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John Merrow: How to Save Public Schools! Involve the Community!

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2023 //
10

John Merrow has some excellent ideas about how to broaden the base of support in your community, town, or city. Reach out and involve others, people who have little direct contact with the schools. Seeing what the students are doing is a big counterweight to the lies and propaganda of extremist groups. Long before people had television sets, the school was the hub of community life. Friends and neighbors turned out to watch the spelling bee, to see the football games, to enjoy student performances. No one dreamed of opening up corporate chains or using taxpayer dollars to fund competing schools.

Open the link to finish reading the post. If you have more ideas, please comment.

Merrow writes:

The problem with the truism “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” is that most villagers have no direct connection to children or to the schools they go to. Only about 25 percent of homes have school age children, and in some communities that number drops into the teens. Even if one includes households with grandparents, the percentage probably won’t reach 40. And although support for local public schools is at an all-time high (54%), that may not be high enough to withstand the vicious attacks on the institution by “Moms for Liberty” and other radical right groups. Educators need to do more to win the support of ‘outsiders.’

The 60-80% of households without a strong connection to public education will determine the future of public schools.  Because they vote on school budgets, their opinion of schools, teachers, and students matter.  That’s why educators must develop and adopt strategies to win their support.  It’s not enough for good things to be happening in schools; ‘the outsiders’ need to be supportive, and a good way to win their support is to get them involved.

Because students who are engaged in their work are the best advertisement for public education, adults need to do two things:  1) Make sure the work is engaging and 2) that it involves the world outside the classroom.  Substitute “Production” (meaning that students are actually producingknowledge) for “Regurgitation” (where students parrot back what their teachers have told them).

Start with a public website and a YouTube Channel that features student productions done outside of school–in their community.  Whatever their ages, kids should work in teams, because it’s safer and it’s also how the adult world functions.  Every smartphone is also a great video camera, and so young people can interview adults in their community, then edit those interviews to create oral histories of people and places in their neighborhood–a sure crowd pleaser because everyone loves talking about themselves. When students know that their work is going to be out there for everyone to see, they will go the extra mile to make them as good as possible.  Adults can help set high standards, of course.  

The possibilities are endless:

*Students can create a photo gallery of the residents of their apartment building or their street and then post portraits on the web for all to see and talk about. Include photos of how the neighborhoods have changed over time.

*Art students can sketch portraits of business storefronts, or workers and bosses, also to be posted on the web.

*The school’s jazz quintet can perform at community centers and post the recordings on the YouTube channel.

*Video teams can interview adults in senior citizen centers around a chosen theme (best job, favorite trip, et cetera), to be edited into a short video for the web. Producing short biographies of ordinary citizens will teach all sorts of valuable skills like clear writing, teamwork and meeting deadlines.

*Music and drama students can rehearse and then present their productions at retirement homes and senior centers — but with a twist: involve some of the adults in the process (a small part in the play, a role in selecting the music, and so on).

Categories Community Schools, Creativity, Education Reform, Hope, Joy, Love, Propaganda, Students

Houston: The Canary in the Coal Mine

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2023 //
14

Nick Covington and Chris McNutt of the Human Restoration Project warn that everyone should pay attention to what is happening in Houston. The state takeover of a B-rated majority black-and-brown district demonstrates how far a rightwing governor will go to crush democracy and dissent.

They write:

Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, is at the center of a controversial state takeover by the Texas Education Agency. After working its way through the legal system for several years, last winter the Texas Supreme Court greenlit the replacement of district superintendent and the locally elected board of trustees by the head of the TEA, appointed directly by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. And last month, school was back in session under the newly appointed superintendent, Mike Miles – former US State Department ambassador, charter school CEO, and scandal-ridden Dallas ISD superintendent – amid dozens of pedagogical and policy changes that left teachers, parents, and students confused, frustrated, and afraid.

In an effort to return “back to basics” and reinforce content knowledge to bolster test scores, the district has fundamentally transformed how educators can operate their classrooms in many schools across the district. Despite receiving an acceptable “B” score on the Texas School Report Card, New superintendent Miles stated in a recent district meeting, “We have a proficiency problem, we in HISD have not been able to close [the reading] gap for over 20 years.”

Among the most troubling changes is a strict “multiple-response strategy” where teachers must adhere to a four-minute timer to pause instruction and assess students for understanding – an intervention with seemingly no pedagogical justification. These strategies are paired with heavily scripted activities that are centered on drill and kill: repeat information over and over to memorize content. There has also been an increase in invasive admin walkthroughs to check for compliance with the scripted methods, which teachers and students have described as a distraction from learning. Teachers are required to keep a webcam on in their classroom at all times and their door must remain open. Defending these changes, Miles stated:

“Every classroom has a webcam and a Zoom link, and it’s on 24/7, if a kid is disruptive, we pull that student out of class. We put them in what we call a team center, and they’re being monitored by a learning coach, and they Zoom right back into the class they get pulled from.”

