. Second, Hart and Risley defined children’s environments too narrowly by counting only speech addressed to the child. When ambient speech within the child’s hearing is counted, differences related to socioeconomic status disappear.
As researchers in the field of language development, we take issue with Sperry et al.’s empirical claims. Further, we do not support their conclusion nor the policy implications that arise in its wake.
ON THE SCIENCE
Perhaps the most critical problem with the purported “failed replication” is that the newly published research is not a replication. The Sperry team only studied families who were of middle- or low-income status. The original study that noted a 30 million word gap calculated amount of talk in the highest income families (the “professional” group) vs the lowest income families (the “welfare” group). The Sperry research contains no high-income group! Although one could quibble about the 30-million-word count (e.g., was it 25 million?) or the labels that they used to represent the income groups, the fact remains that there are many studies that affirm a large difference between both the amount and quality of language used in parent-child interactions associated with socio-economic disparity.
Their second claim—that variation exists within income levels—is an important one but has already been well established in the literature. Variation within groups does not negate the finding that overall, the average amount of language addressed to children across income groups is widely different.
Finally, the Sperry team raises the interesting question of the role of overheard language in the home. This is a topic of legitimate scientific debate and inquiry. But we do know the answer to this question for children just beginning their language-learning journey. As the Sperry team acknowledge in their paper, these children learn best from speech directed to them by their caregivers creating conversations that build on children’s interests. There is no debate here. Differences in the quantity and quality of child-directed language are associated with differences in children’s language growth—both within and between socioeconomic strata.
Related
E
Early Childhood Development: the Promise, the Problem, and the Path Forward
Teaching problem solving: Let students get ‘stuck’ and ‘unstuck’
What is the role of teachers in preparing future generations?
Thus, the Sperry et al., claims rest on the questionable assertion – in the absence of data — that overheard speech is equally supportive of children’s language acquisition as is child-directed speech. The science tells us that this is not true.
ON THE POLICY
Data from Hart and Risley, among many others, offered renewed focus on the importance of building strong language as a foundation for learning. In fact, a recent study by Amy Pace and her colleagues found that a child’s language competency in kindergarten predicts later language, math, reading, and social abilities up to 5th grade and is the best early indicator of success. Because language is so important as a foundation for learning, the Hart and Risley findings motivated programs like Providence Talks, Vroom’s brain-building tips, and the Too Small to Fail initiatives, all of which put the lens on the power of early learning for later success.
The new paper by Sperry and colleagues is already being used to fuel a discussion that the socioeconomic-status-related word gap has been greatly exaggerated. This is a shame. While Sperry and colleagues correctly argue that we need to learn more about how children from all backgrounds learn and develop, that argument should not and must not undercut the significance of what we soundly know about child development: Young children do not profit from overheard speech about topics of interest to adults. Public programs and intervention efforts should continue to encourage caregivers and teachers to talk with young children about child-friendly topics. Narrowing achievement gaps and social inequities requires closing gaps in this important area of early experience.
Jscheidell: There is also long-term critical research coming from the Adult Education wing of education in America (and worldwide) that speaks to the relationship of parents’ to children’s basic reading and educational level.
I am a long-term lurker on the National Literacy Association’s online group (AAACE-NLA). One of the researchers who often posts there, Tom Stitcht, recently complained about the field’s being overlooked “once again.” The complaint is that, though many are interested in the inter-generational transfer of education from parents to children, they still seem to want to zero-in on pre-K and K-12 programming, “once again” overlooking the whole field of adult education and literacy programs which have been around and working in the trenches, so to speak, in the US and over the world for a very long time.
Below is a brief paragraph from that note–see part 2 of the trilogy (highlighted). The new e-book (pdf) that Sticht refers to can be googled by its title (linked below).
Quote from Stitcht’s note: “Colleagues: Late in the fall of 2017 I released a new e-book entitled ‘The Struggle for Adult Literacy Education in America: A Trilogy of Notes on History, Research, Policy, & Practice in Adult Literacy Education’. The Trilogy included three parts. Part 1: Fighting Illiteracy in Times of War; Part 2: From Oracy to Literacy and Back Again: Investing in the Education of Adults to Improve the Educability of Children; and Part 3: Adult Education for Social Justice & Workforce Development.”
Click to access Bk+Trilogy.1.pdf
FYI/CBK
Re-Posted to AAACE-National Literacy Association googlegroup. CBK
Serendipity at work. I have been writing about the diminishing capacity of our citizens to use words. Texting, using that tiny keyboard, demands the smallest use of words to express anything. No longer are email LETTERS the way families write to each other. ..and email replaced snail mail, and real letters, that contained information and ideas.
Soon, few people will be able to use words to write.
People do not even SPEAK to many people. They text, and thus, tone is lost, too.
In Shakespeare’s day, over 50,000 words were in use by the population.
