Archives for category: Education Reform
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Bookshelf: Steve Nelson’s “First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk”

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2017 //
38

You know how you can pick up a book, start reading, start annotating with underlining and exclamation points, then realize you are marking up almost every word?

That is Steve Nelson’s “First Do No Harm.” It is chicken soup for the educator’s soul.

Nelson recently retired as head of the progressive Calhoun School in New York City. He also just joined the board of the Network for Public Education because he wants to devote his time to the fight for better public schools for all children.

He describes progressive education as ways to engage children in thinking critically, asking questions, and engaging creatively in play and work. He knows it is endangered, even though children thrive when given the opportunity to love learning.

He recognizes the soul-deadening approach of no-excuses charters and suggests that they exhibit unconscious racism. Maybe not always unconscious.

He points out that affluent communities think they have great public schools, without recognizing that their schools are gifted by the privilege of parents and the community. The same is true of elite private schools, whose students are drawn mostly from wealthy families with every financial advantage.

Every effort to standardize education–whether it is NCLB or Common Core– robs children of the chance to think for themselves. Such top-down programs demand conformity, not critical thinking or creativity. Indeed they punish students who think differently.

Nelson goes into great detail about the harm inflicted on children by no-excuses charter schools like KIPP and Democracy Prep.

He stands strongly against vouchers, which typically are used in religious schools, where children are subject to indoctrination.

Nelson understands the link between education and democracy, education for freedom.

I recommend this book to you.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Childhood, Common Core, Creativity, Discipline, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Ohio: ECOT Finds Another Profitable Gig

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2017 //
7

Peter Greene reports that ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) has found a way to escape its current woes and keep on collecting state money.

Having attracted the ire of the state for inflating enrollment, having lost its court battle to hang on to its profits for producing low-quality education, having been labeled the school with the lowest graduation rate in the nation, what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Go into the business of dropout recovery!

What a clever idea: First you create the dropouts, then you remediate them. Or claim to.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Laura Chapman: Here Comes the Billionaires’ Latest Scheme to Redesign Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2017 //
31

Laura Chapman noted a major promotion that is scheduled for September, when Laurence Powell Jobs tells the world how to fix public schools. What is the source of her expertise? Well, she is surrounded by alumni of the ill-fated Obama Department of Education, which managed to blow away $5 billion and accomplish nothing other than to create a teacher shortage and enrich the testing and charter industry. Arne Duncan, mastermind of the failed Race to the Top, advises Jobs. She is also extremely rich, and we know from “Fiddler on the Roof” that “When you’re rich, they think you really know.”

The Billionaires who think they have the answers to high school redesign are planning a big splash in early September.

Premise: “While technology and society have rocketed forward, high school has used the same model since 1900. We can’t prepare our nation’s students for the 21st century with this outmoded system. Let’s rethink high school.”

On September 8, 2017, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox New will be marketing the Emerson Collective’s “XQ: The Super School Project,” at 8 pm (7pm Central)

“XQ: The Super School Project was launched in September 2015 as an open call to rethink and design the next American high school. Thousands of school builders, and tens of thousands of supporters from towns and cities across all 50 states united to take on this important work. Nearly 4,000 teams of students, teachers, parents, community leaders and many more came together to conceptualize innovative models for 21st century learning. To date, XQ has pledged more than $100 million to a growing number of the most promising ideas, actively supporting these teams on their journeys to become Super Schools.” Here are some of the leaders of the project.

Laurene Powell Jobs. Chairs XQ’s board of directors, President of Emerson Collective. “Her two decades in the education field have convinced her that America is ready for a sea change to overhaul the system.” Widow of Steve Jobs.

Russlynn Ali, Chief Executive Officer. Former assistant secretary of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Also serves as managing director of education at Emerson Collective.

Alexandra Berry, Chief of Staff. Designed professional development products for teachers at Amplify, Instructional faculty and operations team at Relay Graduate School of Education. Teach for America, middle school math learning specialist at Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) in Houston, Texas.

Matt Lorin, President: Former Executive Director of Honolulu-based, The Learning Coalition. Experience in philanthropy and civic engagement in public education.

Monica Martinez. Senior School Support Strategist. Expert in school redesign, policy, and philanthropy. Senior Fellow to the Hewlett Foundation, President of New Tech Network, VP of KnowledgeWorks Foundation, an associate at the Institute for Educational Leadership.

