XQ, you may recall, is the organization created by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs to “reinvent” high schools. Thus far, it has paid out many millions of dollars but produced no results. Perhaps you remember one evening a few years ago when XQ bought time on all three networks to showcase celebrities extolling its ambitions. Arne Duncan is a senior advisor at the Emerson Collective, Ms. Jobs’ group.
Now the Emerson Collective has hired Ursulina Ramirez, who was chief operating officer at the New York City Department of Education.
Chalkbeat reports:
XQ has been increasingly partnering directly with governments to launch new schools, and it appears Ramirez will be part of that effort, drawing on her leadership experience within the nation’s largest school system. Her title at XQ is “head of systems strategy,” according to its website.
Ramirez was a special assistant to Mayor de Blasio before he became mayor. She is not an educator, but that should not be an impediment to building out Ms. Jobs’ vision for an innovative high school.
There are many reasons to be concerned about the spread of school choice via charters and vouchers. One is that it reduces the funding available for the public schools that enroll the vast majority of students. Most states are barely willing to finance their public schools, so now they divvy up the funds to support choice schools. Makes no sense. Another is that proponents of choice claim that their schools “will save poor kids from failing public schools,” but we now know that this is a false promise. Neither charters nor vouchers get better test scores than public schools, except for the charters that have selective admission and high attrition. Choice schools are free to choose their students and to push out the ones they don’t want, sending them back to public schools, which now have even less funding. Voucher schools.
I cannot fathom a scenario in which school competition benefits the students most. We have seen charter school after charter school close business, some do this before they have officially opened. In business this is acceptable, but in educating the youths of our community, this is unacceptable. Those students are required, by law, to be educated. The money spent to educate those students at the closing charter schools is gone. But those students will be lined up for admission at the public schools the very next day and they cannot be turned away . . . no “Sorry, you have already spent your allocation of public education money, you will have to wait until next year to continue your education.” Imagine having been sold a lemon of a car and then dumping that and lining up at a government office for free public transportation. Is that happening anywhere? Does anyone actually want that kind of “education insurance”?
The charter school movement is sucking the funds out of our public schools systems. They are enabled in this effort by supportive politicians which make up supportive laws just for them . . . and these politicians receive “campaign donations,” aka bribes, from the charter operators to do this, often using public funds they were given for other purposes. (Any public school system doing that would result in people in jail.) The charter operators claim to offer “school choice” . . . but do they? Testing shows that charter schools are little different from public schools in educational outcomes. They differ solely in their ability to go out of business, which they do at alarming rates. So, what kind of choice is this? It is a bogus choice. It is like a restaurant making extravagant claims about the quality of their food, so you go and find out that their food is awful. The restaurant doesn’t care because they already have your money and they aren’t dependent upon repeat business. This is the Achilles heel of the “competition” argument. Modern marketing allows people to be hoodwinked into buying what they are selling. When they don’t deliver, you have no recourse. And, they are not dependent upon you being a repeat customer.
There is a word for this kind of business, several actually: scam, con, Ponzi scheme, etc.
Peter Goodman, former teacher and frequent blogger about education in New York City and New York State, reviews Bill Gates’ next big idea to reform education: Redesign Algebra 1.
Eleanor Roosevelt was perhaps the most accomplished and fearless of First Ladies. She was a prominent activist for progressive causes, and she never moderated her views to please the public. She was her own woman, not an ornament for a powerful man.
Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac” posted this brief tribute to an amazingly interesting woman:
It’s the birthday of the longest-serving First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, born in New York City (1884) who said, “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.” During World War I, she went off to Europe and visited wounded and shell-shocked soldiers in hospitals there. Later, during her husband’s presidency, she campaigned hard on civil rights issues — not a universally popular thing in the 1930s and 1940s, or in 2020.
And, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
Yesterday, I posted an article by an economist who wrote that schools are not super spreaders, and that the rate of transmission of COVID has been very low among students and teachers. Some readers got angry at me for posting this article. Let me be clear that I am not a scientist or a doctor. I do not know whether it is safe to reopen schools. I am as uncertain about the right course of action as many other people.
I am not qualified to offer any guidance. The decision about reopening depends on the community and expert judgment. Everyone should follow the science, wear a mask, practice social distancing both indoors and outside, and wash their hands frequently. It may be safe to reopen schools in some places but not safe in other places. What is important to know is that the COVID is surging again in many states, that the infection rate is rising nationally, and that this is a contagious and deadly disease. Be informed.
The stories below tell what happened to two teachers. They loved teaching; their students loved them. It is not clear where they became infected with the disease.
HOWARD – Even after a diagnosis of COVID-19, Heidi Hussli didn’t plan to give up teaching.
After being hospitalized last week, she told a friend she planned to teach via video the week of Sept. 14-18.
Hussli, who’d most recently taught in-person on Sept. 8, “said she would Zoom with her kids from the hospital,” the friend said via text message.
But “by Sunday, her condition worsened.”
Hussli, who’d taught German for 16 years at Bay Port High School, was unable to teach again. She died Thursday morning at a Green Bay hospital.
Family members, in a statement distributed by the Howard-Suamico School District, said the 47-year-old mother of one had recently tested positive for COVID-19.
It’s not known when Hussli, of Suamico, was infected with the coronavirus.
She’d taught classes in person Sept. 1, 2 and 8.
Hussli followed social-distancing protocols and wore a face mask while teaching, district communications director Brian Nicol said.
Hussli taught two International Baccalaureate classes, each of which had 15 to 20 students enrolled, the district said. Because Bay Port has split its student body into groups that attend on opposite days, the classes would have seven to 12 students attending in person. The remainder watched via a video feed.
She had not been in the classroom since being diagnosed and had “no close contact” with students after learning she was infected with COVID-19, district officials said.
In South Carolina, Margie Kidd, a veteran elementary school teacher, died of COVID.
Margie Kidd loved to teach.
She was good at it and had spent 26 years moulding youngsters.
But doing the thing she loved most put her at risk of contracting COVID-19, her family says, and contributed to her recent death.
She was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, and spent the beginning of her life in the city. After she married Frank, the couple moved in 1972 to Bluffton, where they lived for more than 30 years.
She earned her teaching degree in Savannah and then began her more than two-decade career at Ridgeland Elementary School, first working with kindergartners and later moving to first grade.
Kidd’s daughter, Essa Jackson, told multiple news outlets that her mother, who was active and healthy, was nervous about going back to school in person with so many COVID-19 cases in the area. She said her mother wore a face shield, mask and gloves wherever she went.
In August, Jasper County teachers returned to school to conduct state-mandated, face-to-face assessment activities and instruction for preschool through eighth-grade students. It was the first time students had returned to the school since the pandemic began in March.
Kidd was initially released from the hospital despite testing positive for COVID-19, but soon after was readmitted after calling an ambulance because she had trouble breathing. She was eventually put on a ventilator for 21 days until her death.
“My family believes that being in the school building during the pandemic did have something to do with her getting sick,” Jackson told the Jasper County Sun Times. “She was very afraid of going back to work and catching COVID-19, but she felt like she didn’t have a choice because she needed to work to pay her bills because my father was just getting over having colon cancer and heart surgery this summer, so she was the only one working.”
The Jasper County School District released a statement about Kidd’s death.
“We lost a most beloved member of our school district family,” it said. “She served the people of Jasper County as a professional educator for 26 years. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family, friends and co-workers at RES.”
The district is providing grief counselors for Kidd’s coworkers and students.
As of Oct. 5, more than 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections were associated with schools across the state, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported. There were 741 among students and 301 among staff.
Two private schools in the county, John Paul II Catholic School and Thomas Heyward Academy, have reported fewer than five positive cases among students at each school.
None of the cases within the Jasper County schools was confirmed within the last 30 days, according to DHEC data.