IN Texas, there is a theater for kids, called ImprovED Shakespeare,. In this clip, the kids actually mention the use of words back then; https://improvedshakespeare.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/improved-shakespeares-merchant-of-venice/
This amazing theater, where kids have fun learning to speak, was created by Filmmaker Andee KInzy, as part of a home-school curricula. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u-ajrLYyIc
You should hear the children who have been speaking these words since they were 7 years old…like MY grandkids. Andee is their mother.
My grandson is 12 now, but here he is in Winter’s Tale, at 5;27/10:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js0tgFC3KSA&index=3&list=PL7xHO_u0s9tBOPmmUK8fiS3hSiMEJZZ55
What is happening now in America to our children’s capacity to use language, will have its impact on what our citizens know, and what they can say., and how they can think.
SAD!
Diane,
Can you explain this chart posted by Mike Petrilli on Twitter showing a decreasing gap between state and NAEP proficiency scores since Common Core?
?
My understanding is that Common Core has led many states to make their tests harder, almost as hard as NAEP. But it has had no effect on student test scores.
The context in which to view this is that reformers use NAEP Proficient as a goal for all students, which is absurd. In no state but Massachusetts have even 50% of students reached NAEP Proficient.
The realistic goal for all is NAEP Basic.
Article on current Reform views on teacher evaluation: https://www.future-ed.org/why-teacher-evaluation-reform-has-succeeded-and-why-it-hasnt/
JEB thinks Reforms are working in Florida: https://www.the74million.org/article/jeb-bush-floridas-rising-naep-scores-show-education-reforms-are-working-for-all-students-in-the-state/
Hello Diane: “Reject the Con, Education is Infrastructure. When public institutions are subsumed by private interests, we all get fleeced.”
Below is an article in Inside Education saying also that “charter schools are the new Enron.” The link and a few snippets are below:
“. . . Running institutions which are not meant to be corporations like corporations just doesn’t work.
“Consider public higher education, where years of austerity and moves toward privatization have resulted in what Christopher Newfield has identified as ‘the great mistake,’ creating institutions which run far less efficiently than if they were treated as public goods, driven by mission. . . .
“. . . The cycle of waste is perhaps more pronounced in K-12 education. Because of a combination of low pay and being fed up with the relentless focus on standardized testing and its concomitant outside meddling, my home state of South Carolina (like many other states) is hemorrhaging teachers.
“Meanwhile, the state has funneled more than $350 million over a 10-year period to ‘online charter schools’ with ‘dismal results’ to show for it.
The current leadership of the federal Department of Education wants to double and triple down on these failed policies. Meanwhile, there’s no evidence that ‘competition’ improves the quality of schools.
It sure doesn’t save public money either. Fraud inside the charter sector is so common that a paper in the Indiana Law Journal asks if charter schools are the new Enron.
It’s not even that all charter schools are frauds. Even those charters on the up and up extract money that goes to purposes other than education. Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academies has a salary equivalent to over 50 dollars per student served.
“The chancellor of the New York City public schools is paid 40 cents per student.
“The study on the economic harm of losing a local paper breaks new ground, but in hindsight, we should see it as perfectly obvious, the same way we should be able to see through the talk of austerity and competition as routes to making education more efficient and more effective.
“Education is infrastructure, not a business opportunity.
“It’s a lie, a con job, a way to extract public money for private gain and it’s happening over and over again.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/reject-con-education-infrastructure?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3a3af1db12-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3a3af1db12-198488425&mc_cid=3a3af1db12&mc_eid=f743ca9d07
Diane: Here is a video/interview of Ted Dintersmith, a venture capitalist who visited schools all over the country and wrote “What Schools Could Be: Insights and inspiration from Teachers across America.”
He turns the idea of “entrepreneurial” on its head. One quote: “We’ve turned our schools into test-prep factories.” He speaks with such enthusiasm about the importance and actual presence of of teacher-inspiration. One end-of-talk question: How should we evaluate teachers? “Certainly not the way we are doing it now.”
A worthwhile look-see:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?444678-2/what-school-be
Friends: Portland, OR, where I live and still teach elementary school (subbing now) has a rightwing outfit called the Cascade Policy Institute. They concocted an editorial lauding a charter school funding group begun by a Walton and (now deceased) Ted Forstmann. The billionaires with all the answers. I rebutted this piece tonight with the following editorial of my own but I am wondering if anyone knows more about the machinations of this group: the Children’s Scholarship Fund? Please contact me directly if so, and thanks. Mark
To
Message body
On May 31, 2018, the Portland Tribune ran a My View written by Ms. Kathryn Hickok titled “Private schools help low-income kids.” I certainly want to second the notion that many students who come from low-income families need help to succeed. In fact, low income is a leading indicator of potential problems for many reasons. Families that are struggling, often working multiple jobs just to make ends meet, have a difficult time providing the time needed to read with kids at home or buy books. Even getting to the library can be a bridge too far for some families. In addition, multiple research efforts have documented the other impacts of poverty on children’s educational attainment involving myriad aspects of life including nutrition, homelessness, care of siblings, being shamed or bullied, and many, many other things.
