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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Can We Get Her Involved in the Struggle to Save Public Schools from Plutocrats?

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2019 //
57

The New York Timeswrote that the first-year memberof Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was tending bar in the Bronx a year ago, is pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Alexandria (@AOC) is a remarkable figure in our politics today. By sheer force of personality, she has emerged as a dominant voice. She terrifies moderate Democrats and the entire Republican Party. She has proposed a Green New Deal. She has proposed that people who have an annual income of more than $10 million pay a tax of 70% of everything above $10 million (the marginal tax rate was 90% during the Eisenhower years).

She has two million followers on Twitter.

If anyone knows how to reach her, I would love to get her aid in fighting the privatization of public schools. She would be a powerful ally.

This is part of what the Times wrote about her today:

“Not so long ago, left-wing activists were dismissed as fringe or even kooky when they pressed for proposals to tax the super rich at 70 percent, to produce all of America’s power through renewable resources or to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Then along came Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and her social-media megaphone.

“In the two months since her election, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has had the uncanny ability for a first-term member of Congress to push the debate inside the Democratic Party sharply to the left, forcing party leaders and 2020 presidential candidates to grapple with issues that some might otherwise prefer to avoid.

“The potential Democratic field in 2020 is already being quizzed about her (Senator Kamala Harris praised her on “The View”), emulating her digital tactics (Senator Elizabeth Warren held an Instagram chat in her kitchen that looked much like one of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s sessions) and embracing some of her causes.

“Ms. Warren and Senator Cory Booker, among others, have recently endorsed the idea of a “Green New Deal,” a call to reimagine an environment-first economy that would phase out fossil fuels. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez thrust that issue into the national dialogue after she joined a sit-in protest in the office of then-incoming House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, in one of her first, rebellious acts in Washington.

“Her rise has stirred a backlash among some Congressional Democrats, who are seeking to constrain her anti-establishment streak and fear her more radical ideas could tar the party as socialist.

“Back home in New York, she has stoked opposition to a deal with Amazon to set up offices in Queens, putting pressure on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, to justify corporate incentives.

“Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx-born 29-year-old of Puerto Rican descent, is the youngest congresswoman ever, and Washington veterans say they cannot recall a similar congressional debut.

“A bartender from the Bronx has been able to create a litmus test around climate and economic policy for every 2020 Democrat,” said Waleed Shahid, who was one of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s early campaign advisers and is now the communications director for Justice Democrats, a liberal activist group.

“Far beyond policy, she has emerged as a potent symbol for a diversifying Democratic Party: a young woman of color who is giving as good as she gets in a political system that has rarely rewarded people who look like her. Her mastery of social media has allowed her to connect with audiences who might otherwise be alienated from Washington.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance

Peter Greene: The L.A. Teachers Strike is a Different Kind of Strike

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2019 //
14

Peter Greene nails it again, in this brilliant article that appeared in Forbes, which is typically read by people in the business world.

He begins:

Teachers don’t want to strike.

Teacher strikes happen because teachers believe they are out of alternatives. There has never been a union meeting in which members said, “The board says they’re willing to talk, and we trust them to do so in good faith, but we think we should strike instead.” Teachers strike because they face issues that can’t be ignored and a board that won’t sit down to help solve those issues. Even then, teachers strike reluctantly. Strikes don’t happen because the most active, cranky members are ready to walk, and strikes don’t happen because local, state or national leaders convince the rest of the members to walk. Strikes happen when school district leadership convinces the most strike-averse teachers that they are out of options.

That’s what makes the L.A. strike, like the statewide strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and Washington, so extraordinary. If you have not worked in union leadership, I’m not sure you can imagine just how difficult it is to push that many teachers to undergo the stress, uncertainty and trouble of a strike. No union leadership could do it without the assistance of the local school district’s board and administration, or the politicians overseeing education on the state level…

But in L.A. (and West Virginia and Oklahoma and the other #REDforED states) there is a new factor.

In my two strikes, and in virtually all strikes of the past, we could make one assumption safely–that as much as we disagreed about the means, everyone wanted, in their own way, to see the public school district remain healthy and whole.

This is no longer a safe assumption on the local, state or national level.