Dr. Linda Murray, Superintendent–in–Residence. Former senior advisor to the Education Trust-West and Superintendent of Schools for the San Jose Unified School District. Advises XQ on practice work …to help all students in XQ high schools reach college and career ready goals.

Sebastian Turner, Special Projects Lead: Worked as a personnel management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, human capital consultant and talent recruiter for charter management organizations. Former elementary school teacher.

Deep collaborators ( role not clear) include:
Yo-Yo Ma, the globally accomplished musician and creator;
Marc Ecko, Chief Brand and Creative Officer of COMPLEX, youth and justice advocate;
Geoffrey Canada, education advocate, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone;
Michael Klein, global strategic and financial adviser and Managing Partner of M Klein,
Leon Wieseltier, Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy at the Brookings Institution, listed as the philosopher for the Emerson Collective.

More information about the high school project go to https://xqsuperschool.org

For more about the people and projects of the Emerson Collective go to http://www.emersoncollective.com/our-team/

My generation would label many of these efforts variants of the 1960s alternative school movement with a lot more tech. I hope that someone or some group (other than the promoters) will track the longevity of these school, transformations, and what happens when the grant money and glow of publicity fades. Notice how some of the recruits to lead the project are “formers”… of TFA, of Relay (not) Graduate School of Education, the Education Trust, and active in pushing tech. ALmost forgot: Arne Duncan is a Partner in the Emerson Collective.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

The Strange Story of the Black Man Standing Behind Trump at Phoenix Rally

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2017 //
15

I watched the beginning of Trump’s speech in Phoenix last night. Standing behind him was a tall black man holding a sign that read “Blacks for Trump.” I didn’t think much about it, other than to wonder why there would be women holding signs that read “Women for Trump.” At least, he no longer has anyone holding up an “LGBTQ for Trump sign.”

But the Washington Post went to the website of the black man standing behind the POTUS.

It is a curious story indeed.

He calls himself “Michael, the Black Man.”

The radical fringe activist from Miami once belonged to a violent black supremacist religious cult, and he runs a handful of amateur, unintelligible conspiracy websites. He has called Barack Obama “The Beast” and Hillary Clinton a Ku Klux Klan member. Oprah Winfrey, he says, is the devil.

And he loves Donald Trump.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Categories Education Reform

Jersey Jazzman: The Secrets of Success Academy

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2017 //
88

Most of you who have been reading this blog over the past five years know the secrets of Success Academy’s “success.” Careful selection of students. Exclusion of those unlikely to succeed. Lots of outside money.

Jersey Jazzman has done us the favor of documenting these strategies.

He found exactly what you would expect:

“Schools like Success Academy almost always have structural advantages — advantages that have nothing to do with their governance — over the schools against which they compare themselves:

“Different student populations.

“Resource advantages.

“A less-experienced, less-expensive faculty.

“A longer school day/year and/or smaller class sizes and/or tutoring, made possible by #2 & #3 in combination with free-riding on the public district schools.

“Strict disciplinary codes which encourage students who do not thrive in a “no excuses” environment to leave.

“In the minority of cases where “successful” charters out-perform expectations, I have seen no compelling evidence that freedom from teachers unions and public district school regulations, curricular innovations, or parental “choice” are what lead to “success.” Instead, some combination of the five factors above almost always provide the most reasonable explanation for the difference in outcomes.”

Eva Moskowitz pretends that she has cracked some secret code and that her methods could be applied on a large scale.

But what she has done is not replicable for an entire district. If you exclude and kick out the kids you don’t want, where will they go?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Industry, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Phoenix: The Old, Un-presidential Trump Returns

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2017 //
24

CNN reports on Trump’s speech in Phoenix. He is now campaigning for his 2020 re-election. He revived his take-no-prisoners rhetorical style, attacked the two Republican senators from Arizona, and even threatened to shut down the government unless Congress appropriates the money to build The Wall. His claim that “they” are taking away “our culture” and “our history” sounded like the white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Can he govern while attacking McConnell, McCain, Flake, Heller, and other Republicans? Can he bully them into acquiescence? He has offered support to Senator Flake’s primary opponent, a conspiracy theorist.

Today, he speaks in Nevada, where he will probably attack Senator Dean Heller.

Categories Education Reform

Breaking News: Federal Judge Knocks Out Arizona Ban on Ethnic Studies

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
5

A federal judge declared that Arizona’s law prohibiting Mexican-American studies was passed with racist intent.

http://tucson.com/news/local/judge-racism-behind-arizona-ban-on-tusd-s-mexican-american/article_468a9280-bf80-5df8-82d3-dadb5b608cf7.html

“PHOENIX — Racism was behind an Arizona ban on ethnic studies that shuttered a popular Mexican-American Studies program at Tucson Unified School District, a federal judge said Tuesday.