Sadly, Ms. Hickok failed to mention these complex issues that real families face in her effort to pat the Children’s Scholarship Fund on the back for their efforts. A number of things were glossed over in her piece. The founders of this organization – one of the Walton heirs and a billionaire, now deceased, named Ted Forstmann – combined to give $100 million dollars to get things off the ground. She states that, to date, over $741 million dollars has been given to private schools to off-set the expenses of thousands of children who otherwise would not have access to an allegedly “better than public” education. Okay, that sounds laudable and impressive, but a brief examination on Google will reveal that perhaps there is less here than meets the eye.
Mr. Walton, of the multiple billionaire Walmart fortune and Mr. Forstmann, another multi-billionaire have both amassed staggering fortunes in ways that are troubling when we look closely at the issues of low-income students and education. The Walton family has been rightly criticized for paying their employees such low wages that many, though working for Walmart, qualify for food stamps and other social service help. Yet, the members of this one family alone control more wealth than the combined population of more than 20% of the whole population of this country! Mr. Forstmann, was one of the original “Masters of the Universe,” so-called for his amassing his own unfathomable fortune buying companies and quickly breaking them up and selling the parts. He used a business model that threw many thousands of people out of work. That could not have helped the children of those families in their school years. So, this effort at giving “partial scholarships” for low-income students to attend some “private” schools could be viewed as a trifle of “noblesse oblige”. Perhaps laudable, perhaps only to assuage their guilt at hurting many families to get where they are now.
Finally, my Google search makes it clear that Ms. Hickok’s employer, Cascade Policy Institute receives much of its funding from these same sources. That makes her editorial appear to be nothing but a self-serving paean to her superiors. It is also troubling that there is no context given as to what schools get support through their efforts. And, for all of this money spent, she had to admit that the results are “similar to or higher” than what is achieved in America’s public school classrooms that serve everyone and not the highly selective admission process that most of these charter schools use. Yes, our public schools need help. However, the more that the wealthiest, and corporations, take for themselves from the commonwealth of America the harder it will be to achieve the meritocracy that the Founders envisioned. The Founders knew public education, properly supported by the citizens, could make America great. All of America, not just the few.
Mark Schlemmer
12635 SE Foster Rd
Portland, OR 97236
971-254-7420
Mark,
The Children’s Scholarship Fund is a NYC-based organization founded by Ted Forstmann to promote vouchers. Many very wealthy conservatives supported it.
I am the managing editor of American Learning Library – an amazing and innovative website which provides digital curriculum resources for teachers, students and parents.
We thought your readers might like to know about our new offer of a free summer subscription for students. The offer will help combat summer learning loss by giving kids the chance to access all of our books, videos, games, puzzles and more – all for free, all summer. All of our content is created by our own team of mostly former educators, and there are no external links, making the site 100 percent safe. Students can spend the summer reading and watching videos about subjects ranging from the ancient Egyptians, dinosaurs, the chemical elements and the history of their state.
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lisam@americanlearninglibrary.com
FYI in Illinois: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/06/illinois_budget_teacher_pensions.html
I’m reading a book called “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou about a multi-billion dollar dotcom startup, Theranos, that ended up being a scam from practically the moment it started (If initially well-intended). While the connections to E Reform in our country aren’t as clear cut to me as they were when I read David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest” about our epic failure in Vietnam, I do see many of the same themes. Bottom line is that money and clever talking points from decorated non-experts bought faulty narratives and bullied it’s way to immense profits at the expense of the health and safety of individuals using the products. I invite readers here to see if they find the same parallels that I do. Very readable. Author Calleyrou is the Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who broke the story.
Diane, Have you seen this? “Students revolt against summer homework ‘abuse’ at Success Academy”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-success-academy-homework-20180606-story.html
From Stuart Eizenstat’s new book on Jimmy Carter (pointed out by Richard Fausset of the NYT):
In celebrating the creation of the Department of Education, [Carter] told a joyful crowd, “This thing won’t work as well as you think it will.”
Diane – I assume you saw the article below in the NY Times. A few thoughts:
We finally see the full result of perhaps $5B annually in the US – that all the money tells us pretty much what we already knew and doesn’t tell it to us with any new insight.
Probably someone in the testing regime, though, was thrilled to be able to write “260 million tests”.
Of course, I wrote a blog post once about why big numbers aren’t the same as meaningful numbers. And the lie in this number is that there aren’t 260 million 3rd through 8th graders in the US. So this includes HUGE duplication. Yet the number is bandied about as if it means the research is meaningful. What impact from duplication? I don’t know. But it is a concern.
And would we have learned anything different from sampling methods at a tiny fraction of the cost for our kids educations? Nope.