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner came to the job with no background in education. This is no longer unusual in large districts, nor in state school leadership positions. Increasingly the agenda of many people taking positions of authority over public education is to dismantle public education and replace it with a network of private charter schools, a process often accelerated by starving public schools for funding in order to manufacture a crisis. And lest we forget, current secretary of education Betsy DeVos once declared that public schools are a “dead end.” Beutner’s comment to a reporter regarding the strike was “There are ways to educate kids that don’t rely on a physical body.” Teachers are not necessary.

L.A. schools particularly feel this privatization push. Eli Broad has long been a wealthy advocate of approaching education as business, and through Great Public Schools Now, announced in 2016 a bold plan to move half of Los Angeles students into charter schools. Currently charters have enrolled one in five of LA students. Last fall, charter school advocates poured millions of dollars into LAUSD board elections in order to install a charter-favoring majority on the board.

Teachers in many school districts and many states across the country find themselves in the unusual position of working in an institution led by people who want to see that institution fail. Back in the day, teacher strikes were about how best to keep a school district healthy, but these modern walkouts are about the very idea that public schools should be kept healthy at all. UTLA demands for smaller classes, more support staff, safer schools, community schools, and charter school oversight are not about making their working conditions a little better, but about keeping public education alive and healthy.

Teachers across the country are dealing with the problems created by systematic underfunding of public schools and a systematic devaluing of the teaching profession by leaders who believe that public education should be swept aside to make room for a system of private free market education. Of all the reactions to this, the #REDforEd movement and the wave of strikes are actually the good news, because these are the teachers who intend to stay and fight for the future of public education and the students it serves. When those walkouts are settled, the teachers will return to the classroom. The bad news? The oft-noted teacher “shortage,” is really a slow motion walkout of teachers who will never return to the profession at all.

The teachers of Los Angeles are striking for the survival of public education and for the teaching profession.

Which side are you on?

Categories Education Reform

Arne Duncan Blasts UTLA and Opposes Strike

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2019 //
69

Glenn Sacks, a high school teacher, read Arne Duncan’s editorial blast at the UTLA teachers’ strike and concluded that the former Secretary of Education really knows nothing about conditions of teaching in the Los Angeles public schools.

Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan Slams LA Teachers for Strike 

Sacks begins:

“The closer we get to a strike, the more pressure is put on us to call it off. In a recent article in The Hill, pro-charter/anti-union former Education secretary Arne Duncan criticizes United Teachers of Los Angeles, citing the Los Angeles Unified School District’s alleged financial problems. Yet the neutral, state-appointed factfinder on the dispute contradicts many of LAUSD’s (and Duncan’s) claims.

“For example, Duncan tells us LAUSD “is headed toward insolvency in about two years if nothing changes…It simply does not have the money to fund UTLA’s demands.” But arbitrator David A. Weinberg, the Neutral Chair of the California Public Employment Relations Board fact-finding panel, while noting the challenges LAUSD faces, found that the District’s reserves skyrocketed from $500 million in 2013-2014 to $1.8 billion in 2017-2018. Three years ago LAUSD projected that their 2018-2019 reserve would be only $100 million—it’s actually $1.98 billion. We’ve heard these alarming claims for many years–for LAUSD, the sky is always falling, but somehow it never falls.

“Duncan tells us LAUSD “has an average of 26 students per class. Of the 10 largest school districts in California, only one has a smaller average class size than Los Angeles.” These numbers are disputed by UTLA. Moreover, even if 26 is correct on paper, Duncan should know that student-to-teacher ratios count special education and other specialized teachers who normally have much smaller classes than regular classroom teachers. Class sizes are significantly larger than standard student-teacher ratios indicate.

“At my high school, for example, we have over 30 academic classes with 41 or more students, including nine English/writing classes with as many as 49 students, and three AP classes with 46 or more students. One English teacher has well over 206 students—41+ per class. A US Government teacher has 52 students in his AP government class. Writing is a key component of both classes—the sizes make it is impossible for these teachers to properly review and help students with their essays.”

Duncan makes clear that he sides with management and against UTLA. Betsy DeVos and Duncan are on the same side. Why are we not surprised.

