Archives for category: Education Reform
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat: DeSantis Is No Better Than Trump

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2022 //
26

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian at New York University abd a scholar of fascism. She wrote the following for MSNBC. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to read her assertion that DeSantis is no better than Trump, and may even be much worse, given his insistence that there is only one right way to teach, act, and think—and he decides what it is. I think of him as DeFascist.

She writes:

If DeSantis is becoming many Republicans’ answer to their “Trump problem,” his rise is because of his authoritarian sympathies and attitudes, not in spite of them. He promises a more “respectable”-seeming version of illiberal rule than the baggage-laden outrage specialist that is Trump. No wonder dozens of billionaires backed him even before his November re-election….

But let’s be clear: The man whom Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post celebrates as “DeFuture” would, in fact, continue Trump’s relentless attempts to turn back the clock on social progress in America by silencing and disenfranchising tens of millions who don’t fit into Republicans’ white Christian vision for the nation.

DeSantis has made Trump’s lines, and lies, his own.

From his education bills that ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools to his crusades against commonsense public health protocols like mask mandates, DeSantis has made Trump’s lines, and lies, his own. His preference for ideology over science (his surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Lapado, has spread misinformation about Covid-19 prevention) had tragic consequences for Floridians.

Who can forget DeSantis mocking children who wore face masks? Or firing an elected county prosecutor who defied DeSantis’ hatred of abortion? Or endorsing extremists for school board races? Or spending millions to dupe Venezuelan migrants to fly to Martha’s Vineyard with false promises of jobs?

He may be worse than Trump because Trump was a fool. DeSanctis has the potential to be a fascist, unafraid to impose his personal views on everyone, using the power of government.

Categories Education Reform

The Hero of the Club Q Massacre and the Villains Who Provoked It

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2022 //
48

Club Q is a gay bar that is known in Colorado Springs for the vivacious entertainment it provides, most notably drag shows where men dress up as women and perform. Lots of people enjoy the fun of drag shows, and they are not necessarily gay. As you no doubt have read, a man barged into Club Q, armed with an assault rifle and other guns. He began blazing away. Five people were killed, and another 20 were wounded and hospitalized.

The toll would have been far higher were it not for the instantaneous reaction of Rich Fierro, a combat veteran who was attending the drag show with his wife, daughter, and friends. When he heard the gunfire, he went into combat mode, pulled down the killer, and pummeled him with his own gun.

In an interview at his house, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who left the Army in 2013 as a major, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

Richard M. Fierro said he was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub. His instincts from four combat deployments as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

Without Fierro’s immediate intervention, there would certainly have been more fatalities. In 2016, a shooter entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and murdered 49 people.

Of the five who died, three were gay or transgender, and two were straight. Club Q was a fun place until the killer arrived.

When the next mass shooting occurs, there may not be a combat veteran available to tackle the shooter. It may happen in a classroom, an auditorium, a bar, anywhere.

Thanks to the National Rifle Association, the Republican party that takes orders from the NRA, and the Supreme Court, which recently struck down state laws that were intended to limit access to high-powered guns or concealed guns, we are all targets. Nowhere is safe.

But let’s give discredit where discredit is due. The Republican Party has skillfully turned anything related to LGBT+ into a huge issue. “They” are coming for your children. Do not say what they are. Do not acknowledge their existence. Pretend they don’t exist. Deny medical care to transgender people and threaten to punish parents who seek it and physicians who offer it.

Crass politicians like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott speak of gays, lesbians and transgender people as the enemy of our righteous social order. DeSantis passed a law forbidding the acknowledgment of such people in K-12, even if they happen to be gay. Books about gay love and gay life are banned. Anything related to gay life is stigmatized as evil. For years, we have heard a steady public repetition of slurs, slanders, and obscenities directed at trans people, as though they were responsible for everything that has gone wrong in our national life.

The seeds of hatred and murder were planted by politicians who treated gays as “less than.” Twisted minds hear the incitement and think they will be celebrated if they kill these enemies of the people.

DeSantis, Abbot and other politicians who have demonized people who are transgender and who are LGBT have blood on their hands.

Words have consequences.

Categories Education Reform

The Slavic Battle of the Books

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2022 //
14

John G. Rodden writes on the website American Purpose about the educational struggle between Ukrainians and Russiand. Ukrainians want their children to learn the Ukrainian language and literature. Wherever Russia has captured tos, cities, or villages, it switches the curriculum to Russian language and literature. Rodden is a scholar who has written several books about George Orwell.