‍Libraries in many schools have been transformed into disciplinary spaces where students are housed for infractions and receive instruction over Zoom. As a result, classrooms are recorded and broadcast at all times. The Houston Education Association and Houston Community Voices for Public Ed have done incredible work documenting dissenting voices. These policies mirror those found in “no excuses” charter schools that police, monitor, and dehumanize students to raise test scores at any cost.

A veteran Houston ISD teacher, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of administrative backlash, reached out to back up these claims, describing the impact these reforms have had on teachers and students:

‍…I left to teach at a Title 1 Houston ISD campus, so I’m getting the luxury to watch this mess unfold, and I assure you, there’s definitely ‘something rotten in Denmark” with what’s happening to us.

My school is not NES nor NES-aligned, but Miles has carved his path in such a way that we’re being evaluated multiple times a day, being forced to follow this horrible curriculum in a lesson cycle that as far as my research has found–has no pedagogical roots. It’s literally drill and kill. Apparently this is a trend or something. Miles is something else and when you Google him or any of the administrations around him calling the shots, you’ll not see any pedigree of education, but multi-millionaire board members whose backgrounds are in gentrification projects and such.

I’m exhausted by the end of the day. Texas teachers are evaluated all the same, using the T-Tess system–well except us now. Their move to push through that District of Innovation leads me to believe they simply want to weed anyone who was part of the old system out. It absolutely feels like he’s pushing to make us all quit. We were notified that although we’re given 10 sick days for the year, if we’ve taken 4 days leave by November or so, we will be terminated. We had an impromptu faculty meeting and had to sign that we’d gotten notification of this. Plus that we’ll be evaluated different.

Before the takeover, HISD was told to shape up or that’s the end of the line. We scored a “B” as a district in the last ratings and still are being taken over. The Abbot/Morath/Miles steamroller is moving right along.

Being a District of Innovation will be the coup de gras for us, really. He wants to add weeks to the school year, he’s already firing any teachers who simply ask questions, and he’s even gaming the system in many ways to ensure that he’ll have “results.” Special Education? Accommodations? Support structures for at-risk students? All gutted. It’s hard to believe this stuff is legal.

I’m stressed and miserable. It’s hard to believe some of the insane stories about his demands–but I assure you they are true. Teaching with doors open, such a security risk. Stuff like no snack time in elementary if it’s not tied to a Texas standard. I at least teach…But we all were forced to watch an hour or so musical he put on that would rival anything out of North Korea.

At this pace and the way things are going, I just can’t sustain it. I can’t stand seeing such a grift ruin education as it’s doing. We definitely had issues as a district but this can’t be the best solution. I’ll try to make it this year, but I’m beginning to apply elsewhere. My students were often successful at the state test, but it’s a crazy world when I teach…and am afraid to ask to take a class day to show my students the library and have them check out books. It’s nuts.

Of course please don’t use my name or anything that might come back to bite me… As Miles promised in his introduction to us that “he’d find out whose spreading dissent and act” and by most accounts that’s exactly what’s been occurring.

‍Parents and community members have flooded school board meetings with accounts from teachers who are similarly afraid to speak out, for fear of losing their jobs, as teachers who question the changes have been labeled “insubordinate” and had their jobs threatened. Parents have also spoken publicly about how the changes have affected their own children, as one mother recounted to the board before having her mic cut-off:

“For the last week, I’ve had a kid that cries every morning and every evening. Crying not to go to school, and beginning not to go in the morning. She says school’s boring, she’s not learning, and she’d rather be homeschooled at this point…She’s miserable. Her confidence is plummeting, and she’s starting to lose her joy for learning.”

‍At a board meeting on September 14th, a 12-year-old HISD student delivered prepared remarks about the disruptive timers, distracting admin walkthroughs, and palpable teacher stress. The board cut her mic, too:

“Due to the new open door policy, I and many other students have a hard time concentrating due to the many distractions in the hallways. Isn’t it your first priority to have kids in HISD like me learn? Students should be in a place they want to go to inst- (mic is cut off)”

Please open the link and finish reading. Miles apparently wants to turn HISD into a “no-excuses” district.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Houston, State Takeover, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Nancy Flanagan: There Is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch, and That’s Good!