“The state enacted the ban with discriminatory intent, U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima found.

“He had previously upheld most of the law in a civil lawsuit filed by students in TUSD. But a federal appeals court, while upholding most of his ruling, sent the case back to trial to determine if the ban was enacted with racist intent.

“The new trial was held in July.

“The law prohibits courses that promote resentment toward a race or a class of people or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treating people as individuals. A portion of the law that banned courses designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group was struck down.

“The state violated students’ constitutional rights “because both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus,” Tashima said in the ruling Tuesday.

“However, Tashima said he doesn’t know a remedy for the violation and has not issued a final judgment. Plaintiffs’ attorneys hoped he would throw out the law, which was enacted in 2010, the same year Arizona approved its landmark immigration law known as SB1070. They did not respond to calls for comment Tuesday evening.”

Categories Arizona, Education Reform

Trump and the Strategic Use of “Whataboutism”

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
17

Dan Zak explores Donald Trump’s strategic use of “whataboutism,” a rhetorical device to deflect attention from the issue at hand.

Ask him about the Mueller investigation and don’t be surprised when he says “what about Hillary’s 33,000 emails.”

Zak writes:

“What about antifa? What about free speech? What about the guy who shot Steve Scalise? What about the mosque in Minnesota that got bombed? What about North Korea? What about murders in Chicago? What about Ivanka at the G-20? What about Vince Foster? If white pride is bad, then what about gay pride? What about the stock market? What about those 33,000 deleted emails? What about Hitler? What about the Crusades? What about the asteroid that may one day kill us all? What about Benghazi?

“What about what about what about.

“We’ve gotten very good at what-abouting.

“The president has led the way.

“His campaign may or may not have conspired with Moscow, but President Trump has routinely employed a durable old Soviet propaganda tactic. Tuesday’s bonkers news conference in New York was Trump’s latest act of “whataboutism,” the practice of short-circuiting an argument by asserting moral equivalency between two things that aren’t necessarily comparable. In this case, the president wondered whether the removal of a statue of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville — where white supremacists clashed this weekend with counterprotesters — would lead to the teardown of others.”

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

Change the subject.

Mueller is at work every day. Whataboutism doesn’t matter to him.

Categories Education Reform

Ohio: Another Virtual Charter School Bilked Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
9

The Virtual Community School in Ohio won’t open this year. It must First sort out how much it must pay the state for overstating its past enrollment. It owes millions. This is the kind of “school” that Betsy DeVos is promoting.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170814/online-charter-virtual-community-school-ordered-to-pay-back-millions

“Virtual Community School of Ohio has announced it won’t open as scheduled Tuesday for the upcoming school year. On the school’s Facebook page, parents were told they should consider enrolling in another school for the upcoming year.

“During an emergency meeting July 31, the VCS board agreed to a “temporary suspension by our sponsor while a financial investigation is conducted,” according to a notice on the school’s website. At that time, its sponsor was the Reynoldsburg School District, which created VCS in 2001 with the help of a former ECOT administrator.

“VCS had billed the state for an attendance of 835 students for the 2015-16 school year; a department audit of student attendance found that should be reduced to 280 students. Based on that, the school would have to repay about $4.2 million of the $6.33 million it was paid that year. The state found VCS, like ECOT, couldn’t document how much time students were participating in classwork.”

Categories Education Reform, Ohio, School Choice, Virtual Charter Schools

Why George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee Are Different

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2017 //
26

Thanks to G.F. Brandenburg for bringing this post to my attention.

Ross Cohen writes in Quota that there are rather important differences between Washington and Jefferson on one hand and Robert E. Lee on the other. While it is true that all of them owned slaves, the similarities end there.

Donald Trump is saying Robert E. Lee and George Washington are the same. That’s just silly. Who is dumb enough to fall for that?

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are historically notable for many reasons, most of them positive. Robert E. Lee is known for just one thing.

We could all write blocks of text about how silly this is, but who really has the patience for that?

Trump is known to prefer graphics in his memos and briefings so maybe we can use some simple Venn Diagrams to help explain it. Please excuse my crude graphics design…

What follows are some graphic designs that anyone–even a non-reader–can understand.

Categories Education Reform, History
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