I’m also amazed at this big claim of boys outperforming girls — except it’s based on the tiniest of change. I know with big numbers people like to think huge volume in the analysis gives them laser like accuracy to identify a .25 grade level advantage. But what is a .25 grade level advantage? About 2 months of schooling? Sure glad we’ve wasted all that testing money. Completely meaningless.
Sadly, I’ve seen quite a bit of this poor quality work from Stanford lately. “Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Rick Hess addresses Campbell’s Law (though doesn’t really pose solutions): http://educationnext.org/education-reforms-obey-campbells-law/
Hello Diane: The below link is to a recent Non-Profit Quarterly article that discusses the increasing tension between (a) the Big Donor Class (BDC<–my term) with their on-campus “non-profits” and “think tanks,” and (b) university boards and presidents in several countries around the world, e.g., Australia and the US. The article gives us a view of just how the power of wealth in the hands of a few who know no boundaries can poison everything they touch.
The article shows how many oligarchs live by the rule of blackmail and extortion. First they are powerful enough, and lawmakers are weak enough, to change the laws and the flow of public monies so that schools and universities slowly starve from lack of funding and support. Second, they come in with their big donations to “save” the schools and universities (“aren’t they WONDERFUL!”). Third, they do what they can to dogmatize the curriculum and make “acceptable” academic appointments. Fourth, they threaten the presidents and boards with withdrawal of funding (if they are not ALREADY in control of those governing bodies), putting the university in a funding bind–fewer and fewer public/tax dollars OR compliance with a few relatively un-tempered oligarchs who either don’t know what they are doing to the vibrant democracy that spawned them, OR who are completely contemptuous of it, and have the means to destroy it.
It seems to me that the trend to “tribalize” or to politicize university practices and curriculum by the BDC (aka: oligarchs), which we know is not-new, but, more recently, has become more and more powerful and intrusive of democratic institutions up-and-down the spectrum of education and civil-democratic culture.
At the background of this trend is a half-hidden and circuitous assumption that equates (a) right-leaning doctrine cum ideology (with its just plain propaganda and notable omissions) with (b) autonomous thought and openness of mind in field and subject studies at the university.
When we interpret everything that happens in political terms ONLY, then the hard-won and embattled autonomy and freedom of thought (see the attempt to erase pre-1400 history in Western History courses as example) becomes automatically equated with the other side or, in this case, “the left.” Civil discourse all-but disappears in the face of dogmatic ideology issuing in a quasi-tribalization of the university and the culture it sits in. If the power is about religious rather than only-political ideology, then the university is viewed as “godless” and the tension is between “god” and the “godless” and the opposition is about those two poles only. The embattled ideal of freedom of thought and ongoing questioning is dispensed with on both grounds–understood from a lower horizon as all-merely-ideological.
It’s “tribal” because when ideology becomes the mainstay of (what goes by the name of) education, the relationship between right and left, god or no-god, becomes a zero-sum-game. Like one tribe’s god cannot suffer the presence of the other tribe’s god, in tribal culture, one god MUST die or become completely subordinate to the tribe in power.
This article shows us just how broad the problem is and is becoming.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/06/15/university-rejects-substantial-donor-over-academic-autonomy/?utm_source=NPQ+Newsletters&utm_campaign=fd6cda9ce3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_11_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_94063a1d17-fd6cda9ce3-12886885
Thank You Catherine. I would like to use this as I write about what is afoot on my stage at this moment in time. History will note this era of transformation, as the cabals that own the world and run it like a fiefdom, use their enormous wealth to ensure an ignorant populations to use a s serfs.
Hello Susan: I think you are right–it’s historic, what is happening now–and certainly transitional, in some way–thought we know not WHICH way.
We know which way the donors want to go, by paying so much to influence higher education, here and abroad, such as to advance white supremacy, including the Koch brothers: http://www.unkochmycampus.org/
Diane, on Twitter last night, I had an exchange with an attorney who offered legal aid to anyone in NY state who has had their TEACH grant converted into a loan. I though you might know how to go about connecting him to those who need help.
I need help interpreting this one (I’m sure it’s not good): https://nypost.com/2018/06/20/white-house-will-propose-merging-education-labor-departments/
I spoke before the council about a Moratorium
https://www.nbcdfw.come /news/local/Dallas-City-leaders-consider-limit-on-recharter-schools-485869311.html?_osource=mobilesharebar
Colorado shows us how to make public education an electoral issue: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/an-attack-from-a-teachers-union-has-the-colorado-governors-race-all-shook-up_us_5b2fc8cce4b0321a01d25d97
Hi Diane, In the wake of the RAND report on the Gates Fdn’s disastrous teacher eval program, something I think getting missed in the ed reporting is that all but one of the schools in the study were using the Danielson Framework–isn’t this major egg-on-the-face for Charlotte Danielson and her product?
