Our allies the Pastors for Texas Children have repeatedly blocked vouchers in Texas, and they are now celebrating a significant boost in state funding for public schools. They have helped to start similar organizations in other states to protect the separation between church and state.
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Valerie Jablow, parent activist and blogger in D.C., wrote a scathing indictment of the leadership of the District of Columbia Public Schools.
She is sure that the districts leaders are actively undermining public schools–a policy of benign neglect– and promoting charter expansion.
A few weeks ago, the D.C. Public Charter School Board [sic] approved five new charter schools, despite the large number of empty seats in both public and private charter schools. Only one of the new charters will locate in Anacostia, the city’s highest poverty district.
Many of the public schools enrolling students with high needs are suffering devastating budget cuts. At the same time, the Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn testified that the city was “over investing” in these same schools. She notes that the Deputy Mayor sends his own child to an expensive private school where it is just fine to “overinvest” in education.
Chancellor Lewis Ferebee was hired away from Indianapolis, where he was actively collaborating with those who supported the privatization of public education. Now he oversees the harsh budget cuts inflicted on D.C.’s public schools, while declaring that more seats are needed for charter schools. Conditions are so bad in many of the district’s public schools that students are literally being pushed out of public schools and forced to seek “choices” other than their neighborhood public schools.
Chancellor Ferebee is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which actively promotes vouchers, charter schools, and high-stakes testing.
And here is a voice in the D.C. wilderness, a teacher and Vice Chair of the Ward 7 Education Council, calling for a moratorium on charters in D.C., because they open and close at will and have no allegiance to their community, nor do they fill any need. Venola M. Rolle wrote in a letter to the Washington Post:
Stories regarding sudden closures and substandard performance justify a moratorium on establishing charter schools in this city. I do not know what information could be more damning. It’s time to have an open discussion about how to cease the proliferation of charter schools in the city and, instead, devise approaches to strengthening the schools we already have and that are the anchors of our communities.
With the current leadership of D.C., its mayor, its deputy mayor for education, and its chancellor, that discussion is not likely to happen.
Gary Rubinstein was one of the earliest members of Teach for America.
In this post, he looks at what has and has not changed in those years.
You’d think that after 29 years, TFA training would have improved. But since they are supposed to be so data-driven, they should look at the most telling statistic about their quality of training. The quit rate for TFA has not changed from 29 years ago until this day, approximately 15% don’t complete their two-year commitment, or roughly 1 out of 7 corps members…
We rarely get to see or hear from actual TFA corps members. I don’t know if they now have to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement but I find it strange that this group of ‘leaders’ produces not one person live-blogging or live-tweeting their experience. When pictures of corps members in action are posted, I like to glance at them and see what I can infer from them. Sometimes I’ll notice that they are student teaching a class where there are only 5 students in the class and I’ll write about how unacceptable it is that TFA has not figured out a way to pack the student teacher classes with actual students.
Tom Ultican, retired teacher of physics and advanced mathematics, has become a scholar of the privatization movement.
in this post, he reviews the efforts of the charter lobby to undermine the effort to reform the egregiously defective charter law in California.
At times like this, you need a scorecard to keep track of the multitudinous organizations created by the billionaires who want to replace public schools with charter schools.
Ultican is one of the few people able to sort out the charter menagerie.
The Waltons, Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and assorted billionaires think they can create the illusion of popular support by spinning off more and more AstroTurf groups that have no connection to parents or teachers. Just money. Their ruse is failing. Betsy DeVos must be enjoying the charade.
Congratulations to Superintendent Tony Thurmond for getting a reasonable set of recommendations for charter law reform from a deeply divided task force.
A few months ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appointed a task force to make recommendations to the State Legislature about the needed reforms of the state charter law. Of the 11 people on the Task Force, several had ties to the charter industry, two work for the California Charter Schools Association, and others are employed by charter schools. I had my doubts. But Superintendent Thurmond read my posts and called me to say, don’t judge me until you see what happens.
When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.
Twenty percent of students in LA attend charters. At least 80% of LA charters have vacancies, contrary to phony claims about “long waiting lists.” The UTLA commissioned an audit which concluded that public schools lose $600 million every year to charters.
Howard Blume explained the recommendations of the Task Force report in the Los Angeles Times.
Blume writes:
When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.
California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.
The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.
One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.
The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.
But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.
To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.
The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.
A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.
The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.
“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students….”
One problem up and down the state has been inconsistent oversight of charters. The panel said California should create one or more entities to develop consistent standards and to train school districts in how to use them.
Some recommendations received majority but not unanimous favor, including limiting when another agency can overrule a local school district’s decision to reject a new charter or close down an existing one.
A majority also wanted to prohibit school districts from authorizing charters located outside district boundaries. Some tiny districts used these faraway charters to generate revenue but provided little to no oversight, as outlined in a Times investigation.
A panel majority also recommended a one-year moratorium on “virtual” charters, which enroll students in an online program. Prosecutors recently indicted 11 people from online charters on criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.
