Governor Gavin Newsom announced that Linda Darling-Hammond is his choice to be leader of the State Board of Education.
She is a distinguished scholar who is deeply knowledgeable about equity, teaching and learning.
Archives for category: California
In this post, a parent activist in Northern California succinctly described the case against charter schools.
Charter schools take resources away from the public schools, harming public schools and their students. All charter schools do this – whether they’re opportunistic and for-profit or presenting themselves as public, progressive and enlightened.
Charter schools are free to pick and choose and exclude or kick out any student they want. They’re not supposed to, but in real life there’s no enforcement. Many impose demanding application processes, or use mandatory “intake counseling,” or require work hours or financial donations from families – so that only the children of motivated, supportive, compliant families get in. Charter schools publicly deny this, but within many charter schools, the selectivity is well known and viewed as a benefit. Admittedly, families in those schools like that feature – with the more challenging students kept out of the charter – but it’s not fair or honest, and it harms public schools and their students.
Charter schools are often forced into school districts against the districts’ will. School boards’ ability to reject a charter application is limited by law; and if a school board rejects a charter application, the applicant can appeal to the county board of education and the California state board of education. Then the school district winds up with a charter forced upon it, taking resources from the existing public schools. Often this means the district must close a public school.
Anyone can apply to open and operate a charter school, and get public funding for it. The process is designed to work in their favor. They don’t have to have to be educators or show that they’re competent or honest. They may be well-meaning but unqualified and incompetent, or they may be crooks. Imagine allowing this with police stations, fire stations, public bus systems or parks.
Part of a school district’s job is to provide the right number of schools to serve the number of students in the district. When charter schools are forced into the district, that often requires existing public schools to close. Again, that harms the district and its students.
California law (Prop. 39) requires school districts to provide space for charter schools, even if the district didn’t want the charter. Charter schools are often forced into existing public schools (this is called co-location), taking space and amenities away from their students and creating conflict. This is a contentious issue in other states too.
Charter schools can be opened by almost anyone and get little oversight, so they’re ripe for corruption, looting, nepotism, fraud and self-dealing. Corruption happens in public school districts too, but charter schools offer an extra tempting opportunity for crooks, and the history of charters in California and nationwide shows that wrongdoers often grab that opportunity.
Charter schools, backed by billionaire-funded pro-privatization support and PR machinery, have positioned themselves as an enemy to school districts, public schools and teachers, sending their damaging message to politicians and the media. These charter backers pour millions into electing charter-friendly candidates. Tearing down our public school system and our teachers, as the charter sector does endlessly, harms our public schools and their students.
The charter sector tends to sort itself into two kinds of schools. Charter schools serving low-income students of color often impose military-style discipline and rigid rules – hands folded on the desk, eyes tracking the speaker, punishment for tiny dress code violations, a focus on public humiliation. By contrast, some charter schools serving children of privilege are designed to isolate the school from a district so that lower-income kids aren’t assigned to the school. Charter schools overall have been found to increase school segregation.
Charter schools overall serve far fewer children with disabilities and English-language learners than public schools. Even those designed to serve children with disabilities serve far fewer children with the types of disabilities that are most challenging and expensive to work with, such as children with severe autism or who are severely emotionally disturbed.
Despite the many advantages charter schools enjoy, they don’t do any better overall than public schools. The rallying cry for charter schools used to be that the “competition” would improve public schools, but that hasn’t happened. In charter schools’ more than 20 years of existence, they haven’t overall brought better education to impoverished communities.
*Note: This commentary applies to California charter schools and California charter laws. Many of the issues apply to charter schools in most or all other states where they exist.
California has one of the worst charter laws in the nation. Anyone can open a charter.districts can authorize charters in other districts. Read Carol Burris report “Charters and Consequence” to learn just how bad things are. It is jaw-dropping.
There is hope for change, as Bill Raden reports in “Capital & Main.
“California’s charter school sector moved one step closer to accountability on Tuesday when Governor Gavin Newsomofficially asked State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to assemble an expert panel to assess the effect on public school district finances by unregulated charter school expansion. Thurmond’s panel represents the first time California will have conducted any kind of in-depth analysis of charter impacts on public education since the state passed its original charter legislation in 1992. It has until July 1 to deliver its findings.