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2023 //
14

Retired teacher Nancy Flanagan writes about Michigan’s decision to provide a free lunch to all students. She explains why it’s a good thing and also wonders why some people do not. Open the link and read the entire article.

She writes:

So—Michigan just adopted a policy of offering free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 public school kids. Charter school kids, too– and intermediate school districts (which often educate students with significant disabilities). More than half of Michigan students were already eligible for free-reduced lunch, which says a lot about why free at-school meals are critical to supporting students and their families. Why not streamline the system?

Schools have to sign up for the federal funding that undergirds the program, and still need income data from parents to determine how much they get from the feds. Nine states now have universal breakfast-lunch programs, and another 24 are debating the idea, which—in Michigan anyway—is estimated will save parents who participate about $850 year. That’s a lot of square pizza, applesauce and cartons of milk. Not to mention reducing stress, on mornings when everyone’s running late for the bus and work.

Cue the right-wing outrage.

Headline in The New Republic: Republicans Declare Banning Universal Free School Meals a 2024 Priority.  Because?  “Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”

It’s hard to figure out precisely what they’re so honked off about: Poor kids getting something—say, essential nutrition– for nothing? Kids whose parents can well afford lunch mingling with their lower-income classmates over free morning granola bars and fruit? No way to clearly identify a free lunch kid in the 6th grade social hierarchy? The kiosks at the HS, where kids can grab something to give them a little fuel for their morning academics?

Open the link and keep reading.

Categories Education Reform, Ethics, Michigan, Students

Frank Breslin: Critical Thinking Is the Most Important Lesson in High School

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2023 //
48

Frank Breslin, a retired high school teacher in New Jersey, wrote recently at Medium that critical thinking is the missing ingredient in high school, even though it is the most important tool that students need.

Breslin writes:

The following warning should be affixed atop every computer in America’s schools: Proceed at your own risk. Don’t accept as true what you’re about to read. Some of it is fact; some of it is opinion masquerading as fact; and the rest is liberal, conservative, or mainstream propaganda. Make sure you know which is which before choosing to believe it.

Students are exposed to so many different viewpoints on- and offline and so prone to accepting whatever they read, that they run the very real risk of being brainwashed. If it’s on a computer screen, it becomes Holy Writ, sacrosanct, immutable, beyond question or doubt.

Teachers continually caution students against taking what they read at face value, since some of these sites may be propaganda mills or recruiting grounds for the naïve and unwary.

Not only egregious forms of indoctrination may target unsuspecting young minds, but also the more artfully contrived variety, whose insinuating soft-sell subtlety and silken appeals ingratiatingly weave their spell to lull the credulous into accepting their wares.

To prevent this from happening, every school in America should teach the twin arts of critical thinking and critical reading, so that a critical spirit becomes a permanent possession of every student and pervades the teaching of every course in America.

Teaching students how to be their own person by abandoning Groupthink and developing the courage to think for themselves should begin from the very first day of high school. More important than all the information they will be learning during these four crucial years will be how they critically process this information either to accept or reject it, or to keep an open mind.

It is a rare high-school graduate who can pinpoint 20 different kinds of fallacies while listening to a speaker or reading a book; who can distinguish between fact and opinion, objective account and specious polemic; who can tell the difference between facts, value judgments, explanatory theories, and metaphysical claims; who can argue both sides of a question, anticipate objections, rebut them, and undermine arguments in various ways.

The essence of an education — the ability to think critically and protect oneself against falsehood and lies — is a lost art in America’s high schools today. This is unfortunate for it is precisely this skill that is of transcendent importance for students in defending themselves.

Computers are wonderful things, but, like everything else in this world, they must be approached with great caution. Their potential for good can suddenly become an angel of darkness that takes over young minds.

A school should teach its students how to think, not what to think; to question whatever they read, and never to accept any claim blindly; to suspend judgment until they’ve heard all sides of a question; and interrogate whatever claims to be true, since truth can withstand any scrutiny.

Categories Curriculum, Democracy, Education Reform, Ethics, Students

Nikhil Goyal’s Stunning New Book About How Poverty Damages Lives

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2023 //
25

Nikhil Goyal has written an alarming book about the effects of poverty on young people. His book Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty documents the lives of three teenagers in Philadelphia, all of whom live in poverty.

The book is an implicit rebuke of the “reformers” who insisted that schools were the root cause of inequality, not poverty. They liked to say, “fix schools, and that will fix poverty.”

Goyal describes the obstacles in these young people’s lives, and it’s clear that the “reformers” had it backwards.

A recent review by Julia Craven in The Washington Post raves about the book.