Rodden writes:

The 2022–23 school year in war-torn Ukraine began this fall under conditions that Americans—and even Europeans old enough to remember World War II—can barely fathom. Three-quarters of the schools have been unable to open at all because they lack bomb shelters, air raid sirens nearby, or underground classrooms and lavatories. Russian bombing campaigns can last for several hours; all classes are therefore held remotely, insofar as children have access to computers and Wi-Fi.

Understandably, the attention of the world, including that of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his advisors in Kyiv, is focused on battlefield advances and reversals. And yet a parallel war is under way, one that has received only spotty attention in the English-language media, though the German and French presses have covered it more extensively. It is a culture war, a Slavic “Battle of the Books” that goes far beyond the imaginary world in Jonathan Swift’s 1704 book. In Swift’s Battle of the Books, he imagined an epic battle in a library—a so-called “quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns”—where books come alive, with authors both classical (e.g., Homer, Pindar, Plato, Aristotle, Vergil) and contemporary (e.g., Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Dryden, Aphra Benn) duking it out.

The twenty-first century Eurasian counterpart is no mere entry in a game of literary fisticuffs conducted with courtly fellow men of letters. It is a deadly serious affair that Ukrainian officials regard as a retaliatory counteroffensive. For the Ukrainians this isn’t just a Battle of Books–this is a deep, visceral, and emotional reaction to their country being eviscerated and destroyed by Russian forces.

In their view, they have been forced into it by the ruthless “reeducation” policy that Russia has undertaken in occupied Ukraine. The Slavic Battle of the Books is about which authors Ukrainians will read and study. It is a war to “win the minds of men,” as the old Stalinist slogan phrased it. Wherever it leads, it has already validated one venerable contention about which both the Ancients and the Moderns were in full agreement: Ideas have consequences.

The rest of the article is behind a paywall.

Categories Academic Freedom, Education Reform, Freedom, International, Literature

Texas: Conservatives Flop in Some Suburban Districts

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2022 //
5

The Texas Tribune reports that conservative school board candidates in some suburban districts failed with culture war issues.

School board elections: Even though school board races are nonpartisan, the Nov. 8 elections for Round Rock and Wylie independent school sistrict trustees drew high-profile endorsements from the Republican Party of Texas.

But in both districts, every candidate endorsed by the Republican Party of Texas, a total of nine, lost. In Round Rock, the races weren’t even close, with one candidate, Tiffanie Harrison, beating her opponent by 25 percentage points.

While Texas Republicans largely swept Tuesday’s elections and GOP-backed school board trustees made gains elsewhere in the state, the results in Round Rock and Wylie raise questions about the current conservative strategy in suburban school districts and the appeal of an agenda built on culture war issues.

One of the primary targets for conservatives running for school board seats has been critical race theory, a college-level discipline that examines racism within social and legal structures within the United States. It is not taught in elementary or secondary public schools in Texas, but Republicans have used the term to target how students are taught about race in schools.

Republicans leaned on a strategy modeled after one used in Tarrant County, where in May, a slate of 11 conservative, anti-CRT candidates won races in school boards. But the GOP was unable to mimic the occurrence in the midterm elections cycle.

Jill Farris, a Round Rock school board candidate endorsed by the Texas GOP who lost her race, attributed the results to a changing electorate that is more liberal than in previous years.

“Maybe we were all kind of relying a little bit on this red wave and thought that parents were just as angry as we were,” Farris said. “At least now, we know where the community stands and we can move forward.”

Categories Censorship, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Texas

Helen F. Ladd: How Charter Schools Disrupt Sound Educational Policymaking

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2022 //
12

Dr. Helen F. Ladd is one of the most eminent economists of education, possibly the most eminent. She has written important studies that document the importance of poverty in the lives of children and its impact on their educational outcomes. She has written critically about No Child Left Behind. And she has written international studies of school choice with her husband Edward Fiske, a veteran journalist.

I sponsor an annual lecture series on education at Wellesley College, my alma mater, and was delighted when Sunny Ladd, as she is known, accepted my invitation to be the first post-pandemic lecturer. She prepared this paper, which has been published by the National Education Policy Center.

She maintains that charter schools disrupt sound educational policy making.

This an overview of her important paper:

As publicly funded schools of choice operated by private entities, charter schools differ from traditional public schools in that they have more operational autonomy, their teachers are not public employees, and they are operated by nonprofit or for-profit private entities under renewable contracts. The main sense in which they are public is that they are funded by taxpayer dollars. This policy memo describes how charter schools disrupt four core goals of education policy: establishing coherent systems of schools, attending to child poverty and disadvantage, limiting racial segregation and isolation, and ensuring that public funds are spent wisely. The author recommends that policies be designed both to limit the expansion of charters and to reduce the extent to which they disrupt the making of good education policy.