“Meanwhile, the race for L.A Unified’s March 5 school boardspecial election entered its final stretch this week as candidates vied to fill out the term of pro-charter Board District 5 member Ref Rodriguez, who resigned in July following a felony conviction for campaign money laundering. At stake is the political balance of a split board as L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutnerprepares to roll out a controversial portfolio district reorganization plan.
“Beutner’s biggest fear has to be an outright March 5 win by former two-time BD 5 representative Jackie Goldberg, a progressive L.A. icon who is fourth in campaign contributions but is expected to benefit from her broad name recognition and the pivotal endorsement (and financial might) of United Teachers Los Angeles. Nipping at her heels as far as labor support goes is money leader Heather Repenning, a former aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti. Repenning comes to the race with the backing of Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents school cafeteria workers, janitors and teachers’ aides, and has already chipped in over $400K in independent expenditure money. The contest for the charter vote — and the endorsement of California Charter School Association Advocates, which announced it is waiting to see who makes it to a runoff — is between former charter school executive Allison Bajracharya and Huntington Park City Councilmember Graciela Ortiz, who are respectively number two and three in total campaign contributions.”
The strike by the UTLA in Los Angeles just claimed an important victory. As California law now is written, the grant of a charter is not supposed to take into account the fiscal impact of a new charter on the fiscal condition of the district where it is located.
Thanks to the UTLA settlement, Governor Gavin Newsom has directed State Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond to appoint an independent panel of experts to review exactly that: what is the fiscal impact of charters on the public schools of their host district?
The panel will have four months to look at the issue, and to report back to Newsom by July 1. Thurmond has not yet announced who will be on the panel, but its formation raises the likelihood that California’s charter school laws may undergo revision over the coming year. This would be the first time there has been an in-depth look at the financial impact of charter schools since passage of California’s first charter law in 1992.
The issue was a concern of Newsom’s even before the L.A. teachers strike, said Newsom spokesperson Brian Ferguson.
“As Governor Newsom stated in his first budget proposal, rising charter school enrollments in some urban districts are having real impacts on those districts’ ability to provide essential support and services for their students,” he said.
Under a 1998 state law, districts are not allowed to take into account the financial impact of a charter school on a district in deciding whether or not to grant them a charter. Charter advocates fear that removing this prohibition could have a dramatic impact on slowing charter school school expansion in the state.
Newsom’s creation of a panel to look into the issue appears a responseto a resolution approved by the Los Angeles Unified school board last month as part of the agreement it reached with the United Teachers of Los Angeles and its striking teachers last month. The resolution called for a “comprehensive study” of various aspects of charter schools in the district, including their “financial implications.”
The resolution also called for an 8-to-10 month moratorium on new charter schools while the study was being conducted. So far, however, Newsom has been silent on these latest calls for a moratorium.
In a statement, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, representing 33,000 teachers and other staff in the district, “applauded” Newsom for recognizing what it said was obvious: that L.A. Unified and other districts across the state are being “financially strangled” by what it called the “unmitigated growth” of charter schools.
But it questioned the need for a panel, saying that an “immediate cap on charter schools is urgently necessary.” Large urban districts, it said, were “well past the saturation point for charter school growth.”
Similar calls for a cap or a moratorium are coming from other districts with a large proportion of students in charter schools. In Oakland, where teachers appear to be on the verge of a strike, the school board also has set as one of its priorities convincing lawmakers in Sacramento to impose a moratorium on charter expansion. And in the nearby West Contra Costa Unified District, which includes Richmond, the board will consider a resolution this week calling for a statewide charter moratorium.
This is a tremendous setback for the charter industry, which has taken advantage of the opportunity to expand without regard to the cost of local public schools, even if it sets them on the path to insolvency.
Last May, Gordon Lafer, a political economist at the University of Oregon, produced a report for “In the Public Interest” estimating what charter schools cost three local school districts. When a student leaves for a charter school, the student takes his or her tuition money but the school still has fixed costs (or “stranded costs”) that cannot be cut, like custodians, transportation, maintenance, and utilities. To break even, the district must cut its budget, lay off teachers, increase class sizes, and eliminate programs. Thus, the majority of students suffer deteriorating conditions so that the charter schools may increase enrollment.