Each of the three protagonists in sociologist Nikhil Goyal’s new book, “Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty,” is navigating a pivotal juncture: adolescence, that unique and universally exhausting stage of human development when one moment can sometimes change the trajectory of life. For Ryan Rivera, that moment is being among a group of preteen boys who set fire to a trash can near their middle school’s atrium, a childish mistake that cast him into the school-to-prison pipeline. Corem Coreano, who came out as queer, and then changed their name and pronouns, ultimately made the difficult choice to leave home because of their mother’s refusal to leave an abusive relationship. And Giancarlos Rodriguez was — puzzlingly — thrown out of Philadelphia’s education system after fighting to protect his and his peers’ future by leading student walkouts to protest school closures and educational budget cuts.

Rooted in almost a decade of reporting, “Live to See the Day” is a sweeping indictment of poverty, America’s educational system, and how comfortably they both interact with the criminal justice system to upend the lives of young people and underprivileged families of color. All three protagonists hail from Kensington, an impoverished neighborhood in North Philadelphia.

According to Goyal, babies born with an address in Kensington aren’t expected to live beyond their 71st birthday — a staggering 17 years less than children born to families in Society Hill, less than four miles away.

A chunk of the book is spent world-building so readers can grasp the muddy terrain these children navigate, and Goyal does so by layering social systems atop one another so readers can draw connections. As Goyal explains it, underfunded public schools are at the heart of the issue. Schools are governed by racist educational policies that push students into the criminal system through the use of metal detectors, zero-tolerance rules and temperamental resource officers. Children leave the schoolyard and return home to families drowning because of crippling poverty, food insecurity, chronic joblessness, inequitable access to physical and mental health care, domestic violence, evictions, and addiction. In their social interactions, anything perceived as “soft” — whether it be snitching or queerness — doesn’t align with survival.

Goyal, who is on the staff of Senator Bernie Sanders, makes clear why programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were destined to fail. They ignored the conditions in which young people live. Evaluating their teachers by test scores, firing them, closing their schools, turning their schools over to entrepreneurs and corporate chains do nothing to change their lives.

Categories Corporate Reform, Inequity, Injustice, Philadelphia, Poverty, Students

Houston: Mike Miles Backs Down to Allow Recess

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2023 //
46

Mike Miles doesn’t think children need recess. As a military man, he thinks recess is a waste of time. But he backed down to parent pressure to allow recess. Great to have an authoritarian superintent who makes all decisions (not). Satisfying to see that at least once, he listened to parents.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles announced on Tuesday that he is changing the recess schedule at schools under the New Education System to allow for more unstructured play time for kids in response to a push from parents.

All students in pre-K through fifth grade classrooms in the 85 NES and NES-aligned schools will now have a single 30-minute recess period each day, according to the district, an increase compared to a former schedule that included two shorter breaks for the lower grades and no recess in fifth grade.

LATEST NEWS: HISD superintendent dissolves autism support team under special education restructuring plan

“Teachers shared that they believe these modifications will limit lost learning time and maximize high-quality instruction, and we’ve heard from many families that they value unstructured free play time for their students,” Miles said in a statement. “We were able to make these changes without sacrificing high-quality instruction time and we believe this will enhance the environment in our schools and support student achievement.”

The change marks a big win for an HISD parent advocacy group called Free Play Houston, whose members have written letters, met with administrators and orchestrated an email campaign in recent weeks in an effort to push for more recess time for NES students, pointing out that shortening recess time may stand in violation of state law and HISD board policies.

“We are overjoyed that a child’s right to play will be respected and valued this school year,” the organization said in a statement on Tuesday, thanking those who emailed HISD leadership about the issue. “Houstonians have long known that all children need an unstructured play time during their school day. Decades of research shows that recess not only promotes social and emotional skills that become fundamental learning tools, but that recess also benefits students by improving their memory, attention, and concentration.”

Before these changes, the latest version of the NES master schedule allowed for one 15-minute recess in the morning and one 15-minute break in the afternoon for kindergarden through fourth grade students, with no additional time built in for getting students to and from the playground, according to Brooke Longoria, co-founder of Free Play Houston and an HISD parent.

Additionally, the former schedule included no recess for fifth grade students, with district administrators saying their physical movement needs would be met through Dyad programming like martial arts, dance and spin bikes, along with PE class.

SCHOOL SAFETY: Houston-area schools struggle to comply with new law requiring armed officer at every campus

The modification appears to be the first time the new state-appointed superintendent has responded to community pushback by changing course.