On page 73 of the study, they say: “Although sites designed and implemented their observation systems differently, most used Danielson’s FFT as a starting point. All but one of the sites developed rubrics based on the Danielson framework, which meant that these sites emphasized a constructivist approach to pedagogy that involves high levels of student engagement and communication (Danielson Group, undated).
Putting engagement first and fostering constructivism–what a recipe for disaster! And yet, this is what is being used across the US to shape teaching practices! The report indicates that professional development across all sites was linked to the evaluations—yet if these are flawed, then what type of mentoring/instruction are new teachers getting?
It’s like a malignant tumor on American education…
Good point.
I don’t get the point. Constructivism usually involves hands-on, including project-based learning, and that tends to be very engaging. Also, teachers in the study said they got a lot out of the observations. So where is the “malignant tumor”?
“Education Is Labor, Right?”
https://www.laprogressive.com/merging-education-and-labor/
When they combine the Department of Education with the Department of Labor, I’m guessing it’s DeVos who will get to stay on as Secretary, since she has never attended a public school OR had a job in her life, so she matches the belief that leaders need no relevant experience or expertise, just like the incompetent POTUS who’s appointing them.
Happy Birthday Diane!
Here’s an article about more online testing issues with the STAAR test in Texas:
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2018/06/13/staar-woes-continue-texas-tosses-tests-districts-scrutinize-scores
I believe it’s Cory Booker, not Corey Booker.
You are right!
Corrections made.
Louisiana thinks they are the vanguard of what should be done in education: https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2018/07/03/states_must_strengthen_high_school_graduation_requirements_110285.html
(Meanwhile, the Boston Globe has an editorial today from former Governor William Weld saying that Massachusetts is losing ground by not fully embracing charters and test-based accountability.)
Louisiana rankS 48th, 49th, 50th on NAEP. Its scores dropped in 2017, significantly.
Funny to see one of the lowest performing states in the nation bragging.
Exactly, Diane. Louisiana has received absurdly outsized plaudits for its education policies, especially in light of the metrics the Ed Reform community holds most dear.
Here’s where Louisiana excels: https://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/07/louisiana_incarceration_rate.html
And check out the bar graph in this story: https://www.nola.com/expo/news/erry-2018/07/9c5e0ca09a2985/whats-being-said-about-louisia.html
I mentioned the book “Bad Blood” about a month ago on this thread about the fraudulent Silicon Valley company, Theranos. I continue to believe there are major parallels between this scam and the Ed Reform farce we have been witnessing for years. This interview with the author of “Bad Blood” (the Wall Street Journal writer who broke the story) gives a more condensed account of what happened.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-holmes-fooled-everyone_us_5b3145f0e4b0cb56051b5448
ECOT mascot has turned to support public education: http://plunderbund.com/2018/06/29/teachers-education-advocates-call-out-gop-for-200-million-ecot-scandal/
Secretary DeVos not overly popular in her home state: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michigan-gubernatorial-race_us_5b337cf9e4b0b745f17984ea
A judge, Iris Cancio González, of the Superior court of San Juan has just ruled that the laws governing both charter schools and vouchers in Puerto Rico are unconstitutional. I’ll link, but the only source I’ve found is in Spanish.
Click to access Sentencia+Chartes+y+Vales.pdf
Yaaaaayyyy!
That’s great! When you find an English language report, I will post it.
I still don’t see an English language report, but here’s a link which I’ve summarized:
https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/tribunales/nota/declaraninconstitucionaleslasescuelascharter-2433434
/var/folders/hn/j1xzh16976b90xg7frzr8wbr0000gp/T/com.apple.iChat/Messages/Transfers/PR Charter Schools Declared Unconstitutional.docx
Not sure you can open that file; here’s the text:
Charter Schools Declared Unconstitutional
A judge on the First Circuit Court of San Juan yesterday declared charter schools and vouchers, two of the principal programs of the Education Reform Law signed by Governor Ricardo Roselló, to be unconstitutional.
In essence, Superior Judge Iris L. Cancio González determined that both programs are in conflict with the Sustainability Clause of the Puerto Rican Constitution, which prohibits the transfer of public property or funds to private institutions, be they primary or secondary.
The Association of Puerto Rican Teachers, which brought the lawsuit, celebrated the judicial ruling.
“We have always maintained that that both charters and vouchers were unconstitutional. We knew that this court would confirm what is an issue already heard in Puerto Rico by the Supreme Court,” said Aida Díaz, President of the Association.
The reference is to a case decided in 1994, when the high court declared unconstitutional charters and vouchers which former Governor Pedro Roselló [father of the current Governor] was advocating for then. Currently the government had argued, without success, that these programs are different from those proposed two decades ago.
For his part, the secretary of Public Affairs and Public Policy, Rámon Rosario, expressed his disagreement, saying the case would be appealed in the appropriate forum.