Categories Class size, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Union

Carol Burris: Texas Has Some Really Bad Ideas about How to Fix School Funding

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2019 //
28

In 2011, the Texas government cut $5.4 billion from the budget for public schools; thousands of teachers were laid off. (If you open the links, you will see that the NPR report says the budget cut was “over $4 billion” and describes the devastating impact on schools, but the actual figure was $5.4 billion in cuts.) In the seven years then, the state has restored some of that deep cut, but the enrollment in the schools has far outstripped any increases in the budget.

The state created a commission to study school finance, which recently issued its report. Its most controversial recommendation is “outcomes-based funding.” Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, reviews that report today at Valerie Strauss’s “The Answer Sheet” in the Washington Post, based on a careful review of the evidence about “outcomes-based funding.”

Burris begins:

Texas has a problem. After years of inadequately and inequitably funding its public schools, the chickens have come home to roost. Texas now ranks 46th in the country in fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress reading proficiency, dropping from its previous dismal rank of 41 in 2015. For several years there has also been discontent around the college readiness of its high school students.

The Texas decline should come as no surprise. For nearly a decade, the state has decreased its funding for schools, making an inequitable school funding system even more unequal. The rapid expansion of charter schools has further drained public schools of funds.

Texas public schools have two revenue streams — the local property tax and state funding. State funding is supposed to make the system more equitable — closing the gap between districts that are property poor and property rich. Texas itself is not a poor state and yet state funding has steadily decreased.

Last fall, UT News estimated the decline in state revenue to schools to be close to 12.6 percent per pupil between 2008 to 2017, despite a 13.7 percent increase in student enrollment.

In order to address the problem, the Texas Commission for Public School Finance was created. Last month it issued its final report, “Funding for Impact: Funding for Students Who Need it the Most.” As its title notes, the commission concluded that school funding should be redesigned to provide “equitable funding for students who need it the most.” This is critical in a state where nearly 40 percent of all households are supported by single moms living in poverty.

There are some good things in the report. The commission acknowledged that poverty matters and preschool should be expanded. It also proposed the usual ineffective and harmful ideas like evaluating teachers by test scores and merit pay.

But perhaps the most startling feature of the report is its recommendation to use outcomes-based funding as a critical component of the school funding system. Outcomes-based education funding is highly controversial. It is ineffective and can make inequities worse. And this Texas version, which is especially bad, will result in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer with funding going to students who need it the least, not the most.

What is outcomes-based funding in education?

Outcomes-based funding, also known as performance-based funding, is based on the belief that if schools are paid for performance, better outcomes will result. It carries with it the unspoken assumption that somehow teachers and principals are “slackers” and have far more control of how students perform on tests than they are willing to admit. The foremost Florida legislative advocate of performance funding was described as believing this: “[Y]ou could get performance altered by money. If you put a pot of money out there, people would change their behavior in order to chase that money.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Texas

Gary Rubinstein: Where Are the Kids Who Were “Saved” by Ed Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2019 //
85

Gary Rubinstein raises an interesting question: where are the kids who were “saved” by ed reform?

Where are the kids who graduated from Urban Prep in Chicago, the ones that Arne Duncan claimed to “save”?

Where are the kids featured in “Waiting for ‘Superman’”? Remember, they were “saved” from their public schools and a Catholic school by miraculous charter schools.

Then there was the boy saved by a TFA teacher who taught him rugby, which got the boy into college and the teacher on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Apparently, the boy is homeless now.

How long do the “saved” children stay saved?

He asks for your help:

“You’d think that Davis Guggenheim, the director of ‘Waiting For Superman’ would keep in touch with his subjects — see if they graduated high school — see how they’re doing.

“My own private detective skills led me to find one of them, Daisy Esparza, on Twitter. I tried to contact her, but didn’t get a response. The other three, I wasn’t able to find anything. Maybe they are on Instagram. If anyone knows anything — six degrees of separation and all that — leave a comment.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Students, Teach for America

Rhode Island: Legislator Calls for Statewide Adoption of Common Core

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2019 //
19

Legislator Joe McNamara called for statewide adoption of the Common Core.

http://www.golocalprov.com/live/rep-joe-mcnamara-absenteeism-standards-live

Hello, Rip Van Winkle!

Rhode Island won Race to the Top funding eight years years ago and agreed to adopt the Common Core then.

Did they or didn’t they?

Has the CC been forgotten so soon? Lost? Strayed?