It’s long past time to take a look at this issue and establish accountability, transparency, and limits to charter school expansion in California.
Following the passage by the Los Angeles schoolboard of a request for a charter moratorium, other counties in California are taking a look at doing the same.
Charter Moratorium to go Before School Board
WCCUSD Trustee Consuelo Lara is bringing a resolution supporting a Statewide Moratorium on the Growth of Charter Schools and strengthening oversight and transparency of current charter schools.
The resolution puts the WCCUSD in step with the recent resolution passed by the Los Angeles School Board joining with the NAACP, the Journey for Justice Alliance, Black Lives Matters and many other organizations and governmental bodies which have demanded a stop to the expansion of Charters at the expense of publicly run schools.
The meeting will be Wednesday 2/6
Lovonya DeJean Middle School
Multipurpose Room
3400 Macdonald Avenue
It is expected that the Charter Schools will use their money and buses to turn out in force to oppose this resolution. Supporters of public schools must be heard.
“Co-location” Means Closing Neighborhood Public Schools
For three years, PublicCore has been warning that continued WCCUSD approval of charter schools will lead to the closure of neighborhood schools. Now that chicken is coming home to roost. Unless neighbors and concerned community members rise up and say “NO!” El Sobrante will lose its middle school.
Pinole Middle School has already been forced to share its site with Voices Charter School as part of a practice known as “co-location.” Across the freeway in El Sobrante, Crespi Middle School has been forced to share its facility with Invictus Middle School. According to Prop 39 (aka “the charter school law”), each February, charter schools must make their anticipated facility needs request to the school district in which they are located. WCCUSD superintendent Matt Duffy has announced that both Voices andInvictus will be asking the district for more space in the 2019 – 2020 school year.
One of the options the district is considering is to close Crespi Middle School, move those students to Pinole Middle School, and allow Voices and Invictus to take over the Crespi site.
PublicCore is vehemently opposed to this option, as it gives public school students and their families fewer choices and takes away El Sobrante’s only middle school.
What you can do:
—Read the concerns of Joseph Glatzer, 7th grade history teacher at Pinole Middle School (see below)
—Contact the WCCUSD Board of Education [tom.panas@wccusd.net, stephanie.hernandez-jarvis@wccusd.net, valerie.cuevas@wccusd.net, clara@wccusd.net, mister.phillips@wccusd.net]
—Attend the WCCUSD Board of Education meeting on Feb. 6 at LaVonya DeJean Middle School
—Attend “Closing Crespi: a Town Hall with Trustee Phillips” at 6 pm onMarch 14 at Hilltop Church of Christ, El Sobrante
Letter from Jospeph Glatzer:
I’m Joseph Glatzer, 7th grade history teacher at Pinole Middle School. I’m here to oppose Voices getting any more of our classrooms and deepening their occupation of our campus. My criticism is with the charter system, not individual families.
I noticed in reading Mr. Duffy’s report that it says our enrollment at Pinole Middle is down. It had been down the past few years due to charter encroachment, but because of the amazing job our staff has done, our enrollment is up pretty significantly this year. Is the board aware of that? Parents are fed up with the lack of actual teaching at Summit, and we get kids coming back from them nearly every week.
Also, we know you’re not trying to close Crespi until 2 years from now, but that doesn’t make it any better.
How much smaller could our classrooms be if we weren’t hemorrhaging money to charter schools for their own profit?
Hiding behind the law and saying you have no choice doesn’t make any sense. Voices is not holding board meetings in Contra Costa County. They’re in violation of their charter and it should be revoked. The dangerous driving, traffic and noise is out of control. Our students are being hurt by a de facto private elementary being artificially wedged into their school.
It’s time for the school board to adopt the NAACP resolution for a moratorium on charter schools, which was just endorsed by UTR. Are you going to be on the side of the NAACP or on the side of a deeply segregated de facto private school which is taking our desperately needed public funds?