“There’s exists extensive jurisprudence at the federal level that validates the model adopted here at the local level. These charters have been successful in other jurisdictions in the nation and in Puerto Rico, with models such as Montessori,” said Rosario.
Conclusions:
In her 39 page ruling, Cancio González declared that the Escuelas Públicas Alianza [which is what charters are officially named, as in a rose by another name] , as defined by Law 85-2018, present a legal structure similar to charters, because they administrated by public or private institutions, but are financed by the State.
“Education Reform creates a legal framework which weighs toward the determination that these are private institutions” indicated the Superior Judge, and pointed out, for example, the fact that they can “with justification” expel students, which is prohibited in the public system.
“The Alianza Schools, although initially a smaller group of schools, promotes precisely what the Constitution intented to prohibit. Its basis creates a financial system which sustains private institutions, which the State may only intervene in to license and to supervise in a limited manner. Moreover, the Alianza Schools are permitted to receive donations, which in some way could influence their educational philosophy and objectives,” she added.
Cancio González pointed out that the Supreme Court has “reiterated the name does not make the thing”. Therefore, calling charters schools Alianza Public Schools makes them no less susceptible to a constitutional veto.
As to vouchers, which Law 8-2018 defined as Free School Choice, the judge ruled that it is practically identical to the law declared invalid in 1994, and that it gave funds to parents so that they could enroll their children in private schools.
Two decades ago, the Supreme Court ruled that these kinds of scholarships or credits were a stimulus intended to benefit private schools.
The ruling also noted that the Association of Teachers has standing to bring suit against Law 85-2018 due to the fact that it is the exclusive representative of public school teachers.
Cancio González indicated, that despite her determination, the government remains empowered to create charters by partnering with municipalities and with the University of Puerto Rico, given that those are public entities.
if only the issue would stop with this court ruling, but the autocratic, hate-filled, greedy corporate charter lobby will not stop. They will file an appeal if it is allowable and/or file other lawsuits one after another even if they failed a half dozen times.
Nothing stops these true, dark-hearted parasites. They are a terminal pancreatic cancer that defies every treatment — until the host has been destroyed and is dead.
A point of view about privately managed charters that I share with Lloyd. The language is too strong a brew for some but I believe it is accurate regardless of being radical.
I don’t disagree in the least. Boston’s mayor has just put a privatizer in the supernintendo’s seat this past week. She has zero experience in education, but runs an organization of 12 people called EdVestors, which, as you would expect from the name, is a front for a cabal of privatizers, charteristas, reformsters and hedge funders. I posted a couple of long threads on Twitter.
Lloyd Lofthouse: I have to agree. They are so well-funded, they can systematize their push-back by wearing the body-politic down by using the laws against their original intention towards justice.
That’s pretty-much a definition of cancer. CBK
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/07/08/kentucky-attorney-general-andy-beshear-run-governor-jacqueline-coleman/766366002/
An educator may be selected for ticket of contending Democratic governor candidate in Kentucky.
The similarities between the US today and Weimar Germany are no longer academic. The undermining of the legal and judicial systems to go easy on the right and draconian on the left is now in full swing here, and it’s not just the Supreme Court. One wonders if Gabby Gifford’s shooter is next on the pardon list: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-pardons-ranchers-case-inspired-2016-occupation-143454479–politics.html
As I watch this hearing, I think I’m developing a man crush on Peter Strzok. His response to Gowdy’s badgering is a thing of beauty.
Greg,
I was listening to the hearing on the radio. It was like listening to a real-crime drama. Rep Trey Gowdy was badgering Strzok mercilessly, asking him questions in rapid fire succession and not allowing him to answer. When Strzok finally did get to respond with more than a half-sentence, he was eloquent. It was a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment. I hope it is replayed on the news all day.
Replayed in its entirety over and over again! I got choked up at the end. I’m betting FBI employees everywhere are smiling.
GregB: “FBI Smiling” R. Maddow was right–I think the R’s should be careful what they wish for. CBK
I watched this shameless attempt to take this person’s opinion to a colleague and find him guilty of… of whatever they needed.
What strikes me as insane, is to hold tis man ‘accountable’ for an email comment to friend (to whichtheyhad no right to see), even as the president of the country throws out thousands of lies, as well as endless nasty aspersions.
I just listened to this Podcast on The Gist… It offers a ‘theory’ as to what Trump may be trying to accomplish by his tsunami of obsfurcation and contradictions.
Skip the opening Miller beer promo… its worth listening to Mike Pesca explain the ‘pattern’!
dcs.megaphone.fm/PPY9009650448.mp3?key=4e31e6a3d6ed002791bb6a17a335ce20
Susan Lee Schwartz He is either (a) consciously conniving to make chaos,
OR (b) his mindset is really “siloed” so that he is always and ONLY in-the-moment and where WHAT he says in-that-moment is the ONLY thing he remembers as authentic (so to speak) and that he THINKS everyone else must also remember–precisely because he thinks so much of himself (egocentric) that WHAT he says MUST BE not only the most important thing, but the ONLY thing. Everything outside the silo is unimportant or absent from his thought. These are the only two options. I’m guessing (b) the last one.