Open the link and read it in full.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, National Education Policy Center, Privatization, Segregation

New York: Regents Board Debates Future of Graduation Exams

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2022 //
58

The “Regents Exams” in New York State were once a mark of accomplishment for students who chose to take them. They were considered rigorous and prestigious. But sometime in the 1990s, State Commissioner Richard Mills decided that all students should pass the Regents to get a high school diploma. The standards had to be lowered, so that there was not massive failure. Passing the Regents was no longer a badge of high accomplishment.

Now the Regents are debating whether to keep, change, or dump the high school exit exams. Research shows that high school exit exams lead to decreased graduation rates and dropouts. Not surprisingly.

The Albany Times-Union reported:

ALBANY – Members of the Board of Regents debated the value of the Regents exams Monday as part of an overall planned examination of the state testing system and graduation requirements that had been delayed due to the pandemic.

“Maybe the Regents exams are not the be-all and end-all,” said Regent Roger Tilles during a meeting that also included a presentation about how students graduate high school in other states and countries. “We have kids that can’t pass a Regents exam but pass all their courses. Should they be denied a future because they can’t pass a Regents test in one area?”

But the rigorous exams get students prepared for the future, argued Regent Catherine Collins.

“I hope the state does not get rid of the Regents,” she said. “I was fortunate enough to have the Regents science diploma, which gave me the foundation to go into health care.”

The discussion comes after graduation rates increased during two years without Regents exams, due to the pandemic. For now, the Regents are back, but a Blue Ribbon Commission is expected to weigh in on new high school diploma requirements next year. The commission was announced in 2019, but the pandemic led to a slowdown and the commission wasn’t named until last year.

The state Education Department said in an email to the Times Union later Monday afternoon that “the Board was not debating whether to eliminate Regents exams. Rather, they were discussing a 166-page report that has been in the making for three years and heard a presentation based on (the) report’s literature review, policy scan and stakeholder feedback….”

In 2019, Education Commissioner Betty Rosa made it clear that she did not think the Regents exams are “working” for every student, and questioned whether the tests improved college readiness, among other factors. She has pressed for alternative paths to a high school diploma, including career and technical programs.

At Monday’s meeting, she urged the Regents to have an open mind.

“We really have to take into account not what worked for us, but what will work down the road,” she said. “At the end of the day, our job is to keep in mind what our students need for the future.”

Chancellor of the Board Lester Young, Jr. was adamant that the board make no decision right now.

Categories Education Reform, Graduation rates, High School Graduation, New York, Standardized Testing

David Kirp: Schools Can Improve Without Disruption

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2022 //
47

Valerie Strauss published an article by David Kirp about his new book, Disrupting Disruption. Kirp is one of my favorite education thinkers because he doesn’t believe in miracles or instant success. He believes in commitment and steady work. His new book describes three districts that have applied that formula successfully.

Valerie Strauss begins:

We live in an era where public school districts are routinely slammed for being hidebound and resistant to change. Some are, but others make changes all the time, sometimes with success. This post looks at a few districts that have done just that.


It was written by David Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and co-author of “Disrupting Disruption: The Steady Work of Transforming Schools.” A senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit education think tank based in California, Kirp has written more than 15 other books and dozens of articles about social issues and have been focused on education and children’s policy. He was the founding director of the Harvard Center for Law and Education, a national support center and advocacy organization that offers help to people experiencing difficulty in the implementation of key education programs and initiatives.


By David Kirp


Public schools are frequently in the news these days, and seldom is the news good. The spotlight is on ideological donnybrooks over how race and gender-related topics are discussed in classrooms; the growing demand that parents, not teachers, decide what their children should be taught; assaults on the system by opportunistic politicians; and the learning loss blame game, with schools faulted for keeping schools closed during the pandemic. Some state lawmakers have proposed junking the common school and replacing it with a market-based regime.


The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

In “Disrupting Disruption,” my co-authors and I shine a light on three racially and ethnically diverse school systems: Roanoke, nestled in Virginia’s Shenandoah mountains; Union, Okla., Tulsa’s neighbor; and Union City, N.J., across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Their students don’t resemble those in highflying places like Wilmette, Ill., or Lexington, Mass., predominantly White and well-off, with their off-the-charts test scores and graduation rates, and they do not appear on any list of the nation’s highest-performing districts. But they look like much of America, where White students don’t constitute a majority, and many come from low-income families.


