Archives for category: Education Reform

Martin Longman, web editor for The Washington Monthly, gives a valuable explanation of the Russian lawyer Natalia Vesilnitskaya and why she wanted to meet with the highest levels of the Trump campaign.

We were told that she was lobbying to remove the American sanctions that provoked Putin to suspend the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans. What a touching story. It was all about the children. Of course, Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort would drop whatever they were doing to “take a meeting” about Russian orphans in June 2016 as Trump Sr. was wrapping up the GOP nomination. What could have been more important?

As Longman explains, Natalia V was no ordinary lawyer. She was the lawyer for the Russian mafia.

At the time, as the previous post contended, she was locked in a struggle over $230 million that had been stolen from the Russian treasury. Preet Bahara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was her adversary. Trump personally assured Preet in a meeting at Trump Tower during the transition that he could keep his job, where he had a reputation as a fiercely independent prosecutor of government corruption. But Trump fired Preet. Natalia won.

We have been told that Natalia doesn’t speak English, but a photograph surfaced recently showing her sitting in a second-row seat at Congressional hearings directly behind Obama’s Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, when he testified in 2014. There doesn’t seem to be an interpreter next to her.

It gets curiouser and curiouser.

Categories Education Reform

“The Settlement:” Follow the Money

By dianeravitch

July 15, 2017 //

Remember Preet Bahara? He was the fiercely independent U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was fired by Trump.

Remember the Russian lawyer who met with Don Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort (and others) at Trump Tower in June 2016. They said she promised dirt about Clinton but only talked about sanctions and Russian adoptions.

What do you think Preet Bahara and Natalia Vesilnitskaya have in common?

Read this and find out.

The Settlement

The entanglements grow stranger every day,

Categories Education Reform

There Is Hope for the World in This Wonderful Story

By dianeravitch

July 14, 2017 //

Read this story and share the joy!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/11/a-riptide-swept-away-a-florida-family-then-beachgoers-formed-a-human-chain/?utm_term=.d9e60b8ab518&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

People can rise to the occasion to save others. What a great story and photo.

Categories Education Reform

Karen Wolfe: Why Students at Venice High School in L.A. Staged a Walkout

By dianeravitch

July 14, 2017 //

Karen Wolfe writes here about the decision of students at Venice High School in Los Angeles staged a walkout.

They were protesting the removal of an African-American guidance counselor.

The problem was the principal, who wanted to squelch free expression:

Complaints against Principal Oryla Wiedoeft had been brewing since she arrived a year and a half ago. Some students complained about a repressive dress code. Others were frustrated by her suppression of a movement to opt out of standardized tests.

Protests and free expression are part of the rich history of Venice, California. Venice’s unique cultural diversity is protected by law, and many officials have built careers celebrating it. L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin shared a video of his Venice field deputy gleefully marching in the recent Gay Pride parade. U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu, who represents the area, is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. In the wake of Trump’s threats to crack down on immigration, the L.A. school district passed a resolution to make schools sanctuary sites for immigrant families.

Yet, according to a parent and a teacher I interviewed, when Venice High students planned a demonstration in support of immigrants last winter, the principal sent the school police to break up their meeting, saying the groups were becoming too radical.

One student said of the school principal: “She’s not for our trans students. She’s not for our students of color. She’s not for our undocumented students.”

Wolfe fears that she is trying to act like a charter school principal.

Categories Education Reform

The Book That Betsy DeVos Should Read about Fraternity Life and Sexual Assault on Campus Today

By dianeravitch

July 14, 2017 //

We have had a vigorous discussion on the blog about Betsy DeVos’s decision to reorient the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights towards protecting the rights of those accused of rape rather than those who alleged that they were victims of rape.

Candace Jackson, DeVos’s controversial choice to lead OCR, made these startling remarks to the New York Times, which caused such an uproar that she subsequently apologized:

“Investigative processes have not been “fairly balanced between the accusing victim and the accused student,” Ms. Jackson argued, and students have been branded rapists “when the facts just don’t back that up.” In most investigations, she said, there’s “not even an accusation that these accused students overrode the will of a young woman.”

“Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right,’” Ms. Jackson said.”

I urge DeVos and Jackso to read John Hechinger’s riveting new book, “True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities.”
The book won’t be released until September. I read it in galleys and provided a blurb.