The argument has been that if you don’t approve these collocations then we’ll get sued and that’ll cost the district a lot of money. But we’re already losing tens of millions of dollars from approving all these charters and co-locations. We’re going to have severe financial challenges, like we see in Oakland, if something doesn’t change. So we might as well unite with other districts and fight for what’s right.
Prop 39 can be challenged as unconstitutional under the California state constitution, because it guarantees children the right to an education, which charters are endangering.
This is a civil rights issue and a human rights issue. We learned from Gandhi and Martin Luther King that respecting unjust laws is an immoral act.
Don’t take away any more of our classrooms at Pinole Middle. Thank you.
This post is an unabashed appeal for your contribution to a vital political race in Los Angeles. The billionaires (Broad, Walton, Hastings, etc.) have poured millions into buying control of the LAUSD board. That board hired a clueless hedge fund manager, Austin Beutner, who is bringing in every Reform retread to help him figure out how to do maximum disruption to the district.
I am asking you here and now to send Jackie Goldberg whatever you can afford.
The race for the empty seat on the LAUSD board is important for Los Angeles, but it is also important for California and for the nation. If Jackie wins this seat, her voice and her experience and knowledge will command a Quisling board.
Jackie Goldberg is a dynamo. She taught for many years, then won a seat on the Los Angeles school board. She then ran for the State Assembly and eventually became chair of the Education Committee. She retired from public service, but she was called back to active duty by her many admirers because of the crisis in Los Angeles.
The LAUSD board has seven seats. The billionaires bought four of them, the last time with the most expensive school board race in American history, when they spent upwards of $15 million to oust Steve Zimmer, the board president, and replace him with a TFA person. For a brief while, the Reformer Billionaires held five seats, but one of their board members was indicted and convicted of money laundering. Now that empty seat, representing District 5, will be decided in a special election on March 5. Jackie Goldberg used to represent District 5, and she is well known as a progressive firebrand in her district.
I attended a fundraiser for Jackie in her district, where she was surrounded by teachers and community members who love her. I spoke briefly and said that Jackie and I were sisters “with different mothers.” Which is to say, we had an hour-long conversation when I was in L.A. in December, and I found we saw eye-to-eye on the issues.
There are 10 candidates in the race. If Jackie wins 51% of the vote, there will be no runoff. The billionaires are waiting to see if there is a runoff, and if one is needed, and they will throw their millions against Jackie.
Jackie frightens them. She knows the legislature. She knows the district. She is knowledgable and articulate. She could stop their nefarious effort to destroy public education in Los Angeles. Even though she would be part of a three-vote minority (Scott Schmerelson and George McKenna, both experienced educators), their experience and expertise would shame the billionaire’s threadbare and vacuous four votes.
Jackie needs and deserves our help. Send $5, $10, $25, $100, whatever you can.
The charter schools of California continue to be riddled with corruption, and to date, the state has ignored the multiplying scandals. California has more Charters than any other state (about 1300) and virtually no regulation.
Another leader at the Celerity Charter Network will Be Charged with Embezzlement and other charges.
“The former CEO of Los Angeles charter school network Celerity Educational Group is expected to be arraigned next month on federal charges of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle public funds.
“Grace Canada, 45, of Torrance is the second ex-Celerity official to be charged with corruption by Los Angeles federal prosecutors. Celerity founder Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty earlier this month to a conspiracy charge that she misspent $2.5 million in public education funds intended for students.
“Canada — currently principal of Kelly Elementary in Compton — was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in downtown Los Angeles on nearly the same charges as McFarlane and is expected to be arraigned on Feb. 11, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Jan Resseger provides a valuable context for understanding the dismal state of public schools in California. They were once the envy of the nation, but now they are desperately underfunded.
She writes that the bottom line is the urgent need for a 38 percent increase in California school spending—an additional $25.6 billion—with much of the greatest need in the schools serving California’s poorest students—many of them English language learners. Those numbers are essential background for understanding this month’s teachers’ strike in Los Angeles.
California spends somewhat less per pupil than the national average. It spends about the same as South Carolina and Louisiana, which is shocking when you consider that California is the richest state in the nation.