One effect of the pandemic was to shift even more of the world’s wealth to those at the very top. At the same time, millions are slipping into dire poverty.
CNN Business reports:
The wealth of the world’s billionaires reached a new record high in the middle of the pandemic as a rebound in tech stocks boosted the fortunes of the global elite. Billionaire wealth increased to $10.2 trillion at the end of July, up from a previous peak of $8.9 trillion in 2017, according to a report from Swiss bank UBS and PwC. The total number of billionaires has increased by 31 to 2,189 since 2017.Some billionaires are gettingricher much faster than others, however. The pandemic has accelerated a growing divergence in wealth between innovators in technology, healthcare and industry, and entrepreneurs in areas such as entertainment, financial services and real estate, the report said.That contrasts with most of the past decade “when steady growth and buoyant asset prices lifted billionaire wealth in all sectors,” it added.
This polarization between “innovator billionaires” and the rest comes at the end of a decade in which the number of billionaires has doubled and total wealth almost tripled. “In the last two years those using technology to change their business models, products and services have pulled ahead. The Covid-19 crisis just accentuated this divergence,” the report said.
During 2018, 2019 and the first seven months of 2020, technology billionaires’ total wealth increased 43% to $1.8 trillion, while healthcare billionaires enjoyed a 50% surge to $659 billion. Billionaires as a whole saw an increase of 19% over the same period, with those in financial services, entertainment, materials and real estate recording increases of 10% or less.
Geographically, mainland China has seen the biggest increase in billionaire wealth over the past 10 years, up nine times compared with a doubling in the United States. China’s shift towards the digital economy has seen the likes of Alibaba (BABA) founder Jack Ma and Pony Ma of Tencent (TCEHY) become enormously wealthy, as manufacturing and construction tycoons fall behind.
Rising inequality
The report comes amid rising concerns that the pandemic is only going to deepen economic inequalities, including in areas such as income, education and healthcare.
The Network for Public Education Action is pleased to endorse Candace Valenzuela for Texas House District 24. Candace is a former school board trustee who knows first hand that our public education system is under attack. She understands that corporate special interests have been undermining public education in favor of alternative models. Candace believes that public education delivers the best results on a consistent basis and true opportunity means giving every child the opportunity to learn and grow regardless of their zip code.
Candace served as a member of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District Board of Trustees At-large in Texas for two years. She expanded STEM academies and job training in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch schools and her community is already reaping the economic benefits. Candace wants to make those opportunities a reality for all children living in TX-24. She will use her experience to stand up to Betsy DeVos’s devastating agenda that strips vital funding from our schools.
Candace will fight for universal pre-K, because she believes every child deserves a chance to get ahead. Finally, she believes that we need to pay teachers higher salaries so that we can keep more of them in our schools for longer. That also means finding a way to remove their student loan debt.
Candace is an outstanding candidate and friend of public education. We urge voters in Texas House District 24 to cast their vote for Candace in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Jan Resseger writes here about the almost complete lack of leadership at the national level–and even at the state level–in protecting our children in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. The failure of Congress to agree on federal aid for cities and states is a glaring example of indifference to the health and well-being of children and families and teachers. The breakdown of negotiations between Nancy Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin can be attributed to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, who don’t want to see any aid go to blue states and cities. This is tragic because the victims are children.
She writes:
I do not remember a time when the wellbeing of children has been so totally forgotten by the leaders of the political party in power in the White House and the Congress. This fall, school district leaders have been left on their own as they try to serve and educate children while the COVID-19 pandemic continues raging across the states. School leaders are trying to hold it all together this fall at the same time their state budgets in some places have already been cut.