Categories Education Reform

Leonie Haimson: Teachers in Los Angeles Are Right to Strike for Smaller Class Sizes

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2019 //
19

Leonie Haimson knows the research on class size, and she explains here why Los Angeles teachers are right to strike for smaller classes. The higher the needs of the students, the more they need smaller classes. Yet in our society, only the very wealthiest students attend schools where class sizes may be as low as 12 or 15.

She writes:

Though some people make the claim that class size doesn’t really matter for a great teacher, it does. Research conclusively shows that small classes benefit all students, but especially disadvantaged students of color, who reap twice the benefit from small classes.

In the Hill newspaper, former U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan, who worked under former president Barack Obama, wrote an op-ed in opposition to the strike and in defense of the district’s position in which he made several questionable claims. The first was to support the district’s statement that LAUSD has smaller average classes than any other large California district but San Francisco. He wrote:

“On class size, Los Angeles Unified has an average of 26 students per class. Of the 10 largest school districts in California, only one has a smaller average class size than Los Angeles.”

There is conflicting data on this, but suffice it to say that information on the LAUSD website supports the union’s position that average class sizes are probably far larger than 26 in every grade but K-3, with averages of more than 30 students per class in grades 4 through 8, and more than 40 in high school classes.

She adds:

The argument currently between the union and the district is not about average class sizes but maximum class sizes — and more specifically, whether the district should adhere to any limits on class size at all.

There is a waiver in the current contract that allows the district to ignore any and all class size caps, as long as they claim financial necessity — and the administration has take advantage of this waiver every single year since the great recession in 2009. That year, the district issued massive teacher layoffs, which increased class sizes in nearly every school. Since then, the administration has continued to use this loophole in the contract to unilaterally decide to violate previously agreed-upon contractual caps, despite the fact that the district has experienced budget surpluses for many years in a row.

Haimson is founder of a group called Class Size Matters, and she knows the research better than anyone else I know.

This is one of those common occurrences when teachers know what their students need. And they know it better than the non-educator/equity investor who now is in charge of the Los Angeles schools or the basketball player who used to be Secretary of Education.

Categories Class size, Education Reform, Los Angeles

California: New Governor Newsom Adds Significant Funding for Education

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2019 //
8

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.

Categories California, Education Reform, Funding

Arizona: 100 Charter Schools in Financial Trouble, at Risk of Closing, Says Report from Watchdog Group

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2019 //
11

Arizona has celebrated its role in the charter gold rush and is often considered “the wild west” of chartering. The laws are lax, the schools are deregulated, and there is little or no oversight.

A new report by the Grand Canyon Institute says that as many as 100 charter schools in the state are at risk of closing.

The Arizona Republic reports:

Following the abrupt closure of at least three Arizona charter schools over the past year, a new report concludes more than 100 of the state’s charters are in danger of closing because of excessive debt and other financial troubles.

It’s a “near certainty” that more than 50 of the state’s 544 charter schools will close in the near future, according to the report by the Grand Canyon Institute, a self-described centrist think tank.

As a whole, Arizona’s 544 charter schools owe more to creditors than they’re worth as businesses contracted with the state to educate kindergarten to 12th-grade students, the report states. “Like any business, an overleveraged charter is financially vulnerable and could fail if it then suffers an income loss,” the report states.

“You will see a bunch of charters folding suddenly,” said Curt Cardine, the study’s main author and a former charter executive for EdKey Inc., a large Arizona charter chain that had a $7.74 million net deficit as of June 30, 2018.

Here is a link to the Grand Canyon report.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Failure

FDR: His “Economic Bill of Rights”

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2019 //
67

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address on January 11, 1944.

Seventy-five years ago today.

He included what was then called the “Economic Bill of Rights.”

It’s good to remember a time long ago when we had a national leader with a vision of a just and fair society, a vision that we remain very far from achieving. It’s good to remember a time when we had a national leader who was intelligent and articulate, surrounded by others who cared deeply about social and economic progress. It’s good to remember a time long ago when America meant something other than rampant individualism, greed, me-first, me-only, competition, and gun violence. It’s good to remember when America was motivated by ideals of the common good and the just and decent society. That was the America of my childhood. I miss it. I hope it can be recaptured.

FDR said:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[3] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Categories Civil Rights, Democracy, Education Reform, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Health, History, Hope, Jobs, Justice
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