Spending by states:
States that spend more than California:
Alaska, NY, CONN, Maine, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Penn, RI, Vermont, Wyoming.
Tied with:
Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
Spends more than:
Alabama, Az, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, S Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah.
Lowest spending state: Utah and Idaho
Gavin Newsom is moving quickly to establish a reputation as the nation’s most progressive governor. He has pledged medical insurance for all, including undocumented people. He pledged a dramatic expansion of pre-K. And he goes even further in his first budget message.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a $209-billion budget on Thursday that boosts funding for public schools and healthcare programs and includes significant one-time spending to combat the state’s homeless epidemic and prepare for future natural disasters…
The governor promised to balance his ambitious campaign platform with the need to protect California’s finances in the event of an economic slide. The spending in his proposal reflects that approach. Much of it would not be for ongoing services, a page borrowed from the playbook of his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown.
“The message we are advancing here is discipline,” Newsom said.
The plan sent to the Legislature for the fiscal year that begins in July seeks a 4% boost in the state’s general fund spending over current levels. Some increases were expected — the budget is built on a series of mandates that earmark revenues or programs where costs are determined by the number of eligible Californians who enroll. Almost all of the projected $2.3 billion in higher state spending for schools, for example, is driven by California’s constitutional requirement governing education finance.
But other key spending proposals suggest the new Democratic governor views his victory last November as a clear mandate an expansive agenda that will focus first on efforts aimed at young children and poor families.
“At a time where folks seem to be backing away, we’re going to lean in” to fund social services programs, Newsom said.
Newsom’s budget proposes a $1-billion “working families tax credit,” more than double the size of the state’s existing tax break for low-income workers. The budget would noticeably expand eligibility for the tax break to those who earn up to $15 an hour, estimated by the administration to add up to 400,000 additional families.
The governor also will ask lawmakers to increase monthly welfare assistance grants under the state’s CalWORKS program, building on an effort led by lawmakers over the past two years.
Efforts to help ease California’s housing and homelessness crises would also be bolstered under the spending plan, with $500 million to be set aside to help local governments build shelters and add services to help the homeless.
A number of proposals in the new governor’s budget reflect relatively small, targeted infusions of cash. The Newsom administration believes those initiatives will provide a foundation for new or expanded services, many of which would need to be funded over the course of several years.
Some of the phased-in efforts were outlined in the days leading up to Newsom’s inauguration on Monday. The governor will ask lawmakers to spend $1.8 billion, mostly in one-time expenses, to improve early childhood education and encourage more schools to provide full-day kindergarten. He will also ask for early steps toward a sweeping expansion of California’s paid family leave for new parents. And Newsom has embraced calls for a second year of tuition-free community college for any student who wants it, a $40-million proposal that builds on existing law that covers costs for the first year.
The budget also offers details on a promise Newsom made hours after taking the oath of office: full access to Medi-Cal, the state’s low-income healthcare program, for anyone up to age 26 who is in the U.S. illegally. Those who are 19 or younger are already covered and the budget proposal, which would be the first of its kind in the nation, puts the estimated cost for the first year at $260 million, dollars that must come from the state given federal restrictions based on immigration status.
Even without federal funding, the effort has drawn the ire of conservative lawmakers. On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) vowed to lead an effort in Washington to block Newsom from expanding healthcare access to more immigrants without legal status. Cassidy tweeted that California shouldn’t use “American citizens’ money” for the effort. Newsom fired back on Twitter that healthcare should be a “basic right.”
The governor is also proposing to help some of the communities devastated by recent wildfires, including a payback of lost property tax revenues when homes were destroyed.
The long list of new ideas is made possible by a continued strong economy, marking the seventh consecutive year in which tax revenue collections are expected to outpace official estimates. It is a remarkable run in a state where deficit-plagued budgets were once commonplace, helping plunge credit ratings and voter approval of lawmakers to historic lows.
Newsom’s budget would add more money to the state’s “rainy day” reserve fund. Voters expanded the fund through a 2014 ballot measure and imposed strict rules on how it can be spent. The governor seeks to sock away up to almost $20 billion in the fund by the end of his four-year term. The balance is projected to hit $15 billion by next summer.