But generally speaking, it’s probably what happens in the mind of a sociopath.
I had to laugh like a diabolical clown when he mentioned this morning his history class in school. His teachers are probably in a permanent state of CRINGE. CBK
You can trust Strock Smirk – he lied to his wife and cheated on her – he will do the same whenever it benefits him….including the public.
Trump lied and cheated on all of his wives. Even Melania. Why trust him?
How do you know Peter Strzok lied to his wife? It seems he admitted that he cheated on her but did he lie to her about the cheating and did she ask him if he was cheating on her so he could lie? Do you have a tape? Did his wife say he lied to her about having an affair?
Cheating is one thing. Lying is another thing. Cheating is not lying by itself. Where is your evidence that Strozk lied to his wife?
Compared to the never-ending documented daily lies and exagerations of The Kremlin’s Agent Orange, having an affair and cheating on one wife is small in comparison to Trump cheating on all three of his wives and even cheating on his mistresses with porn stars. Oh, and Trump’s cheating hundreds of his employees and contractors out of money he agreed to pay them or was legally required to pay them like his driver of 25 years that just went to court to get several years worth of overtime pay.
Lloyd Lofthouse There’s no talking reasonably with someone who has so obviously drunk the Trump Kool aid. CBK
Yes, so true. Those who drank the Orange Slime’s Kool-aid seem to be lost to the world. They have been struck deaf, dumb and blind and are filled with hate and rage.
Lloyd,
“They have been struck deaf, dumb and blind and are filled with hate and rage.”
I thought you were describing yourself – You might want to read some of your remarks regarding the President – in some cases you wasted a full paragraph of derisive school yard rants demonstrating the vitriolic hatred you have. You have created a book of these vocabulary words which seemingly are the salve on your hurt from the loss of Hillary…..Some may be drinking that juice but we avoid the toilet water some here may be slurping up…..causing TDS resulting in your deafness and “dumbness” and blindness when dealing with opposing viewpoints – at times you border on what might constitute a necessity of the secret service visit…..
Jscheidell,
Don’t attack Lloyd. He expresses what is obvious. Trump is destroying the Western alliance, insulting our allies, hostile to democratic nations, attacking the free press, removing regulations that protect our air and water, encouraging hatred and division. On and on. He imposed billions of dollars in tariffs on China BUT specifically exempted the products of the Ivanka Trump Company.
I am no longer astonished by anything this blowhard empty selfish goon does.
I am astonished that members of the Republican Party continue to defend his daily assaults on civility, decency, our nation, our allies, and norms of civilized behavior.
I pray every day that we will survive this monster.
I have no doubt that, if free expression survives, this man and his corrupt administration will become an object lesson in history books about the capture of our government by greed, treason, and self-dealing.
Well said. Diane.
jscheidell,
I don’t hate Trump.
I “despise” him for the serial liar, misogynist, racist, fraud, cheat, crook, ignorant, incompetent, bully, troll, and failed businessman that he is.
Definitions:
Hate – an object of hatred (intense dislike or ill will)
Despise – To regard with contempt (the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.) or scorn (the feeling or belief that someone or something is worthless or despicable; contempt.).
For his odious (extremely unpleasant; repulsive) supporters who have decided to ignore all of Trump’s obvious and well-documented character flaws due to their confirmation bias, I have no respect and that includes what they think and say.
Because of that lack of respect, your criticisms of me mean nothing to me.
Trump acts and behaves like a mob boss. He has behaved this way for decades. His behavior is documented in the books about him.
Trump hired a ghostwriter to write his book “Art of the Deal”. Trump did not write that book. What does this ghostwriter Tony Schwartz say about Trump?
What do the other FIVE biographers have to say about Trump?
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-campaign-biography-psychology-history-barrett-hurt-dantiono-blair-obrien-213835?o=3
And those biographers and the ghostwriter wrote about Trump before he entered politics and won the presidential election in 2016 with help from the manipulating, lying, conspiracy generating Alt-Right Deep State media machine and Russia/Putin.
Since the election, Trump has piled on so much evidence of his malignant narcissism, that we are overwhelmed by it, daily, except for his blind, deaf and mute supporters.
Tony Schwartz was interviewed this morning on Brian Steltser’s CNN show. You have to google it. Schwartz spent 18 months with Trump. He thinks Trump is a pathological liar with a fragile ego and deep insecurity. I expect the same was true of most dictators in history.
This is the most recent from Brian Stelter that I found.
Brian Stelter calls out the Trump-Fox ‘love story’
Wait until today’s interview with Tony Schwartz is online.