Categories Childhood, Houston, Play, Students, Texas

West Virginia U.: Students Angrily Protest Deep Cuts to Programs and Faculty

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2023 //
25

West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the nation, yet it has a billionaire governor (Jim Justice) and a billionaire senator (Joe Manchin), who pretend to serve their constituents by doing nothing for them. It is a deep red state. The legislature authorized charter schools and vouchers; the governor promised to veto both but he didn’t. Manchin continually blocks Biden programs that would help his constituents (like the Child Tax Credit) but protects the coal industry.

West Virginia University recently announced deep cuts to its programs and faculty, and students are angry.

Inside Higher Education reported:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—West Virginia University’s proposal to eliminate nearly a 10th of its majors and 169 full-time faculty positions from its flagship campus led hundreds of students to protest Monday, as a student union’s organizing power added volume to the online employee protestations and national media coverage that’s been buffeting the institution for more than a week.

Pressure on the administration to reverse its recommended cuts is growing as the WVU Board of Governors’ Sept. 15 vote on the proposals nears. The suggested cuts—not the first in recent years at West Virginia—were discussed around the end of the spring and through the summer, but WVU’s big reveal of how extensive the proposed layoffs and degree reductions would be didn’t come until Aug. 11.

“Stop the Cuts!” was students’ first chant outside the Mountainlair student union Monday, followed by “Hey hey, ho ho, Gordon Gee has got to go!”

Multiple chants, signs and a flame-bedecked “Fire Gee” banner that students held in front of the entrance to the Stewart Hall administration building all targeted Gee, the university’s two-time president whose current run has lasted nearly a decade. Chants and signs said, “Stop the Gee-llotine!” while other signs said, “Gee can take home 800K but we can’t take Spanish?” and “Cut Gee’s Pay, Not Our Programs!…”

WVU has proposed axing, among other degree offerings, its Ed.D. in higher education administration; Ph.D. in higher education; master of public administration; Ph.D. and master’s in math; bachelor’s in environmental and community planning; bachelor degree in recreation, parks and tourism resources; doctor of musical arts in composition; master of music in composition; and master’s in jazz pedagogy, acting and creative writing.

The university’s enrollment has declined 10 percent since 2015, far worse than the national average. In April, WVU leaders, projecting a further 5,000-student plunge over the next decade, said they needed to slash $75 million from the budget.

The university has pointed to low enrollments in certain programs to justify cuts, including a lightning rod proposal to eliminate the entirety of the department of world languages, literatures and linguistics. But Lisa Di Bartolomeo, a teaching professor of Russian studies at West Virginia, has retorted that WVU isn’t counting all students who are double majoring in languages.

“Cost-to-deliver is one of the metrics considered in the preliminary recommendations,” Kaull wrote in an email. “The data reflect students’ primary majors as they are the best reflection of the cost-to-deliver. Dual majors and minors don’t generate revenue like primary majors. Further, the cost and effort of supporting students (e.g., advising) is typically carried by the primary major.” 

WVU’s Aug. 11 news release announcing the proposed cuts said it was “exploring alternative methods of delivery” for languages, “such as a partnership with an online language app.” A sign on Monday called the university “Duolingo U,” complete with the green bird mascot of that phone app.

“We’re pissed,” Sadler said. “We’re losing languages; we’re losing departments; we’re losing faculty and friends.”

Gee told Inside Higher Ed Friday, “What we’re doing is that we’re really looking at the numbers and we realize that our students have spoken to us. And our students have said that offering languages the way that we are is just not something that they want.” 

Asked about the calls to reduce his salary, which were happening online before Monday’s protest, Gee said he contributes about 15 percent of his salary every year to student scholarships. 

John Fox, who just started his master’s degree in creative writing, one of the programs to be cut under the proposal, carried water bottles for the protesters. He’s from Morgantown.

“We’re losing out on the culture of West Virginia,” he said, “like a voice to the culture of West Virginia.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Higher Education, Students, Vouchers, West Virginia

Linda Darling-Hammond: The Promise of Community Schools

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2023 //
33

Linda Darling-Hammond is a prominent professor at Stanford and president of The Learning Policy Institute. She has been a public school teacher, a researcher, and president of the California State Board of Education. In this essay, she explains why the community school model may be the best path forward for school reform.

She writes:

“Kasserian ingera”—the traditional greeting of Masai warriors—asks: “And how are the children?” It is still a greeting among the Masai, acknowledging the high value they place on their children’s well-being. The traditional answer, “All the children are well,” means that the safety and welfare of the young are protected by their communities.