These districts have earned the support of their communities. Parents have not fled to charter schools because (as their surveys show) they trust their schools to do the right thing. Rather than engaging in school-bashing, local politicians take pride in generously funding their schools, and taxpayers vote for school bonds.


There’s good reason for this vote of confidence — in each instance, the graduation rate is substantially higher than in school systems with similar demographic characteristics; what’s more, the opportunity gap that in most places separates minority students from their classmates is at or near the vanishing point. In other words, they have managed to combine excellence and equality of opportunity.


There is nothing fantastical about what is taking place, no feats of legerdemain, no superman or superwoman running the show. What they are doing to overcome the demographic odds sounds dishwater-dull, no match for the livelier terminology of markets and choice. But genuine reform isn’t sexy, and the “secret sauce” isn’t much of a secret. Here’s their “to do” list.

● Meet the diverse needs of the students; don’t batch-process them.
● Make equity a priority.
● Deliver high-quality early education.
● Fixate on maintaining high-quality education systemwide, rather than islands of excellence, while constantly seeking ways to do better.
● Beware of fads.
● Help teachers become more effective through mentoring and coaching.
● Use data to drive decisions.
● Engage teachers and parents in decision-making.
● Build an administrative structure that incorporates networks of teachers.
● Forge ties with local organizations and the political system.
● Maintain stable leadership and minimize teacher turnover.
Everything on this list will be familiar to any educator with a pulse. The hard part is getting it right.

There’s more. Open the link. This is a realistic, upbeat book that you will want to read. It describes school reforms built on professional knowledge, not hat tricks. If only Arne Duncan had asked David Kirp to advise him, instead of the crew from the Gates and Broad Foundations.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform

Congratulations, Mitchell Robinson on Election to the Michigan State Board of Ed

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2022 //
3

Dear Mitchell,

I want to congratulate you for your courage in running for the Michigan State Board of Education and double-congratulate you for winning! You have been a faithful member of the Network for Public Education, and I have been proud to post your writings here.

You entered the race knowing that it was supposed to be a bad year for Democrats. You jumped in anyway because you thought you could make a difference. You will!

You entered knowing that you, a professor of music education at Michigan State University, would be pitted against the billionaire DeVos machine. I’m thrilled to see that the entire Democratic ticket swept the State Board of Education and both houses of the Legislature.

You beat Betsy DeVos!

When frustated educators ask me what they can do, I tell them I can think of two options: join your state union (if you have one) and fight back or run for office, for local board, state board or the legislature.

You did it and you won! I know you are thrilled to be part of Michigan’s blue wave. You inspire the rest of us.

I am happy to add you to the honor roll of this blog for your courage, your persistence, and your devotion to Michigan’s children and their public schools.

Diane

Categories Betsy DeVos, Courage, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Honor Roll, Michigan

It Won’t Be Easy for Republicans to Dump Trump

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2022 //
14

I was thinking about how the Republican Party has a major internal battle brewing between Trump and DeSantis. The GOP establishment knows that Trump and Trumpism is a drag on the party and the last election demonstrated that Trump lunatics are likely to lose. Party leaders and major conservative media have been expressing their desire to move past Trump and eyeing Ron DeSantis as their Savior. Of course, DeSantis sees himself as God’s anointed one; he had a commercial during his campaign showing himself as God’s Creation on the Eighth Day.

So in my imagination, I see an epic battle brewing. Trump will not go easily. His ego won’t allow it.

My hope is that he will fight DeSantis in the primaries, and if he loses, he will launch his own third party, to punish the Republicans who abandoned him. He has his fanatical base, and they will not easily transfer their affection to another candidate, even one who is more far-right than Trump.

So my fantasy scenario is that the 2024 elections will feature a Democratic candidate, the Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump of the Patriot Party.

Having thought this through, I was delighted to discover that Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times was thinking along the same lines. He wrote:

The idea that Republican elites could simply swap Trump for another candidate without incurring any serious damage rests on two assumptions: First, that Trump’s supporters are more committed to the Republican Party than they are to him, and second, that Trump himself will give up the fight if he isn’t able to win the party’s nomination.

I think these assumptions show a fundamental misunderstanding of the world Republican elites brought into being when they finally bent the knee to Trump in the summer and fall of 2016. Trump isn’t simply a popular (with Republicans) politician with an unusually enthusiastic group of supporters. No, he leads a cult of personality, in which he is an almost messianic figure, practically sent by God himself to purge the United States of liberals (and other assorted enemies) and restore the nation to greatness. He is practically worshiped by a large and politically influential group of Americans, who describe him as “anointed.”