Mercedes Schneider wrote a post about the abysmal failure of Measure EE in Los Angeles, which needed a 2/3 vote to pass but did not receive a majority. The turnout was shockingly low. Probably the measure should have been added to a general election. Special one-issue elections always have low turnout. That could cut either way but in this case it cut against the needs of children to have a quality education.
She zeroes in on the issue of teacher salary. The average pay for teachers in Los Angeles is $74,000. She notes that Rick Hess of the rightwing think tank American Enterprise Institute sees that number as “reasonable,” and that sets Mercedes off.
In his June 06, 2019, Forbes piece about the failure of Measure EE, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) career think-tanker Frederick Hess does not address the issue of low voter turnout. Instead, he focuses mostly on the teacher salary component.
Hess implies that the average LAUSD teacher salary of $74,000 a year “strikes a lot of Americans as pretty reasonable.”
Let us take a moment to contextualize AEI and Hess.
The mission of AEI as listed on its tax forms is as follows:
The American Enterprise Institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. AEI pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the highest standards of research and exposition.
It should be noted that in 2018, Hess drew a comfortable $235K (up from $197K in 2013) as an AEI “resident scholar,” which has our armchair educator hovering nowhere near that “pretty reasonable” $74K he mentions. Furthermore, AEI president Arthur Brooks garnered an amazing salary boost from 2017 to 2018, doubled from $1.1M to $2.2M, and executive VP David Gerson also doubling his salary, from $526K to $1.1M.
At the end of 2018, AEI listed total net assets of $321M.
Hess pens his think-tankery about education from a plush perch.
Is $74,000 a “reasonable” salary for a professional in Los Angeles (or for those professionals who make less)?
Mercedes says she makes $60,000 after many years of teaching in Louisiana. Is that reasonable? It would be unreasonable in Los Angeles or D.C. or New York City.
Well, read it. It’s Mercedes doing what she does best: using her razor-sharp intellect to dissect condescension.
Civil rights icon Jitu Brown and Rochester activist Rosemary Rivera write that state takeover of the Rochester public schools is a bad idea.
They write:
We know that Rochester residents want the same thing: excellent public schools where it is a joy to teach and learn. The fact that this vision hasn’t been realized on a district-wide basis is painful, and there’s a growing sentiment that something has to be done, anything, to turn the tide. However, dissolving a democratically elected school board takes Rochester further from its goal and disempowers the very community it should be lifting up….
To pin the problems in the RCSD on the school board is misguided. There is no quick fix for school performance when large numbers of children are struggling with poverty, hunger, and housing insecurity….
We have failed to fully contend with the role of structural racism in education outcomes. Students of color face disproportionately high rates of suspension and excessive discipline. When students are suspended for weeks at a time, they fall behind and their academic performance suffers.
Schools like Enrico Fermi School 17 have emphasized restorative practices to repair school relationships and keep students engaged in the classroom… The strides made by School 17 should serve as a model for the rest of the Rochester City School District.
Enrico Fermi is a community school that provides wraparound services, including an on-site recreation center with after-school programs and meals for children. The board is strongly in favor of expanding the community school model and restorative practices, but these programs require investment. Addressing the problems faced by students and families in poverty takes a “whole student” approach.
Moments of crisis can lead us to take rash actions. The Chamber of Commerce and pro-business groups will use this crisis as an opportunity to push privatization and charter expansion – an approach we’ve already seen fail in New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit. These are the same groups that have worsened the crisis through the shameless promotion of austerity budgets and anti-worker policies that keep people trapped in poverty.
A recent study by the Education Justice Network shows that countries that invest in public education with a focus on equity outperform countries that have privatized their education systems. Canada outperforms the United States, Cuba outperforms Chile, and Finland outperforms Sweden. What children in New York and other urban communities across the United States need is equity.
Progress in our schools has been slow and uneven, but we know what works. Our focus should be on expanding the successful programs we see at Enrico Fermi School 17, Francis Parker School 23, World of Inquiry School 58, and many other outstanding schools in the district. Taking away the voice of voters and community members isn’t the answer.
Opposition research—negative information about one’s political opponent—costs thousands of dollars. It is valuable. President Trump told George Stephanopoulos that he would be willing to listen if a foreign government offered dirt about a political opponent. The law says that such offers should be reported to the FBI at once. Trump seems to be unfamiliar with the law and the Constitution (e.g., freedom of the press, the emoluments clause, etc.). Guess they didn’t teach civics at the Hill School or Wharton.
Statement from Ellen L. Weintraub, chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission:
“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded the alarm about ‘foreign Interference, Intrigue, and Influence.’ They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donation from a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
She tweeted this and titled her tweet:
I would not have thought that I needed to say this.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2019
Contact: Owen Kilmer, SPLC
Owen.Kilmer@splcenter.org // (334) 956-8209
John McDonald, UCLA
JMcDonald@gseis.ucla.edu // (310) 206-0513
Report: Black students, students with disabilities among
most likely to be struck in schools practicing corporal punishment
Civil rights groups offer new insight into practice banned in majority of states
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Children attending the small percentage of the nation’s public schools that allow corporal punishment face a much greater likelihood of being struck than previously understood, with black students and students with disabilities among the most likely groups to be struck, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California at Los Angeles’ Civil Rights Project.