Unfortunately, in the United States, we know that all of our children are not well. Indeed, by any measure, children and youth in the United States are struggling. The aftermath of the pandemic has brought with it an epidemic of mental health issues, from anxiety and depression to suicidal ideation. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2022 found that 44% of adolescents said they felt sad or hopeless most of the time during the spring of 2021, and 20% seriously considered suicide. During that time, 29% had an adult in their household lose a job and 24% went hungry; 55% said they were exposed to harsh verbal or physical treatment at home.

Many report continuing to feel disconnected from school. Among high school students from 95 districts surveyed by Youth Truth in 2021–22, a minority (40%) reported feeling like part of their school community or enjoying coming to school, and just 39% reported having an adult at school they could talk with when they feel “upset, stressed, or having problems.” (See figure below.) These proportions are even lower for students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and students in large schools.

It is in this context that a diverse and growing chorus of educators, students, families, and policymakers are calling for a reimagining of our schools. They are highlighting the need to center relationships, belonging, and community; to create structures and practices to support relevant and engaging learning; and to organize resources, supports, and opportunities in ways that mitigate the pernicious effects of structural racism and decades of disinvestment in low-income communities of color.

As Learning Policy Institute Senior Fellow in Residence Jeannie Oakes noted recently, “We need to have schools really change the way they operate to compensate for deficiencies, not in the kids, but in our social safety net.”

Responding to the uniquely challenging moment we’re in, many districts and states are making big bets on community schools—both to address the tattered social safety net Oakes refers to, as well as to provide a catalyst for the deeper cultural and practice changes needed to better serve students and adults alike.

These initiatives are underway in large urban districts like Albuquerque, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Oakland, as well as in smaller rural communities in California, Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont. A number of states have also established funding and supports for community schools. Maryland established the Concentration of Poverty grant program to provide annual community school personnel grants to eligible schools, along with additional per-pupil grant funding for each eligible student. New York created a community schools set-aside in its school funding formula for high-need districts and funded three regional technical assistance centers for community schools. California, for its part, has leveraged multiyear budget surpluses in 2021 and 2022 to make a historic $4.1 billion investment in planning, implementation, and coordination grants—as well as technical assistance—for the state-funded California Community Schools Partnership Program. This investment is intended to provide sufficient resources for every high-poverty school in California to become a community school within the next 5 to 7 years.

Community schools are a place-based strategy deeply rooted in their local context—the needs, assets, hopes, and dreams of students, families, educators, and community partners. They leverage a complex web of partnerships and relationships, like those at Mendez High School in East Los Angeles, to support and engage students and families. By integrating access to services—from medical care to housing and other supports—and making them available to students and families on school campuses, community schools provide a much-needed alternative to the fragmented and bureaucratic social services gauntlet that families in need are typically required to navigate. As we have seen time and again during the COVID-19 pandemic, these services and supports—provided in the context of trusting and caring relationships—can be life changing and can mean the difference between academic success and struggling students and families.

At Mendez, because of the infrastructure created through its community schools approach, the school and its partners were able to provide vital services to students and families as soon as schools shut down in 2020. A mobile clinic that already served the school began COVID-19 testing for the community; mental health providers already in place conducted regular mental health check-ins with students via devices or at a safe physical distance. Other partners created care packages with food, toilet paper, electronic benefit transfer cards, and other essentials, and teachers organized to provide Wi-Fi hot spots to families before the district had the capacity to do so.

But to achieve the transformation our students need and the times demand, community schools must be about much more than providing an efficient structure for integrated student supports (or wraparound services, as they are sometimes called). Transformation requires that we also address the structural barriers to student well-being and academic success that are encompassed by the other foundational elements of community schools: a culture of belonging, safety, and care; community-connected classroom instruction; expanded and enriched learning opportunities; empowered student and family engagement; and collaborative leadership. Foundational to all of this is a grounding in whole childeducation.

When implemented well, community schools are guided by principles for equitable whole child practices that are grounded in the science of learning and development. This whole child framework is at the center of the community schools initiative in California, where the State Board of Education has thus far approved $1.5 billion in planning and implementation grants from a larger initiative that is intended to reach one third of the state’s schools in high-need communities.

The key elements of a whole child framework should be foundational to our vision of transformational community schools:

  • Structures and practices to foster positive developmental relationships and ensure that students are known and supported. Examples include looping in the elementary grades, where a teacher stays with the class for more than one year, and utilizing advisory systems in middle and high school, which create small family units that offer personal attention, space for sharing needs and feelings, and family connections that support each student.
  • Supportive and caring school communities where students feel a strong sense of belonging and are safe to bring their full selves, without fear of being bullied by peers or stereotyped or negatively judged by students or adults at school.
  • Culturally affirming social and emotional learning that is infused throughout the school day and includes skill-building, as well as educative and restorative approaches to classroom management and discipline, so that children and young people learn responsibility for themselves and their community.
  • Rich learning experiences that support inquiry, motivation, competence, self-efficacy, and self-directed learning.
  • Integrated student supports that remove academic and non-academic barriers to learning by providing health and social services as needed, tutoring and other academic supports, and a focus on children’s individual talents and needs.