It provides an insider’s view of fraternity life on campus today. Hechinger is a writer for Bloomberg who often covers education. What you will encounter in the book is a culture of binge drinking, hazing, misogyny, sexism, and rampant disregard for the rights of anyone. I have never cared about fraternity life, never attended a college where fraternities or sororities mattered. Now I know what I was missing, and I’m glad I did. The lives of pledges are treated with reckless disregard; the lives and reputations of women matter not at all. In this peculiar world, getting dead drunk is ritual behavior.

The two women now not-enforcing civil rights protections for victims of sexual violence on campus should read this book for context. You should too.

Categories Education Reform, Higher Education

Bill Moyers’ Website: The Trump-Russia Timeline

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2017 //

Bill Moyers’ website very usefully assembled a timeline of Donald Trump’s relations with Russia and Russian individuals.

Categories Education Reform

Former Charter Teacher: Why Teacher Attrition is High in Charter Schools

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2017 //

Alternet posted an informative article that explains why charter schools churn through teachers. It was written by Rann Miller, who taught for six years in a charter school in Camden, New Jersey.

He writes:

“John was fresh-out-of-college and had never set foot in a city school before. Hired the day before the school year started, he missed out on the two-and-a-half weeks of training the charter organization had given the rest of us on what to expect at a turnaround school in Camden, NJ. John lasted less than a week.

“I’d started the year as a history teacher, relieved to be without the responsibility of my own classroom and homeroom. But after five more teachers followed John out of the school building within the first month, I had both. When I left at the beginning of the next school year, seven more teachers were right behind me.

“When a school loses teachers, by choice or by chance, students are cheated out of continuity, while the goals and objectives of the entire organization can be hindered. In charter schools, including the ones where I taught for six years, this problem is particularly pronounced. Teachers leave charters at significantly higher rates when compared to traditional public schools. Among urban charter schools, it’s not uncommon to see teachers turning over at a rate of 30, 40 or even 50% a year. I’ve witnessed first hand—and experienced—why this is such a problem, and what causes teachers to flee. But I’ve also seen for myself that there are charter schools and networks that don’t mind high levels of teacher turnover. Turmoil and churn work for organizations that are determined to control both the makeup and the mindset of their faculty…

“The weeding process is all about maintaining control where there is none. It serves to remove “troublemakers”: the folks who will hold the organization accountable. For charter leadership looking to maintain sovereignty of mission and mission implementation, teachers who are independent thinkers and teachers with lives outside of schools are as much of a detriment as those deemed incompetent. The teachers who remain either like the Kool-Aid or at the very least are still thirsty.

“Teacher turnover is an effective tool for organizations that seek to shift accountability away from school leadership. High teacher attrition is an accountability loophole. Rather than rethink a mission that prizes drilling over teaching, or addressing why young teachers get burned out or why teachers of color walk away from the very communities they are so passionate about, some charter leaders will often put the blame on the leavers. “They couldn’t cut it,” you’ll hear them say. They’ll insist to stakeholders that some teachers weren’t good enough, while others weren’t the right “fit” for the organizational mission and culture. The charter school’s organizational leadership and mission remain intact; anyone who is not fighting for “our kids” has been let go.”

Read it all. Quite a story.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Speak Out for the Teaching Profession!

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2017 //

Many states are planning to lower standards for new teachers, because charter schools can’t recruit enough teachers to fill their staff.

Speak out against lowered standards!

Don’t let them destroy the teaching profession!

Click here and stand up for qualified teachers!

The Network for Public Education invites you to speak up and let the charter authorizers in New York know that every child deserves a well-prepared, professional teacher.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Daniel Katz: Charter Schools Should Not Be Allowed to “Certify” Unqualified Teachers

By dianeravitch

July 13, 2017 //

Daniel Katz prepares secondary school teachers at Seton Hall University. He knows the importance of having highly qualified professionals in every classroom, especially in urban districts where many students need extra support and individual attention.

In this post, he expresses his bafflement that the SUNY Charter School Committee is considering a plan to permit charter schools to “certify” their own teachers and bypass the rigorous standards now expected of public school teachers.

Katz describes in detail what a farce this proposal is. Even SUNY faculty are incensed that their knowledge is belittled by a governing committee–the charter committee–that consists of three lawyers and a CEO, all appointed by Governor Cuomo.

This proposal is not only an insult to the teaching profession, it insults the African-American and Hispanic families who have a right to expect that their children will be taught by professionals, not inexperienced amateurs.

The New York Board of Regents must stop this travesty. Now.

All children in the state deserve a qualified teacher.

If you are outraged, send an email to the SUNY Committee.

Categories Education Reform