In Ohio, the COVID-19 recession is only exacerbating a public school fiscal crisis driven by a long history of inequitable school funding and the expansion of school privatization. On November 3, the school district where I live has been forced to put a local operating levy on the ballot simply to avert catastrophe. EdChoice vouchers, funded by a “local school district deduction” extract $6,000 for each high school voucher student and $4,650 for each K-8 voucher student right out of our school district’s budget. Although these students attend private and religious schools, the state counts voucher students as part of our per-pupil enrollment, which means that the state pays the district some of the cost of the voucher. In a normal year, there is a net loss because the vouchers are worth more than our district’s state basic aid, but this year the loss is even worse: In he current state budget, the Legislature froze the state’s contribution to the state’s school districts at the FY 2019 level. This means that the state is not allocating any additional funding to our school district to cover the new vouchers the state is awarding this year from our local budget. The Plain Dealer reports that our district will lose $9 million to the EdChoice vouchers this school year, and the school treasurer reports that 94 percent of all vouchers being awarded to students in our district are for students who have never been enrolled in our public schools. In essence, this means that across Ohio, the Legislature is forcing local school districts to pay for private and religious education.
This year, however, on top of the voucher expansion, COVID-19 has affected local school budgets across our state. Last spring, when the coronavirus shut down businesses and caused widespread layoffs, the Governor significantly reduced what the state had already promised to school districts in the state budget. Across the state’s 610 school districts, over $300 million—which the school districts had been promised before the fiscal year ended on June 30—just didn’t arrive. All of this has created a fiscal emergency for school districts across Ohio.
Only the AFT and Randi Weingarten, she writes, have remained alert and warned of the dangers of Congressional inaction. But the party in power is not listening.
Nebraska is one of the few states that has thus far managed to keep the privatizers out. That makes it a tempting target. Here is a message by one of the state’s strong advocates for public schools.
As you know, Stand For Schools is dedicated to advancing public education in Nebraska. Our work involves not only advocating for evidence-based policies that would help schools serve all students better, but also being vigilant for and responsive to efforts to privatize our state’s public schools.
Campaign filings reveal that William Oberndorf, a billionaire hedge fund manager from California, has donated $125,000 to Nebraska Federation for Children, and the organization is spending $25,000 in each of two legislative races in Nebraska.
For decades, Oberndorf has spent huge sums of his fortune to influence elections and education policy across the country. Oberndorf succeeded Betsy DeVos as AFC board chair, so while he is not new to the school privatization agenda, his political campaign contributions are new to Nebraska.
Oberndorf’s large contribution caught our attention, but he is hardly the first out-of-state billionaire attempting to advance his agenda in Nebraska–a state where voters and nonpartisan legislators have rejected school privatization time and again.
The evidence is clear: School privatization does not benefit students or low-income families; it benefits wealthy privatizers like William Oberndorf.
Nebraskans deserve to know about the presence of out of state money in our democracy and the attempted interference on education policy by special interests that will directly impact our schools and communities.
We are a state widely known and revered for our unicameral legislature. Our Second House is supposed to be the people of Nebraska and our best interests – not people like Californian William Oberndorf and his financial interests. Nebraska has some of the most lax campaign finance laws in the country, and that needs to change.
As always, Stand For Schools remains committed to advancing public education in Nebraska, and that means doing our part to inform the people of our state about threats to our public schools. We are a nonpartisan nonprofit that does not endorse any political candidate – but we believe Nebraskans deserve to know the truth about who is spending money in our elections.
Stand For Schools is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing public education in Nebraska byadvocating for evidence-based policies to close the opportunity gap and ensure schools havethe resources they need to serve all students better – no matter their race, ethnicity,nationality, citizen status, language, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or special need. You can find our organization’s Form 990 here.
Some of us have spent years trying to explain to the public why school choice—charters and vouchers—is a bad idea. Samantha Bee does the job effectively in this video in seven minutes. She notes that school choice has had bipartisan support but that its enthusiastic advocates are people who hate public schools and want to turn them over to the free market or religious zealots , or both.
Samantha Bee has an excellent solution: Instead of using public money to drain the coffers of public schools, why not fund our public schools to be the best in the world?
Diane Ravitch's blog 