Move at the “Speed of Trust”

Just as we need to rethink how students are engaged and supported in schools, we also need to reimagine adult interactions—among families and educators, as well as among school staff. That means treating families as trusted partners in their students’ well-being and academic success and intentionally supporting their capacity building and leadership development.

As importantly, it also means investing in educators and school staff, so they have the necessary tools, agency, and support—including support for their mental health and emotional well-being—to shift practices in ways that expand the capacities of students and adults alike. This includes enabling new teachers’ success with strong induction and mentoring, while providing leadership opportunities for more experienced teachers. It means providing the collaboration time essential to advancing meaningful and engaging instruction and supporting teacher-led professional development. And, just as with students and families, it means nurturing trust and collaborative leadership among staff and with school and district leaders.

Open the link to read the rest of this article and to see the graphs.

Categories Community Schools, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Parents, Students, Teachers

Peter Greene: This Teacher Was Fired in Georgia for Reading an Innocuous Book to Her Students

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2023 //
72

Peter Greene writes with outrage about the firing of a teacher in Georgia whose crime was to read a book to her fifth-grade students. One parent objected to the book.

He writes:

The story of  Katherine Rinderle has dragged out over the summer and has now come to a predictable and yet unjustifiable conclusion. This is just wrong.

The short version of the story is that Rinderle read Scott Stuart’s “My Shadow Is Purple” to her fifth graders, after they selected it for their March book. A parent complained. The Cobb County School District suspended her and the superintendent announced a recommendation to terminate her. A tribunal appointed by the board recommended that she not be fired. The board just fired her anyway.  

This is a bullshit decision.

Was this one of those graphic books with blatant displays of sex stuff? No. This is the most bland damn thing you could hand a kid. I would read it to my six year olds without hesitation. 

A child plays with action figures and dolls, likes dancing and sports and ponies and planes and trains and glitter, and, in the climactic event, wants to go to the school dance in an outfit that has a suit-ish top and a skirt-ish bottom. Discouraged by the insistence that they must choose either blue or pink at the dance, the purple-shadowed child decidesd to leave, but then an assortment of friends declare their shadows are a wide variety of colors, and a happy ending ensues. “No color’s stronger and no color’s weak.”

That’s it. That’s the book. (I’ve attached a read-aloud video at the bottom so you can see for yourself.) There’s nothing about sex, barely a mention of gender, and the message is simply that there are other ways to be beyond stereotypical male or female roles. 

That’s the book that this woman lost her job over. 

Georgia has, of course, a “divisive concepts” law with appropriately vague language so that teachers can live in fear that they could lose their jobs over anything that some parent thinks is divisive and disturbing. Meanwhile, the boardwas trying to argue its bullshit decision, by hinting that Rinderle is a big old troublemaker:

Without getting into specifics of the personnel investigation, the District is confident that this action is appropriate considering the entirety of the teacher’s behavior and history. However, as this matter is ongoing, further comment is unavailable. The District remains committed to strictly enforcing all Board policy, and the law.

Sure. So Georgia’s teachers have been sent a clear message about staying in line and not bringing up anything remotel;y controversial ever.

And now the children of Cobb County in particular and Georgia in general have been sent an important message– if you’re different, that’s not okay, and if someone suggests that it’s okay, well, that’s illegal. Shame on Cobb County’s school board. Shame on the state of Georgia. And if you’re so sure that these kind of reading restrictions are only about protecting children from graphic pornography, take a look at this and think again.

Open the link to see the read-aloud video.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, Extremism, Georgia, Students, Stupid, Teachers

Nancy Bailey: The Takeover of Houston Schools Is a Dire Warning for Other Districts

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2023 //
14

Nancy Bailey fears that the takeover of the Houston Independent School District should set off alarm bells in other districts. The new superintendent Mike Miles is taking steps to de-professionalize teaching and to impose untested programs on the schools. He is the tip of the spear of destructive education “reform.” Please recall that the Texas Education agency took control of the entire district because one high school—with disproportionate numbers of students who are in need of special education and in high poverty—was not getting the test scores the state expected (even though its scores increased in the year before the state takeover and the school rose to a C grade). Is Mike Miles a harbinger of the future or an echo of failed policies forged by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top?