The report – The Striking Outlier: The Persistent, Painful and Problematic Practice of Corporal Punishment in Schools – provides the clearest look yet at a practice outlawed in a majority of states and, even within states that legally permit the practice in schools, ban it in a host of other public settings for children and adults. The report includes a foreword by Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive of the NAACP.
The report found that at least one in every 20 children attending schools that practice corporal punishment were struck in 2013-14 and 2015-16. Black girls were more than three times as likely to be struck as white girls (5.2 percent vs.1.7 percent) during the 2013-14 school year. Black boys were nearly twice as likely as to be struck as white boys (14 percent vs. 7.5 percent).
Such racial disparities are troubling, because other research shows that black students do not misbehave more than white students. The report also found that in more than half of the schools practicing corporal punishment, students with disabilities were struck at higher rates than those without disabilities, raisingconcerns that they may have been struck for behaviors arising from their disability.
“These findings show that corporal punishment disproportionately affects the nation’s most vulnerable students,” said Zoe Savitsky, SPLC deputy legal director. “It also destroys a child’s trust in educators, which damages learning relationships. Quite simply, corporal punishment doesn’t belong in schools, and states should bring schools in line with the many other institutions, from foster care to juvenile detention, that already ban the practice.”
The report recommends that states ban the practice in schools and that schools use evidenced-based discipline programs as alternatives to corporal punishment rather than punitive disciplinary measures, such as out-of-school suspension.
“If an adult hit someone with a weapon, it’s considered aggravated assault. An educator using violence to discipline students, however, is considered corporal punishment, and we found it’s still happening over 100,000 times every year in public schools,” said report co-author Amir Whitaker, researcher with the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA. “Like other forms of discipline and state-supported violence, it’s disproportionately used on black students. The legacy of slavery and racial terror continues through its use, and decades of research finds the practice is extremely harmful to students.”
The report’s methodology differs from previous studies, which typically examine student populations at the state or school district level where corporal punishment was practiced – even when corporal punishment was only used in a small fraction of schools in those jurisdictions. That approach skews corporal punishment rates downward. This report only examined data from schools where corporal punishment was used, relying primarily on data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection from the 2013-14 school year.
Within the schools that practice corporal punishment, the report found about 5.6 percent of students were struck during the 2013-14 school year. The rates in individual states, however, were as high as 9.3 percent (Mississippi), 7.5 percent (Arkansas) and 5.9 percent (Alabama).
What emerges is a picture of a practice that remains deeply entrenched in the South. Ten Southern states account for more than three-quarters of all corporal punishment in public schools. Just four of those states – Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas – account for more than 70 percent.
“There are far more effective and safer ways to manage a classroom,” said report co-author Dan Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA. “That is why most public schools in the United States ban the practice.
“This report demonstrates how in most states that still allow corporal punishment of children of color and those with disabilities are frequently struck. They bear the brunt of this outdated and ineffective practice compared to their white and nondisabled peers. Our documentation of the uneven and heavy-handed practice suggests that the use of corporal punishment is likely violating the civil rights of public school children throughout the South.”
Mississippi alone is responsible for almost one-quarter of all corporal punishment. And nearly half (43.8 percent) of all black girls receiving corporal punishment in U.S. public schools in 2013-14 were in Mississippi (4,716 black girls). No other state came close to eclipsing Mississippi’s corporal punishment rate of black girls.
Despite corporal punishment’s ubiquity in the South, a review of the law in five Southern states that allow the practice in schools (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi) found that these states not only prohibit adults from striking children in most other settings – such as child care centers, foster care settings and juvenile detention centers – but often describe corporal punishment as inappropriate, abusive and unethical in such settings, the report found.
“This data should shock our conscience,” the NAACP’s Johnson writes in the report’s foreword. He adds: “[T]he impact of corporal punishment can be devastating on a student’s ability to learn and succeed. There are much more effective ways to promote positive behavior, ways that keep students safe and in the classroom.”
Thirty-one states have banned corporal punishment in schools, according to the report. In the remaining 19 states, there are nearly 8,000 schools within districts that practice it. Of those schools, however, almost 45 percent do not use corporal punishment. This means that children attending different schools in the same district can have vastly different experiences when it comes to discipline. One school may use evidence-based practices that provide positive, corrective consequences for students. But, at a nearby school, children engaging in the same misbehavior may be struck despite research showing the practice to be ineffective and unsound for education.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, visit www.splcenter.org.
Citizens for Public Schools needs you now to stand up for public schools in Massachusetts.
Three ways you can stand up and speak out for public education today!
Take a few minutes today to raise your voice about these three important issues for our schools.