I don’t think it is a useful principle to say that anyone who cheated on his spouse can never be trusted. That certainly would be Trump, who cheated on his wives, all of them. And it probably includes quite a lot of governors and members of Congress. Also JFK and FDR and many other notable figures. Possibly not Truman, who is not known to have have an affair.
“I don’t think it is a useful principle to say that anyone who cheated on his spouse can never be trusted.”
I agree. Each case must be judged based on individual facts we will often have no way to know. We have no idea what causes husbands or wives or significant others to stray and cheat.
For instance, a friend of mine was in a situation like that. His business partner had prostate cancer and after the surgery, he lost the ability to fulfill one of his marital duties. His wife was several years younger than him and she worked hard to stay fit and healthy.
He hinted to his wife and his partner, my friend, who liked the wife and was attracted to her, that it was okay if they had an affair because the woman’s husband could no longer hold up that element of what is supposed to be part of the marriage, but he loved his wife and his wife loved him.
And my friend was happily married. With no intent to divorce, both my friend and his partner’s wife had an affair that went on for months before they decided to stop — and her husband knew and said nothing.
My friend had no intention of leaving his wife just like the other woman had no intention of leaving her husband who had just survived prostate cancer.
But then there are spouses that expect the other spouse to by loyal no matter what. For instance, a wife decides on her own that she wants her marriage to become platonic but the husband doesn’t agree. The wife says, “Too bad, we married for better or worse, and I expect you to be loyal to me and not cheat.”
I know someone that went through that too. Actually, I know more than one man that had that happen in their marriages and for some of them, it drives them crazy often leading to affairs and even expensive divorces.
I had another friend where the wife and he talked it over and both decided to stay together because they liked the house they had and their lifestyle and a divorce would destroy that so it was agreed she could stray and so could he. Basically, their agreement was to stay married but become roommates with separate bedrooms. Just don’t bring any dates home.
Yeah, JS, as alway you make so much sense, as we watch that psycho destroy our standing in the world a she says on e thing and then the opposite in the same sentence and denies everything the next day. insane in front of the world’s eyes!
But ,y ou defend the indefensible with another ‘whaddabout’, and then you wonder why no one at this blog — where genuine critical thinking is habitual — listens to you.
GregB: Here, here. I second that emotion. CBK
His responses to Ted Poe (and Poe trying to cut him off over and over again) just made my heart flutter again. Pay attention, folks. THIS IS HOW TO FIGHT BACK based on constitutional reasoning. There are so many clips that should be used in civics classes for years to come. My man crush gets stronger.
GregB Crush aside, I think it’s the “truth to power” thing that makes it so attractive. (We all recognize transcendence, and either love or hate it.)
But also, I’m thinking after yesterday, and in the light of the below WAPO article where Mueller is indicting more and more Russians, that the “too-late” bell is ringing for the Republicans.
Time has been on our side on this one. It also makes the R’s hand-sitting and obsessive but empty attacks look not only like political defense, but also that they border on being treasonous.
Catherine
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html?wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_news__alert-politics–alert-national&noredirect=on
the Strzok hearing was painful to watch. I felt I was at a public hanging, not a Congressional hearing.
Too bad the Mueller indictments were not released the day before the hearing instead of the day after.
Charles Pierce’s take is great, as usual. Love the descriptions of individual Republicans: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22134841/peter-strzok-testimony-what-happened/?src=socialflowTW
Diane,
It would be an interesting conversation with anyones partners if cheating and having sex with another is not a lie regarding their relationship. Ones veracity when one says “I love you” and then has sex outside the relationship shows the ground on that is not solid and is a lie.
Ask your partner if there is agreement – – can you have sex and a relationship outside and still call your marriage not a lie – counseling suggested – parsing words –
And why constant referral to Trump – changing the subject
You really can’t criticize any politician or anyone else for infidelity and ignore the plain fact that your hero Trump is an adulterer and has paid off at least two women —including a porn actress—to keep them quiet about his sexual relationship with them while his wife Melania was recuperating from giving birth to their son. That’s disgusting.
Since you want to condemn others for adultery, it is not “changing the subject” to reference our national leader, your hero.
On this subject, Barack Obama’s was truly a role model.
Diane
the topic was Strock – Greg’s man crush – not trump – TDS?
Sorry, you and the GOP members of. Ingress are on very thin ice criticizing Strzok for having an affair when Trump is a serial adulterer.
You know that line in the Bible about casting the first stone.
dianeravitch: That same double standard came out in the hearing–when someone asked for Bannon to reappear for questioning–because their treatment of the two men was so different.
One other “method” is this: when R gets called on for using a double standard, they just resort to using false equivalences. This is all old-stuff straight out of the Carl Rove Republican Playbook. CBK
Yup.
Bannon didn’t answer questions. The Republicans were ok with that.
Karen McDougal told Anderson Cooper that Trump told her he loved her.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/03/22/politics/karen-mcdougal-donald-trump/index.html