She writes:

I think there is a likelihood that we will be seeing more state takeover of districts. 

~Kenneth Wong, education policy researcher and former advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, March 28, 2023

Houston faces harsh public school reforms, a sad example of the continuing efforts in America to destroy all public education and end professional teaching.

State takeovers aren’t new. Nor are they known for innovation, but for creating school voids, cutting services, and firing key staff, promising to close learning gaps. Takeovers usually only weaken schools, breaking them up and leaving communities with fewer and poorer schools.

The Superintendent

Superintendent Mike Miles has never been a classroom teacher. Miles replaces Superintendent Millard House II, hired in 2021, only there two years before being hired elsewhere.

As CEO of Third Future Schools, Miles ran a network of public charter schools in Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana. The Texas Tribune describes his leadership in the Dallas Independent School District as tumultuous after six years as superintendent of the smaller Harrison School District in Colorado Springs.

The Dallas Morning News claims the district has few academic gains to show for all the disruption.

Miles participated in the Eli Broad program at Yale. On his LinkedIn page, another school reformer writes they matriculated through the Broad Academy now within the Yale School of Management.

The late Eli Broad pushed school privatization with a 44-page document to show how to break up public schools, originally reported by Howard Blume in the LA Times $490 Million Plan would Put Half of LAUSD Students in Charter Schools.

Those who subscribe to Broad’s philosophy disrupt public education to privatize it. Realizing Miles is a Broadie (name reflecting Broad’s agenda), makes what’s happening in Houston clearer.

Miles has degrees from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, served in the army, and attended the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University. His degrees are in engineering, Slavic languages and literature, and international affairs and public policy. He has no known formal education about running a school considering student developmental needs.

The New Education System (NES)

Miles’s program is called the New Education System (NES) and HERE. Principals, teachers, and staff join.

Under the NES, according to the Houston Chronicle, administrators will handle discipline, stand in hallways patrolling, and make children walk in single file, quietly, and schools look sterile, cold, and cookie-cutter. If they use the bathroom, they must carry an orange parking cone. Teachers might get to keep their desks.

Compensation under the NES will be differentiated. Teachers will likely be evaluated with test scores, and their autonomy is stifled. Curriculum developers will provide lesson plans and materials for grades 2-10, removing the teacher’s instructional expertise. Student work will be graded by support personnel, even though teachers glean information about students by grading their work.

The district will hire apprentice teachers. They will expand the reach of the best and brightest teachers. How will they make this determination? Shouldn’t all teachers be hired with the credentials they need to do the job?

The plan calls for four periods of the staff performing duties each month (75 minutes each time), and this is unclear.

Replacing School Libraries and Librarians with Disciplinary Centers

Most controversial is that when principals join the NES they can lose their school libraries and librarians. From Click2Houston: 85 schools that have joined Miles’ program, and of those, 28 campuses will lose their librarians. The district said they will have the opportunity to transition to other roles within the district.

Instead of school libraries, children with behavioral difficulties will face screens in “Teams Centers” or “Zoom rooms.” There’s concern they’ll associate libraries as punishing. Students who misbehave need human interaction and support, not to be left to face screens.

Librarians with advanced degrees in library science will be removed, despite being knowledgeable and critical to a child’s learning. They could be transplanted to non-NES schools, which will get school libraries and librarians.

Miles states:

We’re not doing things that are just popular. We’re not doing things that we’ve always done, we’re not doing things that are just fun, we’re not doing things that are just nice to have or good unless we can measure its success.

He’s not doing what works! It’s common knowledge among those who understand children that when children have access to great school libraries learning results improve.

Losing Teachers: Moving to Online Amplify to Teach Reading

HISD is losing qualified teachers, school libraries, and librarians, and advertising for 350 long-term substitutes who don’t require a college degree. The online program, Amplify, will be used.

In State Legislative news in May, Education Bill “Amplifies” StatePower, Threatens Teacher Autonomy, Jovanica Palacios states:

Despite promises to the contrary, this bill [House Bill 1605] would cut a slice out of Texas’ education funding, taking money out of school districts and giving it to a vendor. The proposed legislation is actually dubbed “the Amplify bill” due to its association with curriculum development company Amplify, which received a $19 million emergency state contract during COVID.

At least 85 NES schools under Miles will use Amplify, which advertises the Science of Reading, an online program once owned by the education division of Rupert Murdock’s News Corp. and purchased by Laurene Powell Jobs. Where’s independent research providing proof that this program is effective?

Please open the link to finish reading her important post.

Categories Broad Foundation, Curriculum, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Houston, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Texas
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