It is one thing for Republican elites to try to break a political fandom. It is another thing entirely to try to break the influence of a man whose strongest, most devoted supporters were willing to sack the Capitol or sacrifice their lives in an attack on an F.B.I. office. Some Trump supporters will leave the fold for an alternative like DeSantis, but there will be a hard-core group who came to the Republican Party for Trump, and won’t settle for another candidate.

This gets to the second assumption: the idea that Trump would go quietly if he lost the nomination to DeSantis or another rival. Donald Trump might have been a Republican president, but he isn’t really a Republican. What I mean is that he shows no particular commitment to the fortunes of the party as an institution. His relationship to the Republican Party is purely instrumental. He also cannot admit defeat, as you may have noticed.

There is a real chance that Trump, if he loses the nomination, decides to run for president anyway. And if he pulls any fraction of his supporters away from the Republican Party, he would play the spoiler, no matter who the party tried to elevate against him. Republican elites might be done with Trump, but Trump is not done with the Republican Party.

Categories Education Reform

Carol Burris: How the Election Affected Education

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2022 //
10

It will take a while to get a full picture of how public education was affected by the election, but Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, sums up some of the highlights (and lowlights) here. we will keep reporting as we gather more information.

Carol writes:

The two foremost issues on voters’ minds this election were the economy and reproductive choice. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’s “parent power” push poll earlier this year and Jeanne Allen’s (Center for Education Reform) claim that privatized school choice was responsible for some candidates’ victories are two thinly veiled attempts to ingratiate their organizations with those elected.

Nevertheless, who won and who lost will influence education policy. Below are some notable outcomes as well as what we are watching that is still underdetermined.

State Legislatures

When it comes to charters and vouchers, the state level is most important. Resistance to both consistently comes from Democrats, at times, with rural Republican support. For example, the wild expansion of vouchers coincided with former Republican sweeps in state legislatures in 2020. There was no red wave through most state houses, which is good news.

Although we still await vote counts in some states, Republicans have not flipped any state legislatures their way so far, and there have been some realized and still possible victories for Democrats that can bode well for public education.

Michigan:

Michigan is the brightest spot of all. Democrats now have control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature in a state where they have not controlled either chamber since 1984. This provides a long-awaited opportunity to pass laws to make that state’s low-quality charter schools, run predominantly by for-profit operators, more transparent and accountable.

NPE Board member Cassandra Ulbrich retired from the Michigan State Board of Education. However, a great long-time friend of NPE, Mitchell Robinson, was elected, which is wonderful news.

And what about that voucher bill that Betsy De Vos attempted to push through a super-majority? Unless the Secretary of State goes through all of those signatures by the end of the year, it will go to the next legislature, which will not push it through. It will then go on the ballot where just as before, it will fail.

Pennsylvania:

Although Josh Shapiro voiced some support for private-school vouchers on the campaign trail, it is doubtful he will follow through, especially since the House will flip to the Democrats when all the votes are counted. In any case, the super-majority that held school funding increases hostage when the former Governor attempted modest charter reforms is now gone. School board members, teachers, and superintendents who have long fought for reforms to the charter funding system will now have a fighting chance.

And the state’s newest Senator, John Fetterman, is not only opposed to vouchers, he strongly supports Governor Wolf’s charter reforms.

Arizona

While the House will likely remain under Republican control, there is an outside chance that the Senate will split and the Governor will be Democrat Katie Hobbs. If that were to happen, there might be a respite from dismantling the public school system in that state by Republicans.

Federal

The House of Representatives:

Rosa De Lauro is one of the strongest friends of public education in the House of Representatives. She has kept the federal Charter Schools Program in check during her tenure as the leader of the House Appropriations Committee. While Rosa easily won re-election, if control shifts again to the Republicans, education budget priorities will likely change. There will be an attempt to overturn the Charter School Program reform regulations of the Education Department.

Senate:

Continued control of the Senate by Democrats means that even if the House flips, there will be some check on Republican attempts. And if Bernie Sanders assumes control of the HELP committee, that will mean good news for public schools.

But if the Republicans prevail, there is a strong possibility that Rand Paul will lead HELP. Libertarian Paul makes his disdain for public education apparent, and his leadership would lead to constant battles over the education budget and the Department of Education itself, which he would like to abolish.

Propositions

Finally, in some states, voters passed propositions for which we should cheer.

For example, California’s Proposition 28 passed with overwhelming support. The state will now put in about one billion dollars a year to support education in music and the arts, ensuring that arts education will not be dependent on where a child lives. And in Colorado, with the passage of Proposition FF,all children will now receive free lunch in schools even as they did during the Pandemic.

If you have more information about your district and state, please send it to me or to Carol, or both.

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections
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