But the more that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers rely on the unrestricted reserves, the higher the stakes for their progressive policy agenda. Analysts have pointed out that if the national economy continues to produce solid results through this summer, it will tie the record — 10 years — for the longest recovery in modern history, double the length of average economic expansions.
Last month, officials reported the state’s unemployment rate remained low at 4.1%, with more than 3 million California jobs created since the beginning of the current economic upswing.
Governor-Elected Gavin Newsom has let it be known that he plans to use California’s large reserves to expand pre-K.
As we have learned in New York City these past few years, expanding pre-K is great, but it is far from enough.
The most pressing problem in California’s schools are:
1. Reducing class sizes in K-12
2. Increasing teachers’ salaries
3. A moratorium on charter schools, which take money away from public schools
4. Providing the counselors and support personnel that schools need
Governor-Elect Newsom should not forget that the billionaires spent huge sums of money funding former Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa, who came in third.
And they spent millions more trying to defeat new State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and losing.
Put the money where the kids are.
Pre-K is nice but not enough.
Seeking to frame his new administration as one with a firm focus on closing the gap between children from affluent and poor families, Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom will propose spending some $1.8 billion on an array of programs designed to boost California’s enrollment in early education and child-care programs.
Newsom’s plan, which he hinted at in a Fresno event last month, will be a key element in the state budget proposal he submits to the Legislature shortly after taking office Monday, a source close to the governor-elect’s transition team said Tuesday.
The spending would boost programs designed to ensure children enter kindergarten prepared to learn, closing what some researchers have called the “readiness gap” that exists based on a family’s income. It would also phase in an expansion of prekindergarten, and offer money to help school districts that don’t have facilities for full-day kindergarten.
“The fact that he’s making significant investments with his opening budget is really exciting,” Ted Lempert, president of the Bay Area-based nonprofit Children Now, said Tuesday. “What’s exciting is the comprehensiveness of it, because it’s saying we’re going to focus on prenatal through age 5.”
A broad overview document reviewed by The Times shows that most of the outlay under the plan — $1.5 billion — would be a one-time expense in the budget year that begins July 1. Those dollars would be a single infusion of cash, an approach favored by Gov. Jerry Brown in recent years.
Most of the money would be spent on efforts to expand childcare services and kindergarten classes. By law, a governor must submit a full budget to the Legislature no later than Jan. 10. Lawmakers will spend the winter and spring reviewing the proposal and must send a final budget plan to Newsom by June 15.
The governor-elect will propose a $750-million boost to kindergarten funding, aimed at expanding facilities to allow full-day programs. A number of school districts offer only part-day programs, leaving many low-income families to skip enrolling their children due to kindergarten classes that end in the middle of the workday. The dollars would not count toward California’s three-decades-old education spending guarantee, Proposition 98, and therefore would not reduce planned spending on other education services.
Close behind in total cost is a budget proposal by Newsom to help train child-care workers and expand local facilities already subsidized by the state, as well as those serving parents who attend state colleges and universities. Together, those efforts could cost a total of $747 million, according to the document reviewed Tuesday.
An expansion of prekindergarten programs would be phased in over three years at a cost of $125 million in the first year. The multiyear rollout would, according to the budget overview, “ensure the system can plan for the increase in capacity.”
Lempert said the Newsom proposal is notable for trying to avoid battles in recent years that pitted prekindergarten and expanded child care against each other for additional taxpayer dollars…
Another $200 million of the proposal would be earmarked for programs that provide home visits to expectant parents from limited-income families and programs that provide healthcare screenings for young children. Some of the money would come from the state’s Medi-Cal program, and other money from federal matching dollars. Funding for the home visits program was provided in the budget Brown signed last summer, and the Newsom effort would build on that.
The incoming governor is likely to face considerable demands for additional spending, in part because the Legislature’s independent analysts believe continued strength in tax revenues could produce a cash reserve of some $29 billion over the next 18 months. Almost $15 billion of that amount could be in unrestricted reserves, the kind that can be spent on any number of government programs.…
Diane Ravitch's blog 